Talk:Confederation of the Rhine

Untitled
Alright I am probably going to need help on this one. The intial draft is very poorly worded but its something. I'll try to clean it up and augment it next week. cheers. GrazingshipIV

Flag
I noticed an error: The flag is the flag of France - not the flag of the Confederation of the Rhine. I presume, that the confederation has never had an own flag. But the different member states of the confederation used their flags for themselves. The member states of the Confederation of the Rhine had not been part of France, but had accepted Napoleon in his function as "protector". This fact doesn't make the Confederation of the Rhine a part of France. So the flag of France is no official symbol for the Confederation of the Rhine! The member states had been co-founders of the Confederation of the Rhine. So they had been subjects not objects of international law. Formally they kept their sovereignty and were no client states of France. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.207.181.26 (talk • contribs)
 * The Flags of the World site says that the French flag was used for the Confederation of the Rhine. Member states did use their own flags, but the Confederation itself used the French one. Using the French flag does not necessarily imply that the Confederation was part of France. - 52 Pickup 10:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry,52 Pickup, but the honoured tricolor is not the flag of the Conf. of the Rhine. I can't remember clearly but I THINK it was orange-ish and had sort of a white rising sun. Main point: That is not the right flag. I wikianswer-ed it and found this out.Philippe Auguste 01:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The only other flag that I have seen is this one on the right, but it is stated in many places (e.g. ) that this was only allegedly used and not used officially . On FOTW it says "The Confederation of the Rhine had no flag but the French [flag] and the Imperial Standard of its protector (Napoleon)." And other sites use the French flag to represent the confederation (eg. ). If you have references for this orange flag of which you speak, I would be interested to see them. But as far as the info looks right now, the Confederation was represented either by the French flag or by none at all. - 52 Pickup 07:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Mostamazing (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2017 (UTC)I was looking at this topic and found that according to alternate wikipedia sources, The Confederation of the Rhine was indeed represented by one flag, as seen here, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag-map_of_the_Confederation_of_the_Rhine_(1812).svg and here http://historicalnations.wikia.com/wiki/Confederation_of_the_Rhine If you can please look into this and maybe edit your wiki page.Mostamazing (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I understand, I stated no sources therefore what I say isn't reliable. But that flag is one I've seen before used for the Conf. of the Rhine. The other one I said I saw before in an almanac somewhere. How'd you find/make the flag here? Maybe I could show you what I saw.Philippe Auguste (talk) 23:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)


 * To make a flag, any graphics program will do. But without stating where the image came from, placing an image here on Wiki might be a problem. Maybe if you ask the people over at FOTW they could help you out with finding the image and/or some further information. Either way, I'd be interested to hear how it goes. - 52 Pickup (talk) 10:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The French flag as the flag of the Conf. of Rhine would mean, that the Conf. of Rhine was a part of France or France was the suzerain of it. But France was - following the Rheinbundakte (contract between France and 16 German princes) - only the military alliance partner of the Conf. of Rhine and no part of it. The emperor of France was only the "protector" and no suzerain of the Conf. of Rhine. So I presume that there was no official flag of the Conf. of Rhine. Its members used their individual flags, because they have kept their souverainity and wanted to show it. 82.207.181.26 (talk) 13:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Erfurt
It says, that all of the Holy Roman Empire except for Danish Holstein, Swedish Pommern, Prussia and Austria were part of the Confederation of the Rhine, the land west of the Rhine and large parts of northwestern Germany were incorporated into France. This misregards Erfurt, which was incorporated into France as well when obtained from Prussia, and which was consequently not part of the Confederation. The wording should be redone in this sense or a clause be added that mentions this fact. 87.234.124.78 21:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Toscho

List of members
I'd like to change it to a table, so that it can be organized in different ways. Any objections? Andrew 6 47 15:00, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Not a client-state
I don't think, that the Confederation of the Rhine had been a state or a client-state. I think the Confederation of the Rhine had been a confederation of client-states (please look into the "Rheinbundakte", the treaty between France an the 16 german princes!). The "Rheinbund"-states had been de iure souverain, but de facto clients of France. So the article should be corrected in this point! Tfjt (talk) 18:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree. It was not a state. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 17:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

"Rhine Confederation" [sic]
Does that exact phrasing have any legitimacy in English?

