What do you think?
Rate this book
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination?
In The Sleepwalkers Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War and its causes. Above all, it shows how the failure to understand the seriousness of the chaotic, near genocidal fighting in the Balkans would drag Europe into catastrophe.
In The Sleepwalkers Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War and its causes. Above all, it shows how the failure to understand the seriousness of the chaotic, near genocidal fighting in the Balkans would drag Europe into catastrophe.
682 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 27, 2012
About the author
Christopher Clark
12 books501 followersSir Christopher Munro Clark FBA is an Australian historian living in the United Kingdom and Germany. He is the twenty-second Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge. In 2015, he was knighted for his services to Anglo-German relations.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,167 reviews
February 10, 2014
In a dugout in northern France, sometime in 1916, three British soldiers try to make sense of one of the most complicated questions of modern history:
So this is the explanation to beat, so far, in my admittedly very limited understanding of the causes of the First World War. The Sleepwalkers is the big modern book to examine the question, and it was greeted with adulatory reviews by a historical community that saw in it a long-awaited replacement for Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August from way back in 1962.
It is often elegantly written, and very extensively researched – it's not unusual to check the footnotes and find nearly a dozen different sources adduced to back up the thread of a single paragraph. This is great. Unfortunately, these feats of compression often result in rather dense, stodgy prose that examines events from a viewpoint that I found far too abstract. Pages and pages of material describe the action on a disembodied state level, like this:
A bit of this is good; whole chapters' worth quickly gets dull. It was probably partly my fault – I happened to read this at a time when I could only really read last thing at night or first thing in the morning, and I found myself constantly nodding off and having to reread paragraphs several times.
Attempts to humanise things by sketching the major personalities involved have their own problems, mainly because the major personalities involved number in the hundreds. I normally hate reviews that go on about all the confusing foreign names, but honestly in this one I was still struggling with the cast list by the end of the book. Kokovtsov, now is he the Russian foreign minister? Or is that Sazonov? Or Sukhomlinov? A reference to Hartwig – he's the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, right? No, the German ambassador in Vienna. Oh wait, neither, he's the Russian ambassador in Belgrade…and so on.
This isn't just a stylistic issue, I think it points up a fundamental problem with the whole book – there's no narrative thread to help you join it all together. The reason it's so hard to follow some of these discussions is because their relevance to 1914-18 is often very unclear. Most of the book is given over to examining various early-twentieth century diplomatic crises like the Bosnian annexation crisis, the Agadir crisis, the two Balkan wars – but there is an irritating lack of clarification over how these issues bear on 1914. As a result the book had, to me, a rather staccato feel.
When, after 400 pages, you finally reach the assassinations in Sarajevo, the effect is like watching a boxed set of Open University lectures and finding Iron Man 3 on the last disc. These chapters are fantastic – but they're not really the point of the book.
For what it's worth, I took three major lessons from it all. The first is to do with the lumbering mechanism of the alliance system that was in force before the war, whereby countries were roped together like mountaineers for safety: and when one fell, everyone else got dragged down into the crevasse. Hence why England, France, Germany and Russia somehow ended up fighting to the death over a glorified border dispute in the Balkans. Because the alliances had ‘tied the defence policy of three of the world's greatest powers to the uncertain fortunes of Europe's most violent and unstable region’.
The second lesson is the sheer amateurishness of contemporary international relations – not just the incompetence of some of the people involved, but the total lack of any trans-national system or process for resolving inter-state disputes. These systemic problems were made even worse by the fact that there was really no clear governmental decision-making process in many of the states involved (as Clark puts it, ‘the volatility inherent in such a constellation was heightened by the fluidity of power within each executive’).
And the third lesson – a consequence of the other two – is the utter pointlessness of the conflict. No one had a good idea of what was being fought for, no one really had much to gain, and, in short, the poor old ostrich really did die for nothing.
PVT. BALDRICK: The way I see it, these days there's a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn't a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is: how did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?
CPT. BLACKADDER: Do you mean, "How did the war start?"
PVT. BALDRICK: Yeah. […] I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.
CPT. BLACKADDER: …I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.
PVT. BALDRICK: Nah, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.
CPT. BLACKADDER: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort not to have a war. […] You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
PVT. BALDRICK: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
CPT. BLACKADDER: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
LT. GEORGE: What was that, sir?
CPT. BLACKADDER: It was bollocks.
(pause)
PVT. BALDRICK: So the poor old ostrich died for nothing.
—Richard Curtis & Ben Elton, Blackadder Goes Forth
So this is the explanation to beat, so far, in my admittedly very limited understanding of the causes of the First World War. The Sleepwalkers is the big modern book to examine the question, and it was greeted with adulatory reviews by a historical community that saw in it a long-awaited replacement for Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August from way back in 1962.
It is often elegantly written, and very extensively researched – it's not unusual to check the footnotes and find nearly a dozen different sources adduced to back up the thread of a single paragraph. This is great. Unfortunately, these feats of compression often result in rather dense, stodgy prose that examines events from a viewpoint that I found far too abstract. Pages and pages of material describe the action on a disembodied state level, like this:
The French government focused from 1911 onwards on strengthening Russian offensive capacity and, in 1912-13 on ensuring that Russian deployment plans were directed against Germany rather than Austria, the ostensible opponent in the Balkans. Increasingly, intimate military relations were reinforced by the application of powerful financial incentives. This policy was purchased at a certain strategic cost, because betting so heavily on enabling Russia to seize the initiative against Germany inevitably involved a certain reduction in French autonomy. That French policy-makers were willing to accept the resulting constraints is demonstrated by their willingness to extend the terms of the Franco-Russian Alliance specifically in order to cover the Balkan inception scenario, a concession that in effect placed the initiative in Russian hands. The French were willing to accept this risk, because their primary concern was not that Russia would act precipitately, but rather that she would not act at all, would grow so preponderant as to lose interest in the security value of the alliance, or would focus her energies on defeating Austria rather than the ‘principal adversary’, Germany.
A bit of this is good; whole chapters' worth quickly gets dull. It was probably partly my fault – I happened to read this at a time when I could only really read last thing at night or first thing in the morning, and I found myself constantly nodding off and having to reread paragraphs several times.
Attempts to humanise things by sketching the major personalities involved have their own problems, mainly because the major personalities involved number in the hundreds. I normally hate reviews that go on about all the confusing foreign names, but honestly in this one I was still struggling with the cast list by the end of the book. Kokovtsov, now is he the Russian foreign minister? Or is that Sazonov? Or Sukhomlinov? A reference to Hartwig – he's the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, right? No, the German ambassador in Vienna. Oh wait, neither, he's the Russian ambassador in Belgrade…and so on.
This isn't just a stylistic issue, I think it points up a fundamental problem with the whole book – there's no narrative thread to help you join it all together. The reason it's so hard to follow some of these discussions is because their relevance to 1914-18 is often very unclear. Most of the book is given over to examining various early-twentieth century diplomatic crises like the Bosnian annexation crisis, the Agadir crisis, the two Balkan wars – but there is an irritating lack of clarification over how these issues bear on 1914. As a result the book had, to me, a rather staccato feel.
When, after 400 pages, you finally reach the assassinations in Sarajevo, the effect is like watching a boxed set of Open University lectures and finding Iron Man 3 on the last disc. These chapters are fantastic – but they're not really the point of the book.
For what it's worth, I took three major lessons from it all. The first is to do with the lumbering mechanism of the alliance system that was in force before the war, whereby countries were roped together like mountaineers for safety: and when one fell, everyone else got dragged down into the crevasse. Hence why England, France, Germany and Russia somehow ended up fighting to the death over a glorified border dispute in the Balkans. Because the alliances had ‘tied the defence policy of three of the world's greatest powers to the uncertain fortunes of Europe's most violent and unstable region’.
The second lesson is the sheer amateurishness of contemporary international relations – not just the incompetence of some of the people involved, but the total lack of any trans-national system or process for resolving inter-state disputes. These systemic problems were made even worse by the fact that there was really no clear governmental decision-making process in many of the states involved (as Clark puts it, ‘the volatility inherent in such a constellation was heightened by the fluidity of power within each executive’).
And the third lesson – a consequence of the other two – is the utter pointlessness of the conflict. No one had a good idea of what was being fought for, no one really had much to gain, and, in short, the poor old ostrich really did die for nothing.
April 26, 2016
For the longest time, I avoided reading about World War I because it seemed too complicated. It was fought for convoluted reasons among now-dead empires in a Europe – and a world – that is now vastly reshaped. I figured my time would be better spent reading another book about Gettysburg.
When I finally made a concerted effort to learn about the Great War (since the Centennial is fast approaching), I discovered its beginnings were actually deceptively simple. The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated in Sarajevo. The Austro-Hungarians blame the Serbs and issue Serbia an ultimatum. The Serbs thumb their noses. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Due to various entangling alliances, a series of national duties and obligations are triggered. Russia joins the war on the side of Serbia. Germany comes in to help Austria-Hungary. France fulfills its obligations to Russia. Germany attacks France through Belgium. Great Britain decides to uphold Belgian neutrality.
Afterwards, there was trench warfare, poison gas, millions dead, a “peace” treaty that gutted Germany and reformed the Middle East, the rise of Hitler, and so on and so forth.
Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is not interested in the mechanistic (and simplified) description that I provided above. Instead, he acknowledges at the outset that my previous instincts were correct: that the causes of World War I are almost impossibly byzantine and complex. Early on, Clark lays out his purpose:
The Sleepwalkers is divided into three parts. The first part is focused firmly on the Balkans, and specifically Serbia. It struck me as I was reading this that I didn't know anything about Serbia, Serbian history, or the pan-Serbian movement in the years before World War I. I knew that Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb and a member of a nationalist movement known as the Black Hand. But that was about all. The Sleepwalkers devotes over a hundred pages filling in the context behind the movement.
Frankly, it isn’t the easiest thing to follow. Especially if you are like me, and go cross-eyed trying to figure out the Balkans. The names are unfamiliar and hard to pronounce; the historical figures are mostly new; and the geography is hard to keep straight. It’s a testament to Clark that his writing kept me engaged and didn't allow me to become entirely lost.
Part two of the book covers more recognizable territory. It deals with a divided Europe sloughing off old antagonisms and forming new ones. Over time, France and Russia became buddies, Germany got wary, and Great Britain tried to stay aloof (while forming a wink-wink-nudge-nudge pact with their old enemies the French).
During this period, Europe also became highly acclimated to ramping up to war. In 1904-05, Kaiser Wilhelm touched off the First Moroccan Crisis with an ill-advised speech in Tangiers. In 1911, there was the Second Moroccan crisis, which saw Germany send a gunboat to Agadir; after Britain sided with France, the Germans had to back down. The years 1912 and 1913 saw the Balkan Wars, precipitated by the Young Turk Revolution and the resulting political instability of the Ottoman Empire. Serbia came out the big winner of the Balkan Wars, which made her even more of a threat to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Following the Balkan Wars, Austria-Hungary’s regional security preparations were in tatters.
The last part of the book deals with the July Crisis itself. Clark does a good job handling well-furrowed ground. His narrative of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, for instance, is fairly gripping:
For obvious reasons, the final third of the book is the most swiftly-paced and engrossing. With good storytelling ability, combined with keen analysis, Clark takes you through the arrest and trial of Gavrilo Princip and his accomplices; the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum; and the Serbian response. As Clark promised at the beginning, he shies away from a mechanical view of the war’s outbreak. There is not a lot of talk of mobilization timetables, which usually get a lot of play in books about the July Crisis. Certainly, the time it took for a country to prepare its army was an important factor. But Clark is more interested in why the decision-makers felt the need to mobilize at all. The various alliances and treaties, after all, were not death pacts. Even as events began to unfold, somebody could’ve stepped up and said, “Hey, should we maybe not go to war over this?”
One thing I’ve definitely learned in spending the last year and a half reading about World War I: No matter how often you hear the story, it never fails to amaze. How an assassination that engendered international sympathy for Austria-Hungary could end – within a month’s time – with most of the world (save Germany) at war with Austria-Hungary. How a murder of an unloved heir in a Balkan backwater could set the world on fire.
It is impossible not to try to pin the blame on this bloody mess on a single country. Post-World War II, it’s almost reflexive to fault Germany, who launched an offensive through Belgium. Indeed, it often seems like we view World War I-era Germany with the Nazi regime of the 1930s and 40s. Austria-Hungary is also one of the usual suspects, since she handed Serbia an ultimatum that Serbia had to reject.
However, as Clark notes, there was plenty of blame to go around. For instance, France and Russia, two of the world’s great powers, oddly decided to bind their fates to that of a violent and turbulent Serbia. In hindsight, that’s maybe not a great idea.
In the end, it’s hard not to reduce the complexities to a rather simple notion. That after years of jockeying for position and forming alliances, the leaders and decision-makers of the various countries wanted to go to war, to settle things for once and all.
When I finally made a concerted effort to learn about the Great War (since the Centennial is fast approaching), I discovered its beginnings were actually deceptively simple. The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated in Sarajevo. The Austro-Hungarians blame the Serbs and issue Serbia an ultimatum. The Serbs thumb their noses. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Due to various entangling alliances, a series of national duties and obligations are triggered. Russia joins the war on the side of Serbia. Germany comes in to help Austria-Hungary. France fulfills its obligations to Russia. Germany attacks France through Belgium. Great Britain decides to uphold Belgian neutrality.
Afterwards, there was trench warfare, poison gas, millions dead, a “peace” treaty that gutted Germany and reformed the Middle East, the rise of Hitler, and so on and so forth.
Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 is not interested in the mechanistic (and simplified) description that I provided above. Instead, he acknowledges at the outset that my previous instincts were correct: that the causes of World War I are almost impossibly byzantine and complex. Early on, Clark lays out his purpose:
This book strives to understand the July Crisis of 1914 as a modern event…It is concerned less with why the war happened than with how it came about. Questions of why and how are logically inseparable, but they lead us in different directions. The question of how invites us to look closely at the sequences of interactions that produced certain outcomes. By contrast, the question of why invites us to go in search of remote and categorical causes: imperialism, nationalism, armaments, alliances, high finance, ideas of national honor, the mechanics of mobilization. The why approach brings a certain analytical clarity, but it also has a distorting effect because it creates the illusion of a steadily building causal pressure; the factors pile up on top of each other pushing down on the events; political actors become mere executors of forces long established and beyond their control…The story this book tells is, by contrast, saturated with agency. The key decision-makers…walked towards danger in watchful, calculated steps. The outbreak of war was the culmination of chains of decisions made by political actors with conscious objectives, who were capable of a degree of self-reflection, acknowledged a range of options and formed the best judgments they could on the basis of the best information they had to hand.
The Sleepwalkers is divided into three parts. The first part is focused firmly on the Balkans, and specifically Serbia. It struck me as I was reading this that I didn't know anything about Serbia, Serbian history, or the pan-Serbian movement in the years before World War I. I knew that Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb and a member of a nationalist movement known as the Black Hand. But that was about all. The Sleepwalkers devotes over a hundred pages filling in the context behind the movement.
Frankly, it isn’t the easiest thing to follow. Especially if you are like me, and go cross-eyed trying to figure out the Balkans. The names are unfamiliar and hard to pronounce; the historical figures are mostly new; and the geography is hard to keep straight. It’s a testament to Clark that his writing kept me engaged and didn't allow me to become entirely lost.
Part two of the book covers more recognizable territory. It deals with a divided Europe sloughing off old antagonisms and forming new ones. Over time, France and Russia became buddies, Germany got wary, and Great Britain tried to stay aloof (while forming a wink-wink-nudge-nudge pact with their old enemies the French).
During this period, Europe also became highly acclimated to ramping up to war. In 1904-05, Kaiser Wilhelm touched off the First Moroccan Crisis with an ill-advised speech in Tangiers. In 1911, there was the Second Moroccan crisis, which saw Germany send a gunboat to Agadir; after Britain sided with France, the Germans had to back down. The years 1912 and 1913 saw the Balkan Wars, precipitated by the Young Turk Revolution and the resulting political instability of the Ottoman Empire. Serbia came out the big winner of the Balkan Wars, which made her even more of a threat to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Following the Balkan Wars, Austria-Hungary’s regional security preparations were in tatters.
The last part of the book deals with the July Crisis itself. Clark does a good job handling well-furrowed ground. His narrative of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, for instance, is fairly gripping:
At first it appeared the shooter had missed his mark, because Franz Ferdinand and his wife remained motionless and upright in their seats. In reality, they were both already dying. The first bullet had passed through the door of the car into the Duchess’s abdomen, severing the stomach artery; the second had hit the archduke in the neck, tearing the jugular vein. As the car roared away across the river towards the Konak, Sophie teetered sideways until her face was between her husband’s knees. Potiorek initially thought she had fainted with shock; only when he saw blood issuing from the archduke’s mouth did he realize something more serious was afoot. Still straddling the running-board and leaning into the passenger compartment, Count Harrach managed to hold the archduke upright by clutching his collar. He heard Franz Ferdinand speaking in a soft voice words that would become famous throughout the monarch: ‘Sophie, Sophie, don’t die, stay alive for our children!’ The plumed helmet, with the green ostrich feathers, slipped from his head. When Harrach asked him if he was in pain, the archduke repeated several times in a whisper ‘It’s nothing!’ and then lost consciousness.
For obvious reasons, the final third of the book is the most swiftly-paced and engrossing. With good storytelling ability, combined with keen analysis, Clark takes you through the arrest and trial of Gavrilo Princip and his accomplices; the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum; and the Serbian response. As Clark promised at the beginning, he shies away from a mechanical view of the war’s outbreak. There is not a lot of talk of mobilization timetables, which usually get a lot of play in books about the July Crisis. Certainly, the time it took for a country to prepare its army was an important factor. But Clark is more interested in why the decision-makers felt the need to mobilize at all. The various alliances and treaties, after all, were not death pacts. Even as events began to unfold, somebody could’ve stepped up and said, “Hey, should we maybe not go to war over this?”
One thing I’ve definitely learned in spending the last year and a half reading about World War I: No matter how often you hear the story, it never fails to amaze. How an assassination that engendered international sympathy for Austria-Hungary could end – within a month’s time – with most of the world (save Germany) at war with Austria-Hungary. How a murder of an unloved heir in a Balkan backwater could set the world on fire.
It is impossible not to try to pin the blame on this bloody mess on a single country. Post-World War II, it’s almost reflexive to fault Germany, who launched an offensive through Belgium. Indeed, it often seems like we view World War I-era Germany with the Nazi regime of the 1930s and 40s. Austria-Hungary is also one of the usual suspects, since she handed Serbia an ultimatum that Serbia had to reject.
However, as Clark notes, there was plenty of blame to go around. For instance, France and Russia, two of the world’s great powers, oddly decided to bind their fates to that of a violent and turbulent Serbia. In hindsight, that’s maybe not a great idea.
In the end, it’s hard not to reduce the complexities to a rather simple notion. That after years of jockeying for position and forming alliances, the leaders and decision-makers of the various countries wanted to go to war, to settle things for once and all.
February 10, 2017
Simply one of the best books on the origins of the Great War. Take it from someone who wrote his master thesis on the pre-war military strategies of Belgium and along the way devoted too much time to the European dimension. Christopher Clark’s summary of the transformation of Europe between 1879 and 1907 from non-committed alliances into two military ‘blocs’ in two pages plus maps is a thing of beauty. The author clearly belongs to the revisionist camp. His identification of the hawks within the governments of the Great Powers correponds largely with the portraits in J.H.J. Andriessen’s “The Other Truth”: Sir Edward Grey, Conrad von Hötzendorf, Raymond Poincaré…etc.
His treatment of the German Empire is the best example. The dogmatic elevation of the Schlieffen plan goes hand in hand with a curiously passive attitude that is a far cry from the Teutonic bombast in the magistral writing of Barbara Tuchman. Enkreisung is not a mere diplomatic cover for ambitions towards world-domination in the controversial vein of Fritz Fischer. Rather, Germany sincerely experienced events as dictated by Russia and its allies. The balance of power slowly but irrevocably swung in their favour, fueled by the French construction of the Entente and the post-1905 Russian rearmament program. “Better war sooner than later” was an attitude found among all Powers, but most prevalent in Berlin. This is well shown in the discussion of the infamous military counsil of december 1912.
The familiar story of the clash of interests on the Balkan is set within the long-term Russian desire for domination of the Straits at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, dating back to the aftermath of the Crimean war. Populist Pan-slavism disguised a pragmatical support for whichever Balkan state gained prominence: Bulgaria at first, Serbia later on. It is interesting to note that a minority propagated a Far East policy in order to reverse the losses of the Russo-Japanese war as soon as the rearmaments would be completed, but this view never gained prominence.
On the Habsburg side, the political friction in the wake of the Compromise of 1867 adds complexity. Hungary, in spite of agressive maygarisation, always read developments on the peninsula in the light of a possible revolt in Transsylvania. Vienna itself most feared the ascent of a South Slav union, possibly resulting in numerous revolts by minorities within Austria-Hungary. In retrospect, this fear was overrated and the sympathy of future emperor Franz Ferdinand for a South Slav union as a third segment within the multiethnic empire politically quite astute.
Many familiar episodes on the road to Ypres situated on the Balkans get the royal treatment: the Balkan Wars, the Baghdad Railway and the German mission to Istanbul, to name a few, are elevated from anecdote to ‘sideshows’ which nonetheless serve as important precedents to 1914. In goes without saying that the story of Sarajevo is explored in depth, with some poignant paralels to the post-9/11 world thrown in for free.
France appears in a more traditional light, focused on the next clash with the German army, if less on the repossession of Alsace-Lorraine. Declasé and Poincaré remain the main characters, with the ambassador twins Carbon in support. These men provided a much-needed element of continuity for the foreign policy of a republic plagued by instable cabinets. It is striking how relentlessly France pressured her Entente partners into military commitment. The best example here is her distress at the Russian plan for a Napoleonic defense in depth, with a concentration in the interior while temporarily minimizing the mobilisation at the western frontiers. Sometimes she overestimated her success, traditionally exemplified by the last-minute reluctance of Great Britain to openly acknowledge joint operations against Germany.
Great Britain, lastly, receives compartively little attention. Three things stand out. First, the civilian sphere, dominated by party politics, exerciced greater control over the military was greater than in any other European power, which explains to a great extent the lack of commitment in spite of assurances by proponents such as Henry Wilson. Edward Grey and Winston Churchill had to overcome the majority of the cabinet at the last moment. Second, German domination of the Atlantic coast was never a primary concern. Rather, the Great Game and the defense of the Raj loomed largest in imperial policy. The origins of the Entente with France must be understood in this context, regardless of their naval cooperation between the Channel and the Mediterranean. The British Empire was willing to appease its Russian rival at the expense of alienating Germany.
This also brings me to the third point, which shocks my Belgian sensibilities. It is commonly presumed that the Brave Little Belgium attitude during WWI was preceeded by a genuine commitment by Great Britain to the preservation of Belgian neutrality. Less commonly known but still within the same attitude is the British preoccupation with the Channel ports and the estuary of the Scheldt, to convenience the assistance of the Royal Navy and an Expeditionary Force to Antwerp, last refuge of the Belgian Army. In reality, Germany was quite right to dismiss the 1831 treaty as a ‘scrap of paper’: Britain was happy to allow a limited intrusion of the German Army through Belgium, preferably south of the Meuse. Ironically, many Belgian politicians likewise considered minimal armed resistance to said intrusion as a fullfillment of their neutrality obligations.
The Balkan Wars, including the ‘Winter Crisis’ of 1912-13, provided Austria with trustworthy precedents for july 1914. Serbia seemed to be in the habit of backing down in the face of a military threat and Russia was reluctant to back her up. The other Great Powers univoquely helped difuse tensions rather than activating their military alliances. In addition, the military shows of force strained the finances of an imperial economy in decline. All together, an all-out war with Serbia appeared increasingly the sole solution to the next Balkan crisis.
The July crisis highlights the common deficiencies of the Great Powers. It is here that the main theme of Sleepwalkers reasserts itself. Minor remarks by biased diplomats or officials were overinterpreted as expressions of official foreign policy, because each country viewed itself in some way as dominated, even overpowered, by its neighbours. This attitude introduced long-term errors in what appeared to be policies based on reason and precedents. Furthermore, most of the political elite was on holiday and few judged the present Balkan crisis to be in need of closer scrutiny than its predecessors.
In a Europe dominated by monarchies, the (in)actions of the sovereigns merrit examination. De facto the book focuses on Wilhelm II and Nicolas II. The Kaiser figures with far less prerogative as traditionally assumed; the Tsar as his equal in indecisiveness. This is pointingly illustrated by their informal mid-river military talk, the implications of which horrified their cabinets back home. George V and emperor Franz Joseph remain virtually invisible.
Unfortunately enough, the story remains equally silent on Italy and the neutral countries, save a brief forray during the July crisis about Swedish neutrality. Irregardless of their limited weight within the international alliance system, the secondary points of view could’ve attributed to the perceptions of Great Power policy. Clark made it as far as occasionally citing Dutch & Belgian ambassadors/consuls; the archives are touched upon but not to full use. Paul Kennedy’s The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914 appears underused in British naval matters such as the 1902 treaty with Japan and the ill-fated Haldane mission. As it is, the array of sources is impressive, with the inclusion of local studies from Serbia, Bulgaria etc. Classics like Albertini’s 3-volume diplomatic analysis (The Origins of the War of 1914, 1941) are used on their own strengths, such as the use of living witnesses to the events of the Belle Epoque.
Read James Joll (The Origins of the First World War, 3 editions) for the facts. Read Barbara Tuchman (The Guns of August)for the atmosphere. Read Christopher Clark for the understanding.
His treatment of the German Empire is the best example. The dogmatic elevation of the Schlieffen plan goes hand in hand with a curiously passive attitude that is a far cry from the Teutonic bombast in the magistral writing of Barbara Tuchman. Enkreisung is not a mere diplomatic cover for ambitions towards world-domination in the controversial vein of Fritz Fischer. Rather, Germany sincerely experienced events as dictated by Russia and its allies. The balance of power slowly but irrevocably swung in their favour, fueled by the French construction of the Entente and the post-1905 Russian rearmament program. “Better war sooner than later” was an attitude found among all Powers, but most prevalent in Berlin. This is well shown in the discussion of the infamous military counsil of december 1912.
The familiar story of the clash of interests on the Balkan is set within the long-term Russian desire for domination of the Straits at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, dating back to the aftermath of the Crimean war. Populist Pan-slavism disguised a pragmatical support for whichever Balkan state gained prominence: Bulgaria at first, Serbia later on. It is interesting to note that a minority propagated a Far East policy in order to reverse the losses of the Russo-Japanese war as soon as the rearmaments would be completed, but this view never gained prominence.
On the Habsburg side, the political friction in the wake of the Compromise of 1867 adds complexity. Hungary, in spite of agressive maygarisation, always read developments on the peninsula in the light of a possible revolt in Transsylvania. Vienna itself most feared the ascent of a South Slav union, possibly resulting in numerous revolts by minorities within Austria-Hungary. In retrospect, this fear was overrated and the sympathy of future emperor Franz Ferdinand for a South Slav union as a third segment within the multiethnic empire politically quite astute.
