The Old Swiss Confederacy a "de facto" independent state throughout the early modern period, although still nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire until 1648 when the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War. The Swiss Reformation divided the confederates into Reformed and Catholic parties, resulting in internal conflict from the 16th to the 18th centuries; as a result, the federal diet () was often paralysed by hostility between the factions. The Swiss Confederacy fell to invasion by the French Revolutionary Army in 1798, after which it became the short-lived Helvetic Republic. The adjective "old" was introduced after the Napoleonic era with ,
Pomeranian War Frederick's downfall and to humiliate and destroy the Swedish queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, Frederick's sister. The Hats faction was also encouraged to declare war by France, whose wishes were central to the Hats' actions. Frederick's invasion of Saxony in 1756 was used as a pretext for war, being denounced by both Sweden and France as a violation of the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, of which they were both guarantors. On March 21, 1757 the governments of France and Austria agreed a convention in which Sweden and France explained that they had to maintain Germany's freedom in line with