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Philip II of Spain died in 1598, deeply in debt75 and militarily exhausted. His successor, Philip III, had no choice but to call for a truce between Spain and the United Provinces of the Netherlands in 1609. The peace lasted for nine years, only to be broken by a 30 year long and Europe-wide religious war that lasted from 1618 to 1648 and involved most of the continental powers. To complicate matters, the French Bourbons, despite having a Catholic king, fought alongside the Protestants, concerned as they were with being surrounded by Habsburg territories.
Germany felt the brunt of the attack, with entire regions devastated and up to one-quarter of the population killed by war, famine and disease. Other nations were bankrupted. Outside Europe, the war also raged in its nascent colonies with hostilities occurring in Asia, Africa and America. In the East the Dutch waged a tough war against the Portuguese and ended up taking from them most of their possessions, including the lucrative Spice Islands.
Negotiations for peace began in 1643, only to be agreed upon five years later, after interminably long negotiations. The Peace of Westphalia, which was signed in 1648, marked both the end of the 80-year-long Dutch revolt and the Thirty Years War. Christianity, purportedly a religion of peace, had brought death and destruction and permanently divided Europe. It was clear to everyone that change was desperately needed.
The negotiations revealed a new Europe: the Dutch Republic was finally recognised as an independent state and the German territories of the Holy Roman Empire, were given de-facto sovereignty – an action that effectively reduced the power of the Holy Roman Emperor. Such territorial adjustments however, were in many ways only a side story compared with the fundamental changes that occurred.
First, it was agreed that people should be allowed to express their religious opinions freely, a belief that continues to be the basis of civil society. Calvinism, Lutheranism and Catholicism were all recognised equally and religion became separate from the state, and remains separated in most Western countries to this day. Second, the edicts that were signed set the basis for modern-day sovereign nation states as opposed to imperial blocks, with kingship becoming the dominant form of government from that time forward. It established boundaries for the states, many of which remain the same or similar today, and from this time onwards it would be national rivalry, rather than religious disputes, that would lead to wars and cause shifts in the balance of power in Europe.