The victory over the Third Coalition at Austerlitz, allowed Napoleon to concentrate on Prussia that had formed a Fourth Coalition with allies Saksony and Russia. Prussia had recently been acquiring a handsome amount of territory in the North-west of Germany. A number of South-west German states, surrounding the recent additions to Prussia, most of which had increased in territory themselves as a consequence of their alliance with France, were organised by Napoleon into the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806, thereby seceding from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. A blow this Empire wouldn’t survive. Note how the Prince of Orange-Nassau, son of the late Stadtholder of the United Provinces, refused to join the Confederation and tried his luck with the Fourth Coalition instead. The Confederation was under the Protection of Napoleon. The Elector-Arch Chancellor, the Archbishop of Mayence and Aschaffenburg, became the Prince-Primate of the Confederation. As Catholic Primate of Germany he saw a role for himself in preserving a German National State of some sort.
The Holy Roman Emperor, who had stayed out of the Fourth Coalition, still licking his wounds from the beating he got in the Third, abdicated and abolished the Holy Roman Empire that had started in 800 with the coronation of Charlemagne, almost 1006 years before. Francis II himself however still emerged from the affair as the Emperor Francis I of Austria, as he had taken precautions to keep the Imperial style for him and his dynasty.
Later that year Prussia and Saksony were crushed by Napoleon in the battle of Jena and Auerstedt. For Prussia it would be the most crushing defeat in its history. The Saksons quickly made peace with Napoleon however and were rewarded for the effort. Prussia would however suffer greatly from this defeat, the Kingdom being almost abolished altogether.
