Treaty of Westphalia

Impact

The significance of the Treaty of Westphalia is often underestimated. It would serve as a model for resolving future European conflicts. Six armies had participated in the conflict. Those six states as well as many princes of the empire participated in a gathering that brought together more than one hundred delegations. For the first time, a congress with representatives from all parties involved in a multinational conflict not only addressed international disputes but also agreed to abide by the resulting settlement.

France and Sweden gained the most from the treaty. Ultimately, France would replace Spain as the dominant power on the continent (and the two countries would not officially cease hostilities until 1659). Sweden emerged as the major power in the Baltic, a position it would enjoy for a half-century until military defeat by Czar Peter I of Russia. The Habsburgs lost the most. The Austrian branch, the traditional rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, agreed to the independence of the Swiss Confederation. In addition, German princes were not only recognized as independent but also were given the right to establish Lutheranism, Catholicism, or Calvinism within their territories. The treaty also required the Spanish Habsburgs to recognize the independence of a Dutch Republic, which included two provinces taken from the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium).

These territorial and political realignments were significant, and many would last well into the nineteenth century. The treaty also determined religious distribution within the empire by confirming the Peace of Augsburg, which had first established the principle that the prince's religion would determine the religion of his people and expanded it to include Calvinism. As a result, the northern parts of the empire remained largely Lutheran and the area along the Rhine Calvinist, and Catholicism prevailed in the south.

With the catastrophic decline in agriculture, many farmers lacked the capital to remain independent and were forced to become day laborers. In parts of central Europe, especially areas east of the Elbe River, the loss of peasant holdings resulted in the consolidation of large estates and the expansion of serfdom.

The treaty also brought about a formal break between German principalities and territories controlled by the Austrian Habsburgs. Princely power demonstrated during the war and guaranteed by the treaty revealed how little most German states and principalities had to offer the Habsburgs. After 1648, the Austrian Habsburgs increasingly focused attention on their own territories, both inside and outside the empire, and expanded farther into southeastern Europe. This absence of Habsburg influence coupled with the religious and territorial provisions of the treaty enabled a former weak principality, such as Brandenburg-Prussia, to begin the process of state building, especially under the Calvinist Frederick William who was both the elector of Brandenburg and the duke of Prussia.

Finally, the Treaty of Westphalia signaled the loss of power of the papacy. Since late antiquity, the church had battled for supremacy over European princes and kings, in particular, the Holy Roman Emperor. Even though the Holy Roman Empire had fought on behalf of the Catholic religion in the Thirty Years' War, its loss and the emergence of Richelieu's version of statecraft left little room for the Catholic Church as a power player after 1648.