The Peace of Westphalia left Germany more divided than
ever. Each one of the larger states was free to coin money, raise armies, make
war, and negotiate treaties without consulting the emperor. In fact, the Holy
Roman Empire had become a mere phantom. The Hapsburgs from now on devoted
themselves to their Austrian dominions, which included more Magyars and Slavs
than Germans. The failure of the Hapsburgs in the Thirty Years' War long
postponed the unification of Germany.
EXHAUSTION OF GERMANY
During the Thirty Years' War Germany had seen most of the
fighting. She suffered from it to the point of exhaustion. The population
dwindled from about sixteen million to one-half, or, as some believe, to
one-third that number. The loss of life was partly due to the fearful
epidemics, such as typhus fever and the bubonic plague, which spread over the
land in the wake of the invading armies. Hundreds of villages were destroyed or
were abandoned by their inhabitants. Much of the soil went out of cultivation,
while trade and manufacturing nearly disappeared. Added to all this was the
decline of education, literature, and art, and the brutalizing of the people in
mind and morals. It took Germany at least one hundred years to recover from the
injury inflicted by the Thirty Years' War; complete recovery, indeed, came only
in the nineteenth century.
