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The Settlement 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 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 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>
====ConclusionWas the Peace of Augsburg successful?====The Peace of Augsburg was intended to give Germany a lasting peace and to give it a religious settlement that would prevent future religious wars. The settlement was successful in the sense that it did prevent a general religious war in Germany and Central Europe until 1618. However, the settlement reached at Augsburg in 1555 was fundamentally unstable and its eventual failure was almost guaranteed. Those who drafted the treaty failed to recognize that the growth of Calvinism would destabilize it the agreement and increase sectarian tensions in the Empire. Because they were not covered by the terms of the treaty they often worked against it and this was to lead to conflict in Bohemia that triggered the Thirty Years War.
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