In 2023 we celebrate the 375th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War. The silver commemorative medal of the Czech Mint commemorates one of the most important international treaties in the history of modern Europe.

The world had never seen a war like the one that broke out on 23 May 1618 - it lasted for three whole decades and therefore entered history as the Thirty Years' War. The conflict was the culmination of religious disputes between Catholics and Protestants, but an equally important cause was the struggle for political supremacy. The lands of the Bohemian Crown were in the throes of a statesman's revolt, the Dutch provinces were fighting for independence from Spain, and France was seeking to limit the power of the Habsburgs. The protracted war particularly affected Central Europe, where it caused a demographic apocalypse. The Swedish army destroyed 18 000 villages, 1 500 towns and 2 000 castles in Germany. The loss of population was as high as 40%, with a ratio of dead to total population that was 15 times higher than during the Second World War. In the Palatinate, for example, the population fell by an incredible 98%, from 100 000 to just 2 000. The Swedes also left a terrifying legacy in the Czech lands. Whereas Bohemia had 1 700 000 inhabitants before the war, it had only 934 000 of them after the war. Only 500,000 of the 800,000 Moravians remained. Many of the civilians had known nothing but fear, blood and pillage in their lifetime - without government, schools and churches, the people had become numb and savage. The situation was no better on the battlefields, where 600,000 soldiers were killed, and it is not surprising that the parties to the conflict acted to stop hostilities. But these negotiations went on for years - talk in the winter, war in the summer. The desired peace was concluded in the German towns of Münster and Osnabrück in the territory of Westphalia on 24 October 1648. The hegemony of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain was over, France and Sweden took their positions as powers, Switzerland and the Netherlands were independent, but there was no official winner. Millions of lives were lost to fighting, starvation, murder and disease. Some places have not recovered from a catastrophe of monstrous proportions even after hundreds of years…

Medal maker MgA. Tereza Eisnerová dedicated the obverse side of the medal to the three key actors of the Peace of Westphalia, who were the Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, the French King Louis XIV and Cardinal Jules Mazarin. The two-line inscription bears VESTFÁLSKÝ MÍR – 24. ŘÍJNA 1648 (translated as THE PEACE OF WESTFAL - 24 OCTOBER 1648). The reverse side reminds us that the peace was a set of two treaties - the Treaty of Münster and the Treaty of Osnabrück. The Latin phrase CUIUS REGIO, EIUS RELIGIO which literally means “whose realm, their religion“ - simply describes the legal principle which, after the end of the Thirty Years' War, stated that the monarch was entitled to choose the religious declaration for his territory.

A large medal pays tribute to the great event - the weight of the silver coinage is ten troy ounces.