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,
Christendom are usually taken to have ended with the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), or arguably, including the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession in this period, with the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. In the 18th century, the focus shifts away from religious conflicts, either between Christian factions or against the external threat of Islamic factions. The European Miracle, the Age of Enlightenment and the formation of the great colonial empires together with the beginning decline of the Ottoman Empire mark the end of the geopolitical "history of Christendom". Instead, the focus of Western history shifts to