The Treaty of Westphalia | History Today
The Treaty of Westphalia
By
Richard Cavendish
Published in
History Today Volume 48 Issue 10 November 1998
On October 24th 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years' War.
Ratification of the Peace of Münster (Gerard ter Borch, Münster, 1648)The Westphalia area of north-western Germany gave its name to the treaty that ended the Thirty Years War, one of the most destructive conflicts in the history of Europe.
The war or series of connected wars began in 1618, when the Austrian Habsburgs tried to impose Roman Catholicism on their Protestant subjects in Bohemia. It pitted Protestant against Catholic, the Holy Roman Empire against France, the German princes and princelings against the emperor and each other, and France against the Habsburgs of Spain. The Swedes, the Danes, the Poles, the Russians, the Dutch and the Swiss were all dragged in or dived in. Commercial interests and rivalries played a part, as did religion and power politics.
Among famous commanders involved were Marshal Turenne and the Prince de Condé for France, Wallenstein for the Empire and Tilly for the Catholic League, and there was an able Bavarian general curiously named Franz von Mercy. Others to play a part ranged from the Winter King of Bohemia to the emperors Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III, Bethlen Gabor of Transylvania, Christian IV of Denmark, Gustavus II Adolphus and Queen Christina of Sweden, the Great Elector of Brandenburg, Philip IV of Spain and his brother the Cardinal-Infante, Louis XIII of France, Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin and several popes. Gustavus Adolphus was shot in the head and killed at the battle of Lutzen in 1632. The increasingly crazed Wallenstein, who grew so sensitive to noise that he had all the dogs, cats and cockerels killed in every town he came to, was murdered by an English captain in 1634. Still the fighting went on.
The war was largely fought on German soil and reduced the country to desolation as hordes of mercenaries, left unpaid by their masters, lived off the land. Rapine, pillage and famine stalked the countryside as armies marched about, plundering towns, villages and farms as they went. ‘We live like animals, eating bark and grass,’ says a pitiful entry in a family Bible from a Swabian village. ‘No one could have imagined that anything like this would happen to us. Many people say that there is no God...’ Wenceslas Hollar recorded devastation in the war zone in engravings of the 1630s and starvation reached such a point in the Rhineland that there were cases of cannibalism. The horror became a way of life and when the war finally ended, the mercenaries and their womenfolk complained that their livelihood was gone.
The peace conference to end the war opened in Münster and Osnabrück in December 1644. It involved no fewer than 194 states, from the biggest to the smallest, represented by 179 plenipotentiaries. There were thousands of ancillary diplomats and support staff, who had to be given housing, fed and watered, and they did themselves well for close to four years, despite famine in the country around. Presiding over the conference were the Papal Nuncio, Fabio Chigi (the future Pope Alexander VII), and the Venetian ambassador.
The first six months were spent arguing about who was to sit where and who was to go into a room ahead of whom. The principal French and Spanish envoys never managed to meet at all because the correct protocol could not be agreed. A special postal system handled reams of letters between the envoys and their principals at a time when it took ten days or more to send a communication from Münster to Paris or Vienna and twenty days or more to Stockholm or Madrid. Slowly deals were hammered out. Even then it took almost three weeks just to organise the signing ceremony, which commenced at two o’clock in the afternoon of Saturday, October 24th, 1648.
The treaty gave the Swiss independence of Austria and the Netherlands independence of Spain. The German principalities secured their autonomy. Sweden gained territory and a payment in cash, Brandenburg and Bavaria made gains too, and France acquired most of Alsace-Lorraine. The prospect of a Roman Catholic reconquest of Europe vanished forever. Protestantism was in the world to stay.
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SparkNotes: International Politics: History of the International System
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
History of the International System
States engage with one another in an environment known as the
international system. All states are considered to be sovereign, and some states are more powerful than others. The system has a number of informal rules about how things should be done, but these rules are not binding. International relations have existed as long as states themselves. But the modern international system under which we live today is only a few centuries old. Significant events have marked the milestones in the development of the international system.
The Peace of Westphalia (1648)
In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War between Catholic states and Protestant states in western and central Europe, established our modern international system. It declared that the sovereign leader of each nation-state could do as she or he wished within its borders and established the state as the main actor in global politics. From that point forward, the international system has consisted primarily of relations among nation-states.
Shifting Balances of Power (1600–1800)
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the nation-state emerged as the dominant political unit of the international system. A series of powerful states dominated Europe, with the great powers rising and falling. Weaker states often banded together to prevent the dominant power from becoming too strong, a practice known as preserving the
balance of power. Frequent wars and economic competition marked this era. Some nations—notably France and England—were powerful through most of the modern age, but some—such as Spain and the Ottoman Empire—shrank in power over time.
Emergence of Nationalism (1800–1945)
The nineteenth century brought two major changes to the international system:
- Nationalism emerged as a strong force, allowing nation-states to grow even more powerful.
- Italy and Germany became unified countries, which altered the balance of military and economic power in Europe.
The problems raised by the unification of Germany contributed to World War I (1914–1918). In the aftermath of the war, the international system changed dramatically again. The major powers of Europe had suffered greatly, whereas the United States began to come out of its isolation and transform into a global power. At the same time, the end of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires created a series of new nations, and the rise of communism in Russia presented problems for other nations. These factors contributed to the Treaty of Versailles, the rise of Nazism and communism, and World War II (1939–1945).
New World Orders (1945–Present)
The end of World War II marked a decisive shift in the global system. After the war, only two great world powers remained: the United States and the Soviet Union. Although some other important states existed, almost all states were understood within the context of their relations with the two superpowers. This global system was called
bipolar because the system centered on two great powers.
