Does anybody know what the confediration of rhine is?

Question

I need it to be simple.I have found all sorts of things online about it but nothing makes any sense to me.So I need a simple* explaination of what the confediration of rhine is and what it did and anything else you can put simply about it.

*By simple I mean not copied and pasted but your own words and not something like you would say to a 2 year old.

Answer 1

before napoleon bonaparte conquered europe, germany was divided in lots of small and even smaller kingdoms, duchies and earldoms... or whatever they were called... all competing and often going to open war with each other. this was the main reason why bonapartes armies could cut through germany with so little resistance. after conquering all these petty nations, he set up a kind of central government for them, in which all were represented, according to their size... or their number of people... this kind of thing is called a federation. the united states are one too. hence the word federal in so many terms concerning the whole of the united states. since the river rhine was then and now considered to be THE river that stands for germany, like the mississipi might stand for the US, or at least the south east.. this federation was called the Federation of the Rhine... or Rheinbund in german, or since of course french was its offical language of state: Confédération du Rhin.

all this happened in the first years of the 19th century... 1806 to 1813
when after napoleons final defeat this construct was dismantled.
but many of its ideas and mechanics survived and were used again, when Frederic the Great of Prussia, did the same thing some thirty years later, and he succeeded, eventually founding the Deutsches Reich, which lasted until the end of the first world war 1918.

long story short: the federation of the rhine was the first predecessor of modern germany, and it was formed by napoleon bonaparte when he conquered most of europe at the dawn of the 19th century.

easy enough?