The “One Guilty Nation” Myth: Edith Durham, R.W. Seton-Watson and a Footnote in the History of the Outbreak of the First World War

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper will investigate the development of the War Guilt Question in interwar Europe through an examination of the dispute between two of Britain’s leading experts on the Balkans, Mary Edith Durham and R.W. Seton-Watson. The locus of their disagreement centred on the question of Serbian complicity in the plot to murder Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914, and the subsequent debate over their responsibility for the outbreak of War. The dispute was prompted by revelations published by Ljuba Jovanović, former Serb Minister of Public Instruction. The debate over the Serb complicity in the Sarajevo crime, fundamentally shifted the debate over responsibility for the failure of peace in 1914, moving the focus away from Berlin, back to the Balkans.