Peace of Westphalia

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…the religious difficulties between Catholics and Protestants were eased with the official recognition of both, the Empire was politically crippled when the principle of self-government came to be its undoing. Parts of the Empire were also eaten up by neighboring countries, although this was less important than was the new constitution. The impact of the Peace of Westphalia was immense, as it decreed the future of the German imperial states for some time to come.