Many familiar episodes on the road to Ypres situated on the Balkans get the royal treatment: the Balkan Wars, the Baghdad Railway and the German mission to Istanbul, to name a few, are elevated from anecdote to ‘sideshows’ which nonetheless serve as important precedents to 1914. In goes without saying that the story of Sarajevo is explored in depth, with some poignant paralels to the post-9/11 world thrown in for free.
France appears in a more traditional light, focused on the next clash with the German army, if less on the repossession of Alsace-Lorraine. Declasé and Poincaré remain the main characters, with the ambassador twins Carbon in support. These men provided a much-needed element of continuity for the foreign policy of a republic plagued by instable cabinets. It is striking how relentlessly France pressured her Entente partners into military commitment. The best example here is her distress at the Russian plan for a Napoleonic defense in depth, with a concentration in the interior while temporarily minimizing the mobilisation at the western frontiers. Sometimes she overestimated her success, traditionally exemplified by the last-minute reluctance of Great Britain to openly acknowledge joint operations against Germany.
Great Britain, lastly, receives compartively little attention. Three things stand out. First, the civilian sphere, dominated by party politics, exerciced greater control over the military was greater than in any other European power, which explains to a great extent the lack of commitment in spite of assurances by proponents such as Henry Wilson. Edward Grey and Winston Churchill had to overcome the majority of the cabinet at the last moment. Second, German domination of the Atlantic coast was never a primary concern. Rather, the Great Game and the defense of the Raj loomed largest in imperial policy. The origins of the Entente with France must be understood in this context, regardless of their naval cooperation between the Channel and the Mediterranean. The British Empire was willing to appease its Russian rival at the expense of alienating Germany.
This also brings me to the third point, which shocks my Belgian sensibilities. It is commonly presumed that the Brave Little Belgium attitude during WWI was preceeded by a genuine commitment by Great Britain to the preservation of Belgian neutrality. Less commonly known but still within the same attitude is the British preoccupation with the Channel ports and the estuary of the Scheldt, to convenience the assistance of the Royal Navy and an Expeditionary Force to Antwerp, last refuge of the Belgian Army. In reality, Germany was quite right to dismiss the 1831 treaty as a ‘scrap of paper’: Britain was happy to allow a limited intrusion of the German Army through Belgium, preferably south of the Meuse. Ironically, many Belgian politicians likewise considered minimal armed resistance to said intrusion as a fullfillment of their neutrality obligations.
The Balkan Wars, including the ‘Winter Crisis’ of 1912-13, provided Austria with trustworthy precedents for july 1914. Serbia seemed to be in the habit of backing down in the face of a military threat and Russia was reluctant to back her up. The other Great Powers univoquely helped difuse tensions rather than activating their military alliances. In addition, the military shows of force strained the finances of an imperial economy in decline. All together, an all-out war with Serbia appeared increasingly the sole solution to the next Balkan crisis.
The July crisis highlights the common deficiencies of the Great Powers. It is here that the main theme of Sleepwalkers reasserts itself. Minor remarks by biased diplomats or officials were overinterpreted as expressions of official foreign policy, because each country viewed itself in some way as dominated, even overpowered, by its neighbours. This attitude introduced long-term errors in what appeared to be policies based on reason and precedents. Furthermore, most of the political elite was on holiday and few judged the present Balkan crisis to be in need of closer scrutiny than its predecessors.
In a Europe dominated by monarchies, the (in)actions of the sovereigns merrit examination. De facto the book focuses on Wilhelm II and Nicolas II. The Kaiser figures with far less prerogative as traditionally assumed; the Tsar as his equal in indecisiveness. This is pointingly illustrated by their informal mid-river military talk, the implications of which horrified their cabinets back home. George V and emperor Franz Joseph remain virtually invisible.
Unfortunately enough, the story remains equally silent on Italy and the neutral countries, save a brief forray during the July crisis about Swedish neutrality. Irregardless of their limited weight within the international alliance system, the secondary points of view could’ve attributed to the perceptions of Great Power policy. Clark made it as far as occasionally citing Dutch & Belgian ambassadors/consuls; the archives are touched upon but not to full use. Paul Kennedy’s The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914 appears underused in British naval matters such as the 1902 treaty with Japan and the ill-fated Haldane mission. As it is, the array of sources is impressive, with the inclusion of local studies from Serbia, Bulgaria etc. Classics like Albertini’s 3-volume diplomatic analysis (The Origins of the War of 1914, 1941) are used on their own strengths, such as the use of living witnesses to the events of the Belle Epoque.
Read James Joll (The Origins of the First World War, 3 editions) for the facts. Read Barbara Tuchman (The Guns of August)for the atmosphere. Read Christopher Clark for the understanding.
February 16, 2016
In commemoration of the Centennial of WW1, we have also set up a reading group here in GR. Sleepwalkers is one of the suggested books. It deals with the period before the war and is consequently centered on the causes that led to, or I should say brought about, the disaster. But because it is my first book on the political aspects, I felt overwhelmed with the amount of information and baffled by the complexity of the considerations. My judgment has to be taken therefore with more than a pinch of salt.
But I learnt a fair amount and I managed to identify some key issues that I will have to explore further. I may also have to come back to Sleepwalkers to understand Clark’s opinions better as I become more versed in the various controversies.
There is a huge quantity of published material on the subject. On the book category there are already thousands and thousands, and many more will be published this year. But even the printed matter has its own history of how the event was interpreted. History is made and remade. Understanding of they whys, the hows, and the whos, is shaped by its own circumstances and settings and zeitgeist. And Clark is very aware of the tradition of WW1 writing that precedes his own. He is consciously positing his argument therefore in reference to the past discourses.
Stemming from Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty, early scholarship concentrated on responsibilities and incriminations. It was conceived that there had been a specific determination and an ability to carry out that determination. Related to this it was also believed that the fateful succession of events had been inescapable. Behind these views there is a particular understanding of human volition, human infallibility, and the relative power of the individual. Together with these assumptions Clark reminds us that events seem to bring their own sense of inevitability and that their narrative fashions our way of comprehending. We live with the conviction that happenings prove themselves. They are carriers of their own internal causality.
Clark’s choice of a title already reveals what his own alternative narrative is. He maps complex processes in decision-making inside a fragmented network of multiple decision points or agents. In his book he reviews the different power enacting mechanisms in the various countries depending on the degree of autocracy they endured; the different functioning of the various offices of Foreign Affairs; the varying domestic issues and difficulties; the reshuffling and interrelation of social classes; the relative growth in the role of the press and the power of public opinion; the divergent military budgets; the interplay between the political and the military arms of any country; the relative agility of the governments depending on their political structures, etc... Clark presents a splintered setting in which any isolated human act would have to deal with an unpredictable path for reaching its results.
In earlier studies there had also been a trend in viewing the Sarajevo assassination not as the cause for the outbreak of the war but as the excuse for starting something that was to happen anyway. Clark reverses that and puts Serbia back on the center stage from the very dramatic start of this book. He shows that before and behind the murder a very militant and very destabilizing activity had already been going in this newly reborn Kingdom. But Serbia had many problems. Foremost were the money matters --economic and financial--, and these were coupled with a rabid and aggressive nationalism. They engaged in direct confrontation with the bigger powers (Austro-Hungary, Russia and the Ottomans) and sold their soul to the French financiers. And they did all this with the purpose of establishing, aggressively, a pan-Serbian state in the region of the Balkans. Clark then sees WW1 really as the third Balkan war.
He then proceeds with an account of how the balance of power that existed towards the turn of the century was redrawn with a complex dance of shifting allegiances until the outbreak of the war (and there Clark lost me with the very many interlocking steps). Reading this section felt like watching a magician play tricks with a hat. In goes a set of allegiances with Britain as the perennial bachelor, and out come a peculiar couple of creatures that fly out differently. Et voilà!, Europe is now polarized.
In this wizardry he discusses the Kruger telegram; the naval race between Germany and Britain; the complementing combination of capital and science of France with the highly populated Russia; the partition of Africa in the vertical and horizontal axis between Britain and France; the Moroccan crises; the role of perceived masculinity, etc.
What I found most interesting is that in tracking these developments, Clark pays a good deal attention to the weakening of the Ottoman Empire and its implications. He identifies Italy’s invasion of Libya in 1911 as the starting signal for a grabbing race. Of course there were other such similar races in the Far and Middle East, but Clark concentrates on the European Continent and the Mediterranean coast. Incidentally, he also sees this Libyan war, the first to see aerial bombardment, as the seed for modern Arab nationalism with which we live today.
After having identified the demise of the Ottomans together with the pan-Serbian goals as the detonators and the subsequent recalibration of allegiances, Clark proceeds to review the very rapid succession of events in the few months before the outbreak. That means going back to the Balkans and witnessing, slow motion, the assassination on that fatal 28th of June in Sarajevo. For the Serbian group were not jut shooting the unfortunate individuals, but hitting directly and with a fatal blow the very heart of the then European stabilizing center, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The book stops then as the curtain falls after he has projected how a whole band of decision makers proceeded blindly over a ground full of obstructions, hurdles, obstacles, and false indications, and all of them walking in an atmosphere of profound mistrust, heading towards a path in which all the possible ways out were being funneled into that single catastrophe.
January 12, 2024
‘’Ten million died. That’s too many to conceive. Every single one of them, mourned by people who loved them and miss them, with grief consuming half of the world. Here's a funny thing. Austria and Russia, whose quarrel in the Balkans had taken everybody else to the edge, they were the last to declare war on each other. And when they did, nobody really noticed.’’
From the BBC Two TV series ‘’37 days’’, Episode 03, ‘’One Long Weekend’’
The first world war holds a certain mystical aura in my mind. I enjoy reading about the second world war too. But the first world war just feels like something from another era altogether. While I am more intrigued by the Eastern front, there are different aspects of the war that are worth a deep dive. You can read books specializing on the origins of the war, the different theatres of war, the home fronts in the belligerent countries, diplomatic and political strategies during the hostilities or the armistice and the subsequent treaties that more or less brought the war to an end. You can find books written just on the Schlieffen plan, the Zimmerman telegrams, the siege of the fortress city of Przemyśl or if you are interested in naval history, you will find books on the battle of Jutland. The historical literature available has gotten more and more sophisticated, especially after the archives of the former Soviet Union started to open up in the early 90s, yielding documents of genuine historical value. This book is born out of years of scholarship concerning the genesis of the war, utilizing the rich archival documents at hand.
Just how complex is writing a book on the origins of the first world war? In 1991, A history professor from Le Moyne college, by the name of John W. Langdon, wrote a book titled ‘’July 1914: The Long Debate, 1918-1990’’. In it, he conducted a survey that showed the list of books and articles on the origins of WWI would amount to about 25,000 in total. From 1922 until 1926 the Germans published a 40-volume set of diplomatic papers under the title ‘’Die grosse politik der europäischen kabinette, (1871-1914)’’. Harold Temperley and G. P. Gooch compiled an 11-volume set titled ‘’British Official Documents on the Origins of the War (1897-1914)’’. The French had their equivalent in ‘’Documents diplomatiques français (1932-1939)’’. David Lloyd George, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1914, published his 6-volume memoir of the war in the 1930s. There are many other examples of documents in the archives of almost every country that took part in the war. In addition to these there are countless memoirs, military and civilian accounting papers, military attaché reports and letters. So, whichever way you look at it, this is a formidable collection to sift through. All These hurdles have essentially ensured a steady stream of books on the root causes of the war.
This book is divided into three major parts titled Roads to Sarajevo, One Continent Divided and Crisis. It opens with Serb nationalism and the 1903 Coup d'état in Belgrade that shifted Serbia’s allegiance from Austria-Hungary to Russia and France. The main focus of the book remains on The Balkans and Austria-Hungary (whom he characterizes as ‘’An egg with two yolks’’). Clark goes in-depth on the forces that stirred Serbian internal politics to understand the Sarajevo assassination.
In the process, what emerges is years of deteriorating diplomatic relations within powers that were vying for influence in The Balkans namely, Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Russia, Italy, France, The Ottomans and Bulgaria. The intricate diplomatic complexities are superbly presented in the second part of the book. It was an era in which the allegiance system between different European empires, designed to keep the global balance of power in check, was in constant flux. So based on how the book opens and progresses, it’s easy to notice the emphasis Clark places on the Balkans region for the origin of the war. He states;
‘’The First World War was the Third Balkan War before it became The First World War’’
The final part of the book is dedicated to the series of diplomatic crises during the summer of 1914 that led to the outbreak of World War I. These crises are collectively called The July crisis. Triggered by the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie Chotek on June 28, 1914, the July Crisis would culminate with the last declaration of war amongst the belligerents; that between Austria-Hungary and Russia on August 6, 1914 and thus the opening salvos of the war. The key part of the alliance system in Europe was the one between Russia and Serbia. Clark asks a very important question;
‘’Was all this done on Serbia’s behalf alone? Was Russia really willing to risk war in order to protect the integrity of its distant client?’’
Sure, Serbia had a lot of sympathizers in Russian Pan-Slavic circles. But Clark attributes the vigor of Russia’s response to the effect a Balkan instability might have on Russian commercial interests over the Turkish Straits, curbing the Ottoman’s naval dominance in the Black Sea, getting territorial gains should the Ottoman Empire collapse and with the hope that Serbia will occupy Austrian armies should Russia launch their initial attacks in Galicia. British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey’s focus on the French - Russian alliance rather than Serbian irredentism against Austria-Hungary placed German’s backing of Austria in sharp focus, as German intervention necessarily triggered French mobilization plans.
