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
Portuguese Restoration War at the negotiations for the European settlement-of-settlements, the new "realpolitik" of the peace of Westphalia (1648). With this treaty and the end of hostilities in Catalonia in 1652, Spain was again ready to direct its efforts against Portugal, but it faced a lack of men, resources, and, especially, good military commanders. By 1662, Spain had committed itself to a major effort to end the war. John of Austria the Younger, Philip IV's illegitimate son, led 14,000 men into Alentejo, and, the following year, they succeeded in taking Évora, the major city of the region. The Portuguese, under António Luís de