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
Peace of Westphalia Peace of Westphalia The Peace of Westphalia () was a series of peace treaties signed between May and October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster, largely ending the European wars of religion. The treaties of Westphalia brought to a close a calamitous period of European history which caused the deaths of approximately eight million people. Scholars have identified Westphalia as the beginning of the modern international system, based on the concept of Westphalian sovereignty. The negotiation process was lengthy and complex. Talks took place in two different cities, as each side wanted to meet on territory under