[lit-ideas] Re: The Peace of Westphalia
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:58:48 -0700
joerg benesch:
I write that Catholics and Protestants would after the Peace of Westphalia
settle their differences by diplomacy rather than war. And you produce
World War I and a number of other wars not involving religious differences
as arguments against what I have written. You do realize that World War
One, et al were not fought for religious reasons, don?t you?
Catholics and Protestants fought wars against each other on a regular basis
up until the Peace of Westphalia. After that they settled their differences
peacefully. The subject Irene broached was the nature of the Peace of
Westphalia. I was taking issue with what Irene said. The Peace of
Westphalia did not cause additional wars. Read what it did. It settled
things in such a way that wars would never again in Europe have to be fought
for religious reasons. I never said that it eliminated all war. Yes wars
would be fought for other reasons in the future, but the Peace of Westphalia
did not cause them (unless you entertain the idea of German Imperialism,
Socialism or Fundamentalist Islam). Years later when the threats of Fascism
and Communism were eliminated it clicked into place as an important
milestone. One can now say in Europe that war has been eliminated: in
Europe and in the Western Democracies. We see it as comprising an important
difference between the West and Islam.
I know of only three segments of thought that would agree with what Irene
said. Those who felt Germany was being inhibited from coming together as a
great empire, and the Socialists who thought that nation states would become
irrelevant when the dictatorship of the proletariat conquered Capitalism.
One can add the Islamist Ummah as defined by Sayyid Qutb. You and Irene
imply that the Peace of Westphalia, the treaty that ended the Thirty Years
War caused the wars that followed, but this is absurd. The peace of
Westphalia eliminated war for religious reasons in Europe. The only thing
it hampered was German Imperial ambitions, Socialism & Islamism. If you
have evidence to the contrary, produce it.
Here is another article from Wikipedia describing the political consequences
of the Peace of Westphalia -- also the consequences of the Thirty Years War
which was not something Irene mentioned and not something I was previously
responding to:
Political consequences
A result of the war, was the enshrinement of a Germany divided among many
territories, all of which, despite their membership of the Empire, had de
facto sovereignty. This significantly hampered the power of the Holy Roman
Empire and decentralized German power. It has been speculated that this
weakness was a long-term underlying cause of later militant German
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism> Romantic nationalism.
The Thirty Years' War rearranged the previous structure of power. The
conflict made Spain's military and political decline visible. While Spain
was preoccupied with fighting in France, Portugal ? which had been under
Spanish control for 60 years (since 1580) ? declared itself independent in
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1640> 1640. The
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Braganza> House of Braganza became
the new dynasty of Portugal, beginning with King
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_IV_of_Portugal> John IV. Meanwhile, Spain
was finally forced to accept the independence of the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic> Dutch Republic in 1648, ending
the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War> Eighty Years' War.
With Spain weakening and Germany fractured and bled dry, France became the
dominant power in Europe.
This defeat for Spain and imperial forces also marked the decline of
Habsburg power and allowed the emergence of Bourbon dominance.
From 1643?45, during the last years of the Thirty Years' War, Sweden and
Denmark fought in the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_War>
Torstenson War. The result of that conflict and the conclusion of the great
European war at the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia>
Peace of Westphalia in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1648> 1648 helped
establish post-war Sweden as a force in Europe.
The edicts agreed upon during the signing of the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia> Peace of Westphalia were
instrumental in laying the foundations for what are even today considered
the basic tenets of the sovereign nation-state. Aside from establishing
fixed territorial boundaries for many of the countries involved in the
ordeal (as well as for the newer ones created afterwards), the Peace of
Westphalia changed the relationship of subjects to their rulers. In earlier
times, people had tended to have overlapping political and religious
loyalties. Now, it was agreed that the citizenry of a respective nation were
subjected first and foremost to the laws and whims of their own respective
government rather than to those of neighboring powers, be they religious or
secular.
The war had a few other, more subtle consequences:
* The Thirty Years' War marked the last major religious war in
mainland Europe, ending large scale religious bloodshed in
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1648> 1648. There were still religious
conflicts but no great wars.
* The destruction caused by <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary>
mercenary soldiers defied description (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwedentrunk> Schwedentrunk). The war did
much to end the age of mercenaries that had begun with the first
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsknechts> landsknechts, and ushered in the
age of well-disciplined national armies.
* In part because of a desire to avoid destructive wars based on
religious differences, separation of church and state was established in the
United States Constitution.
Lawrence
_____
From: joerg benesch
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:59 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Peace of Westphalia
Lawrence Helm schrieb:
(...)
The Peace of Westphalia marked the end of religious war in the West.
It marked the end of a war that was, like recent wars, fought about prey and
dominance. It marked the final decline of the Holy Roman Empire that had
been the leading European power for 700 years. It marked the beginning of a
300 years age of war. And maybe it also marked the end of religion as a
central means of war propaganda.
Catholics and Protestants would thereafter settle their differences by
means of diplomacy rather than by war.
Interesting point of view - in reality, the Great War stands at the
beginning of an endless series of war and violence, from Louis XIV to Louis
Napoléon mostly at the expense of the German territories; "Catholics and
Protestants" look a bit misplaced here with their peaceful diplomacy.
This Peace was necessary for modern Liberal Democracy.
The thing you exported to Mesopotamia? There's a point, yes, I see.
It was necessary to the idea that Liberal Democracies don?t war with Liberal
Democracies. Islam never had such a peace and so still settles their
religious conflicts with war.
I see even more clearly: you invaded them into chaos so that, after some
thirty years, they can have their Westphalian Peace? So dubya does indeed
have a long term strategie? impressive.
(...)
Also, from Wikipedia, Hitler and ?Socialist academics? were as critical of
the Peace of Westphalia as you are.
I suppose one or both of these criticisms are behind your assertion that
it was behind 20th century conflicts: ?Many German voices in the subsequent
centuries, including Adolf <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler>
Hitler's,
harshly criticized the Treaty of Westphalia for having cemented Germany's
internal divisions for over 200 years (in Austria's case to this day, with
the brief exception of the Anschluss
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss> ). These divisions were blamed for
having hampered Germany's unitary development and preventing it from
achieving a colonial empire rivaling that of France or Britain. (...)
This isn't about criticism, it's about facts. Just mentioning Hitler does
not per se discredit a statement: the Thirty Years' War and its outcome
opened the Pandora's box for 300 years of violence and misery in Europe,
which, for the longest period, hit Germany.
Good night,
Joerg Gruel
forking my late night spaetzles
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