The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

6. Saxony retained Lusatia, and acquired part of the diocese of Magdeburg, and the independence of the Dutch and the Swiss was finally acknowledged.

The Peace, a solution of the religious difficulty.

The peace of Westphalia, like the war to which it put an end, marks the close of one epoch and the beginning of another. It closes the long chapter of the religious troubles in Germany, which grew out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and it did so in the most satisfactory manner possible, not by laying down any great principle of religious toleration or religious domination, but simply by recognising accomplished facts. Calvinism had worked its way to an equal position with Lutheranism among the religious forces of Germany, and that fact was accordingly recognised. The supremacy of each prince in his own dominions over the religious as well as the political conduct of his people had been recognised by the peace of Augsburg in 1555, and been uniformly acted upon by Catholic and Protestant alike ever since. It was now definitely, if tacitly admitted, and possible evils guarded against by drawing the territorial line between Catholicism and Protestantism as nearly as possible to coincide with the actual difference of belief. It was still possible for a Protestant prince in the north to oppress his Catholic subjects, it was still possible for a Catholic prince of the south to banish all Protestants from his dominions, but the question henceforth was but a local one, a matter solely between the prince and his subjects, which imposed upon Protestants and Catholics elsewhere in Germany no greater duty and gave them no more right to interfere, than did the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. in France. Such a solution may not have been from the point of view of morals the best conceivable. It was under the circumstances of the time the best possible. To modern ideas it may seem that the negotiators of Westphalia lost a great opportunity of forcing into the unwilling hands of Germany the priceless boon of religious toleration. Had they attempted to do so, they would only have kept alive the spirit of religious animosity, and given to political ambition the right again to shelter itself under the claims of religion and renew the flame of war. By making the question wholly one between prince and people, they ensured that all the conservative forces of human nature, the forces that make against novelty, disturbance, and revolution, the forces which impel men and governments so powerfully to take the line of the least resistance, should be enlisted on the side of religious peace. If the door was still left open to an archbishop of Salzburg to banish all Protestants from his dominions, the paucity of such instances of oppression after the peace of Westphalia, is alone sufficient proof of the truce in religious affairs which it practically brought about; while the danger of a hundred such acts of tyranny cannot weigh as a feather in the balance against the unspeakable horror of a renewal of the war.

The Peace the beginning of modern Europe.

The peace of Westphalia is also the beginning of a new era. It marks the formation of the modern European states system. In Germany itself the central fact registered by the peace is the final disintegration of the Empire. The machinery it is true was still left intact. There was an Emperor and a diet, electors and an imperial court of justice, but all reality had passed away from them as a governing power in Germany. The German people were governed by the German princes, who had all the rights of sovereignty. They could coin money, make war, organise armies, and send representatives to other courts. 1. The Empire becomes Austrian. The central authority was reduced to a minimum, and if the Emperor was still a power in Germany, it was not because he was Emperor, but because he was archduke of Austria and many other German duchies, king of Bohemia, and king of Hungary. The effect is at once visible in the policy of the House of Austria. The Emperor still maintained his interests in Germany and on the Rhine, still he stood forward as the champion of Germany to prevent France from dominating over Europe, still from time to time he waged war to check the growing power of Prussia, to develop schemes of commercial enterprise in the Netherlands, but nevertheless, irresistibly, in spite of tradition, and of association, his real attention became fixed more and more irrevocably on the east and on the south. His policy in fact in its heart of hearts ceased to be imperial or even German and became purely Austrian. He sought compensation on the Danube for his losses on the Rhine. He sacrificed much for a hold over Italy, which should give to his impoverished and land-locked country the riches of the plain of Lombardy and ports on the Adriatic. Insensibly and steadily he pushed his territorial frontier more and more to the east and south, while Brandenburg actuated by similar forces was pushing hers to the west and to the north.

2. Sovereignty of the German princes.

Set free from even the shadow of imperial centralisation, Germany was enabled to follow unimpeded her own laws of development. In central Germany the spirit of disintegration, and the fearful desolation caused by the war conquered all desire for unity. Almost to the present day it has remained a heap of undistinguished and undistinguishable atoms. 3. Growth of Brandenburg and Bavaria. But in north Germany, the natural tendency of small states to coalesce with larger states began to show itself, and Brandenburg at once started on that career of conquest and aggrandisement which has brought her in our own day to the headship of Europe, while Bavaria, in alliance with France, bid with some success against the House of Austria for the leadership of south Germany, which since 1866 she has practically attained. Thus, with regard to the internal politics of Germany, the peace of Westphalia set in motion the forces, which, by ousting the Emperor from predominance in Germany, throwing the energies of the House of Austria towards Italy and the lower Danube, and enabling the House of Hohenzollern to strike for the leadership of north Germany and the command of the Rhine, have during the last two hundred years permanently affected the balance of power in Europe and the condition of the German people.

4. Diminished influence of the Papacy.

Outside the boundaries of Germany, the treaties of Westphalia mark no less a change in the relations of the great powers of Europe. It is the last time that the Pope appears as the mediator of the peace of nations. His refusal to sanction the treaties was simply set on one side by Catholic and Protestant powers alike, and from that time his influence in the international politics of Europe ceased. 5. Transitory character of Swedish greatness. France and Sweden are the two nations who have most right to claim the peace of Westphalia as marking an epoch in their national history. With Sweden it is the high-water mark of her European influence. The treaties recognised her as one of the great powers of Europe, and secured to her the supremacy of the Baltic, and the right to claim the allegiance of north Germany, if she could win it. But the task proved beyond her capacity, and she slowly shrank before the advancing power of Brandenburg and of Russia, until before a hundred years had passed it had become abundantly clear that with regard to Sweden the peace did not mark the permanent inclusion of a new power among the great nations of Europe.

6. Permanent advance of France.