The Debate on the Origins of the First World War

Abstract

During the war Gooch had regarded it as his task to help to preserve as much as possible of intellectual and scholastic life from the embitterment generated by the war. As Gooch wrote in a review article in October 1919:

In the hurricane of rage which has swept over us owing to Germany’s methods of waging war we have been tempted to extend our condemnation from William II to Bismarck and Frederick the Great, and to credit them with a double dose of original sin. Our reputation for sanity and scholarship depends on resisting the distorting passions of war.¹

Historically this meant applying the same standards to each side, politically to work for an eventual peace settlement that had a chance of lasting. Gooch realised from his knowledge of the past that the vanquished had a price to pay for their defeat; but he also recognised that the harsher the settlement, the greater was the cry for revanche. Gooch regretted that a compromise peace had not been achieved long before the guns fell silent once more. While he was relieved that his beloved country had defeated a powerful enemy, he saw dangers in the overwhelming nature of the Allied victory.