Ending the Thirty Years War

'War is diplomacy by other means, von Clausewitz's famous doctrine, so familiar to historians of war. But the Thirty Years War took a different course, and war was the prime action, and overtook and relegated diplomacy, and for the first time in European or global history a European conflict became a world war - a 'first world war'. It also involved, crucially, colonial rivalry and 'modern' war crimes.

The Peace of Westphalia 1648 ended the war but there was no absolute victory even for the most powerful states and conflict continued up to peace negotiations until peace articles were finally agreed.

The text analyses the course of war in graphic detail and the major actors and the role of international law, including Civil Law and Canon Law, and here the role of the Catholic church, and Protestant bodies, was crucial.

All leading actors were present from major states - Mazarin (France), Oliveres (Spain), Salvius (Sweden), Charles V (Holy Roman Empire), and host of rulers, states and statelets and the powerful and ruthless Dutch Republic. Great military commanders were major actors including kings (not the great Gustavus Adolphus, who personified the war and was killed in battle in1632), and the most successful Torstenson (Sweden) .

The treaties leading to Westphalia from 1622 to 1648 reflect the course of war and were complex and 'modern' involving human rights, religious toleration, war law, freedom of the seas, refugees, property rights, and perhaps above all, colonial rivalry and expansion. So Westphalia occupies a crucial place in diplomatic and war history and is relevant to modern and even contemporary history.