The Thirty World War: The First Pan-European War
international relations
The Thirty Years’ War was the first Pan-European war of modern times, it was a conflict which started in Bohemia (Holy Roman Empire) and took place from 1618 to 1648, ending with the well-known Peace of Westphalia.
This war started as a religious conflict between the Protestants and the Catholic Church in Germany, but latter on it developed into a Franco-Habsburg war involving most of the European continent and having a decisive impact on all the European states and nations system.
This period of history is characterised by a multipolar heterogeneous international system with numerous important states that were very different from each other basically due to religious matters.
Religion, not language, was considered the …show more content…
And on the other hand it was an international war between France and the Habsburgs and between Spain and the Dutch. Spain was constantly trying to maintain military access along the Spanish road which communicated its European empire and to take control over the Rhine, pretensions that aroused French opposition. And the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs was trying to create a strong national state (they would focus on expanding their territories, obtaining Bohemia, Hungary and later on Poland and some Italian states) and to eradicate Protestantism. So, though France was absolutely against a strongest power for Germany, the Frenchs had to go against the Habsburgs and protect Protestantism. This perfectly embodies the concept of “Politique”, which means politics over religion. States started to notice that there was no sense in continuing to fight between each other due to religious matters; the importance should be placed in …show more content…
Austria, as previously mentioned, expanded its territory, but with some difficulties since it was not physically unified, and decades later a new important problem in relation to the heir of the crown arose: the Emperor Charles the VI died without male descendants, so that his daughter Maria Theresa was the only possible heir, but for that the Salic law had to be abolished. In the end, after a war of succession which involved many European powers, Maria Theresa became Holy Roman Empress.
While Austria was becoming a big Catholic state, the region of Prussia emerged as a new Protestant power, what led to a new situation of rivalry, but within the given status-quo provided by the Peace of Westphalia.
The Peace of Westphalia led to an international notion of order, countries had to do something so as to achieve a better understanding between them in order to maintain international stability. They chose having order and peace over having a complete justice between the different states, in order to reach a balance of
The Thirty Years’ War was the first Pan-European war of modern times, it was a conflict which started in Bohemia (Holy Roman Empire) and took place from 1618 to 1648, ending with the well-known Peace of Westphalia.
This war started as a religious conflict between the Protestants and the Catholic Church in Germany, but latter on it developed into a Franco-Habsburg war involving most of the European continent and having a decisive impact on all the European states and nations system.
This period of history is characterised by a multipolar heterogeneous international system with numerous important states that were very different from each other basically due to religious matters.
Religion, not language, was considered the …show more content…
And on the other hand it was an international war between France and the Habsburgs and between Spain and the Dutch. Spain was constantly trying to maintain military access along the Spanish road which communicated its European empire and to take control over the Rhine, pretensions that aroused French opposition. And the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs was trying to create a strong national state (they would focus on expanding their territories, obtaining Bohemia, Hungary and later on Poland and some Italian states) and to eradicate Protestantism. So, though France was absolutely against a strongest power for Germany, the Frenchs had to go against the Habsburgs and protect Protestantism. This perfectly embodies the concept of “Politique”, which means politics over religion. States started to notice that there was no sense in continuing to fight between each other due to religious matters; the importance should be placed in …show more content…
Austria, as previously mentioned, expanded its territory, but with some difficulties since it was not physically unified, and decades later a new important problem in relation to the heir of the crown arose: the Emperor Charles the VI died without male descendants, so that his daughter Maria Theresa was the only possible heir, but for that the Salic law had to be abolished. In the end, after a war of succession which involved many European powers, Maria Theresa became Holy Roman Empress.
While Austria was becoming a big Catholic state, the region of Prussia emerged as a new Protestant power, what led to a new situation of rivalry, but within the given status-quo provided by the Peace of Westphalia.
The Peace of Westphalia led to an international notion of order, countries had to do something so as to achieve a better understanding between them in order to maintain international stability. They chose having order and peace over having a complete justice between the different states, in order to reach a balance of