Image: Allegory of the Peace of Westphalia. (Public Domain)
On this day in history, October 24, 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia was ratified, ending the Thirty Years’ War and profoundly changing the balance of power in Europe.
The Thirty Years’ War was a religious dispute in the 17th century fought principally in central Europe. More than 8 million casualties were caused by military battles and the famine and disease triggered by the war. The conflict lasted from 1618 to 1648, starting as a battle between the Catholic and Protestant states that were part of the Holy Roman Empire. However, as the Thirty Years’ War unfolded, it was less about religion and more about which group would eventually control Europe. In the end, the war transformed the geopolitical face of Europe and the role of nation-states and religion in society.
In 1619, with Emperor Ferdinand II’s rise to the head of the Holy Roman Empire, religious wars began to increase.
One of Ferdinand II’s first acts was to push citizens of the empire to follow Roman Catholicism, even though religious autonomy had been bestowed with the Peace of Augsburg. Signed in 1555 as a foundation of the Reformation, the Peace of Augsburg’s fundamental assumption was “whose realm, his religion,” which permitted the princes of states within the empire to espouse either Lutheranism/Calvinism or Catholicism within their states.
This calmed smoldering unease between populations of Catholics and Protestants within the Holy Roman Empire for more than 60 years. However, there were flare-ups, including the War of the Julich Succession (1609) and the Cologne War (1583-1588).
The Holy Roman Empire may have ruled most of Europe then, an assembly of semi-autonomous states. The emperor had limited authority over them.
But after Ferdinand’s verdict on religion, the nobility in present-day Austria and the Czech Republic disregarded Ferdinand II. It showed their disapproval by tossing his delegates from a picture window at Prague Castle in 1618.
The purported Defenestration of Prague was the start of open rebellion in the Bohemian states – who had the support of Sweden and Denmark-Norway – and the commencement of the Thirty Years’ War.
In response to Ferdinand II’s determination to remove their religious freedom, the primarily Protestant Bohemian states of the Holy Roman Empire wanted to leave the empire, further dividing an already laxly configured empire.
The first part of the Thirty Years’ War, the Bohemian Revolt, began in 1618 and started a genuinely continental war. Throughout the first decade of hostility, the Bohemian nobility developed alliances with the Protestant Union states in what is now Germany. At the same time, Ferdinand II pursued the cooperation of his Catholic nephew, King Philip IV of Spain.
Quickly, armies for both sides were joined in violent warfare on numerous fronts in present-day Austria and Transylvania.
In the west, the Spanish army allied with the Catholic League and nation-states in present-day Germany, Belgium, and France, who supported Ferdinand II.
Even with the help from soldiers from Scotland, and after causing the dissolution of the Protestant Union, however, the armies of Denmark-Norway lost to the armies of Ferdinand II, ceding much of northern Europe to the emperor.
But in 1630, under Gustavus Adolphus’s direction, Sweden sided with the northern Protestants. It joined the fight, with its army causing the Catholic forces to fall back and recover much of the region lost by the Protestant Union.
With the help of the Swedes, Protestant victories continued. Nevertheless, the Swedes lost their determination when Gustavus Adolphus died in the Battle of Lützen in 1632. By 1635, the Swedes were defeated.
The French, though Catholic, were adversaries of the Habsburgs and were unhappy with the terms of the Peace of Prague, which sheltered the lands of the Lutheran/Calvinist rulers of northern Germany, but not those in the west and south of the present-day Czech Republic and Austria.
Then the French entered the war in 1635. In the beginning, their armies were incapable of making gains against the army of Ferdinand II, even after he perished from old age in 1637.
Meanwhile, Spain, fighting at the command of the emperor’s successor and son, Ferdinand III, occupied French territory, terrorizing Paris in 1636. Nevertheless, the French regained their strength, and fighting between the French-Protestant alliance and the armies of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire was at a deadlock for the following years.
In 1640, the Portuguese began an insurrection against Spain, thereby damaging the military powers of the Holy Roman Empire. Two years later, the Swedes re-entered the war, further deteriorating the Habsburg military.
In 1643, Denmark-Norway entered the conflict again, battling with the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs.
Over the next few years, the French army won several victories but suffered many defeats, particularly at the Battle of Herbsthausen in 1645. Also, that year, the Swedes attacked Vienna but could not seize the city from the Holy Roman Empire. In 1647, the Habsburg armies led by Octavio Piccolomini could resist the Swedes and the French from Austria.
The following year, in the Battle of Prague – the final significant battle of the Thirty Years’ War – the Swedes seized Prague Castle from the military of the Holy Roman Empire. Still, they were incapable of taking the remainder of the city.
By this point, only the Austrian region continued to be controlled by the Habsburgs.
Throughout 1648, the various sides of the war signed a number of treaties called the Peace of Westphalia, ending the Thirty Years’ War – even though it had considerable geopolitical consequences for Europe.
Weakened by the fighting, Spain lost its hold over Portugal and the Dutch Republic. The peace treaties also gave added independence to the former Holy Roman Empire states in German areas of central Europe.
Ultimately, though, the Peace of Westphalia laid the foundation for the creation of the contemporary nation-state, creating static borders for the countries involved in the war and successfully pronouncing that citizens of a state were liable to the laws of that country and not to those of any other organization, religious or secular.
This profoundly transformed the balance of power in Europe and caused diminished influence over political interactions for the Catholic Church and other religious faiths.
Subscribe to “History Daily with Francis Chappell Black” to receive regular updates regarding new content:
Help us with our endeavors to keep History alive. With our daily Blog posts and our publishing program we hope to inform people in a comfortable and easy-going manner. This is my full-time job so any support you can give would be greatly appreciated.
History Daily With Francis Chappell Black 
Leave a comment