Kingdom of Saxony

The Kingdom of Saxony, lasting between 1806 and 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. In particular, it was part of the German Empire, before finally being absorbed into the Weimar Republic of Germany in 1918 after the end of World War I. Its capital was the city of Dresden, and its modern successor state is the Free State of Saxony.

History

The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806, following centuries of decline, and the defeat of Emperor Francis II by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. The Kingdom of Saxony emerged as one of its independent successor states with Frederick Augustus I as monarch.

Briefly joining the Confederation of the Rhine, until this broke apart in 1813 with Napoleon's defeat in Russia, in 1815 the Kingdom of Saxony became a member of the German Confederation as a result of the Congress of Vienna.

The Confederation was dissolved in 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War, and was succeeded in turn by the North German Confederation, led by Prussia. With Prussia's victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, the members of the Confederation were organised by Otto von Bismarck into the German Empire, with Wilhelm I as its Emperor. John I, as Saxony's incumbent king, was subordinate and owed allegiance to the Emperor.

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Wilhelm I's grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated in 1918 as a result of Germany's defeat in the First World War. King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony followed him into abdication and the erstwhile Kingdom of Saxony became a state within the newly-formed Weimar Republic, thus ceasing a somewhat brief history as a kingdom.

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History

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See also