Changes

The Settlement Peace of Augsburg effectively led to the partition of Germany into two separate confessional blocs, one Catholic and the other Protestant, even though they all inhabited the Holy Roman Empire. It wanted sought to establish a balance of power between them to ensure peace in the Empire. The settlement did succeed in establishing a balance of power in Germany but it was never a stable one and it only lasted so long because the Hapsburgs were distracted elsewhere. The Augsburg Treaty had effectively partitioned not only the Holy Roman Empire but also Christendom.<ref> Hale, p. 118</ref> This was the old concept of a common realm that was Christian.  After the Peace of Augsburg , Germany was composed of two separate confessions who did not trust each other and thought saw each other heretics. They both sought to gain an advantage over the other and to increase their territory at the expense of the other. The settlement of Augsburg did end a war but it also copper-fastened the division on the Empire into a Catholic and a Protestant bloc. When the balance of power broke down in 1618, these two mutually hostile religions began a war that was unprecedented in its loss of life and destruction.<ref>Wilson, p. 656</ref>