‘’[Sir Edward] Grey ultimately remained true to the Ententise line he had pursued since 1912, but these moments of circumspection remind us of a complicating feature of the July Crisis, namely that the bitter choices between opposed options divided not only parties and cabinets, but also the minds of key decision-makers’’
The eventual British intervention on the side of the Entente (despite ambiguities about the Franco-Russia alliance), served dual purposes; appeasing its rival in Persia and Central Asia (i.e. Russia) and checking the expanding influence of Germany. The time it took to make the intervention and the endless hesitance in the cabinet and even the lack of decisiveness by Sir Edward Grey is one of the most complicated aspects of the July Crisis. Germany’s ultimatum to neutral Belgium on August 2, announcing the former's intention to deploy its forces across the latter’s territory, made British intervention more palatable to those that opposed it. Germany’s ultimatum only served as a fuel that lit the Entente cause with patriotic fervour and moral supremacy. With war being imminent now, what followed were formal war declarations, mobilizations of massive armies like never seen before until that point and termination of diplomatic missions amongst nations in opposing camps. Nobody could’ve predicted they were at the cusp of a new kind of war that would last more than four years and shape the world for decades to come. The leaders were, as Clark puts it
‘’Sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring to the world.’’
Clark explores in some detail the role of military intelligence, diplomacy, domestic politics, public opinion, nationalism and propaganda in influencing the course of events. Amongst the vast pool of literature on the origins of the war, this book can best be described as fairly comprehensive in accommodating the complexities of the series of contingent decisions by the civilian and military leaders of the time. If you have ever watched one of Professor Clark’s lectures on YouTube, you’ll know how brilliant and witty he is. What strikes me the most is how nuanced he is. The book manages to organize and incorporate an immense amount of information into a harmonious and enticing narrative.
January 24, 2016
Εξαιρετικό. Δε θυμίζει κλασικό βιβλίο ιστορίας. Δεν εξιστορεί γεγονότα, εξετάζει όλους τους λόγους που οδηγήθηκε η Ευρώπη στον "μεγάλο πόλεμο". Πολύ χρήσιμο για όλους. Μεγάλο μέρος του βιβλίου αποτελεί η κατάσταση στα Βαλκάνια από το 1870 μέχρι την έναρξη του πολέμου και κυρίως οι διαφορές μεταξύ των λαών,που εξηγούν πολλά, ακόμα και για την πρόσφατη ιστορία της περιοχής. Έμφαση δίνεται στους διπλωματικού�� ελιγμούς μεταξύ των μεγάλων δυνάμεων της εποχής. Λέγεται ότι είναι το καλύτερο ιστορικό βιβλίο για τον Α' Π.Π.. Δεν έχω απόψη γι αυτό, σίγουρα όμως είναι χρήσιμο σε όσους ενδιαφέρονται για την βαλκανική ιστορία.
January 22, 2019
For Austria-Hungary, the Balkan Wars changed everything. Above all, they revealed how isolated Vienna was and how little understanding there was at the foreign chancelleries for its view of Balkan events, St. Petersburg’s hostility to the empire and its utter disregard for Vienna’s interest in the region could be taken for granted. More worrying was the indifference of the other powers.
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went To War in 1914, by Christopher Clark. as its title suggests covers the run-up to World War 1. This book was published in 2012 so it is a recent addition to World War 1 scholarship. At 562 pages, plus some 100 pages of bibliography and references, it is laid out chronologically, more or less, in twelve self contained chapters.
The book does have an academic feel to it at times. It is lengthy and covers a wide berth of nations. As a result, my interest level and engagement while reading was varied. Some chapters were very interesting and what I consider five star material. Others felt academic or were focused too heavily on foreign policy figures such as secretaries of state and chancellors for my liking. There was less material presented on those petulant monarchs, who pushed forward with war, than I was hoping for. After all isn’t Franz Joseph more interesting than Count Leopold Berchtold?
I break down the book into the chapters and give a rating where appropriate. The book is lengthy and fragmented, so I think the chapter by chapter approach is warranted.
1. Serbian Ghosts - This chapter starts with the royal murder in Belgrade in 1903 some eleven years before the events that caused Austria to declare war on Serbia. The chapter starts out strong with the drama surrounding the gruesome demise of King Alexander and Queen Draga. But after twenty pages, the drama of the regicide ends and the next forty pages are Serbia’s next ten years. Unknown and sometimes obscure characters come at the reader and leave the scene with dizzying frequency. Four stars. Recommended.
2. The Empire without Qualities - This chapter disappointed me. Middling marks but only on the strength that there was a fair amount of information I learned about pre-war Hungary which is the overlooked half of Austria-Hungary. However very little on Austria and Franz Joseph. Some good history on Franz Ferdinand’s Czech wife Sophie and that their scandalous marriage initially displeased Franz Joseph and his chamberlain Prince Montenuovo. Sophie was never given the proper title as Archduchess and etiquette that she otherwise deserved. Three stars.
3. The Polarization of Europe, 1887-1907. This chapter was also so-so. We learn about the various treaties between Germany and Russia, Germany and Austria and Italy. Then later, because of the Balkan mess in the early oughts, the Russians turn against the Germans and enter into a treaty with the British and French. I really wanted to see more coverage of the royals in this chapter. Three stars.
4. The Many Voices of European Foreign Policy. This lengthy seventy five page chapter covered the politicians of the major European nations. I did not enjoy this chapter. One could easily argue it was a necessary chapter. Three stars, grudgingly.
5. Balkan Entanglements. This is one of the best chapters, anywhere, that I’ve read on World War One. There is a lengthy discussion of the outsized role that Italy played in escalating the tension in the Balkans starting with their own global conquests in North Africa and the Ottoman empire. As stated, an excellent chapter along with excellent maps. The author details the many nations of the Balkans and emphasizes how the Balkan tension was no more about Muslims vs. Christians than the horrors and inequity of imperialism. The coverage of Russia’s involvement in the Balkans, although thin, was also enlightening. The author objectively presents, as elsewhere in the book, the entanglement as a shared sin that had lasted many centuries. Five stars. Excellent stand alone chapter.
6. Last Chance: Detente and Danger, 1912-1914. Some of the better highlights including how Russia and Nicolas, whether intentional or not, sent combative like signals over the Balkans causing consternation to the Kaiser and German officials who felt hemmed in between France and Russia. As a result Germany felt that to strike early should a war break out would be key to a victory. The German’s also believed that Britain would not stand with their treaty partner Belgium, and of course this naive assumption was later to prove to be Germany’s fatal mistake. Too many government officials to keep straight and less coverage of the monarchs than I would have liked in this chapter but otherwise an informative one. Four stars.
7. Murder in Sarajevo. Covers the drama of the assassination, the Serbian and Austro-Hungarian responses. Serbian officials, who clearly did not want war, were too cavalier about how they responded to the assassination. Although Sarajevo was not part of Serbia, the assassins were trained in Serbia some claim by members of the Black Hand. The author writes “Despite official assurances, the Serbian authorities never conducted an investigation proportionate to the gravity of the crime and the crisis to which it had given rise.” It is possible that war would have happened anyway but diplomatically Serbia could have done more. Five stars. Excellent chapter.
8. The Widening Circle. This is essentially the Sleepwalkers chapter. In this remarkable chapter we learn how blasé many nations were about the events in Sarajevo, especially on the part of countries who were sympathetic to the Serbs. Diplomatic spies for Germany and Austria were reporting that the assassination was being cheered in not just the Balkans but in Russia, where pan-Slav sympathies were genuine, and elsewhere. In some cases the celebrations were exaggerations but clearly diplomacy was failing. Five stars.
9. The French in St. Petersburg. I did not really take away much information from this chapter. Yes the French and Russians were Allies and both nations felt threatened by Germany. Largely a setup for the next chapter. Three Stars.
10. The Ultimatum. Austria gives a ten point ultimatum to Serbia in late July 1914 with a response required in 48 hours. The ultimatum essentially covers the need for Serbia to take responsibility for the assassinations, cease anti-Austrian sentiment, collaborate with Austria to weed out subversive elements in Serbia’s government and take part in a joint investigation of the assassination at all levels. Predictably since Serbia was a sovereign state and they mistakenly felt that Germany would hold back Austria from starting war, they rejected the ultimatum by diplomatically stating that as written Serbia could not accept the conditions. A few days later Austria mobilized her troops and declared war on Serbia, at the time it was viewed as a local war. Five stars.
11. Warning Shots. This chapter covers the week between the Austrian declaration of war and the time it took the other large nations to understand what it all would mean. There was discussion of Russia’s mobilization and Germany's formation of plans for quick strikes against their targets. Germany did not want to not let too much time pass between the assassination and the start of war with the allies. Three to four stars.
12. The Last Days. Covers the final few days before the rest of the big five enter into war. Now Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy’s cabinet leaders and monarchs are whipped into a frenzy of activity as they realize the seriousness of the situation. Military mobilization is occurring while peace negotiations are happening by telegraph. Neutral Belgium, who has an alliance with Britain, is discussed to a large extent. Germany’s plan is to invade France by first going through Belgium. Germany, mistakenly and fatally, believed that Britain would not come to Belgium’s aid. A German legate is to have said of the Belgians “Oh the poor fools! Why don’t they get out of the way they will be ground into the dirt. Oh, the poor fools!” Five Stars.
13. Conclusion. This chapter summarizes the sleepwalking nature of Europe’s initiation of WW1. The author leaves a more objective persona that we saw in rest of the book and instead offers subjective parallels to later wars in the 20th century and recently in Syria. In effect sleepwalking your way to war is still a problem It dovetails nicely with the importance of diplomacy and for nations to listen to one another, most of those things we were taught in kindergarten. Excellent chapter. Five stars.
In summary, the author possesses a great deal of knowledge about the causes of World War 1, has conducted a vast amount of research and synthesized the material all in a manner that has clearly added to the canon of important books of this event. In the end though, at least for me, the differentiation between four star and five star history books boils down to enjoyment. Sometimes the enjoyment can be carried almost exclusively by the novelty of the information and synthesis. However the power of the writing itself and composition does matter. I simply find WW1 historians like Margaret MacMillan and Barbara Tuchman very difficult to match in this regard.
Overall. Four stars.
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went To War in 1914, by Christopher Clark. as its title suggests covers the run-up to World War 1. This book was published in 2012 so it is a recent addition to World War 1 scholarship. At 562 pages, plus some 100 pages of bibliography and references, it is laid out chronologically, more or less, in twelve self contained chapters.
The book does have an academic feel to it at times. It is lengthy and covers a wide berth of nations. As a result, my interest level and engagement while reading was varied. Some chapters were very interesting and what I consider five star material. Others felt academic or were focused too heavily on foreign policy figures such as secretaries of state and chancellors for my liking. There was less material presented on those petulant monarchs, who pushed forward with war, than I was hoping for. After all isn’t Franz Joseph more interesting than Count Leopold Berchtold?
I break down the book into the chapters and give a rating where appropriate. The book is lengthy and fragmented, so I think the chapter by chapter approach is warranted.
1. Serbian Ghosts - This chapter starts with the royal murder in Belgrade in 1903 some eleven years before the events that caused Austria to declare war on Serbia. The chapter starts out strong with the drama surrounding the gruesome demise of King Alexander and Queen Draga. But after twenty pages, the drama of the regicide ends and the next forty pages are Serbia’s next ten years. Unknown and sometimes obscure characters come at the reader and leave the scene with dizzying frequency. Four stars. Recommended.
2. The Empire without Qualities - This chapter disappointed me. Middling marks but only on the strength that there was a fair amount of information I learned about pre-war Hungary which is the overlooked half of Austria-Hungary. However very little on Austria and Franz Joseph. Some good history on Franz Ferdinand’s Czech wife Sophie and that their scandalous marriage initially displeased Franz Joseph and his chamberlain Prince Montenuovo. Sophie was never given the proper title as Archduchess and etiquette that she otherwise deserved. Three stars.
3. The Polarization of Europe, 1887-1907. This chapter was also so-so. We learn about the various treaties between Germany and Russia, Germany and Austria and Italy. Then later, because of the Balkan mess in the early oughts, the Russians turn against the Germans and enter into a treaty with the British and French. I really wanted to see more coverage of the royals in this chapter. Three stars.
4. The Many Voices of European Foreign Policy. This lengthy seventy five page chapter covered the politicians of the major European nations. I did not enjoy this chapter. One could easily argue it was a necessary chapter. Three stars, grudgingly.
5. Balkan Entanglements. This is one of the best chapters, anywhere, that I’ve read on World War One. There is a lengthy discussion of the outsized role that Italy played in escalating the tension in the Balkans starting with their own global conquests in North Africa and the Ottoman empire. As stated, an excellent chapter along with excellent maps. The author details the many nations of the Balkans and emphasizes how the Balkan tension was no more about Muslims vs. Christians than the horrors and inequity of imperialism. The coverage of Russia’s involvement in the Balkans, although thin, was also enlightening. The author objectively presents, as elsewhere in the book, the entanglement as a shared sin that had lasted many centuries. Five stars. Excellent stand alone chapter.
6. Last Chance: Detente and Danger, 1912-1914. Some of the better highlights including how Russia and Nicolas, whether intentional or not, sent combative like signals over the Balkans causing consternation to the Kaiser and German officials who felt hemmed in between France and Russia. As a result Germany felt that to strike early should a war break out would be key to a victory. The German’s also believed that Britain would not stand with their treaty partner Belgium, and of course this naive assumption was later to prove to be Germany’s fatal mistake. Too many government officials to keep straight and less coverage of the monarchs than I would have liked in this chapter but otherwise an informative one. Four stars.
