Artistwall

The Peace of Westphalia

Münster and Osnabrück (Germany), Basel

Key figures: Johann Rudolf Wettstein, Henri II d’Orléans-Longueville

HLS (German): Peace of Westphalia, Thirty Years’ War

An oasis in the midst of war (1618–1648). The Thirty Years’ War sets the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain and their Catholic allies against France, the Protestant princes, the Netherlands and Sweden, and devastates Germany above all. The Confederation, divided between Catholic and Reformed cantons, repeatedly declares its neutrality and is touched only at the margins. The powers, however, compete for its resources: mercenaries, food, horses and the Alpine passes. The Grisons are drawn in from 1620 in the “Bündner Wirren” over control of the Valtellina; in 1633 Swedish troops pass through Stein am Rhein, and between 1635 and 1639 the army of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar occupies the Prince-Bishopric of Basel. When the Swedes advance towards Lake Constance in 1646, the cantons sign the Defensionale of Wil (1647), providing for a common army of 40,200 men. The writer Grimmelshausen will describe Switzerland as “an oasis of peace and prosperity”.

The problem of Basel. Basel and Schaffhausen joined the Confederation in 1501, after the imperial reform, and still appear in the imperial registers. During the war the Imperial Chamber Court in Speyer accepts appeals against judgments of the Basel courts and brings proceedings against Basel merchants, arguing that the city is still subject to the Empire. To defend itself, Basel asks for a Confederate delegation to attend the peace congress, not least because France, about to gain Alsace, will become a direct neighbour.

Wettstein in Münster (1646–1648). In December 1646 the Basel burgomaster Johann Rudolf Wettstein leaves for Münster with a mandate from only the four Reformed city cantons and the allied towns of Biel and St Gallen; the Catholic cantons are opposed at first. He wants to end the claims of the Imperial Chamber Court and have the old liberties confirmed. With the support of the head of the French delegation, Henri II d’Orléans-Longueville, who as Prince of Neuchâtel has an interest in detaching the Swiss body from the Empire, Wettstein aims higher: recognition of the Confederation’s sovereignty. In February 1647 he finally obtains a mandate from all thirteen cantons.

Exemption from the Empire (24 October 1648). The peace signed on 24 October 1648 consists of two treaties: one between the emperor and France, at Münster, and one between the emperor and Sweden, at Osnabrück. Article 6 of the Treaty of Osnabrück and paragraph 61 of the Treaty of Münster grant Basel and the other cantons “full liberty and exemption from the Empire” and state that they are no longer subject to the imperial courts. This is not the international sovereignty obtained in the same year by the Netherlands, but France and the emperor, for once in agreement, immediately interpret it that way; some imperial jurists will go on regarding the Confederation as part of the Empire until 1803.

The consequences. The de facto independence achieved after the Swabian War of 1499 (see the stage) becomes independence in law. According to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, the experience of the war brings neutrality, national defence and religious tolerance into the political consciousness of elites and people as conditions for survival. But the social and religious tensions kept in check during the war break out soon afterwards, in the Peasants’ War of 1653 (see the stage) and the First Villmergen War of 1656.
Engraved portrait of a bearded man with a white collar, in an oval frame
Portrait of Johann Rudolf Wettstein, 18th-century engraving, Rijksmuseum

Rijksmuseum, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Painting: portrait of a man with a dark beard, a white ruff and a black coat
Samuel Hofmann, portrait of Johann Rudolf Wettstein, 1639, Kunstmuseum Basel

Kunstmuseum Basel, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Room with pale walls, hanging portraits, a large carved fireplace and wooden benches
The Hall of Peace in Münster town hall, 2026

Photo Aquamunda, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

Engraving: a horned creature with wings and bird’s feet leafing through an open book of pictures
The frontispiece of Grimmelshausen’s Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus, 1669, the novel of the Thirty Years’ War

Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Painting: dozens of delegates in dark clothes around a table in a wood-panelled hall raise their hands to swear
Gerard ter Borch, the swearing of the Peace of Münster between Spain and the United Provinces in Münster town hall, 15 May 1648, Rijksmuseum

Rijksmuseum, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Colour map of Europe with the state borders of 1648
Europe after the Peace of Westphalia, 1648, map from Reginald Lane Poole’s Historical Atlas of Modern Europe, Oxford, early 20th century

Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Black memorial slab with a long gilded Latin inscription, topped by a coloured coat of arms
Johann Rudolf Wettstein’s epitaph in Basel Minster

Photo Paradise Chronicle, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0