For his Marshall Murat, Napoleon created the Grandduchy of Berg and for his brother Jerome, the Kingdom of Westphalia. Hanover and some Prussian territories in Franconia, and Fulda, previously owned by the luckless Prince of Orange Nassau, were placed under French military rule. The Prince of Orange-Nassau lost its other lands to the Grandduke of Berg and the King of Westphalia.
The Duchy of Holstein, ruled by the Danish King, was now included in Denmark, while Schleswig, already a part of the Danish Kingdom, was now also ruled as an integral part of it. The Confederation of the Rhine now consisted of all German States, including the territory under French military rule, with the exception of Austria, Prussia and Swedish Pommerania.
To placate the Poles, who had lost their national state in 1795, Napoleon created the Grandduchy of Warsaw out of Prussia’s Polish territories. The Crown of the new Grandduchy being given to the newly befriended King of Saksony, whose dynasty had provided some Kings of Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In one way the decimation of Prussia was a blessing in disguise for it reinvigorated the German character of the state, compromised by the addition of large chunks of Poland earlier. A similar process did not take place in Austria, that would slowly drift away from its German identity.
