 After 1555, the Empire increasingly became a federation of independent states; encouraged by France, Habsburg acceptance of this reality is one of the less acknowledged outcomes of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.France faced the same issue of diverging objectives with its allies.The war coincided with the period of economic supremacy known as the Dutch Golden Age, and by 1640, many Dutch statesmen viewed French ambitions in the Spanish Netherlands as a threat.