Hessian War died out, and peaked after 1645 in the Hessian War proper. This open warfare began with the Siege of Marburg in 1645 and ended in April 1648 (but before the Treaty of Westphalia which was concluded later that year and ended the Thirty Years' War) with victory going to Hesse-Cassel. In the aftermath, Upper Hesse was divided and parts of its territory went to the now stronger Hesse-Cassel. At a European level the Hessian War must be viewed in the larger context of the Thirty Years' War, in which the reformed Hesse-Cassel sided with the Protestant Swedish party, whilst Hesse-Darmstadt,
Siege of Breda (1624) thereafter. The siege of 1624 captured the attention of European princes and, along with other battles like White Mountain (1620), played a part in the Spanish army regaining the formidable reputation it had held throughout the previous century. In the latter stages of the combined Eighty and Thirty Years' wars that had greatly strained Spanish resources, Breda was lost to the Dutch under Frederick Henry after a four-month siege. In the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty and Eighty Years' wars, it was ceded to the Dutch Republic. There were several motives for Spinola's siege of Breda. Because