Pike, John Ending the Thirty Years War

Westphalian Peace, Legal Analysis and Place in History

War is diplomacy by other means, according to Clausewitz's famous doctrine, which is well known to military historians. However, the Thirty Years' War took a different course: war took centre stage, supplanting diplomacy, and for the first time in European and world history, it became a European conflict that turned into a world war a first world war. Colonial rivalries and modern war crimes were also decisive factors. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the war, but even for the most powerful states there was no absolute victory, and the conflict continued until the peace negotiations, when the articles of peace were finally agreed upon. The text analyses the course of the war in vivid detail, as well as the most important actors and the role of international law, including civil law and canon law, with the Catholic Church and Protestant institutions playing a decisive role. All the leading actors from the major states were represented Mazarin (France), Oliveres (Spain), Salvius (Sweden), Charles V (Holy Roman Empire), as well as a multitude of rulers, states and small states, and the powerful and ruthless Dutch Republic. Major military commanders were important players, including kings (not the great Gustav Adolf, who embodied the war and was killed in battle in 1632) and the most successful Torstenson (Sweden). The treaties that led to Westphalia from 1622 to 1648 reflect the course of the war and were complex and modern in that they dealt with human rights, religious tolerance, martial law, freedom of the seas, refugees, property rights and, perhaps most importantly, colonial rivalries and expansion. Westphalia therefore occupies a crucial place in the history of diplomacy and warfare and is significant for modern and even contemporary history.