Page:Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy, 1738-1914 - ed. Jones - 1914.djvu/422



—Some of the longest and most disastrous wars of modern Europe have been wars of succession. The Thirty Years' War was a war of succession. It arose from a dispute respecting the inheritance of a duchy in the north of Europe, not very distant from that Duchy of Holstein which now engages general attention. Sir, there are two causes why wars originating in disputed succession become usually of a prolonged and obstinate character. The first is internal discord, and the second foreign ambition. Sometimes a domestic party, under such circumstances, has an understanding with a foreign potentate, and, again, the ambition of that foreign potentate excites the distrust, perhaps the envy, of other Powers; and the consequence is, generally speaking, that the dissensions thus created lead to prolonged and complicated struggles. Sir, I apprehend—indeed I entertain no doubt—that it was in contemplation of such circumstances possibly occurring in our time, that the statesmen of Europe, some thirteen years ago, knowing that it was probable that the royal line of Denmark would cease, and that upon the death of the then