International relations (1648–1814)
Major powers sought to maintain a delicate equilibrium to prevent the domination of any single state or coalition, often leading to alliances, territorial adjustments, and military interventions.
Expansion of trade, mercantilist policies, and the development of global markets influenced diplomatic relations, wars, and alliances as states sought to protect and expand their economic interests.
Historian Frederick Nussbaum says it was: The worst came during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) which had an extremely negative impact on the civilian population of Germany and surrounding areas, with massive loss of life and disruption of the economy and society.
Westphalia, in the realist view, ushered in a new international system of sovereign states of roughly equal strength, dedicated not to ideology or religion but to enhance status, and territorial gains.
The new bureaucracy preserved its documents carefully and central archives, maintain a professional office staff, and gained a reputation at home and abroad for the quality of its work in expressing both the short term needs and long-term alliances and values of the state.
[7] King Louis XIV of France worked hard to systematically develop the most sophisticated diplomatic service, with permanent ambassadors and lesser ministers in major and minor capitals, all preparing steady streams of information and advice to Paris.
In the realm of diplomacy, ceremonial methods served to distinguish the relative power and importance of the different countries involved, and facilitated informal discussions among senior diplomats.
Important peacemaking conferences at Utrecht (1713), Vienna (1738), Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), and Paris (1763) had a cheerful, cynical, game-like atmosphere in which professional diplomats cashed in victories like casino chips in exchange for territory.
The war dragged into a stalemate and concluded with the Peace of Nijmegen which resulted in limited territorial gains for the French, mainly at the expense of the Spanish Habsburgs and smaller German princes.
William continued to lead the European opposition to Louis XIV's expansionism the locus of political, financial, and mercantile power slowly shifted from the Amsterdam to London.
The coalition was organized by Pope Innocent XI and included the Papal States, the Holy Roman Empire under Habsburg Emperor Leopold I, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth of John III Sobieski, and the Venetian Republic; Russia joined the League in 1686.
Using a combination of aggression, annexation, and quasi-legal means, Louis XIV set about extending his gains to stabilize and strengthen France's frontiers, culminating in the brief War of the Reunions (1683–1684).
The resulting Truce of Ratisbon guaranteed France's new borders for twenty years, but Louis XIV's subsequent actions – notably his revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 – led to the deterioration of his military and political dominance.
Louis XIV's decision to cross the Rhine in September 1688 was designed to extend his influence and pressure the Holy Roman Empire into accepting his territorial and dynastic claims.
But when Leopold I and the German princes resolved to resist, and when the States General and William III brought the Dutch and the English into the war against France, the French King at last faced a powerful coalition aimed at curtailing his ambitions.
Louis XIV tried to undermine this strategy by refusing to recognize William as king of England, and by giving diplomatic, military and financial support to a series of pretenders to the English throne, all based in France.
Louis XIV also accepted William III as the rightful King of England, while the Dutch acquired their Barrier fortress system in the Spanish Netherlands to help secure their own borders.
Instead of trying to retake these, Charles chose to march directly on Moscow, but due to extremely cold weather, failures in his supply lines and the Russian scorched earth strategy, he was forced to turn towards Ukraine.
It controlled important territory in Europe, especially the Spanish Netherlands ( which eventually became Belgian) and the Franche-Comté province on France's eastern border, as well as a large portion of southern Italy and Sicily.
Utrecht strengthened the sense of useful international law and inaugurated an era of relative stability in the European state system, based on balance-of-power politics that no one country would become dominant.
The last of the Bourbon-Hapsburg dynastic conflicts, the war was nominally over Maria Theresa's right to inherit from her father, Emperor Charles VI, rather than a male heir succeeding.
Most scholars argue that Louis XV's decisions damaged the power of France, weakened the treasury, discredited the absolute monarchy, and made it more vulnerable to distrust and destruction.
[66] Historian George Billias says: Benjamin Franklin, the chief American diplomat in Paris, proved highly popular with elite French opinion, including intellectuals and the Royal court.
On the other end of the political spectrum Robespierre opposed a war on two grounds, fearing that it would strengthen the monarchy and military at the expense of the revolution, and that it would incur the anger of ordinary people in Austria and elsewhere.
On 2 December 1805, Napoleon defeated a numerically superior Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz, forcing Austria's withdrawal from the coalition (see Treaty of Pressburg) and dissolving the Holy Roman Empire.
They liberalised property laws, ended seigneurial dues, abolished the guild of merchants and craftsmen to facilitate entrepreneurship, legalised of divorce, closed the Jewish ghettos and made Jews equal to everyone else.
In addition to effects similar to those in Italy and Switzerland, France saw the introduction of the principle of legal equality, and the downgrading of the once powerful and rich Catholic Church to just a bureau controlled by the government.
However, in the political realm, historians debate whether Napoleon was "an enlightened despot who laid the foundations of modern Europe or, instead, a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler".
[85] The Manchu or Qing regime in Beijing used military force, diplomacy, and reliance on local leaders to extend its domain to western regions where the Han Chinese had not settled, but where Russian expansion was a threat.
[citation needed] The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions.
