Peace was restored by the treaty of Westphalia in Negotiations between Sweden and the Empire took place in Osnabruck in The beneficiary was France, given clear possession of the Three Bishoprics Metz, Toul, Verdun , which had been trust territories since It annexed Low Alsace and the city of Brisach in Germany added to Pignerol in Piedmont returned to France as early as after the Mantua succession war.
Both the Low Countries and the Swiss cantons were officially recognized as being independent. The House of Hapsburg lost a great deal of its former power and Germany, having lost a third of its population, was financially ruined and in complete political disarray.
Some warlords took to funding their expeditions by bleeding entire populations dry, wreaking havoc on the economy in the process. Moreover, it was the first time that vast armies had been mobilized on this scale in Europe, and keeping so many troops well-fed far from base meant that food was at a premium.
Princes and noblemen footed the bill for troop recruitment. But fighting forces imposed local taxes, stripped assets and plundered defenceless communities to fund their own upkeep. Some armies ballooned in size, bringing in scores of civilians — chiefly family members and servants — to provide logistics support. In some cases, there were as many as four or five civilians for every combatant. But it was more than just a frenzy of wanton atrocities.
From the chaos of the battlefield emerged new rules — some driven by the very pragmatic need to conserve energy, others by religious dictate. Around , people died in combat. These figures are remarkably high, even by 17th century standards. The Sack of Magdeburg was an unusually brutal episode. It claimed 24, lives — the majority burned alive in what remained of their homes.
The scale of the atrocities remains a matter of some debate and we cannot say with certainty that systematic massacres took place. But the evidence shows how fighting forces used terror to repress civilians and points to pillage as common practice. Communities agreed to pay potential invaders a Brandschatzung fire tax or other levy as protection money against destruction and pillage. Meanwhile, peasants sought refuge in towns and cities because it had become too risky to continue farming their land.
In , for example, 8, of the 15, people living in Ulm were refugees — similar, in relative terms, to the situation in Lebanon today. The price of wheat jumped six-fold in some places.
Some claim that it was the first example of a total war, citing its far-reaching, profound and long-lasting effects on contemporary society. Some observers draw political parallels between the 17th-century wars of religion and other present-day conflicts around the world. The view, held in some quarters at least, that Westphalian sovereignty is disintegrating is fuelling creative analogies.
And when a young Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire in , Richard Haas drew parallels with the Defenestration of Prague. Some economists like Michael T. Klare claim that we could well see a return to the instability — and political and military conflict — of the midth century as resources become scarcer, climate change takes its toll and national borders are redrawn.
And strategists hold out hope that a Westphalia-style agreement could bring about lasting peace in some parts of the world. Although this is an appealing political analogy, we live in a different world today.
The global order, and the way the world is governed, have changed. It is always dangerous to compare two episodes so far apart in time. The two most powerful city-states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta, went to war with each other from to B. The Peloponnesian War marked a significant power shift in ancient Greece, favoring Sparta, and also ushered in a period of regional decline that signaled the By the time the First Punic War broke out, Rome had become the dominant power throughout the Italian The Protestant Reformation was the 16th-century religious, political, intellectual and cultural upheaval that splintered Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era.
In northern and central Europe, reformers She sought to return England to the Catholic He famously married a series of six wives in his search for political alliance, marital bliss and a healthy male heir. His desire to Civilizations around the world have been celebrating the start of each new year for at least four millennia.
Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Gustavus Adolphus But in , Sweden, under the leadership of Gustavus Adolphus, took the side of the northern Protestants and joined the fight, with its army helping to push Catholic forces back and regain much of the lost territory lost by the Protestant Union. Gustavus II Adolphus — king of Sweden — Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein — Ferdinand II — See all related overviews in Oxford Reference ».
A series of conflicts, fought mainly in Germany, in which Protestant—Catholic rivalries and German constitutional issues were gradually subsumed in a European struggle. By Ferdinand had emerged victorious in the Bohemian revolt, and with Spanish and Bavarian help had conquered the Palatinate of Frederick V. But his German ambitions and his Spanish alliance aroused the apprehensions of Europe's Protestant nations and also of France.
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