"POWERFUL RULERS DID NOT WANT WAR"--GOOCH

"I speak of the responsibility rather than the guilt for the World War, and this responsibility is divided," said Mr. G. P. Gooch, prominent British historical writer and former member of Parliament in an exclusive interview to the CRIMSON. Mr. Goode is the author of a number of prominent historical works including the "History of Modern Europe" and "The History of Historians", He is also joint editor of the British Foreign Office Documents 1898-1914. At present Mr. Gooch is delivering a series of lectures on war guilt at the Lowell Institute.

Continuing, Mr. Gooch said, "The first and most definite result of my studies shows no evidence whatever that any of the rulers or prime ministers or foreign secretaries of the great powers desired a World War. The proportion of responsibility attaching to each country and each statesman is a matter of opinion, and complete agreement on these proportions will never be reached. I entirely agree with the famous doctrine of Lloyd George that the statesmen of Europe did not mean war in 1914 but 'stumbled and staggered into it.'

"There are main causes of the great struggle,--the Franco-German antagonism over Alsace and Lorraine; the Anglo-German antagonism about the fleet, and the Austro-Russian antagonism about hegemony in the Balkans. Of these three the last was by far the most important factor in producing the war.

"Relations between England and Germany were at their worst in 1911. But from the Haldane Mission in January, 1912 onward, they had steadily improved. The two countries had amicably agreed on their respective spheres of influence in the Portuguese colonies and in Asiatic Turkey.

"The relations of France and Germany were bad; but no worse in 1914 than they had often been during preceding decades. The tension between Austria and Russia on the other hand had become more and more acute, since the annexation of Bosnia in 1908, and the great question which interested the statesmen and people of both countries was as to who should be Ross in the Balkans. It was a struggle not for territory but for prestige, and in the East of Europe prestige was one of the main foundations of powers.

"I regard Russia and Serbia on the one side, and Germany and Austria on the other as the main authors of the War of 1914. The Western powers, France, England and Belgium were reluctantly dragged into it."

As to which of the four major powers was most responsible for the catastrophe. Mr. Gooch was not prepared to make out a very plausible case for its action.

"Austria desired not territory, but merely wished to keep what she had got. In sending an ultimatum to Serbia, she regarded herself as taking a purely defensive action against a people whose desire to cut off the southern provinces of the Hapsburg empire was not concealed. She would have been wiser, of course, had she taken more pains in the years preceding the war to conciliate her southern Slav subjects, and this was part of the plan of the murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

"It was, however, less the misgovernment of the Hapsburg rulers that produces ferment in Croatia and Bosnia, than the rise of a passionate nationalism in those provinces and a desire to unite with men of their own blood and language in the Serbian kingdom. The justification put forward by the champions of the Jugoslavs is the same as that put forward by the friends of Italian unification, namely, that they had a right to desire racial unity and political independence, and had also a right to fight for it.

"The responsibility of Russia in encouraging the ambitions of Serbia in the years before the War, and in helping her at a critical moment must be judged in the light of her position as the leading Slav power in Europe, and as the champion of the small Balkan States. She had fought for them in 1876 and there was a close feeling of solidarity between the members of the orthodox church. But her decision to draw the sword in 1914 was due less to her sympathy for Serbia than to a desire to restore her prestige; and it was precisely because she had yielded to the pressure of Austria and Germany at the time of the Bosnian crisis that it was considered impossible to yield to their pressure again in 1914.

"The responsibility of Germany for producing the war is indirect rather than direct; neither her government nor her people had the slightest desire for a World War. Instead of dragging Austria into the struggle as most people believed a few years ago, she was dragged in by her ally. That a statesman of Bismarck's strength or Bulow's