Origins of the Congress of Westphalia

Abstract

Christian IV’s proposal at least had the merit of recognizing Sweden’s necessary role in a coming peace. It was an international war now, and the time when Germans could patch things up by working it out among themselves was over. But it begged the question: what precisely did Sweden want out of the war? When Gustavus made his case for invading the Empire to the Swedish council, he argued that Sweden needed to control possible staging points for an invasion of Sweden’s long coastline—in other words, to control the Empire’s Baltic ports, especially in Pomerania.¹ Although his war manifesto emphasized Swedish security and made little mention of the liberties of Imperial estates, and none at all of the defense of Lutheranism, Gustavus probably shared many of George II’s ideas on religious reform in the Empire. Sweden was a Lutheran state, and Gustavus certainly felt that he was defending the religious liberties of his fellow Protestants by taking on Ferdinand II. But the support of Protestants also served Sweden’s security interests.