The War Was an Unprecedented Disgrace to the Human Intellect

The war was an unprecedented disgrace to the human intellect…The contrast between the success of modern European minds in controlling almost any situation in which the elements are physical bodies and the forces physical forces, and their inability to control situations in which the elements are human beings and the forces mental forces, left an inedible mark on the memory of everyone who was concerned in it. R.G. Collingwood

It was a disaster unwanted, certainly by most of them, and probably by all of them. What Bethmann Hollweg said to the Prussian Cabinet on 30 July [1914] could perhaps have been said by any of them: “The great majority of the peoples are in themselves peaceful, but things are out of control and the stone has started to roll.”

As evening fell on 3 August, Sir Edward Grey famously said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”

On a ridiculously simple view of history, the decision resulting from these thoughts [ of the Serbian teenager and nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, who killed the Archduke of Austria and his wife], ruined the rest of the twentieth century. If there had been no assassination, there would have been no First World War. The Russian Revolution, Nazism and Second World War can all be seen as coming from the First World War. But the assassins can hardly be help responsible for all this. And it would be harsh to hold them sole responsible even for the outbreak of war in 1914. Who or what was responsible?