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IdentificationThe Thirty Years War (1618-1648) had involved almost all European countries, it had cost the lives of countless people and laid cities and huge rural areas bare. The war ended officially with the Treaty of Westphalia, which was signed on 24 October 1648 with great ceremony in the two Westphalian cities of Münster and Osnabrück. The peace treaty was the result of an international peace conference that lasted several years. It was attended by representatives of all the warring powers, and it came to constitute the basis of an altogether new European world order.
The Treaty of Westphalia constituted the official end to one of the most destructive and drawn-out wars in the history of Europe. The Thirty Years War was on the surface a bitter clash between Catholics and Protestants, but in reality it was dominated by anarchistic warlords who regarded war as a source of personal gain and an end in itself. The length and cruelty of the war was a frightening reflection of the fact that the monopoly on the use of armed force had eluded the heads of state. The peace treaty underlined very clearly the state sovereign principle and the obligation of the heads of state to strive for peaceful solutions to conflict instead of settlements based on war. It was a significant expression of the fact that secular rulers had eventually succeeded in placing state reason and secular law and order above anarchistic use of violence and religious fanaticism. War became subsequently, to a much greater extent than earlier, an instrument in the service of state politics and a tool that was controlled by responsible political decision-makers. In itself, the peace conference was a significant reflection of a new era. Up until then, it had been common for the pope and emperor as the grandest worldly representatives of divine justice to act as mediators in international conflicts. The peace treaty in Westphalia was, by contrast, a product of equal negotiations between diplomatic representatives of all the warring parties. The Westphalian method came to constitute a model for all subsequent major peace conferences in the history of Europe. With the peace treaty in 1648, an important new principle was introduced in European political reality, i.e. the principle of tolerance in regard to both religion and systems of government. The treaty established that states that subscribed to different religious faiths should be able to live peacefully together, in the same way as different forms of government (monarchies, republics or mixed forms) should not be an obstacle to future peaceful coexistence. The powerful emphasis of the treaty on the importance of respect for diversity and differences at the practical level was later given a philosophical form by Baruch Spinoza and John Locke. Especially Lockes demand for tolerance became an important part of the thinking that subsequently shaped the democratic ideas.
“The Westphalia concept – giving legal status to a
growing exercise of authority on a national level –
has provided the main outline of structure and
process in international society up to and including
the present period. Sovereign states remain the
dominant actors in international society and the
contents of international law in its most formal sense
is the result of voluntary action by states.”
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This page is part of the electronic publication "The Danish Democracy Canon"