What was the Treaty of Westphalia and why was is so important?

Pre Treaty
In order to know why the Treaty of Westphalia came about and why it is so important you first need to outline what happened before the treaty. The answer to this question is the thirty year war. The thirty year war began in 1618 when Roman emperor Ferdinand II attempted to curtail the religious activities of his subjects. However this sparked a rebellion from the protestants. Ferdinand II Roman Catholic army which was commanded by Albrecht Von Wallenstein  began to try and take command of major protestant regions. However the protestants called for aid from the rest of the protestants in the Roman Catholic Empire. However it did not really help and by 1629 Ferdinand II and his Roman Catholic army had overrun most of Protestant Germany and most of Denmark. Subsequently later on in 1629 Ferdinand then created the Edict of Restitution this therefore reclaiming even more land that hand been owned by the protestants but would now be owned by the Roman Catholic Empire. This now meant that the Holy Roman Empire now stretched across from the edge of France to Poland and from the tip of Denmark down to the very bottom of Italy. However not all of Germany was taken as yet and their was one big turning point that would go onto to save the Protestants. This turning point came from the Swedish army. So in 1930 the Swedish army landed in Germany led by King Gustavus Adolphus and with the help of a subsidy from the French were able to drive the Roman Catholics out of much of Germany by 1931. The protestant revival continued well into 1934 by which time the war had now been taking place for 16 years. However the Spanish stepped in and stopped this semi-revival by the protestants and subsequently pushed them back, as they were a major Allie of Franz II. This then pushed the Protestants out of southern Germany. However this then had consequences elsewhere as France felt threatened, of being encircled by the Catholic movement so they then declared war on Spain in 1935 and then Ferdinand II in 1936. For the next twelve years the war was largely fought on German soil as Armies just maneuvered around in order to try and run each other down. This subsequent wearing down of each other eventually led to the end of the War as armies struggled to relocate and feed their troops.

When  did the treaty begin to be laid out?
Now that we have a greater knowledge of the thirty year war and why this took place. It is now the appropriate time to begin talking about the treaty. The peace conference to end the war began in the December of 1644 and it involved 194 states. These 194 states were represented by 176 representatives but their were also thousands of supporting staff who had to be sheltered and given food and water. The main point that comes from supporting these thousands of supporting staff is that the rest of the country was suffering from mass famine and in some cases this led to Cannibalism. Not only that but the first 6 months of the were spent arguing as to who was to sit were and who should enter room in front of whom. This sounds and is unbelievable as the war was still taking place at this time and populations were starving yet 176 people took 6 months to decided who should sit were. Although this is ridiculous you do also have to bear in mind that this is 1644 so it took over 20 days to send a communication from say Stockholm to Madrid which is a distance of 3,136 km were as now you can catch a flight and be their in just under 4 hours. So this fact that it took so long for the representatives to reach agreements as to who should sit were is partly due to how long it took to travel long distances.

Who benefited from the treaty?
4 years after the original discussions had began the treaty was finally signed from 14:00 on wards on the 24th October 1648. The reason why I have stated the time at which the signing ceremony started is because it took three weeks to organize the ceremony to then start at the set time of 14:00. This then further, supports my point that travel in the 16th century was difficult over long distances and this is why it took 4 years for this treaty to be finally signed by all 194 states. So back to answering the subtitle question who benefited? Well everyone other than the Roman Catholic empire you could say. The treaty gave independence to Switzerland and the Netherlands from Austria and Spain respectively. Sweden gained territory and cash, France also gained the territory of Alsace-Lorraine which is a large strip of land along the border with Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg (5,597 square miles). However one of the major impacts in which the treaty had was that the prospect of a conquest of Europe by the Roman Catholic Empire vanished for ever and Protestantism was in the world to stay.

Why was the treaty so important?
The first reason as to why the Treaty of Westphalia was so important is that it laid down the foundations for the political system of Europe. It did this due to the territorial and geographical arrangements that were laid out within the Treaty for example Switzerland gaining independence. These policy's that were laid out continued to be the basis of the state system up until the French Revolution of 1789. Now that states had their borders now laid out international law came about because of the Treaty. As states began to create their own laws and laws that effected any number of the states were made such as the fact that the problem of war could now be prevented by negotiations. Also the Treaty got rid of the era of religious wars. However it can be argued that it led to some of the bloodiest wars in human history such as World war 1. This reason for this is now that states had set borders they could not longer just take land. This then led to the rivalry between Germany and France over the Rhine land. Germany would go onto occupy much of this land during World War 1. Their is no doubt that the Treaty of Westphalia was a great success and it has outlined states as we know them today. But it has caused some further problems down the line.