Since the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, the nature of the world has changed again. Only one superpower remains, leading some scholars to label the new international system
unipolar.Others point to the increasing economic power of some European and Asian states and label the new system
multipolar. To some extent, both terms are accurate. The United States has the world’s most powerful military, which supports the unipolar view, but the U.S. economy is not as powerful, relative to the rest of the world, lending credence to the multipolar view.
CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS
System Number of Nations with Power Nations with Power Dates
Unipolar One United States Post-1989
Bipolar Two United States and the Soviet Union 1945–1989
Multi-polar Several United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan Pre–World War I
United States, European Union, China, India Post-1989
ASEAN The EU And The End Of Westphalia - Stanley A. WeissStanley A. Weiss
ASEAN The EU And The End Of Westphalia
BALI—Set upon a blue background, the flag of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations depicts 10 yellow rice paddy stalks drawn in the middle of a red circle with a white border. The interesting thing about the banner is not merely that it represents the main colors of all ten ASEAN member state flags: Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines. It is that 44 years to the day after ASEAN was founded, on August 8th—in a development that received little attention outside Asia—the flag was hoisted for the first time alongside the banners of all member states at hundreds of embassies and diplomatic missions around the world.
Kicking off a year dedicated to the theme “Unity in Diversity”, ASEAN’s stirring declaration of interdependence is just the latest example of what ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan describes to me as “our drive to raise our own bargaining power from a larger base.” At a time when the European Union’s struggle to rescue free-spending members Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Greece threatens to bring the whole continent tumbling down, ASEAN is rushing headlong to create a single economic community by 2015.
But there is more at stake here than simply the joint success or failure of 10 Asian nations, whose 600 million people represent a combined gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion—making it the sixth-largest economy in the world. ASEAN’s move to integration represents a different model of regional cooperation from the EU—less rooted in democracy, more tolerant of human rights violations, and more committed to sovereignty—that may go a long way toward defining how other regions evolve in the 21st Century.
In short, ASEAN “is making the case for a new kind of regionalism,” writes David Carden, the first resident U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN.
In academic circles, both the EU and ASEAN lend themselves to a discussion of a “post-Westphalian world.” Signed in 1648, the Peace of Westphalia not only ended 80 years of war in Europe, it also created the modern state system. Westphalia established fixed territorial boundaries for countries and established the idea that citizens of a respective country were subject primarily to the laws (and actions) of their respective governments. Conversely, it also created the notion that government is sovereign to rule its people as it sees fit. While giving rise to order, Westphalia also enabled three centuries of human rights abuses.
The 20th Century chipped away at the Westphalian idea. The creation of the United Nations and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 represented the first global expression of rights fundamental to all human beings, challenging the Westphalian concept of sovereignty. For half a century, it was applied delicately, often through sanctions, in places like South Africa. It wasn’t until the 1990s when the international community intervened directly on behalf of humanitarian principle in Haiti and Kosovo—a thread that runs through NATO’s intervention in Libya today.
Meanwhile, the creation of a unified EU in 1993 was the moment historians began speaking of a post-Westphalian world. ASEAN is putting an Asian spin on the concept of unity. As Surin Pitsuwan tells me, “The European model is our inspiration, not our model.”
Unlike the EU, the ASEAN vision doesn’t yet include a unified currency, joint visas, or the fully free flow of labor. While ASEAN has reportedly implemented 75 percent of the blueprint it passed in 2008 to create a regional trade bloc, unlike the EU, it also remains committed to a principal of nonintervention in the affairs of members, known as the “ASEAN Way.” While the EU pulls out its collective hair trying to restructure an intransigent Greece, ASEAN still takes a hands-off approach to member state Myanmar, whose brutal authoritarianism—despite recent elections—remains a drag on ASEAN’s global image.
Yet, while Western observers condemn ASEAN over Myanmar and argue that a wobblier version of the EU will never work because it lacks central authority to enforce common rules, ASEAN supporters say sarcastically to me: “the U.S. is one to talk.”
“Authoritarian leaders and their populations here are appalled by America’s lack of discipline and massive debt,” said Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer at Indonesia’s National Defense University, in a recent essay. “If democracy provides nothing but economic crisis, political squabbling, and gridlock, why would anyone want it? Better to stick with the authoritarian system of China or the semi-authoritarianism of Singapore.”
It is no accident that ASEAN members have been focused on increasing trade with one another (up 31 percent in 2010), with neighboring China (up 25 percent in the first half of 2011) and with other Asian countries. As Indonesian Vice President Boediono said at a recent ASEAN meeting, “the U.S. and Europe could no longer be the main engines of growth for the world economy.”
The danger is not simply that Western investors fall behind in one of the world’s fastest-growing regions. The danger is that as other regions consider similar integration—imagine a South Asian confederation of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives; or a future bloc in the Middle East.
In November, President Barack Obama is scheduled to attend the East Asian Summit in Bali. In his remarks, President Obama should take responsibility for America’s debt crisis and promise to be a better partner for Asia; articulate progressive benchmarks ASEAN could help Myanmar achieve by 2015; and link passage of a long-desired U.S.-ASEAN free trade agreement to those benchmarks being met.
It may not forestall the end of Westphalia—but it could help extend Western leadership into the 21st Century.
Imagining 'Eastphalia' - Stanley A. WeissStanley A. Weiss
The Emerging 'Eastphalian' International System - Stanley A. WeissStanley A. Weiss
Treaty of Westphalia did not bring peace, eventually after 2 world wars Europe had to move to a post Westphalian order, EU, to ensure peace. Paritition in South Asia did not and will not bring peace, unless the countries in this region move towards a post Westphalian SAARC order. Countries that do not have reservation about this should move forward, the reluctant countries can join in later when they are ready.
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