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| 1646 |
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| Wrangel left Bohemia, united to his own force the Swedish troops under Königsmark in Westphalia, and joined Turenne at Giessen. Swedes and French invaded Bavaria and forced the elector Maximilian to conclude the Truce of Ulm (1647) and to renounce his alliance with the emperor. After Turenne had been recalled, owing to envy in regard to the Swedish successes, and Wrangel had gone to Bohemia, Maximilian broke the truce and joined the imperialists again. | 1 |
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| 1648 |
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| Second invasion of Bavaria by the French and Swedes; terrible ravages. A flood on the Inn prevented the further advance of the allies, who returned to the Upper Palatinate. | 2 |
| Disastrous condition of Germany. Irreparable losses of men and wealth; destruction of towns and trade. Reduction of population; increase of poverty. | 3 |
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| 1648, Oct. 24 |
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| TREATIES OF WESTPHALIA, signed at Münster and Osnabruck. Negotiations from 1643 to 1648. Imperial ambassadors, Count Maximilian Trautmanssdorf and Dr. Volmar. French, Count d'Avaux and Count Servien. Swedish, Count Oxenstierna, son of the chancellor, and Baron Salvius. France and Sweden, against the will of the emperor, secured the participation of the states of the empire in the negotiations. | 4 |
| Political consequences: The German states (about 250) were recognized as sovereign; thus the Holy Roman Empire as an effective political institution ended and the influence of the Habsburgs declined. France, emerging as the dominant European power, acquired sovereignty over the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun; control of Alsace, though title left ambiguous and Strasbourg retained membership in the empire; and the city of Breisach. Sweden gained West Pomerania, including Stettin and the island of Rügen; the archbishopric (but not the city) of Bremen; the bishopric of Veden; Wismar; the island of Pöl; and a large financial indemnity. The Swiss Confederation and the Netherlands were explicitly recognized as independent states. Territorial compensation also went to Brandenburg and Mecklenburg. Religious consequences: Territorial rulers continued to determine the religion of their subjects, but Calvinism was officially recognized and rulers could allow full toleration; peoples were allowed to emigrate to states of their own confessions. Protestant and Catholic states were to be in complete equality in imperial affairs, future disputes to be resolved by compromise. ECONOMIC and SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES: The wars took 8 million lives and population remained at 8 million, where it was in 1618. Although armies were small (by 20th-century standards), they caused terrible destruction agriculturally and commercially. The diversity of growth and decline within the empire before 1618 makes generalizations about the wars' effects dangerous. Certainly, “the Thirty Years' War started a general decline that had not previously existed; at worst, it replaced prosperity with disaster,” according to T.K. Rabb. | 5 |
| The Treaties of Westphalia were guaranteed by France and Sweden. (See European Diplomacy and Wars, 1648–1795) (See The Holy Roman Empire) | 6 |
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| Social and Cultural Developments |
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| Literary output during the Thirty Years' War was sparse: hymns of Paul Gerhardt (1607–76); mystical poems of Angelus Silesius (1624–77), who was indebted to Jakob Böhme (1575–1624); poems and plays of another Silesian, Andreas Gryphius (1616–64), especially his satiric comedy Horribilicribrifax (c. 1650); and the great German prose classic of the century, Simplicissimus (1669), a vivid picture of contemporary life and manners by Hans Jakob von Grimmelshausen (c. 1625–76). Another Silesian, Martin Opitz (1597–1639), won recognition as purifier of the language by his insistence on proper form in Das Buch von der deutschen Poeterey (1624). | 7 |
| Music in the period was chiefly for church use: Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) composed vocal and instrumental music in various forms; his influence was apparent on Buxtehude and J. S. Bach. | 8 |
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