ABSTRACT
The founding of the Rheinbund in 1808 marked the end of a period when all few of the continental great powers checked and balanced each other's influence in Germany and inaugurated an era of exclusive French influence, which in turn gave France hegemony over the continent. During its brief history the boundaries of the Rheinbund underwent two major changes; in 1807, when, following Tilsit, its territory was extended into north Germany; and in 1810, when its territory was contracted again by the cession of northwest Germany to France. On the basis the boundary of the Deutscher Bund would have resembled that of the Rheinbund more than the Reich. The Bund brought to the European state system a stability which made the Quadruple Alliance superfluous and enabled Britain to withdraw from the Continent, an operation begun at Troppau when the ink was hardly dry on the Vienna Final Act.
