Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-24
new WAR PICTURE
TO Be PRESENTED
IN C. ". u. COURSE
Students to Be Taught
Kaiser Probably Tried to
Avert HoStiIitieS.
STORIES OF ATROCITIES
BLAMED ON PROPAGANDA
Historians Now Pin Guilt on Count
Berchtold, Austrian Foreign
Minister.
By THoMAs z. HENRY.

The Kaiser, instead OF plotting the
war, probably did his feeble best to
prevent 1t.
The Lusitania, there is good reason
to believe, was an armed vessel carry
ing war supplies, and Germany had
good evidence Of it.
The Serbian government was aware
for months of the plot to assasSinate
the Archduke Francis Ferdinand Of
Austria, and if it did not actually en-
courage it, did nothing to prevent it.
The stories of German atrocities,
even some of the milder ones, had no
foundation, but in most cases were the
deliberate inventions of propaganda
agencies.
These are some of the conclusions,
still so contrary to the beliefs of the
great majority of Americans nursed
on the current conceptions Of the war
while 1t was in progress, that will be
taught as facts at George Washington
University next semester.
New Course to Be Given.
A new course on the history of Eu-
rope since 1914 will be added to the
curriculum of the history department
and will be taught by Asst. Prof. Lowell
j. Ragatz In the light Of the latest
revelations, said Prof. Ragatz, books
written about the war before 1927 are
obsolete"
This almost complete change of front
In teaching the history of the war,
DR.. Ragatz said, is not a radical de-
parture but presumably Is being made
In nearly all American colleges which
seek to teach the facts without fear
or favor. It has been made possible,
he said, through such a combination
Of circumstances as has followed no
other war In history.
Nd no1afv eNyFNloiYa0G
ernments have refrained from publish
ing their official archives until years
after a war, letting the world believe
what 1t would so long as the principal
actors were still alive. The end of the
World War, however, brought new
deal in governments, placing in power
groups with very little concern for the
feelings of those who had preceded
them. Thus the Bolshevik government of
Russia had no interest In guarding the
regulations of members of the CzarisS
government and published the whole
correspondence. Meantime Germany
and Austria had come under the con-
troll of Socialist groups with little more
tenderness for the old regime and they
also began to bare the correspondence.
France, Belgium, Italy and Great
Britain then were forced to do the same
in self defense.
Regulations Injured.
In most cases the regulations of
prominent statesmen and military lead
ers were injured and they were forced
to publish their own accounts. From
this mass of state papers and private
memoirs, says DR.. Ragatz, the picture
Of the war already is emerging in a
far different light The colleges, DR..
Ragatz said, cannot afford to teach
falsehoods when they are in the position
n. - l.
himself learned concerning the causes
of the war as a graduate student at the
University of Wisconsin few years ago
now Is obsolete and much Of it false, he
said.
"The course viii consist" he said,
altogether of facts brought to light
by other men. / myself have done no
research in this field. But we are in
possession of facts today which ordi-
narfIy could not have come to light
before about 1870 at the earliest Aside
from the World War interval, it Is i'm
possible today to examine the archives
of Great Britain after 1870, of France
after 1910 or even of the United States
after 1880. Historians still must wait
for all the data
Facts now in the possession of his
torians, Dr. Ragatz said, still show the
Kaiser to have been a vain, egotistical,
militaristic man, but they shift most OF
the blame to the shoulders of Count
Berchtold, Austrian foreign minister.
Wilheln's great mistake was in allow
ing Berchtold carte blanche with the
offer Of Germany's backing, but he had
no idea that the Austrian would send
Serbia the kind of ultimatum he did
or that his careleSsnesS would bring
about great war.
Kaiser Practically HelnIess
When Berchtold had "double-crossed"
viii be taught, the latter was practically
helpless in the grip of circumstances,
but there Is evidence that he tried to
prevent the actual war. The Oft
repeated story Of the Potsdam confer
ence Of Wilhelm and German industrial
leaders, in which the latter were ques-
toned about their readiness for war,
DR.. Ragatz said, appears to have been a
complete fabrication, for which AM
bassador Morganthau has admitted that
he was partially responsible through a
misinterpretation.
While Count Berchtold must take
most Of the obloquy now attached to
the German Emperor, the new history
viii picture as the real villain of the
early days of the war a picturesque
but crack-brained Serbian idealist
and murderer, Col. Dragutin Dimitrt-
jevitch, an oficer of the secret service
and the same man who staged the
palace revolution In 1903 which over
threw the old ruling family and placed
the succeeding ruling family under
obligations to him. The memoirs oil
Ljuba Jovanowitch, minister of educa-
ton in the Pashitch cabinet, DR.
Ragatz pointed out, show that members
Of the cabinet were aware of Din1itri-
ievitch's plots against the archduke
and could have put a stop to them.
AS for the German atrocities, Prof
Ragatz says that most Of the propa-
ganda agencies which started the
stories have admitted these patriotic
receptions and nobody believes any
more that German soldiers beheadec
Belgian babies, or treated civilian pop.
ulations with fendish cruelty, or boiled
down the bodies Of their dead for tai.
low. Such stories were Just part o.
the machinery of war. TO excite tn.
hatred Of one people against another.
History Reconstructed.
All these facts, Prof. Ragatz said
are easily available results OF the re.
reconstructed the history of the wal
from state papers and memoirs entirely
without bias IN favor Of any of TIT
combatants. The general public woulC
know them, he said, II It would tax,
the trouble to read the war histories
, issued IN the last two or three years.
And ell sides thought they were fight
ms for the right. We now know,