Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/56

 sole causes of continuance. All the princes and statesmen who came successively to participate in the Thirty Years’ War wished to augment their power by triumph. This is true of Ferdinand II. and Maximilian of Bavaria; of Louis XIII., and his minister, Cardinal Richelieu; of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstiern. Having once drawn the sword, the question was the same with all—increase of territory and people. All the words with which they tried to conceal this purpose were empty phrases, which never deceived those who employed them. We would not, however, deny that Ferdinand II. and Gustavus Adolphus, each in his way, regarded themselves as chosen instruments of God, and that their efforts were not, like those of Louis XIII., governed by mere desire of conquest. It is, however, a sad aspect of human life, that no ideal endeavors—the religious any more than the political and national—are fully successful, except in the material ruin of antagonists, and that their representatives, however well disposed, cannot but take into consideration these consequences of success. Such views guide us in the following narrative: whether they furnish a just rule, and whether we, in every instance, rightly apply this rule, we leave to the judgment of our readers.

It is known that the dissensions between the Emperor Rudolph II. and his brother, Matthias, which began in the year 1600, arose chiefly because the former would not come to a decision in regard to the succession in the lands which he ruled. Matthias had, therefore, just cause of complaint, since the house of Hapsburg was surrounded with secret and open enemies, who waited only for op-