7. Murder in Sarajevo. Covers the drama of the assassination, the Serbian and Austro-Hungarian responses. Serbian officials, who clearly did not want war, were too cavalier about how they responded to the assassination. Although Sarajevo was not part of Serbia, the assassins were trained in Serbia some claim by members of the Black Hand. The author writes “Despite official assurances, the Serbian authorities never conducted an investigation proportionate to the gravity of the crime and the crisis to which it had given rise.” It is possible that war would have happened anyway but diplomatically Serbia could have done more. Five stars. Excellent chapter.
8. The Widening Circle. This is essentially the Sleepwalkers chapter. In this remarkable chapter we learn how blasé many nations were about the events in Sarajevo, especially on the part of countries who were sympathetic to the Serbs. Diplomatic spies for Germany and Austria were reporting that the assassination was being cheered in not just the Balkans but in Russia, where pan-Slav sympathies were genuine, and elsewhere. In some cases the celebrations were exaggerations but clearly diplomacy was failing. Five stars.
9. The French in St. Petersburg. I did not really take away much information from this chapter. Yes the French and Russians were Allies and both nations felt threatened by Germany. Largely a setup for the next chapter. Three Stars.
10. The Ultimatum. Austria gives a ten point ultimatum to Serbia in late July 1914 with a response required in 48 hours. The ultimatum essentially covers the need for Serbia to take responsibility for the assassinations, cease anti-Austrian sentiment, collaborate with Austria to weed out subversive elements in Serbia’s government and take part in a joint investigation of the assassination at all levels. Predictably since Serbia was a sovereign state and they mistakenly felt that Germany would hold back Austria from starting war, they rejected the ultimatum by diplomatically stating that as written Serbia could not accept the conditions. A few days later Austria mobilized her troops and declared war on Serbia, at the time it was viewed as a local war. Five stars.
11. Warning Shots. This chapter covers the week between the Austrian declaration of war and the time it took the other large nations to understand what it all would mean. There was discussion of Russia’s mobilization and Germany's formation of plans for quick strikes against their targets. Germany did not want to not let too much time pass between the assassination and the start of war with the allies. Three to four stars.
12. The Last Days. Covers the final few days before the rest of the big five enter into war. Now Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy’s cabinet leaders and monarchs are whipped into a frenzy of activity as they realize the seriousness of the situation. Military mobilization is occurring while peace negotiations are happening by telegraph. Neutral Belgium, who has an alliance with Britain, is discussed to a large extent. Germany’s plan is to invade France by first going through Belgium. Germany, mistakenly and fatally, believed that Britain would not come to Belgium’s aid. A German legate is to have said of the Belgians “Oh the poor fools! Why don’t they get out of the way they will be ground into the dirt. Oh, the poor fools!” Five Stars.
13. Conclusion. This chapter summarizes the sleepwalking nature of Europe’s initiation of WW1. The author leaves a more objective persona that we saw in rest of the book and instead offers subjective parallels to later wars in the 20th century and recently in Syria. In effect sleepwalking your way to war is still a problem It dovetails nicely with the importance of diplomacy and for nations to listen to one another, most of those things we were taught in kindergarten. Excellent chapter. Five stars.
In summary, the author possesses a great deal of knowledge about the causes of World War 1, has conducted a vast amount of research and synthesized the material all in a manner that has clearly added to the canon of important books of this event. In the end though, at least for me, the differentiation between four star and five star history books boils down to enjoyment. Sometimes the enjoyment can be carried almost exclusively by the novelty of the information and synthesis. However the power of the writing itself and composition does matter. I simply find WW1 historians like Margaret MacMillan and Barbara Tuchman very difficult to match in this regard.
Overall. Four stars.
April 15, 2016
"‘I shall never be able to understand how it happened,’ the novelist Rebecca West remarked to her husband as they stood on the balcony of Sarajevo Town Hall in 1936. It was not, she reflected, that there were too few facts available, but that there were too many."
I have a masochistic, puritan streak that tells me a serious book should be long, dry, dense and exhaustively referenced to flagellate learning into my ignorant body and soul. Barbara Tuchman's sinfully enjoyable The Guns of August left me craving punishment. Christopher Clark cheerfully provides a whipping. The first 100 pages (or 200, I may have blacked out) contain everything you ever wanted to know about Serbian ethno-nationalism. The 100 pages of notes and references tell you where to go for more. I admit not much of this made it past the retina for further processing. And it goes on. God there must be some happy medium? I'd like to give the people who gave glittering reviews a multiple choice exam on the contents to see if anyone retained anything. Or maybe that's not the point.
In lieu of further review, a couple more quotations:
"The outbreak of war in 1914 is not an Agatha Christie drama at the end of which we will discover the culprit standing over a corpse in the conservatory with a smoking pistol. There is no smoking gun in this story; or, rather, there is one in the hands of every major character. Viewed in this light, the outbreak of war was a tragedy, not a crime. Acknowledging this does not mean that we should minimize the belligerence and imperialist paranoia of the Austrian and German policy-makers that rightly absorbed the attention of Fritz Fischer and his historiographical allies. But the Germans were not the only imperialists and not the only ones to succumb to paranoia. The crisis that brought war in 1914 was the fruit of a shared political culture. But it was also multipolar and genuinely interactive – that is what makes it the most complex event of modern times and that is why the debate over the origins of the First World War continues, one century after Gavrilo Princip fired those two fatal shots on Franz Joseph Street."
---
There were isolated expressions of chauvinist enthusiasm for the coming fight, but these were the exception. The myth that European men leapt at the opportunity to defeat a hated enemy has been comprehensively dispelled. In most places and for most people, the news of mobilization came as a profound shock, a ‘peal of thunder out of a cloudless sky’. And the further one moved away from the urban centres, the less sense the news of mobilization seemed to make to the people who were going to fight, die or be maimed or bereaved in the coming war. In the villages of the Russian countryside a ‘stunned silence’ reigned, broken only by the sound of ‘men, women and children weeping’. In Vatilieu, a small commune in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France, the ringing of the tocsin brought workers and peasants into the village square. Some, who had run straight from the fields, were still carrying their pitchforks.
‘What can it mean? What is going to happen to us?’ asked the women. Wives, children, husbands, all were overcome by emotion. The wives clung to the arms of their husbands. The children, seeing their mothers weeping, started to cry too. All around us was alarm and consternation. What a disturbing scene.
An English traveller recalled the reaction in an Altai (Semipalatinsk) Cossack settlement when the ‘blue flag’ borne aloft by a rider and the noise of bugles playing the alarm brought news of mobilization. The Tsar had spoken, and the Cossacks, with their unique military calling and tradition, ‘burned to fight the enemy’. But who was that enemy? Nobody knew. The mobilization telegram provided no details. Rumours abounded. At first everyone imagined that the war must be with China – ‘Russia had pushed too far into Mongolia and China had declared war.’ Then another rumour did the rounds: ‘It is with England, with England.’ This view prevailed for some time. Only after four days did something like the truth come to us, and then nobody believed it.
I have a masochistic, puritan streak that tells me a serious book should be long, dry, dense and exhaustively referenced to flagellate learning into my ignorant body and soul. Barbara Tuchman's sinfully enjoyable The Guns of August left me craving punishment. Christopher Clark cheerfully provides a whipping. The first 100 pages (or 200, I may have blacked out) contain everything you ever wanted to know about Serbian ethno-nationalism. The 100 pages of notes and references tell you where to go for more. I admit not much of this made it past the retina for further processing. And it goes on. God there must be some happy medium? I'd like to give the people who gave glittering reviews a multiple choice exam on the contents to see if anyone retained anything. Or maybe that's not the point.
In lieu of further review, a couple more quotations:
"The outbreak of war in 1914 is not an Agatha Christie drama at the end of which we will discover the culprit standing over a corpse in the conservatory with a smoking pistol. There is no smoking gun in this story; or, rather, there is one in the hands of every major character. Viewed in this light, the outbreak of war was a tragedy, not a crime. Acknowledging this does not mean that we should minimize the belligerence and imperialist paranoia of the Austrian and German policy-makers that rightly absorbed the attention of Fritz Fischer and his historiographical allies. But the Germans were not the only imperialists and not the only ones to succumb to paranoia. The crisis that brought war in 1914 was the fruit of a shared political culture. But it was also multipolar and genuinely interactive – that is what makes it the most complex event of modern times and that is why the debate over the origins of the First World War continues, one century after Gavrilo Princip fired those two fatal shots on Franz Joseph Street."
---
There were isolated expressions of chauvinist enthusiasm for the coming fight, but these were the exception. The myth that European men leapt at the opportunity to defeat a hated enemy has been comprehensively dispelled. In most places and for most people, the news of mobilization came as a profound shock, a ‘peal of thunder out of a cloudless sky’. And the further one moved away from the urban centres, the less sense the news of mobilization seemed to make to the people who were going to fight, die or be maimed or bereaved in the coming war. In the villages of the Russian countryside a ‘stunned silence’ reigned, broken only by the sound of ‘men, women and children weeping’. In Vatilieu, a small commune in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France, the ringing of the tocsin brought workers and peasants into the village square. Some, who had run straight from the fields, were still carrying their pitchforks.
‘What can it mean? What is going to happen to us?’ asked the women. Wives, children, husbands, all were overcome by emotion. The wives clung to the arms of their husbands. The children, seeing their mothers weeping, started to cry too. All around us was alarm and consternation. What a disturbing scene.
An English traveller recalled the reaction in an Altai (Semipalatinsk) Cossack settlement when the ‘blue flag’ borne aloft by a rider and the noise of bugles playing the alarm brought news of mobilization. The Tsar had spoken, and the Cossacks, with their unique military calling and tradition, ‘burned to fight the enemy’. But who was that enemy? Nobody knew. The mobilization telegram provided no details. Rumours abounded. At first everyone imagined that the war must be with China – ‘Russia had pushed too far into Mongolia and China had declared war.’ Then another rumour did the rounds: ‘It is with England, with England.’ This view prevailed for some time. Only after four days did something like the truth come to us, and then nobody believed it.
December 3, 2022
Как прекрачи ли? С ентусиазъм…
28 юни 1914 г. - австроунгарският престолонаследник Франц Фердинанд и съпругата му са застреляни от сръбския терорист (според други - патриот) Гаврило Принцип
28 юли 1914 г. - Австро-Унгария обявява война на Сърбия след изтекъл и отхвърлен 48-часов ултима��ум
1 август 1914 г. - Германия обявява война на Русия
3 август 1914 г. - Германия обявява война на Франция
4 август 1914 г. - Великобритания обявява война на Германия
От тази сгъстена и непълна хронология нищо не става ясно, освен че ”…главните герои от 1914 г. са лунатици, нащрек, но невиждащи, преследвани от мечти, но слепи за реалността на ужаса, който са на път да причинят на света.”
——
Австралиецът Кристофър Кларк - с изобилие от референции и сух британски сарказъм - се заравя дълбоко в кашата от противоречия, забъркали един от най-кръвопролитните конфликти в историята на човечеството. Кларк подхваща темата от няколко необичайни ъгъла:
1. Била ли е първата световна война неизбежна?
Със задна дата и историци, и свидетели, и участници го твърдят. Историците обаче са в капана на бъдещето, когато всичко е приключило, а участниците във вземането на решения често изкривяват фактите или откровено лъжат. Причината е проста - никой не желае да поеме отговорност за такава касапница. Термини като “чест” и “патриотизъм” се цитират като заместител на факти.
2. Съществува ли един единствен виновник и едно-единствено събитие, което да е истинската причина за войната?
Отговорът на Кларк е по-скоро отрицателен. Всички участници до един боравят с неефективни системи и с често изкривена информация и предположения, всички страдат от дълбоки структурни дефекти. Събитията на свой ред са често в краткосрочен хоризонт, случват се твърде бързо, и при друг курс на действие нямаше да се получи този резултат.
——
Кларк разглежда играчите един по един, започвайки със Сърбия. Погледът му, за разлика от други историци, е меко казано неласкав. Сърбия е млада държава, стремяща се към обединение. Това обединение обаче включва и несръбски територии като Хърватска, Албания и Македония. За сръбските шовинисти това е без значение. Правителството е неефективно и често слабо, притиснато в ъгъла от реакционерски и силно военнизирани организации като “Черната ръка”, отговорна за куп кланета в Македония, и управлявана директно от военното разузнаване. Тя излъчва и убийците на Франц Фердинанд.
Австро-Унгария е считана за новия болник на Европа и всички вещаят разпада на тази дуалистична, изцяло европейска империя. Сърбия иска да си върне анексираните Босна и Херцеговина, макар населението там да е смесено. Русия се цели в Галиция. Румъния иска Трансилвания. Кипят и национални движения на чехите. Културата, икономическото благоденствие и толерантността в тази империя засенчват куп други държави, но шовинизмът на унгарското крило от властта, тромавата управленска структура и слабата и некомпетентна армия са проблем. Самият Франц Фердинанд е един от силните играчи, решен на реформи и в конфликт с шовинисти и реакционери. Това е и една от причините сръбското разузнаване да иска смъртта му - ако той реформира Босна, последната вече няма да иска да е част от Сърбия…
Русия, Франция, Германия и Великобритания също са разгледани в детайли - структура на управление, йерархия и канали на външната политика, цели и интереси в Европа и отвъд (две от тях са трансконтинентални империи с конфликтни точки в Афганистан, Персия и Централна Азия). Формират се съюзи като Руско-Френския съюз, дал начало на Антантата, където балансьор е Великобритания с нейната цел да сдържа икономическия растеж и апетити на Германия и териториалното разрастване на Русия. Тези съюзи са нестабилни, участниците често влизат във взаимен конфликт.
Балканските войни са възнаградени с подобаващо внимание в разказа. Сблъсъкът на интересите на Русия, стремяща се към Проливите, Великобритания, стремяща се да я спре, и Австро-Унгария, стремяща се да запази контрол над южнославянските си територии на полуострова създават уникално разположение на силите. В резултат Сърбия и България с одобрението на Русия се устремяват към остатъците от Османската империя, но България изключително зле преценява обстановката и съюзниците си, и си изпаща жестоко.
