User blog comment:Spritydove/Deeper Thought into the Civil War/@comment-24.127.149.128-20120714023416/@comment-1840877-20120726094520

I don't think Balgruuf is a coward, he just puts the welfare of his hold before anything else -- if you ask him what side he's on, he'll tell you that he's "on the side of Whiterun". He probably just wanted to keep the fighting out of his hold for as long as he could, so that his people would be relatively safe from the war.