Sidney Bradshaw Fay (April 13, 1876, in
Washington, D.C. – August 29, 1967, in
Lexington, Massachusetts) was an American
historian whose examination of the causes of
World War I, The Origins of the World War (1928; revised edition 1930), remains a classic study. In this book, which won him the 1928
George Louis Beer Prize of the
American Historical Association,[1] Fay argued that Germany was too readily blamed for the war and that a great deal of the responsibility instead rested with the Allies, especially Russia and Serbia. His stance is supported by several modern scholars, such as
Christopher Clark, but it remains controversial.
Fay's conclusion was that all the European powers shared in the blame, but he blamed mostly the system of secret alliances that divided Europe after the
Franco-Prussian War into two mutually suspicious camps of group solidarity:
Triple Alliance against
Triple Entente (Fay's student
Allan B. Calhamer, would later develop and publish the game
Diplomacy, based on this thesis). He considered
Austro-Hungary,
Serbia and
Russia to be primarily responsible for the immediate cause of war's outbreak. Other forces besides
militarism and
nationalism were at work, as the economics of
imperialism and the
newspaper press played roles.[3]