Cardinal Richelieu Research Paper

Under the strategies of Richelieu, France victoriously tipped the balance of power in their favour, leaving the Holy Roman Empire, as described by Voltaire, “neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire”. France’s emergence as the dominant power of Europe must be credited to the sheer genius tactics of Cardinal Richelieu. At first glance, the expected response from France was that it would aid the Hapsburgs in eliminating Protestant forces rising in the Germanic Principalities, yet Richelieu led France to side with the Protestants in order to combat against the unbalanced power of the Hapsburgs. Because he set the religion of the state aside to pursue political interests, Richelieu evidently stands out as a politique, arguing “that the state is above everything, and that religion is a mere instrument to promote the policies of the state.” (Çiçek) As the Thirty Years …show more content…
No longer was religion the main cause for war since there was something much more important: politics. Richelieu had the knowledge that Protestantism was not something Europe could eliminate, which meant that even though France had a religious predominance in Europe, this upper-hand would not allow it to rise as a strong country. Instead, Richelieu turned to the Hapsburg Empire— if France was to defeat this great power, the balance of power would shift in favour of France. Hence, Richelieu used religion as a means to weaken the Hapsburg Empire; in turn, “France became as an outcome the dominant European power, a position it would keep until the collapse engineered by the Napoleonic outstretch.” (Wilson 3) On the other hand, with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia, the Holy Roman Empire lost its ability to dictate Catholicism to any state— the hundreds of princes in Germany were given the right to