fortunes of Austria
brightened under the active rule of Ferdinand, who was assisted by
Maximilian of Bavaria and the Catholic League, and by Wallenstein. The
Palatinate was conquered, the Danish king was overthrown, and it seemed
that Austria would establish its predominance over the whole of Germany,
and that the Baltic would become an Austrian lake. The fortunes of Austria
never seemed brighter than in 1628 when Wallenstein began the siege of
Stralsund. [Sidenote: The Swedish and French intervention.] His failure,
followed by the arrival of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany in 1630, proved the
death blow of Austrian hopes. In 1632 Gustavus Adolphus was killed, in 1634
Wallenstein was assassinated, and in 1635 France entered into the war. The
Thirty Years' War now ceased to be a religious struggle between Catholicism
and Protestantism; it resolved itself into a return to the old political
strife between France and the Habsburgs. [Sidenote: The peace of
Westphalia, 1648.] Till 1648 the Bourbon and Habsburg powers continued the
war, and at the peace of Westphalia Austria suffered severe losses.
Ferdinand III. (1637-1657) was forced to yield Alsace to France, to grant
territorial supremacy, including the right of making alliances, to the
states of the Empire, and to acknowledge the concurrent jurisdiction of the
imperial chamber and the Aulic council. The disintegration of the Holy
Roman Empire was now practically accomplished, and though the possession of
the imperial dignity continued to give the rulers of Austria prestige, the
Habsburgs henceforward devoted themselves to their Austrian interests
rather than to those of the Empire.

[Sidenote: Leopold I.]

In 1657 Leopold I., who had already ruled the Austrian dominions for two
years, succeeded his father Ferdinand and was crowned emperor in the
following year. His long reign of 48 years was of great importance for
Austria, as determining both the internal character and the external policy
of the monarchy. The long struggle with France to which the ambitions of
Louis XIV. gave rise, and which culminated in the War of Spanish
Succession, belongs less to the history of Austria proper than to that of
Germany and of Europe. [Sidenote: Wars with Turkey.] Of more importance to
Austria itself was the war with Sweden (1657-60) which resulted in the
peace of Oliva, by which the independence of Poland was secured and the
frontier of Hungary safeguarded, and the campaigns against the