In 1648, when the treaties of Westphalia were signed, bringing to an end thirty years of fighting in central Europe, Strasbourg was a free city within the Holy Roman Empire--German in speech, Lutheran in faith. Because of its strategic location on the Rhine, it has ever since been intimately linked with French-German border problems. The city was annexed without a fight by Louis XIV in 1681; Prussian guns captured it for Germany in 1870; World War I made it French again, only to fall to Hitler's Germany. Today, however, the seat of the Community of Europe, it is the composite symbol of European civilization, as nationalism gives way to internationalism under military and economic necessity.