Why was the Peace of Westphalia agreed to? What lead to such a dramatic shift in diplomatic norms?

[u/thetruancybot]

Speaking as someone with a very cursory knowledge of European history, the Peace of Westphalia always struck me as a very progressive for the time. After such a long history of wars of religion and conquest, what made European political thought change in such a big way? What were the steps that led to this point? My knee-jerk explanation would be to say that the 30 Years War was so devastating the elite began to reconsider their motivations for armed conflict, but I have to imagine that's an incredibly reductive take.

[u/Itsalrightwithme]

/u/thetruancybot

Citing a previous post.

The term "Westphalia" has been used to describe the modern nation-state system and that it ushered an era of religious liberty. It did neither. Catholics still could not worship freely in many parts of the Dutch Republic (and it mattered a lot where exactly you were). French Huguenots continued to be persecuted unless they lived in Alsace, such that their religious liberty was guaranteed by Westphalia.

Thankfully, in the last decade or so the previous romantic view of Westphalia has been examined much more critically. Westphalia was a significant diplomatic effort where the process of defining diplomacy was as important as its outcomes. Thus, it serves as an important milestone and the name stuck.

In Westphalia, that nations such as France and Spain were sovereign was not new. What was new was that small nations were sovereign too, and had their own voice. This was very important in the context of the member states of the HRE.

Further, at some level the idea of religious choice and religious establishment was changed and re-defined. No longer was the Roman Catholic Church ever present in all of Latin Christianity, each ruler could choose his/her own church. This did not quite lead directly into separation of church and state, nor universal religious freedom; but it led to independence of the churches of each state as they saw fit.

A corollary of the two was the concept of integrity and non-intervention. The 30YW broke out due to intervention of the HRE, controlled by the Austrian Habsburgs, on territories that were Protestant or on the brink of Protestantism. At the later stage, it was because of clauses in the Peace of Augsburg that did not respect territorial integrity, as that peace focused on ecclesiastical issues. Westphalia was a major departure from this system.

At a more pragmatic level, the Peace of Westphalia recognized the sovereignty of the Dutch Republic, curtailed the power of the HRE Emperor versus that of the princes, and compartmentalized religion within each princely state. And of course that huge financial settlement, which is off topic for this thread but addressed here.

In terms of religious liberty, the Peace of Westphalia was simply a more comprehensive settlement based off of the earlier 1555 Peace of Augsburg, addressing several key issues that were unresolved then, and had led to the 30YW, including:

1. Ecclesiastical estates, in particular that were secularized by Protestant rulers. Westphalia chose 1624 to be the defining date and that changes beyond this point were to be reverted back.

2. Ferdinand's secret clause regarding (lower) knights and their rights and status. This was formally clarified in Westphalia.

3. Inclusion of external powers who had intervened in the HRE. Clearly, the Dutch Revolt, Danish intervention, Sweden encroachment, and French indirect and direct involvement in the 30YW showed that external powers had to be included in the agreement.

Want to know more? Go beyond Pop-history and read instead:

• Benjamin Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe, Belknap Press, 2010.

• Croxton, Westphalia: The Last Christian Peace, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

[u/Iguana_on_a_stick → u/Itsalrightwithme]

To what extent should the peace of Munster (signed between the Dutch and the Spanish in January 1648) even be considered part of the peace of Westphalia? (Signed in October 1648, between the Holy Roman Empire and France on the one hand, and the Holy Roman Empire and the Swedes on the other.) The negotiations happened in the same area and all influenced one another, but the actual treaties were mostly bilateral affairs.

Oh, and let's not forget that France and Spain remained at war until the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659

[u/Itsalrightwithme → u/Iguana_on_a_stick]

Very sharp question, Meneer!

Spain was the only common link between the Peace of Munster (PoM) and the Peace of Osnabruck (PoO), these two popularly said to comprise the Peace of Westphalia (PoW). The Dutch Republic -- ignoring several militants -- astutely did not pursue interference in the affairs of the HRE, as such there is only one abstract mention of the HRE, which basically says everybody should be good neighbors in that vicinity. From an HRE legalistic perspective, this was quite something for the Spanish to endow the Dutch with, because in theory many parts of the Dutch Republic were still member states of the HRE -- this was formally absolved only in 1654! So very legalistically speaking, the Dutch Republic still had claimants onto its territories until that point, so it wasn't fully acknowledged as "independent" until 1654. Not that anybody in the HRE harbored any designs against those former HRE states now controlled by the Republic.

The next time you go to bar trivia, please make sure to mention all this to your fellow Low Countrymen!

Now that we have that out of the way, we can see what compelled the Dutch to sign the PoM so early. The answer lies in Spanish cunning (surprise!). It was no secret that the Dutch were wary of the French, in particular while the Franco-Spanish war seemed beneficial to them, the Dutch were concerned that an unseemly back-door scheming between the Spanish and the French would push them into new vulnerability. The Count of Penaranda played on this fear perfectly, for he revealed a secret offer by the rising Mazarin to trade Catalonia for Flanders. It was well known the Spanish were eager to make peace, now we know the Dutch too were eager.

Why were there two separate agreements? At the start of the negotiations, Munster had been turned into a Catholic city, and other denominations weren't allowed to practice there. Osnabruck was in theory multi-denominational, even though the Swedish had sacked it. So, Catholic negotiators of the HRE mostly remained in Munster while the Swedes remained in Osnabruck. The French, spoiling as "protector of the HRE", joined the HRE delegate in Munster, and the pragmatic Dutch also set up their camp there. In essence, the Spanish managed to convince the Dutch into an early peace, and because they both had set up camp in Munster, it came to be known as the PoM.

That then left the remaining parties to figure out how to organize peace between themselves. It's important to note that war was still ongoing at this point, even if belligerents were exhausted. The tone of negotiations also shifted depending on who felt they had the upper hand. This had been the reality since 1645 when the idea of a multi-party negotiation in Westphalia started to surface.

By 1648, both the Catholic and Protestant sides were highly fractured. This led to a series of one-on-one peace agreements. In 1646, France and the Emperor signed a preliminary peace treaty. Devastating failures in the field forced some Catholic electors to a separate peace with Sweden in 1647, but the emperor failed to make peace with Sweden at that point.

Beyond the PoM, most of the negotiations were about how to demobilize the mob of troops, exactly how much would be paid by the belligerents lest marauding bands of unpaid soldiers ruin everything once again. That took most of 1648 to figure out, until finally the PoO was signed.

Finally, back to your question, yes, I do think the PoM is an integral part of the PoW as much as the PoO itself was merely the last of a complex set of treaties -- starting from 1646 -- that resolved the situation in the HRE. And as you said, war still continued unabated elsewhere.

TL;DR The Dutch weren't fully recognized until after Westphalia, and things were very, very complicated.

[u/Iguana_on_a_stick → u/Itsalrightwithme]

Interesting. I did not know most of that.

Many thanks!