How wars ended
The Peace of Westphalia
Envoys negotiated in two cities for five years while the war went on. What came out of it is still treated as a model for talks between enemies
In numbers
30
years of war ended
1618 to 1648
5
years of talks
from 1644, while the fighting continued
2
places of negotiation
Münster and Osnabrück, both declared neutral
- Period
- 1644 to 1648
- Place
- Münster and Osnabrück
- Parties
- Emperor and Empire, Sweden, France and the imperial estates, with Spain and the Netherlands in a treaty of their own
- Outcome
- Two peace instruments of 24 October 1648, the Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugense and the Instrumentum Pacis Monasteriense
What was the Peace of Westphalia?
The Peace of Westphalia consists of two instruments signed on 24 October 1648 in Münster and Osnabrück: the Instrumentum Pacis Osnabrugense between Emperor, Empire and Sweden, and the Instrumentum Pacis Monasteriense between Emperor, Empire and France. Together they ended the Thirty Years War.
A third treaty belongs to the same round of talks. On 30 January 1648 Spain and the Netherlands made peace in Münster, ending a conflict that had run even longer than the war inside the Empire.
The setup was unusual. This was not two parties arguing over one point, but a whole continent working through a bundle of questions that had become entangled over three decades: confession, constitution, territory, compensation. That is why this gathering counts as the first European peace congress.
Who negotiated, and how was it organised?
At the table sat envoys of the Emperor, of Sweden and France, and of the imperial estates, meaning the princes and cities belonging to the Empire. That those estates negotiated in their own right rather than through the Emperor was itself one of the contested questions, and it ended up written into the treaty.
The arrangement solved a practical problem. Because envoys of the Catholic and the Protestant side could not agree on an order of precedence, talks ran in two cities at once: with France in Münster, with Sweden in Osnabrück. Both were declared neutral by the Emperor and demilitarised.
Third parties mediated, among them an envoy of the Pope and the Republic of Venice. Couriers carried drafts between the cities. This ran for five years while the war continued and every battle shifted the positions at the table.
What was agreed?
On confession, the Reformed faith was recognised alongside the Catholic and the Lutheran. For what each confession held, a normative year was fixed, 1 January 1624: whatever applied on that date was to apply again. A matter of faith was thereby turned into a rule of reckoning that could be argued over without negotiating belief itself.
Constitutionally, the imperial estates gained the right to make alliances with outside powers, as long as those were not directed against Emperor and Empire. The Netherlands and the Swiss Confederation left the imperial union. Sweden and France received territory and seats in the imperial diet.
Two provisions made the peace workable: a general amnesty for the acts of the war, and the return of confiscated property. How the armies were to withdraw and be paid was settled only by the Nuremberg execution congress in the two years that followed.
How long did the peace hold?
The arrangements for the Empire held for a good century and a half, until its end in 1806. Wars in Europe continued, but the war of confessions inside the Empire did not return. Measured against the question that had started it, the peace was durable.
Part of the reason lies in its construction. The treaty did not decide the question of faith, it made it negotiable: through the normative year, through procedures for disputes, through the rule that religious matters in the imperial diet were to be settled by agreement rather than by majority. Where a dispute cannot be decided, its rules still can be.
The price was high and had been paid before the peace. In parts of the Empire the war had cost a third of the population and more, emptied whole regions and stretched recovery across generations. The treaty ended the dying; it did not undo it.
What is there to learn from it?
First: you can negotiate while fighting continues. For five years talks and war ran alongside each other. Waiting for the violence to end would not have settled a single question sooner.
Second: a procedure can carry what an agreement cannot. In 1648 the true faith could not be decided. A cut-off date governing what each side held could be decided. That same move, turning an unsolvable dispute into a workable question, stands at the beginning of many successful mediations to this day.
Third: peace does not end with the signature. Only the Nuremberg execution congress settled how the armies withdrew and who paid for them. This unspectacular follow-up work often decides whether a treaty holds. Peace research calls it implementation, and it is the stage at which agreements most often fail.
What follows from it
They negotiated while the fighting went on. Waiting for violence to stop usually means waiting too long.
Sources
How it unfolded
- 23 May 1618The Defenestration of Prague opens a war that spreads across much of Europe over three decades.
- December 1641The Hamburg preliminary treaty settles where and on what terms talks are to be held. The venues are fixed before a single substantive question is.
- 1644Negotiations begin. Emperor and Empire talk to France in Münster and to Sweden in Osnabrück, to avoid disputes over precedence.
- 30 January 1648Spain and the Netherlands make peace in Münster. Their eighty years of war end and Dutch independence is recognised.
- 24 October 1648The two peace instruments are signed. They settle territory, confession and the rights of the imperial estates in one text.
- 1649 to 1650The Nuremberg execution congress settles how the armies withdraw and who pays them. Without that step the treaty stays paper.
- Summer 1650The withdrawal of the foreign armies is complete. Only then does the war end on the ground where it was fought.
More in this series
- The Peace of AugsburgFebruary to September 1555When the dispute over faith could not be decided, the parties agreed to stop fighting it out. That makeshift held for more than sixty years
- The Congress of ViennaOctober 1814 to June 1815After more than twenty years of war, the European powers negotiated a new order in Vienna. What came out of it held longer than anything before it
From history to a mission of your own
Every one of these treaties was the work of people who thought it could be done. The same stance is what it takes on a small scale: in a neighbourhood, a school, a club.
Find your peace mission