With grim purpose Turenne and Wrangel set themselves to make desolate the Bavarian plain, so that it might be rendered incapable of supporting a Bavarian army. Maximilian was reduced to straits such as he had not known since the time when Tilly fell at the passage of the Lech. Sorely against his will he signed, in May, 1647, a separate truce with the enemy. [Sidenote: § 8. Last struggles of the war.] The truce did not last long. In September Maximilian was once more on the Emperor's side. Bavaria paid dearly for the elector's defection. All that had been spared a year before fell a sacrifice to new devastation. The last great battle of the war was fought at Zusmarshausen on May 17, 1648. The Bavarians were defeated and the work of the destroyer went on yet for a while unchecked. In Bohemia half of Prague fell into the hands of the Swedes, and the Emperor was left unaided to bear up in the unequal fight. SECTION II.--_The Treaty of Westphalia._ [Sidenote: § 1. The Peace of Westphalia.] Ferdinand could resist no longer. On the 24th of October, 1648, a few months before Charles I. ascended the scaffold at Whitehall, the Peace of Westphalia was signed. [Sidenote: § 2. Religious settlement.] The religious difficulty in Germany was settled as it ought to have been settled long before. Calvinism was to be placed on the same footing as Lutheranism. New-Year's day 1624 was fixed upon as the date by which all disputes were to be tested. Whatever ecclesiastical benefice was in Catholic hands at that date was to remain in Catholic hands forever. Ecclesiastical benefices in Protestant hands at that date were to remain in Protestant keeping. Catholics would never again be able to lay claim to the bishoprics of the north. Even Halberstadt, which had been retained at the Peace of Prague, was now lost to them. To make this settlement permanent, the Imperial Court was reconstituted. Protestants and Catholics were to be members of the court in equal numbers. And if the judicial body was such as to make it certain that its sanction would never be given to an infringement of the peace, the Catholic majority in the Diet became powerless for evil. [Sidenote: § 3. Political settlement.]