(1618–48) Series of intermittent conflicts in Europe fought for various reasons, including religious, dynastic, territorial, and commercial rivalries. The overall war was mainly a struggle between the Habsburg-controlled Holy Roman Empire and the Protestant principalities that relied on the chief anti-Catholic powers of Sweden and the Netherlands. It also involved the rivalry of France with the Habsburg powers, which formed anti-French alliances.
The conflicts began in 1618 when the future Emperor Ferdinand II tried to impose Roman Catholicism on his domains and the Protestant nobles rebelled; the war was sparked by the Defenestration of Prague. The battlefield centred on the principalities in Germany, which suffered severely from plundering armies. Early successes by the Catholic League were countered by military gains by Sweden. When the bloodshed ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the balance of power in Europe had been radically changed. France emerged as the chief Western power, and states of the Holy Roman Empire were granted full sovereignty, establishing a framework for a modern Europe of sovereign states.
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