Убийството в Сараево е разписано по часове. Ефективни ли са били охранителните мерки за престолонадледника? Съвсем не, може дори да се говори за престъпна небрежност на австрийците. Знаело ли е сръбското правителство за атентата? Определено да, и то в детайли, макар инициатор да е военното разузнаване. Предупредили ли са австрийците? Не точно, по-ск��ро с половин уста и неясно.
Оттам нататък събитията поемат своя ход, който обаче не е бил неизбежен. Просто сред основните играчи битуват представи за чест и патриотизъм, които удобно сместват идеята, че една война ще прочисти хоризонтите, ще донесе желаните награди и ше бъде кратка. Всички замесени виждат войната като удобен начин за прочистване на наболелите проблеми. И, естествено, са в страшна заблуда.
——
Кларк определено ми даде храна за размисъл. Той далеч не дели участниците на добри (победителите) и лоши (победените), както имат навика да класифицират повечето интерпретации. Всъщност той обосновава ултиматума на Австро-Унгария като легитимен и съвсем не толкова краен, колкото го изкарват. Но легитимността е последната грижа на империалистите с колониални интереси и на стремящите се да си откъснат свое собствено парче от историята с цената на кратка и сладка война.
Първата световна война е желана война. От всички правителства, които я инициират през лятото на 1914 г.
4,5⭐️
28 юни 1914 г. - австроунгарският престолонаследник Франц Фердинанд и съпругата му са застреляни от сръбския терорист (според други - патриот) Гаврило Принцип
28 юли 1914 г. - Австро-Унгария обявява война на Сърбия след изтекъл и отхвърлен 48-часов ултима��ум
1 август 1914 г. - Германия обявява война на Русия
3 август 1914 г. - Германия обявява война на Франция
4 август 1914 г. - Великобритания обявява война на Германия
От тази сгъстена и непълна хронология нищо не става ясно, освен че ”…главните герои от 1914 г. са лунатици, нащрек, но невиждащи, преследвани от мечти, но слепи за реалността на ужаса, който са на път да причинят на света.”
——
Австралиецът Кристофър Кларк - с изобилие от референции и сух британски сарказъм - се заравя дълбоко в кашата от противоречия, забъркали един от най-кръвопролитните конфликти в историята на човечеството. Кларк подхваща темата от няколко необичайни ъгъла:
1. Била ли е първата световна война неизбежна?
Със задна дата и историци, и свидетели, и участници го твърдят. Историците обаче са в капана на бъдещето, когато всичко е приключило, а участниците във вземането на решения често изкривяват фактите или откровено лъжат. Причината е проста - никой не желае да поеме отговорност за такава касапница. Термини като “чест” и “патриотизъм” се цитират като заместител на факти.
2. Съществува ли един единствен виновник и едно-единствено събитие, което да е истинската причина за войната?
Отговорът на Кларк е по-скоро отрицателен. Всички участници до един боравят с неефективни системи и с често изкривена информация и предположения, всички страдат от дълбоки структурни дефекти. Събитията на свой ред са често в краткосрочен хоризонт, случват се твърде бързо, и при друг курс на действие нямаше да се получи този резултат.
——
Кларк разглежда играчите един по един, започвайки със Сърбия. Погледът му, за разлика от други историци, е меко казано неласкав. Сърбия е млада държава, стремяща се към обединение. Това обединение обаче включва и несръбски територии като Хърватска, Албания и Македония. За сръбските шовинисти това е без значение. Правителството е неефективно и често слабо, притиснато в ъгъла от реакционерски и силно военнизирани организации като “Черната ръка”, отговорна за куп кланета в Македония, и управлявана директно от военното разузнаване. Тя излъчва и убийците на Франц Фердинанд.
Австро-Унгария е считана за новия болник на Европа и всички вещаят разпада на тази дуалистична, изцяло европейска империя. Сърбия иска да си върне анексираните Босна и Херцеговина, макар населението там да е смесено. Русия се цели в Галиция. Румъния иска Трансилвания. Кипят и национални движения на чехите. Културата, икономическото благоденствие и толерантността в тази империя засенчват куп други държави, но шовинизмът на унгарското крило от властта, тромавата управленска структура и слабата и некомпетентна армия са проблем. Самият Франц Фердинанд е един от силните играчи, решен на реформи и в конфликт с шовинисти и реакционери. Това е и една от причините сръбското разузнаване да иска смъртта му - ако той реформира Босна, последната вече няма да иска да е част от Сърбия…
Русия, Франция, Германия и Великобритания също са разгледани в детайли - структура на управление, йерархия и канали на външната политика, цели и интереси в Европа и отвъд (две от тях са трансконтинентални империи с конфликтни точки в Афганистан, Персия и Централна Азия). Формират се съюзи като Руско-Френския съюз, дал начало на Антантата, където балансьор е Великобритания с нейната цел да сдържа икономическия растеж и апетити на Германия и териториалното разрастване на Русия. Тези съюзи са нестабилни, участниците често влизат във взаимен конфликт.
Балканските войни са възнаградени с подобаващо внимание в разказа. Сблъсъкът на интересите на Русия, стремяща се към Проливите, Великобритания, стремяща се да я спре, и Австро-Унгария, стремяща се да запази контрол над южнославянските си територии на полуострова създават уникално разположение на силите. В резултат Сърбия и България с одобрението на Русия се устремяват към остатъците от Османската империя, но България изключително зле преценява обстановката и съюзниците си, и си изпаща жестоко.
Убийството в Сараево е разписано по часове. Ефективни ли са били охранителните мерки за престолонадледника? Съвсем не, може дори да се говори за престъпна небрежност на австрийците. Знаело ли е сръбското правителство за атентата? Определено да, и то в детайли, макар инициатор да е военното разузнаване. Предупредили ли са австрийците? Не точно, по-ск��ро с половин уста и неясно.
Оттам нататък събитията поемат своя ход, който обаче не е бил неизбежен. Просто сред основните играчи битуват представи за чест и патриотизъм, които удобно сместват идеята, че една война ще прочисти хоризонтите, ще донесе желаните награди и ше бъде кратка. Всички замесени виждат войната като удобен начин за прочистване на наболелите проблеми. И, естествено, са в страшна заблуда.
——
Кларк определено ми даде храна за размисъл. Той далеч не дели участниците на добри (победителите) и лоши (победените), както имат навика да класифицират повечето интерпретации. Всъщност той обосновава ултиматума на Австро-Унгария като легитимен и съвсем не толкова краен, колкото го изкарват. Но легитимността е последната грижа на империалистите с колониални интереси и на стремящите се да си откъснат свое собствено парче от историята с цената на кратка и сладка война.
Първата световна война е желана война. От всички правителства, които я инициират през лятото на 1914 г.
4,5⭐️
April 28, 2020
A forensic study of the lead up to the First World War. Meticulously researched, it takes you into a world where, almost by accident, Europe organised itself into two armed camps, with overlapping obligations and fears.
What struck me was that each country felt itself slighted, took unto itself the right to wage an industrialised war, but at the same time abdicated responsibility for the war starting - look what you made me do.
Jingoistic media, a newly assertive populace and weak leaders do not help - once started on the path to war it became almost impossible to walk back from the precipice. Escalation follows escalation as a fateful "it's going to happen soon, it might as well be now" mindset kicks in.
In a sleepy town in the Balkans an assassin awaits the Hapsburg heir, his few shots would become the spark for a conflagration that somehow brings the world to war. Millions die, many millions more are maimed and displaced, three empires fall and a new arc of instability is created in Eastern Europe.
Nothing is resolved. Expect a re-match in a generation as WW1 resentments boil to fever pitch.
What struck me was that each country felt itself slighted, took unto itself the right to wage an industrialised war, but at the same time abdicated responsibility for the war starting - look what you made me do.
Jingoistic media, a newly assertive populace and weak leaders do not help - once started on the path to war it became almost impossible to walk back from the precipice. Escalation follows escalation as a fateful "it's going to happen soon, it might as well be now" mindset kicks in.
In a sleepy town in the Balkans an assassin awaits the Hapsburg heir, his few shots would become the spark for a conflagration that somehow brings the world to war. Millions die, many millions more are maimed and displaced, three empires fall and a new arc of instability is created in Eastern Europe.
Nothing is resolved. Expect a re-match in a generation as WW1 resentments boil to fever pitch.
November 11, 2018
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
--The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
Conclusion
Notes
Index
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
--The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Read
December 27, 2014While the dead are gone, they're not gone. While the dead don't speak, they speak.
St Paul
Which begs the question, what do they say to us? Last week saw extensive media coverage of the various commemorations of Britain's declaration of war against Germany on August 4, 1914. Naturally, understandably, inevitably, those dignitaries invited to hold speeches on this occasion turned most of their attention to the human cost. The sheer numbers are obscene, beyond anyone's understanding or imagination. The bare statistics are mere marks on a page; it takes other means to allow us to build a picture of the carnage. There is this magnificent and moving installation in the dry moat of the Tower of London, for example. Entitled 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' (sic*) it plants a red ceramic poppy to represent each of the service personnel from the UK who died in the 14-18.
888,264 poppies.
And that is just servicemen and women. No civilians.
And that does not include the injured, maimed and traumatised. Nor the missing in action.
And that is just one country.
It is natural, understandable, inevitable, that this sacrifice should be ennobled and dignified. But how? How to render the carnage manageable, assimilable into a noble narrative of high idealism? The Duke of Cambridge, speaking at the Inter-allied Memorial in Liège, made a valiant effort: We salute those who died to give us our freedom. Laughable really. For if there is one thing I have taken from Christopher Clark's magisterial opus, it is the sense that this was never a war of ideas or ideology. It was not Fascism against Liberalism, Oppression against Freedom. The Prince references Stefan Zweig at the beginning of his speech. In his memoir The World of Yesterday, Zweig pinpoints the difference between the two World Wars. The war of '39 had a reason, it was about freedom and preserving the moral good. That of 1914 served only an illusion, a dream, a mania.
The idea of a dream is taken up by Clark in his title. Sleepwalkers. That is a fine image as long as it is not meant to convey that the key players were drifting totally unaware towards war. They knew, oh they knew, indeed in some quarters there was a definite attitude that war was not only unavoidable, but maybe even desirable. The necessary way to purify the muddy waters of diplomacy. To temper the steel of national identity. To re-calibrate the balance of power in Europe. No, what those leaders were blind to was the nature of the armed conflict they were groping their way towards. No-one could have envisaged industrial warfare.
The image that crossed my mind when reading this was less one of dreamers, more one of a perverse game of Blind Man's Buff, in which not only are ALL of the players blindfold, but also shackled each to the other with a complex system of ropes of differing lengths that at some stage will yank them back ignominiously to a position they never wanted to hold. Blindfold, because all those active in the diplomatic service, all those ambassadors and attachés, the correspondents and representatives, the spies and the message boys, all of them could only attempt to guess at the true motives and intents of those in power. Indeed, a lot of the time it was hard to assess who was in power at all, and who was whispering in his ear. Personal regiments as government, with little sense of making common cause: often the military department was at loggerheads with the Foreign Secretary, the Emperor with his Chancellor, the man in charge of the money with everyone. And shackled through the complex and constantly shifting system of alliances and power blocs.
Clark is a thoroughly modern historian, one who scrupulously avoids the over-arching grand narrative which would allot blame to one country or another. He takes a multi-national approach, with an informative emphasis on Serbia. This wide scope of narratives does present a challenge to the reader in the form of the great panoply of names that need to be filed away for future reference. I can only advise anyone embarking on this journey to keep a cheat sheet tucked into the back cover in order to be able to tell your Andrássy from your Clausewitz, your Sazonov from your Aehrenthal and to try to sort out the Kaljevic, the Kálnoky and the Karadzic.
So, in the end, what do they say, the dead of 14-18? Thirty seven million altogether, who died, in the end, as a result of a diplomatic meltdown. Surely all they can say is never again. Never again. Never again. And then it all started again barely twenty years later.
I don’t want to join the army
I don’t want to go to war
I’d rather stay at home
Around the street to roam
Living on the earnings of a lady typist.
I don’t want a bayonet in my belly
I don’t want my bollocks shot away
I’d rather stay in England
Merry merry England
And fornicate my bleedin’ life away
I don’t want to be a soldier
I don’t want to go to war
I’d rather hang around
Piccadilly underground
And live off the earnings
Of a high born lady.
I don’t need no Froggy women
London’s full of girls I’ve never had.
Dear Oh Gawd almighty
I want to stay in Blighty
And follow in the footsteps of me dad.
Soldiers' Songs of the Great War
http://www.westernfrontassociation.co...
*bloodswept makes far more sense, surely?
St Paul
Which begs the question, what do they say to us? Last week saw extensive media coverage of the various commemorations of Britain's declaration of war against Germany on August 4, 1914. Naturally, understandably, inevitably, those dignitaries invited to hold speeches on this occasion turned most of their attention to the human cost. The sheer numbers are obscene, beyond anyone's understanding or imagination. The bare statistics are mere marks on a page; it takes other means to allow us to build a picture of the carnage. There is this magnificent and moving installation in the dry moat of the Tower of London, for example. Entitled 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' (sic*) it plants a red ceramic poppy to represent each of the service personnel from the UK who died in the 14-18.
888,264 poppies.
And that is just servicemen and women. No civilians.
And that does not include the injured, maimed and traumatised. Nor the missing in action.
And that is just one country.
