Cologne Peace Congress

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Thirty Years' War continued after the failure of the Peace of Prague in 1635, but since then the peace efforts have not been completely stopped, so that the Cologne Peace Congress took place in 1636/37 .

The congress was suggested by Urban VIII , who had tried since the outbreak of the Spanish-French war through Sondernuntien to find a balance between the great Catholic powers. Representatives of the Emperor, France and Spain took part in the congress in Cologne . The president of the congress was the papal legate Cardinal Marzio Ginetti . The congress ultimately failed because of the delaying tactics pursued by the ambassadors; Congress not only failed, it never got beyond the status of a preliminary stage.

All those involved initially expressed their willingness to take part in the congress, the danger of being viewed as a peace hinder was too great. However, both the government in Vienna and the government in Paris were very critical of the planned congress. The French under Cardinal Richelieu made it a point not to negotiate with Habsburg alone. They wanted Sweden, allied with France, to be represented. Richelieu called for a universal peace congress, the deliberations of which should then take place denominationally separated in two different places. Richelieu continued to hope to make the future order of the empire a subject of negotiation. So he refused to Ferdinand III. to be addressed as emperor even before the congress, since his election did not correspond to the requirements of the imperial constitution. The emperor fought against the demand to admit the imperial estates allied with France to the congress. Only those not involved in the Peace of Prague should now be able to join. From Vienna's point of view, the interior of the empire was largely pacified by the Peace of Prague, while Richelieu called this into question. The congress failed because both sides were unwilling to compromise.

literature

  • Kampmann, Christoph: Europe and the Reich in the Thirty Years War. Stuttgart 2008.
  • Müller, Helmut: Highlights of German History. Mannheim 2007.
  • Schmidt, Georg: The Thirty Years War. Munich 2006.
  • Sturmberger, Hans: uprising in Bohemia. The beginning of the Thirty Years War. Munich 1959.
  • Van Dülmen, Richard (ed.): The emergence of early modern Europe 1550 - 1648. Augsburg 1998.
  • Roeck, Bernd (Hrsg.): German history in sources and representations. Volume 4. Counter Reformation and the Thirty Years War. Stuttgart 2006.