Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire as inter and intra confessional hostility momentarily subsided as much of the continent rejoiced in the liberal victories. Mass political organizations and public participation in government became widespread. However, liberal ministers were unable to establish central authority. Provisional governments in Venice and Milan quickly expressed a desire to be part of an Italian confederacy of states; but for the Venetian government this lasted only five days, after the 1848 armistice between Austria and Piedmont. A new Hungarian government in Pest announced its intentions to break away from the Empire and elect Ferdinand its King, and a Polish National Committee announced
History of the Catholic Church in Germany various states within the Empire to increase their power and the Emperor's attempt to achieve the religious and political unity of the Empire. The immediate occasion for the war was the uprising of the Protestant nobility of Bohemia against the emperor (Defenestration of Prague), but the conflict was widened into a European War by the intervention of King Christian IV of Denmark (1625–29), Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1630–48), and France under Cardinal Richelieu, the regent of the young Louis XIV (1635–48). Germany became the main theatre of war and the scene of the final conflict between France and the Habsburgs