The
disasters of the Thirty Years' War, the jealousies and ambitions of the
other German princes, the interested intervention of foreign powers,
notably Sweden and France, made it brutally clear that Habsburg
influence in the Germanies had already reached its highest pitch and
that henceforth it would tend gradually to wane.
Blocked in the Germanies, the Austrian Habsburgs looked elsewhere to
satisfy their aspirations. But almost equal difficulties confronted
them. Extension to the southeast in the direction of the Balkan
peninsula involved almost incessant warfare with the Turks. Increase of
territory in Italy incited Spain, France, and Sardinia to armed
resistance. Development of the trade of the Belgian Netherlands aroused
the hostility of the influential commercial classes in England,
Holland, and France. The time and toil spent upon these non-German
projects obviously could not be devoted to the internal affairs of the
Holy Roman Empire. Thus, not only were the Germanies a source of
weakness to the Habsburgs, but the Habsburgs were a source of weakness
to the Germanies.
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