The Westphalian aftermath

Notwithstanding the triumphs and accomplishments of the previous three decades, the Habsburg dominions confronted a number of challenges following the Peace of Westphalia. Above all they desperately needed a period of peace to recover from the wartime devastation wrought by a combination of invading armies and royal tax collectors. Although the dynasty had forged a working relationship with its landholding aristocracy based on loyalty, patronage, and a common faith, the central government still had to convert its essentially disparate dominions into an integrated state; Hungary in particular remained administratively, constitutionally, and confessionally distinct from the rest of the monarchy. Outside the monarchy the renewed emergence of France, and lately Sweden, as powerful and aggressive adversaries compounded the traditional threat posed by the Ottoman empire in the east. Given the impending collapse of Spain and deep divisions that the Thirty Years' War had engendered among his German vassals, the emperor needed to meet these new challenges to the monarchy's security by reestablishing or reviving an effective alternative to the alliance system of the past century. Each of these problems would be resolved by the end of the seventeenth century. Success would not, however, come easily.

Foreign affairs: isolation and insecurity

The monarchy's international position looked especially bleak at midcentury. By itself the Peace of Westphalia had done little to check the continued growth of French and Swedish power, or the emperor's own diplomatic isolation.