It is natural, understandable, inevitable, that this sacrifice should be ennobled and dignified. But how? How to render the carnage manageable, assimilable into a noble narrative of high idealism? The Duke of Cambridge, speaking at the Inter-allied Memorial in Liège, made a valiant effort: We salute those who died to give us our freedom. Laughable really. For if there is one thing I have taken from Christopher Clark's magisterial opus, it is the sense that this was never a war of ideas or ideology. It was not Fascism against Liberalism, Oppression against Freedom. The Prince references Stefan Zweig at the beginning of his speech. In his memoir The World of Yesterday, Zweig pinpoints the difference between the two World Wars. The war of '39 had a reason, it was about freedom and preserving the moral good. That of 1914 served only an illusion, a dream, a mania.
The idea of a dream is taken up by Clark in his title. Sleepwalkers. That is a fine image as long as it is not meant to convey that the key players were drifting totally unaware towards war. They knew, oh they knew, indeed in some quarters there was a definite attitude that war was not only unavoidable, but maybe even desirable. The necessary way to purify the muddy waters of diplomacy. To temper the steel of national identity. To re-calibrate the balance of power in Europe. No, what those leaders were blind to was the nature of the armed conflict they were groping their way towards. No-one could have envisaged industrial warfare.
The image that crossed my mind when reading this was less one of dreamers, more one of a perverse game of Blind Man's Buff, in which not only are ALL of the players blindfold, but also shackled each to the other with a complex system of ropes of differing lengths that at some stage will yank them back ignominiously to a position they never wanted to hold. Blindfold, because all those active in the diplomatic service, all those ambassadors and attachés, the correspondents and representatives, the spies and the message boys, all of them could only attempt to guess at the true motives and intents of those in power. Indeed, a lot of the time it was hard to assess who was in power at all, and who was whispering in his ear. Personal regiments as government, with little sense of making common cause: often the military department was at loggerheads with the Foreign Secretary, the Emperor with his Chancellor, the man in charge of the money with everyone. And shackled through the complex and constantly shifting system of alliances and power blocs.
Clark is a thoroughly modern historian, one who scrupulously avoids the over-arching grand narrative which would allot blame to one country or another. He takes a multi-national approach, with an informative emphasis on Serbia. This wide scope of narratives does present a challenge to the reader in the form of the great panoply of names that need to be filed away for future reference. I can only advise anyone embarking on this journey to keep a cheat sheet tucked into the back cover in order to be able to tell your Andrássy from your Clausewitz, your Sazonov from your Aehrenthal and to try to sort out the Kaljevic, the Kálnoky and the Karadzic.
So, in the end, what do they say, the dead of 14-18? Thirty seven million altogether, who died, in the end, as a result of a diplomatic meltdown. Surely all they can say is never again. Never again. Never again. And then it all started again barely twenty years later.
I don’t want to join the army
I don’t want to go to war
I’d rather stay at home
Around the street to roam
Living on the earnings of a lady typist.
I don’t want a bayonet in my belly
I don’t want my bollocks shot away
I’d rather stay in England
Merry merry England
And fornicate my bleedin’ life away
I don’t want to be a soldier
I don’t want to go to war
I’d rather hang around
Piccadilly underground
And live off the earnings
Of a high born lady.
I don’t need no Froggy women
London’s full of girls I’ve never had.
Dear Oh Gawd almighty
I want to stay in Blighty
And follow in the footsteps of me dad.
Soldiers' Songs of the Great War
http://www.westernfrontassociation.co...
*bloodswept makes far more sense, surely?
July 14, 2022
Drifting into Hell.
I turned to this book, after having it in my ‘to be read’ shelf for a while. I saw an article about the author Christopher Clark, who had stated ‘not to compare his book to the recent war in Ukraine’. As I read further modern politicians have poured over the work with ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel recommending it at every possible turn. With this, I knew there would be something special here.
Ultimately it is an excellent and complete book on the causes of the First World War. I was really impressed and simply could not put it down. The concept is explained in the title, that the European powers before 1914 slowly slipped into a conflict that a majority did not want. It blows away the aged argument that Germany was entirely to blame, that the Kaiser and political elites were warmongers and criminals.
Instead it places the complex diplomatic and cultural relations between states at the forefront, with unfortunate event followed by disastrous (but not fatal in isolation) decision again and again. Central to it all is the new, ambitious, Slavic and regicidal Kingdom of Serbia. A same Balkan country with a big match. Clark’s analysis covers all angles, international relations, state’s aims and objectives, did they try and prevent war? Why they feared it? What a ‘preventative war’ means, who actually made decisions, what decisions and actions were taken and how press and public mood influenced these decisions. Interestingly how monarchs, statesmen and the public reacted in the fateful days and ultimate declarations of war.
The content of Clark’s work is always captivating and his level of knowledge is astounding. I have said in my other reviews of his works that there is a mixture of genius with frustration as I feel he is not the best writer. Sleepwalkers is without doubt his best work and is written in his best pros. Although undue crowded sentences creep in from time to time it is nowhere near the level experienced in Iron Kingdom or Kaiser Wilhelm II.
I could go through this entire book again and learn new points, arguments and facts. With a topic I have read as a student, it is an asset to one’s library. For me I have long agreed with the findings, that no one person or state can soles be to blame, each made mistakes and must bear the burden in their individual ways. None foresaw the catastrophe which befell them and Europe’s greatest tragedy which came out of it as the worlds tore itself apart.
I turned to this book, after having it in my ‘to be read’ shelf for a while. I saw an article about the author Christopher Clark, who had stated ‘not to compare his book to the recent war in Ukraine’. As I read further modern politicians have poured over the work with ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel recommending it at every possible turn. With this, I knew there would be something special here.
Ultimately it is an excellent and complete book on the causes of the First World War. I was really impressed and simply could not put it down. The concept is explained in the title, that the European powers before 1914 slowly slipped into a conflict that a majority did not want. It blows away the aged argument that Germany was entirely to blame, that the Kaiser and political elites were warmongers and criminals.
Instead it places the complex diplomatic and cultural relations between states at the forefront, with unfortunate event followed by disastrous (but not fatal in isolation) decision again and again. Central to it all is the new, ambitious, Slavic and regicidal Kingdom of Serbia. A same Balkan country with a big match. Clark’s analysis covers all angles, international relations, state’s aims and objectives, did they try and prevent war? Why they feared it? What a ‘preventative war’ means, who actually made decisions, what decisions and actions were taken and how press and public mood influenced these decisions. Interestingly how monarchs, statesmen and the public reacted in the fateful days and ultimate declarations of war.
The content of Clark’s work is always captivating and his level of knowledge is astounding. I have said in my other reviews of his works that there is a mixture of genius with frustration as I feel he is not the best writer. Sleepwalkers is without doubt his best work and is written in his best pros. Although undue crowded sentences creep in from time to time it is nowhere near the level experienced in Iron Kingdom or Kaiser Wilhelm II.
I could go through this entire book again and learn new points, arguments and facts. With a topic I have read as a student, it is an asset to one’s library. For me I have long agreed with the findings, that no one person or state can soles be to blame, each made mistakes and must bear the burden in their individual ways. None foresaw the catastrophe which befell them and Europe’s greatest tragedy which came out of it as the worlds tore itself apart.
June 4, 2023
It was a mistake to "consume" this as audiobook. I would have loved to underline key insights or to reread important sections. But then, the print version has almost 900 pages. Would I have ever endeavoured the lecture? Probably not. So I was lucky to HEAR it at first and understand that it is a magnificient work full of detail based on the study of a humungous amount of first hand documents. It massively changed - or should I rather say corrected - my understanding, how the world entered this dreadfull war.
What were my main take-aways? Probably the understanding of Serbia as an impeller rather than victim of this development, the fact that there was not only no exultation, but deep dread of the coming horrors amoung most of the diplomates, politicians and militaries, and that there was literally no woman at all (other than wifes and mistresses of acting men) involved in this development for desaster.
Now that I know the wealth of this study I will find the time and perseverance to READ it as well.
What were my main take-aways? Probably the understanding of Serbia as an impeller rather than victim of this development, the fact that there was not only no exultation, but deep dread of the coming horrors amoung most of the diplomates, politicians and militaries, and that there was literally no woman at all (other than wifes and mistresses of acting men) involved in this development for desaster.
Now that I know the wealth of this study I will find the time and perseverance to READ it as well.
June 24, 2019
”The outbreak of war in 1914 is not an Agatha Christie drama at the end of which we will discover the culprit standing over a corpse in the conservatory with a smoking pistol.”
Christopher Clark’s choice of the first bit of the title The Sleepwalkers. How Europe Went to War in 1914 may indeed be considered slightly awkward in that it suggests that those who were in charge in European governments at that time are not really to blame for the decisions they took, but nevertheless Clark’s book itself is groundbreaking in its capacity of putting a big question mark behind any attempt at, for whatever reasons, playing the blame game. I have some friends who derive the bulk of their knowledge from the feature pages of newspapers and who are, furthermore, endowed with the remarkable and enviable – shall I say “skill”, or is not “power” the better word? – of knowing everything that is said in a book by having a glance at its title, and naturally these friends are indignant at Clark, whom they consider an apologist trying to make World War I pass as something like a quasi-natural catastrophe for which nobody can be held accountable.
Had they read the book itself, and not merely its title, they would know that Clark is far from using scholarly prestidigitation in order to make questions of responsibility vanish into thin air. Quite on the contrary, he casts a very careful look at the agents in that crisis of July 1914, first of all doing away with abstractions like “Germany”, “Russia”, “Serbia” and showing instead that the policy of each of these countries depended on interactions and wrestles for power and influence within the political system of the respective states, which not only made the system of alliances – basically the Triple Entente vs. the Triple Alliance – potentially volatile but also rendered it extremely difficult for any of the major powers to gather reliable information on how the other powers were going to act. It is this atmosphere of mutual distrust and a bellum omnia contra omnes view of foreign affairs, e.g. with regard to geopolitical ambitions such as the Russian interests in the Dardanelles, or the British fear of being pressured in India, that made statesmen of all five powers take unwise decisions which eventually lead towards war. It is at this point, not in the form of picking out one state that is to blame above all others, that questions of accountability come into play.
Clark’s investigation into the outbreak of WWI is structured into three major parts. At the outset, the author has a closer look at the two countries Serbia and Austria-Hungary, since it was, after all, the assassination of Austria-Hungary’s heir apparent and his wife that triggered the July Crisis and led into war. Clark elaborates the problematic role of Serbia as a state whose government was infiltrated by regicide terrorists who championed an extremely aggressive variant of nationalism that not only posed a threat to Austria-Hungary but also to other neighbouring states. It also becomes clear that the young men who set out to Sarajewo with the intention of killing Franz Ferdinand did so with the knowledge to at least some of Serbia’s leading militaries and politicians and that later on these politicians would obstruct any investigations into the backgrounds of the killers. Clark’s decision to work out the connection of Gavrilo Princip and the “Black Hand” with Serbian government officials caused some dismay with those who argue that this is mere Serbia-bashing and exaggerates Serbia’s contribution to the war, but when witnessing the erection of a statue to honour the memory of Princip in Sarajewo in June 2014, we might well ask ourselves if word of the background of this vile act of terror has really gotten around everywhere yet.
In the second part of his book Clark concentrates on the changing system of alliances in Europe with its many antagonisms. He shows that England did not regard the Triple Entente as an alliance directed against the German Empire (as France did) but predominantly as a way of containing Russia and of avoiding conflicts with Russia in the Middle East and India. He also points out how Russia and Austria-Hungary were vying for the sympathies of certain Balkan states, the former with a view to destabilizing the Balkan situation (and Austria-Hungary’s position), the latter with the contrary intention.
Against the background of these preceding events and vying interests Clark finally analyzes the July Crisis itself, which he sees in the light of the so-called Balkan inception scenario, i.e. Poincarés motivation to lead the Entente into war if Vienna attacked Serbia because such a scenario would offer France the best starting position in an armed conflict with Austria-Hungary’s ally Germany. This Balkan inception scenario likewise made it necessary for Russia to mobilize not only against Austria-Hungary but also against Germany, a decision that would further fuel the crisis. However, Clark does not say that any of the major powers had been planning war well in advance. Instead he sees a mixture of shortsightedness and wishful thinking at work, e.g. in Germany infamous “blank cheque” for Austria-Hungary, which is often regarded as proof of Germany’s intention of fuelling the danger of a European war, Clark sees the inapt attempt at limiting Austria’s actions to Serbia only – a calculation that would only work if Russia abstained from backing Serbia, but unfortunately Russia had also given a kind of “blank cheque” to Serbia by assuring the Serbs of her unconditional support.
Clark surely interprets the July Crisis in a new way, which he does very convincingly by consulting a variety of sources and by conscientiously reconstructing the decision processes of those statesmen involved. One of the greatest advantages of The Sleepwalkers is that it is not only carefully executed but also, if that can be said of a book with so serious a topic, a page-turner. Clark does not narrate on the level of personal decisions but elaborate the structures in which these decisions could be taken and carried out and yet he uses a style that does not make it easy to put this book aside.
Christopher Clark’s choice of the first bit of the title The Sleepwalkers. How Europe Went to War in 1914 may indeed be considered slightly awkward in that it suggests that those who were in charge in European governments at that time are not really to blame for the decisions they took, but nevertheless Clark’s book itself is groundbreaking in its capacity of putting a big question mark behind any attempt at, for whatever reasons, playing the blame game. I have some friends who derive the bulk of their knowledge from the feature pages of newspapers and who are, furthermore, endowed with the remarkable and enviable – shall I say “skill”, or is not “power” the better word? – of knowing everything that is said in a book by having a glance at its title, and naturally these friends are indignant at Clark, whom they consider an apologist trying to make World War I pass as something like a quasi-natural catastrophe for which nobody can be held accountable.
