Brandenburg-Prussia Catholic armies swept the land back and forth, killing, burning, seizing men and taking the food supplies. Upwards of half the population was killed or dislocated. Berlin and the other major cities were in ruins, and recovery took decades. By the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648, Brandenburg gained Minden and Halberstadt, also the succession in Farther Pomerania (incorporated in 1653) and the Duchy of Magdeburg (incorporated in 1680). With the Treaty of Bromberg (1657), concluded during the Second Northern War, the electors were freed of Polish vassalage for the Duchy of Prussia and gained
Kettle War the economy of the northern Netherlands (namely Amsterdam), but the southern cities were dislodged from their important trading position. The closure of the Scheldt was confirmed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, to which the Spanish agreed. After the War of the Spanish Succession, the Spanish Netherlands had been ceded to Austria by the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714. Since Europe's "Diplomatic Revolution" of 1756, Austria, and thus the Austrian Netherlands, had been in an alliance with France. Prussia, France's former ally, entered into an alliance with Britain. The change, sensational at the time, made nonsense of all the