A preliminary web search does not reveal any. The "Flags of the World" site is not a guide to English language usage.

"Rhine Confederation" is one literal translation of the German Rheinbund, yes, but that appears to be all.

That phrasing can be restored with a proper citation.

Varlaam (talk) 17:35, 10 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Before a while ago my edit was reverted because I gave no citation, rhinebund is Rhine confederation, Konföderation von der rhein or something similar I put, because it literally meant Confederation of the Rhine I didn’t know how to cite back then Emmanuelbruh (talk) 00:44, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

External links modified
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Why i think we should include the Alleged flag in the infobox
I think that we should include the "Alleged flag of the Rhine Confederation" for the following reasons: I invite User:Jangga0118 and User:Pinkbeast to stop edit warring and try to reach a consensus. Koopinator (talk) 18:24, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The Flag has a serious source backing it up ( https://www.flaggenlexikon.de/fdtlhirb.htm#Flagge )
 * Users might go to this page to find the Alleged flag
 * There is no harm in keeping it as long as we say it's alleged.
 * The Flag is used in several other infoboxes including that of the War of the Sixth Coalition
 * That serious source explicitly says it is not known to be the flag; that it is not known if the Confederation had a flag. It does not in way say where this alleged flag came from or what evidence there is for it. The harm is that users may be misled into thinking it is the actual flag (if they don't look carefully) or into thinking it is more than undocumented guesswork.
 * Clearly it should be removed from all infoboxes because there is no actual reason to think it is a real flag. We might usefully have an RFC here and carry out the outcome elsewhere. Pinkbeast (talk) 22:56, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Alright, you've convinced me that the flag shouldn't be in the infobox. Now we just need to know what User:Jangga0118 thinks. Koopinator (talk) 09:40, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll wait, but I observe they have never edited a talk page (or even wrote an edit summary), so - call me a cynic - I don't expect them to start. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:10, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I've just been reviewing the rest of their contributions. Nearly all of them are flag-related.
 * changes a flag to an image that literally has "fictitious" in the name and (inasmuch as it purports to be anything) purports to be a naval flag, as such unlikely to be pertinent to the Siege of Vienna.
 * changes the description of a flag from one that is correct (as you can see from viewing the image or reading the accompanying text) to one that is incorrect.
 * inserts a start date for a flag that has no justification (my later edit to the page adds a cite for the earliest known date).
 * incorrectly uses an infobox field (for a flag).
 * , for a change, inserts a bogus date that isn't flag-related.
 * oh look, more spurious flag date changes.
 * in their defence, while they did insert an incorrect date here, at least it was replacing a different incorrect date.
 * Bluntly, this user is either a persistent vandal or not competent to edit. Please can we now remove the made-up flag they inserted? Pinkbeast (talk) 04:54, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks (I see you have removed it). I have removed it from other en.wikipedia pages, but it is used on many other wikis and there is not a prayer of fixing it on those since in most cases I could not write an edit summary in the relevant language. How would you feel about proposing deletion of the file itself? I appreciate you worked on it, but to me it is hard to see that it is wanted on any wikipedia page, given its dubious provenance.
 * I imagine my spate of removals may lead some other editors to this discussion, which I mentioned in the edit summary. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Further to the above, the same flag with a different filename was deleted from Commons twice on the basis that it is fictitious. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:22, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Go ahead an remove it. I have archived it here for future reference. Koopinator (talk) 14:33, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not the flag it had none, each state used its own. Leapcake123 (talk) 18:08, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * This statement is undoubtedly one of the most accurate I've ever seen about the CotR (Confederation of the Rhine). However, there is a fine difference between "there is no flag" and "there probably was no flag". Plus, the Napoleonic wars happened more than 200 years ago now, so we can't exactly consult the nearest old guy. Nunyanator (talk) 23:22, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * i do not agree because it could lead to people being misinformed plus just saying alleged wont mean people are gonna stop using it, people are dumb Normalwriter810 (talk) 11:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

