All this would not save the waning Empire however. As Napoleon Bonaparte elevated himself to Emperor of the French, the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II foresaw the end of the Empire and took his precautions.
He amalgamated his hereditary lands, the Archduchy of Austria with the Kingdom of Bohemia, already ruled as a single state since 1618, and the Kingdom of Hungary into a hew hereditary Empire of Austria.
He thereby created the somewhat bizarre spectre of two overlapping Empires, sharing a significant part of each others territory and sharing its Emperor, Francis II of the Holy Roman and Francis I of the Austrian Empire.
Meanwhile a Third coalition tried to defeat the French. This coalition, consisting of Britain, Sweden, Russia, Austria and Naples and Sicily, was defeated at the battle of Austerlitz. Austria lost Tyrol to Napoleon’s ally Bavaria and Venice to Napoleon’s newly erected Kingdom of Italy. Having neutralised Austria for the moment the next power to tackle would be Prussia, a country that had recently expanded territorially into Poland and North-western Germany.
