ABSTRACT
By the seventeenth century the ailing Holy Roman Empire was under threat from both within and without. As France evolved towards a more territorially unified state in the aftermath of religious and civil wars, the Empire was still reeling from the devastating political and economic setback of the Thirty Years War. Seen as a European conflict, this war was a regional power struggle between the Habsburgs and the Bourbons, with the French at first entirely on the defensive. In time, however, French political manoeuvring managed to break through Spanish and Austrian encirclement tactics. By the end of the war France had emerged as the dominant European power, the threat of a universal Habsburg monarchy banished with the aid of Sweden.
