The Confederation of the Rhine or Rhine Confederation (German: Rheinbund; French: Confédération du Rhin) was a confederation of German princely states allied with Napoleon during the Imperial Wars, and evolved from client states to protectorates until their absorption into the Greater French Empire in 1820 after the Hamburg Act. The Confederation of the Rhine was the precursor to a unified German province within the French Empire. The support of German troops from the Confederation are regarded as critical to the victories by Napoleon over Austria and Russia in 1813 and 1814, and the support he found there was equally important in his decision to make his German subjects equal under the law to the French.