Editing Early modern Europe (section)

== Diplomacy and warfare ==
[[File:Herman Moll Map of Europe.jpg|thumb|left|350px|After the [[Peace of Westphalia]] in 1648, Europe's borders were largely stable. 1708 map by Herman Moll]]
{{Main|International relations 1648–1814}}
The 17th century saw very little peace in Europe – major wars were fought in 95 years (every year except 1610, 1669 to 1671, and 1680 to 1682.)<ref>John A. Mears, "The Emergence Of The Standing Professional Army In Seventeenth-Century Europe," ''Social Science Quarterly'' (1969) 50#1 pp. 106–115 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42858465 in JSTOR]</ref>   The wars were unusually ugly. Europe in the late 17th century, 1648 to 1700, was an age of great intellectual, scientific, artistic and cultural achievement.  Historian Frederick Nussbaum says it was:

"prolific in genius, in common sense, and in organizing ability.  It could properly have been expected that intelligence, comprehension and high purpose would be applied to the control of human relations in general and to the relations between states and peoples in particular. The fact was almost completely opposite.  It was a period of marked unintelligence, immorality and frivolity in the conduct of international relations, marked by wars undertaken for dimly conceived purposes, waged with the utmost brutality and conducted by reckless betrayals of allies."<ref>Frederick L. Nussbaum, ''The triumph of science and reason, 1660–1685'' (1953) pp. 147–48.</ref>

The worst came during the [[Thirty Years' War]], 1618–1648, which had an extremely negative impact on the civilian population of Germany and surrounding areas, with massive loss of life and disruption of the economy and society.

=== Thirty Years' War: 1618–1648 ===
[[File:Westfaelischer Friede in Muenster (Gerard Terborch 1648).jpg|right|250px|thumb|[[Treaty of Westphalia]] allowed [[Calvinism]] to be freely exercised.]]
The Reformation led to a [[European wars of religion|series of religious wars]] that culminated in the [[Thirty Years' War]] (1618–1648), which devastated much of [[Early Modern history of Germany|Germany]], killing between 25% and 40% of its entire population.<ref>"[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/195896/history-of-Europe/58335/Demographics#ref=ref310375 History of Europe – Demographics]". Encyclopædia Britannica.</ref> Roman Catholic [[House of Habsburg]] and its allies fought against the Protestant princes of Germany, supported at various times by Denmark, Sweden and France. The Habsburgs, who ruled Spain, Austria, the [[Lands of the Bohemian Crown|Crown of Bohemia]], [[Kingdom of Hungary|Hungary]], [[Slovene Lands]], the [[Spanish Netherlands]] and much of Germany and Italy, were staunch defenders of the Roman Catholic Church. Some historians believe that the era of the Reformation came to a close when Roman Catholic France allied itself with Protestant states against the Habsburg dynasty. For the first time since the days of Martin Luther, political and national convictions again outweighed religious convictions in Europe.

Two main tenets of the [[Peace of Westphalia]], which ended the Thirty Years' War, were:

* All parties would now recognise the [[Peace of Augsburg]] of 1555, by which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and now Calvinism (the principle of ''[[cuius regio, eius religio]]'').
* Christians living in principalities where their denomination was ''not'' the established church were guaranteed the right to practice their faith in public during allotted hours and in private at their will.

The treaty also effectively ended the Papacy's pan-European political power. [[Pope Innocent X]] declared the treaty "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all times" in his bull ''Zelo Domus Dei''. European sovereigns, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, ignored his verdict.<ref name=ODCCWestphalia>Cross, (ed.) "Westphalia, Peace of" ''Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church''</ref>

Scholars taking a [[Realism (international relations)|"realist" perspective]] on wars and diplomacy have emphasized the [[Peace of Westphalia]] (1648) as a dividing line. It ended the [[Thirty Years' War]] (1618–1648), where religion and ideology had been powerful motivating forces for warfare.   Westphalia, in the realist view, ushered in a new international system of sovereign states of roughly equal strength, dedicated not to ideology or religion but to enhance status, and territorial gains. The Catholic Church, for example, no longer devoted its energies to the very difficult task of reclaiming dioceses lost to Protestantism, but to build large-scale missions in overseas colonial possessions that could convert the natives by the thousands Using devoted members of society such as the Jesuits.<ref>Norman Davies, ''Europe: A History'' (1996) pp. 593–94.</ref> According to [[Hamish Scott (historian)|Hamish Scott]], the realist model assumes that "foreign policies were guided entirely by "Realpolitik," by the resulting struggle for resources and, eventually, by the search for what became known as a 'balance of power.'<ref>Hamish Scott, book review in ''English Historical Review'' (Oct 2013) pp. 1239–1241.</ref>

Diplomacy before 1700 was not well developed, and chances to avoid wars were too often squandered.  In England, for example, King Charles II paid little attention to diplomacy, which proved disastrous.  During the Dutch war of 1665–67, England had no diplomats stationed in Denmark or Sweden.  When King Charles realized he needed them as allies, he sent special missions that were uninformed about local political, military, and diplomatic situations, and were ignorant of personalities and political factionalism.  Ignorance produced a series of blunders that ruined their efforts to find allies.<ref>J.R. Jones, ''Britain and the World: 1649–1815'' (1980), pp. 38–39.</ref> King Louis XIV of France, by contrast, developed the most sophisticated diplomatic service, with permanent ambassadors and lesser ministers in major and minor capitals, all preparing steady streams of information and advice to Paris. Diplomacy became a career that proved highly attractive to rich senior aristocrats who enjoyed very high society at royal courts, especially because they carried the status of the most powerful nation in Europe. Increasingly, other nations copied the French model; French became the language of diplomacy, replacing Latin.<ref>Gaston Zeller, "French diplomacy and foreign policy in their European setting." in Carsten, ed., ''The New Cambridge Modern History'' vol. 5 (1961) pp. 198–99, 206.</ref>  By 1700, the British and the Dutch, with small land armies, large navies, and large treasuries, used astute diplomacy to build alliances, subsidizing as needed land powers to fight on their side, or as in the case of the Hessians, hiring regiments of soldiers from mercenary princes in small countries.<ref>Charles W. Ingrao, ''The Hessian mercenary state: ideas, institutions, and reform under Frederick II, 1760–1785'' (2003).</ref> The balance of power was very delicately calculated, so that winning a battle here was worth the slice of territory there, with no regard to the wishes of the inhabitants.  Important peacemaking conferences at Utrecht (1713), Vienna (1738), Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) and Paris (1763) had a cheerful, cynical, game-like atmosphere in which professional diplomats cashed in victories like casino chips in exchange for territory.<ref>Davies, ''Europe'' (1996) pp. 581–82.</ref>