III.

19th Century

In 1806, Napoleon I, emperor of France, following his victory at Jena in Saxon territory, forced Saxony to join the Confederation of the Rhine. Elector Frederick Augustus III then joined Napoleon as an ally and was permitted by the French emperor to proclaim himself, as Frederick Augustus I, the first king of Saxony. After the downfall of Napoleon, however, the kingdom was partitioned at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Prussia acquired more than half of the territory. The now attenuated kingdom was allied with Austria against Prussia in the Seven Weeks' War of 1866. The victorious Prussians levied a heavy cash indemnity and forced Saxony to join the North German Confederation. In 1871 it became one of the constituent kingdoms of the German Empire.