[p. 502]
|502| likewise brought about no immediate change for the German Empire; Austria received Breisach and Freiburg back.
This is properly the last peace that the German Empire has concluded.13) If, then, one looks in a tabular survey of the history of the Empire from the Peace of Baden to the Seven Years’ Imperial War and finds neither declarations of war nor conclusions of peace, one would have to believe that Germany had enjoyed the deepest peace in this long period, while its soil has been as much as ever the scene of battles and devastation.
13) In the margin: NB see following page, Peace of Vienna.
The peace treaties which Sweden made after the death of Charles XII with Hanover, Prussia, Denmark and Russia deprived it [not] only of the place among the powers of Europe which had been extorted by its valiant king, but it also lost its power in Germany; yet German state power gained nothing by the latter circumstance, for the lands which Sweden lost passed to German princes, who took its place as a menace to Germany’s unity.
In the Peace of Vienna Germany lost nothing but the connection with Lorraine, which was in any case slight; the ratification of this peace by the Empire did not come about.
In the War of the Austrian Succession Germany was the theatre of protracted devastation. Its greatest princes were involved in it; the armies of foreign monarchs fought one another on its soil, and yet the German Empire was in the deepest peace. The power which had taken the place of Sweden, Prussia, increased in size in this war.
Even more devastating, especially for northern Germany, was the Seven Years’ War. The German Empire did, to be sure, make war this time too, and indeed a war of the eight executions, but its enemies did not even do it the honour
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