Notes on the Congress of Westphalia and the Thirty Years' War

The Congress of Westphalia (1643-1648) and the Genesis of Modern European Diplomacy

Initiation and the Pope's Role

• The Congress of Westphalia ($1643-1648$) was initially conceived by Pope Urban VIII ($1623-1644$). His primary motivation was to end the bloodshed among Christians.

• Since $1634$, Pope Urban VIII had consistently urged France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire to resolve their differences through a conference mediated by a papal nuncio.

• He, like his predecessors, feared that the prolonged Thirty Years' War ($1618-1648$) would allow the Ottoman Turks to expand into Christian territories.

  • This fear was actualized with the Ottoman invasion of the Venetian-held island of Crete in $1645$. This invasion sparked a war that lasted $24$ years, leading to Ottoman control of Crete until $1898$.

The Idea of a Crusade and France's Evolving Policy

• Throughout the Congress, a persistent underlying idea was to unite Christian powers for a new crusade against the Ottomans.

• Capuchin Father Joseph, Cardinal Richelieu's (France's chief minister) guiding force, initially considered a crusade against Islam as the ultimate goal of French foreign policy.

  • In $1617$, he founded the Order of the Christian Militia specifically to lead an anti-Turkish crusade.

  • He spent eight years composing