 The French philosopher Voltaire later distinguished that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, or even an empire any longer.  By the seventeenth century the Holy Roman Empire became several hundred small, separate states.  These separate states where rules by the Holy Roman Empire, there where chosen by seven leading German princes called electors.  In truth the emperors had little power over many rivaling princes.  This contributed to the Thirty Year’s war.  The North had become Protestant and the South had become Catholic.

 The Thirty Year’s War was a series of wars.  It started in Bohemia, the present day Czech Republic.  Ferdinand, The Catholic King of Bohemia, sought to suppress Protestants and to assert royal power over nobles.  In May of 1618, some rebellious Protestant noblemen kicked two royal official out of a castle window in Prague.  This was known as a revolt, called the Defenestration of Prague.  Because of this both sides sought allies, which began as a local conflict widened into a general European war.

 Ferdinand was elected the Holy Roman Empire, a year after this.  He had the support of Spain, Poland, and other Catholic States.  He tried to roll back the Reformation by force.  In the early stages of war, he defeated the Bohemians and their protestant allies.  The protestant powers like the Netherlands and Sweden sent troops into Germany.  After a while political motives outweighed religious issues.  Catholic and Protestant rulers shifted alliances to suit their own interests.  At one point, Catholic France joined Lutheran Sweden again the Catholic Hapsburg.

 This war too a terrible toll.  Armies, soldiers for hire, burned villages, destroyed crops, and killed without mercy.  Murder and torture were followed by famine and disease.  Wolves, not seen in settles areas since the Middle Ages, staled the deserted streets of once-bustling villages.  The war decreased the population vastly.  About one third of the people in the German States may have died as the result of war.

 In 1648, the combatants accepted a series of treaties, it was called the Peace of Westphalia.  So many powers were involved in the conflict, the treaties aspired both to bring about a general European peace and to settle other international problems.  The French gained territory on both Spanish and German frontiers.  The Hapsburgs had to accept the almost total independence of all the princes of the Holy Roman Empire.  In addition the Netherlands and the Swiss Federation won recognitions as independent states.  The Thirty year’s war left German lands divided into more then 360 separate states.  These states still acknowledged the rule of the Holy Roman emperor.  Each state had its own government, currency, church, armed forced, and foreign policy.  The German states, potentially the most powerful nation in Europe if they could be unified, thus remained fragmented fro another 223 years.

 Even though they were weakened by war, Hapsburg still wanted to create a strong united state.  The kept the title of the Holy Roman emperor.  They focused their attention on expanding their own lands.  Austria they would soon add Bohemia, Hungary, and later parts of Poland and some Italian states.

 Uniting these lands proved difficult.  They were divided by geography, they included a number of diverse peoples and cultures as well.  By the 1700s, the Hapsburg Empire included Germans, Magyars, Slavs, and others.  People had their own languages, laws, political assemblies, and customs.  The Hapsburgs did exert some control over these diverse peoples.  They sent German-speaking officials to Bohemia and Hungary and settled Austrians on lands they had seized in these provinces.  They put down revolts in Bohemia and Hungary.  The Hapsburgs never developed a centralized governmental system like that of France.

 In the 1700’s a new challenge threatened Hapsburg Austria.  Emperor Charles VI had no male heir.  His daughter Maria Theresa, she was intelligent and capable, but no woman had yet ruled Hapsburg lands in her own name.  Charles persuaded other European rulers to recognize his daughter’s right to succeed him. When he died, however, any ignored their pledge.

 After Charles death in 1740 Fredrick II of Prussia seized the rich Hapsburg province of Silesia.  This sparked the eight-year “War of the Austrian Succession”  Maria Theresa set off the Hungary to appeal for military help From her Hungarian subjects.  The Hungarian were ordinarily unfriendly to the Hapsburgs.  She made a dramatic plea before an assembly of Hungarian nobles.  The nobles rose to their feet and shouted “Our lives and blood for your majesty”.  She eventually got further help from Britain and Russia, who did not want Prussia to upset the balance of power by gaining new lands.

 Austria was molding a strong Catholic state, a region called Prussia emerged as a new Protestant power.  In the 1600s the Hohenzollern family ruled scattered lands across north Germany.  In the century following the Peace of Westphalia, ambitious Hohenzollern rulers united their holding, creating Prussia.

 1750 the great European powers included Austria, Prussia, France, Britain, and Russia.  These nations formed various alliances to maintain the balance of power.  Prussia battles Austria for control of the German states.  Britain and France competed to develop their overseas empires.  Sometimes these rivalries resulted in a worldwide conflict.  The seven year’s war, which lasted from was fought on four continents  Britain and France also fought in India and Africa.  In North America where the conflict is known as the French or the British.  The treaty of Paris ending these wars gave Britain a huge empire, thus changing Europe’s balance of power for the next hundred years.