Western Civilization: The Nation-State Part Two; The Peace of Westphalia

The Peace of Westphalia was series of treaties agreed to in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years War as well as other related conflicts in Europe. The Thirty Years War started out as a war of religion among the various Germanic states as the Holy Roman Empire attempted to enforce religious uniformity throughout the empire.

The Holy Roman Empire, derided by Voltaire as "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire" was a collection of duchies, principalities, kingdoms, Catholic dioceses, independent cities which had its beginnings in AD 800 when Charlemagne, King of the Franks, was crowned as "Emperor of the Romans" by the Pope. The territory controlled by Charlemagne's successors waxed with conquest and waned with losses in war. The custom at the time was also to divide a man's property equally among his heirs. This applied to kings as well. Charlemagne had three sons and they each inherited a portion of his "empire". The sons and their heirs fought among themselves, causing the size of the empire to change depending on the ambition and ability of the various sons and grandsons. Eventually the successors of Charlemagne began claiming that they had inherited the supreme ruling power from the long defunct Western Roman Empire. While an empire in name, in practice it was a loose confederation of sovereign monarchies.

The Catholic Emperor put down a rebellion by Protestant monarchs which spurred Sweden and Denmark to come in on the side of the Protestants. Spain, which was ruled by a member of the Hapsburg family came in on the side of their Hapsburg cousins, the rulers of Austria (part of the Empire) as a pretext for putting down a rebellion in the Netherlands, then ruled by Spain. France, a Catholic kingdom, came in on the side of the Protestants, fearful of being encircled by the two Hapsburg kingdoms, diluting the religious reasons for the conflict.

You can do your own reading on the convoluted alliances and crisscrossing and shifting loyalties, as well as the strategies of the combatants, but suffice it say that Europe was one big, bloody mess by 1648. The conflicting allegiances engendered by the primacy of dynastic ambitions laid bare the truth that the political system pre-war was a confusing mess!

What we know as The Peace of Westphalia was a series, or a grouping of, treaties among the various combatants to end the war(s). But, when viewed in retrospect, it had much more far-reaching consequences. The arrangements laid out in the Westphalia treaties laid the foundation of the modern nation-state. Fixed territorial boundaries were set, irrespective of dynasties and succession crises. The relationship of subjects to rulers changed as well, with the primary allegiance to be to the laws and edicts of the state, not to any other religious or secular authority. Equality between states was another principle arising out of The Peace of Westphalia. There was no hierarchy of empire, kingdom, duchy on down.Of course this was merely a theory at first, but it was the foundation upon which later systems were built. The principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of another state was also set. While these treaties did not do away with changing borders due to war, nor with the influence of royal families or religion, it established a norm whereby deviation from it became something which caused international upheaval, rather than the ever-fluid changes which were everyday occurrences previously.

This is the framework upon which our modern system of nations, with borders and internally sovereign governments is built upon. It is the system which, during the age of colonisation, European powers imposed upon the areas of the world which they conquered.