"Commemorative medal"
Why the hell is an unsourced picture of medal (??) being put in place of a non-existent coat of arms? --178.252.126.70 (talk) 00:50, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
 * that picture of a medal is based on an original by User:Finanzer (See File:Medaille rheinbund 472.jpg ) - I believe that tagging him here should notify him, but i'll also ask him on his commons talk page. Koopinator (talk) 03:29, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Why is there no flag?
I think we should add the alleged flag of the confederation of the rhine, and if some people don’t want to add it because it’s "non-official" flag we can always just add "alleged flag" on the bottom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dobledude44 (talk • contribs) 16:18, 7 August 2020 (UTC)


 * @Dobledude44 Do not add the flag. It has already been agreed that the "flag" is fictional Ihaveabadname (talk) 02:07, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * the country was a loose confederation simply to protect napoleon. each state was its own completely. this is why the confederation did not have a flag. Leapcake123 (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Maps
I cannot click on the three maps of the CotR in the table, and they are unreadable and useless in this size. I don't know how to fix it, but if you do, please, fix it. --Krmarci (talk) 06:35, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I was confused by this too. Should be fixed now. Tvoetp (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Confederation of the Rhine flag source
I managed to email the author of flaggenlexikon and asked him about the Confederation of the Rhine flag. His response is written below:

"Now you ask me from where I got the picture of the flag. Unfortunately, I can not tell you. When I started the Flaggenlexikon, I worked without any sources at all. It was a small hobby project that grew and grew. Later I worked on the sources. When I revised the Confederation of the Rhine, it was no longer possible to keep track of it. But it is a fact that the Confederation of the Rhine certainly did not have a flag. That is why I have kept the flag mentioned, pointing out this fact, and the word "alleged" was added from the beginning. It is regrettable that facts are created from this, but for me it is also part of the process of gaining knowledge. Wikipedia seems to me to be the appropriate platform for this." Throwawayaccount1871 (talk) 20:25, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for obtaining and sharing a direct comment from FlaggenLexicon.
 * Well, there it is from the mouth of the flag's creator himself. The issue is definitively resolved - if it wasn't already. There are multiple edits and reverts adding a flag to this article weekly. Should this article have some kind of protection on it now?
 * EtheyB (talk) 13:51, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I think it's time to go to WP:RPP and request semi-protection. Lots of news users and IPs making bad edits. Koopinator (talk) 14:11, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * This page has now received WP:WHITELOCK protection to at least stabilise the public page. EtheyB (talk) 19:44, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks for finally saying this. Yup01oi (talk) 17:54, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks for finally saying this. Yup01oi (talk) 17:54, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Now that the article is moderated, perhaps the spurious flag images ( File:Flag_of_the_Confederation_of_the_Rhine.png and File:Alleged_flag_of_the_Rhine_Confederation_1806-13.svg) should be deleted. I have already removed all article links to the former. The latter is used in articles on 16 Wikipedia sites, and my understanding for correcting these is:
 * As a symbol of a person's nationality or military allegiance, it should be replaced with the flag of a state within the Confederation if one is known, or the medal if not.
 * As a symbol of the political entity and its succession (e.g. HRE -> Confederation) it should be replaced with the medal.
 * In galleries of historical flags, it should be removed. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 15:34, 7 June 2023 (UTC)


 * The file is used more widely than I thought. It will take a while to replace everything. Surprisingly it is used the most on fr. 67.180.143.89 (talk) 04:20, 8 June 2023 (UTC)