Prisoner-of-war camp relatively small size of armies, meant there was little need for any form of camp to hold prisoners of war. The Peace of Westphalia, a series of treaties signed between May and October 1648 that ended the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War, contained a provision that all prisoners should be released without ransom. This is generally considered to mark the point where captured enemy combatants would be reasonably treated before being released at the end of the conflict or under a parole not to take up arms. The practice of paroling enemy combatants had begun thousands of
Battle of the Dunes (1658) The victory at the Battle of the Dunes and its consequences would lead to the end of ten years of war with the signing of Treaty of the Pyrenees. By this treaty France gained Roussillon and Perpignan, Montmédy and other parts of Luxembourg, Artois and towns in Flanders, including Arras, Béthune, Gravelines and Thionville, and a new border with Spain was fixed at the Pyrenees. The 1659 treaty also required the Spanish king to recognise and confirm all French gains in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. The defeat of the Spanish relief force and the taking of Dunkirk ended the