O debate continua

No History News Network:

Wood's book is valuable because it opens questions like the German breach of Belgium's neutrality as the prime cause for WWI.

Was it? If so, were German intentions misread? Official records muddy rather than clarify.

Thus a book like Wood's that disagrees with current theory is very valuable. And Woods is not the first by any means. Maybe he's just a convenient target because he's supposedly Conservative.

One of the finest iconoclastic books of recent years "The Pity of War" by Niall Ferguson says British intervention in August was not defensive - not a result of the German right invading Belgium. Ferguson insists (with a mountain of circumstancial evidence) that, had the Germans not violated Belgian neutrality, the British would have done so themselves.

John Keegan in his "The First World War" seems to agree, at least partially, on page 33 and blames a series of facts and events (most not in Germany's control) that forced a reluctant breach of Belgian neutrality. Some historians have cited Sir Edward Grey's failures and the Tsar's haste as reasons the Germans miscalculated.

The vast horror of WWI was, all agree, brought on by a series of collosal blunders that may never come unraveled.I believe it never hurts to examine accepted truths of any era or class, and the howls of pain from the Left and the Right only whet my appetite for this book.