Had they read the book itself, and not merely its title, they would know that Clark is far from using scholarly prestidigitation in order to make questions of responsibility vanish into thin air. Quite on the contrary, he casts a very careful look at the agents in that crisis of July 1914, first of all doing away with abstractions like “Germany”, “Russia”, “Serbia” and showing instead that the policy of each of these countries depended on interactions and wrestles for power and influence within the political system of the respective states, which not only made the system of alliances – basically the Triple Entente vs. the Triple Alliance – potentially volatile but also rendered it extremely difficult for any of the major powers to gather reliable information on how the other powers were going to act. It is this atmosphere of mutual distrust and a bellum omnia contra omnes view of foreign affairs, e.g. with regard to geopolitical ambitions such as the Russian interests in the Dardanelles, or the British fear of being pressured in India, that made statesmen of all five powers take unwise decisions which eventually lead towards war. It is at this point, not in the form of picking out one state that is to blame above all others, that questions of accountability come into play.
Clark’s investigation into the outbreak of WWI is structured into three major parts. At the outset, the author has a closer look at the two countries Serbia and Austria-Hungary, since it was, after all, the assassination of Austria-Hungary’s heir apparent and his wife that triggered the July Crisis and led into war. Clark elaborates the problematic role of Serbia as a state whose government was infiltrated by regicide terrorists who championed an extremely aggressive variant of nationalism that not only posed a threat to Austria-Hungary but also to other neighbouring states. It also becomes clear that the young men who set out to Sarajewo with the intention of killing Franz Ferdinand did so with the knowledge to at least some of Serbia’s leading militaries and politicians and that later on these politicians would obstruct any investigations into the backgrounds of the killers. Clark’s decision to work out the connection of Gavrilo Princip and the “Black Hand” with Serbian government officials caused some dismay with those who argue that this is mere Serbia-bashing and exaggerates Serbia’s contribution to the war, but when witnessing the erection of a statue to honour the memory of Princip in Sarajewo in June 2014, we might well ask ourselves if word of the background of this vile act of terror has really gotten around everywhere yet.
In the second part of his book Clark concentrates on the changing system of alliances in Europe with its many antagonisms. He shows that England did not regard the Triple Entente as an alliance directed against the German Empire (as France did) but predominantly as a way of containing Russia and of avoiding conflicts with Russia in the Middle East and India. He also points out how Russia and Austria-Hungary were vying for the sympathies of certain Balkan states, the former with a view to destabilizing the Balkan situation (and Austria-Hungary’s position), the latter with the contrary intention.
Against the background of these preceding events and vying interests Clark finally analyzes the July Crisis itself, which he sees in the light of the so-called Balkan inception scenario, i.e. Poincarés motivation to lead the Entente into war if Vienna attacked Serbia because such a scenario would offer France the best starting position in an armed conflict with Austria-Hungary’s ally Germany. This Balkan inception scenario likewise made it necessary for Russia to mobilize not only against Austria-Hungary but also against Germany, a decision that would further fuel the crisis. However, Clark does not say that any of the major powers had been planning war well in advance. Instead he sees a mixture of shortsightedness and wishful thinking at work, e.g. in Germany infamous “blank cheque” for Austria-Hungary, which is often regarded as proof of Germany’s intention of fuelling the danger of a European war, Clark sees the inapt attempt at limiting Austria’s actions to Serbia only – a calculation that would only work if Russia abstained from backing Serbia, but unfortunately Russia had also given a kind of “blank cheque” to Serbia by assuring the Serbs of her unconditional support.
Clark surely interprets the July Crisis in a new way, which he does very convincingly by consulting a variety of sources and by conscientiously reconstructing the decision processes of those statesmen involved. One of the greatest advantages of The Sleepwalkers is that it is not only carefully executed but also, if that can be said of a book with so serious a topic, a page-turner. Clark does not narrate on the level of personal decisions but elaborate the structures in which these decisions could be taken and carried out and yet he uses a style that does not make it easy to put this book aside.
July 1, 2019
"Η έκρηξη του πολέμου το 1914 δεν είναι ένα δράμα της Αγκάθα Κρίστι, όπου στο τέλος ανακαλύπτουμε τον ένοχο στην τζαμωτή βεράντα να στέκει πάνω από ένα πτώμα με ένα πιστόλι που ακόμα καπνίζει. Δεν υπάρχει πιστόλι που καπνίζει σε αυτήν την ιστορία· η μάλλον, υπάρχει ένα στα χέρια του κάθε βασικού χαρακτήρα. Ιδωμένη απ' αυτό το πρίσμα, η έκρηξη του πολέμου ήταν μια τραγωδία, όχι ένα έγκλημα."
Εκατό χρόνια μετά την 28η Ιουνίου 1914, όταν ο Γκαβρίλο Πρίντσιπ σκότωσε τον αρχιδούκα της Αυστροουγγαρίας και διάδοχο του θρόνου της αυτοκρατορίας, Φραγκίσκο Φερδινανδο, θέτοντας σε κίνηση τα γρανάζια μιας μηχανής που οδήγησε στον πόλεμο που ονομάστηκε "Μεγάλος", οι αιτίες που πραγματικά οδήγησαν την Ευρώπη σε αυτό το σημείο χωρίς επιστροφή παραμένουν αξεδιάλυτες. Σε αντίθεση με τον πόλεμο που τον ακολούθησε, δεν υπάρχει ένα α��όλυτο κακό, ένας αδιαμφισβητητος εχθρός απέναντι στον οποίο ορθωθηκε το αντίπαλο στρατόπεδο για να αποτρέψει την καταστροφική μανία του. Πρόκειται για ένα φοβερά σύνθετο γεγονός με πολλές και λεπτές εκφάνσεις που έπαιξαν, καθεμία το ρόλο της και συνέβαλαν στη διάπλαση της Ευρώπης σε αυτό που είναι σήμερα.
Το βιβλίο του Clark καταπιάνεται με την ερμηνεία των γεγονότων που οδήγησαν στην έναρξη του πολέμου, μέσα από την ανάλυση των πράξεων, των πιθανών κινήτρων, την ερμηνεία της ψυχολογίας καθενός εκ των ιθυνόντων και των φόβων και φιλοδοξιών τους. Πλούσιες λεπτομέρειες από διπλωματικα έγγραφα (αδύνατον να συγκρατηθουν όλες με μια ανάγνωση) και αλληλογραφίες και σφαιρική (πιστεύω) ανάλυση και προσέγγιση των γεγονότων της περιόδου πριν και κατά τη διάρκεια της Ιουλιανής Κρίσης.
Το βιβλίο δομείται σε τρία μερη: Το πρώτο ασχολείται με την έριδα μεταξύ Αυστροουγγαρίας και Σερβίας, η κλιμάκωση της οποίας οδήγησε στους φόνους του Σαράγεβου στις 28 Ιουνίου 2014 και στη μετέπειτα φάση της Ιουλιανής Κρίσης. Το δεύτερο καταπιάνεται με την εξέλιξη της γενικότερης ευρωπαϊκής πόλωσης τα χρόνια πριν από τον πόλεμο (ήδη από τα τέλη του 19ου αιώνα) αλλά και του πώς από την ύφεση της πόλωσης τα τελευταία χρόνια πριν τον πόλεμο φτάσαμε στο αυστριακό τελεσίγραφο και την κήρυξη του πολέμου. Το τρίτο εστιάζει στην ίδια την Ιουλιανή Κρίση και τις αντιδράσεις των εμπλεκομένων μεγάλων δυνάμεων σε αυτήν.
Ήταν αναπόφευκτος ο Α Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος; Ίσως ποτέ να μην υπάρξει ξεκάθαρη απάντηση σε αυτό το ερώτημα, αξίζει όμως όλοι να σκύψουμε πάνω από αυτό το πολυσύνθετο γεγονός που ενεπλεξε μια ολόκληρη ήπειρο σε έναν πόλεμο που ξεκίνησε από ένα περιφερειακό κέντρο των Βαλκανίων, διέλυσε τρεις αυτοκρατορίες και άλλαξε την Ευρώπη για πάντα.
Εκατό χρόνια μετά την 28η Ιουνίου 1914, όταν ο Γκαβρίλο Πρίντσιπ σκότωσε τον αρχιδούκα της Αυστροουγγαρίας και διάδοχο του θρόνου της αυτοκρατορίας, Φραγκίσκο Φερδινανδο, θέτοντας σε κίνηση τα γρανάζια μιας μηχανής που οδήγησε στον πόλεμο που ονομάστηκε "Μεγάλος", οι αιτίες που πραγματικά οδήγησαν την Ευρώπη σε αυτό το σημείο χωρίς επιστροφή παραμένουν αξεδιάλυτες. Σε αντίθεση με τον πόλεμο που τον ακολούθησε, δεν υπάρχει ένα α��όλυτο κακό, ένας αδιαμφισβητητος εχθρός απέναντι στον οποίο ορθωθηκε το αντίπαλο στρατόπεδο για να αποτρέψει την καταστροφική μανία του. Πρόκειται για ένα φοβερά σύνθετο γεγονός με πολλές και λεπτές εκφάνσεις που έπαιξαν, καθεμία το ρόλο της και συνέβαλαν στη διάπλαση της Ευρώπης σε αυτό που είναι σήμερα.
Το βιβλίο του Clark καταπιάνεται με την ερμηνεία των γεγονότων που οδήγησαν στην έναρξη του πολέμου, μέσα από την ανάλυση των πράξεων, των πιθανών κινήτρων, την ερμηνεία της ψυχολογίας καθενός εκ των ιθυνόντων και των φόβων και φιλοδοξιών τους. Πλούσιες λεπτομέρειες από διπλωματικα έγγραφα (αδύνατον να συγκρατηθουν όλες με μια ανάγνωση) και αλληλογραφίες και σφαιρική (πιστεύω) ανάλυση και προσέγγιση των γεγονότων της περιόδου πριν και κατά τη διάρκεια της Ιουλιανής Κρίσης.
Το βιβλίο δομείται σε τρία μερη: Το πρώτο ασχολείται με την έριδα μεταξύ Αυστροουγγαρίας και Σερβίας, η κλιμάκωση της οποίας οδήγησε στους φόνους του Σαράγεβου στις 28 Ιουνίου 2014 και στη μετέπειτα φάση της Ιουλιανής Κρίσης. Το δεύτερο καταπιάνεται με την εξέλιξη της γενικότερης ευρωπαϊκής πόλωσης τα χρόνια πριν από τον πόλεμο (ήδη από τα τέλη του 19ου αιώνα) αλλά και του πώς από την ύφεση της πόλωσης τα τελευταία χρόνια πριν τον πόλεμο φτάσαμε στο αυστριακό τελεσίγραφο και την κήρυξη του πολέμου. Το τρίτο εστιάζει στην ίδια την Ιουλιανή Κρίση και τις αντιδράσεις των εμπλεκομένων μεγάλων δυνάμεων σε αυτήν.
Ήταν αναπόφευκτος ο Α Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος; Ίσως ποτέ να μην υπάρξει ξεκάθαρη απάντηση σε αυτό το ερώτημα, αξίζει όμως όλοι να σκύψουμε πάνω από αυτό το πολυσύνθετο γεγονός που ενεπλεξε μια ολόκληρη ήπειρο σε έναν πόλεμο που ξεκίνησε από ένα περιφερειακό κέντρο των Βαλκανίων, διέλυσε τρεις αυτοκρατορίες και άλλαξε την Ευρώπη για πάντα.
April 4, 2021
Sleepwalking into destruction
How was it possible that the shots fired on the 28th of June 1914 escalated into a war that caused the death of 68 million people? In a breathtaking reconstruction of the events Clark shows how this event escalated into catastrophy. His conclusion: the Great War was the fatal result of political ententes and failures of the policy makers.
The book is divided in three parts - the first part deals with Serbia and the events running up to the assassination, the second part explains how from 1887 to 1907 the groundwork was laid for the divided continent, with the German - Austro Hungarian block on one side, against the Engish - French - Russian entente on the other side. Finally, the third part deals with the events running up to the fateful last days in August.
According to Clark, the outbreak of the First World War was the result of a widespread European crisis, and the protagonists in the other countries were equally guilty of it. The idea that it was Germany which was the instigator and mainly responsible for the subsequent events is being questioned by Clark. Instead, he states that all nations were equally guilty, after their failures of keeping thing under control.
It could all have turned out very differently and the First World War was not something invevitable, if only the policy makers had taken responsibility for the choice for peace and did not pass on this decision to irresistible external forces outside their influences.
Read in Dutch
How was it possible that the shots fired on the 28th of June 1914 escalated into a war that caused the death of 68 million people? In a breathtaking reconstruction of the events Clark shows how this event escalated into catastrophy. His conclusion: the Great War was the fatal result of political ententes and failures of the policy makers.
The book is divided in three parts - the first part deals with Serbia and the events running up to the assassination, the second part explains how from 1887 to 1907 the groundwork was laid for the divided continent, with the German - Austro Hungarian block on one side, against the Engish - French - Russian entente on the other side. Finally, the third part deals with the events running up to the fateful last days in August.
According to Clark, the outbreak of the First World War was the result of a widespread European crisis, and the protagonists in the other countries were equally guilty of it. The idea that it was Germany which was the instigator and mainly responsible for the subsequent events is being questioned by Clark. Instead, he states that all nations were equally guilty, after their failures of keeping thing under control.
It could all have turned out very differently and the First World War was not something invevitable, if only the policy makers had taken responsibility for the choice for peace and did not pass on this decision to irresistible external forces outside their influences.
Read in Dutch
December 4, 2014
Four stars and change, guys? Really?
The issue of who "really" started the First World War has been the topic of a hell of a lot of books. The immediate assumption (Germans did it), based on a simple reading of universally acknowledged facts, has been challenged in a lot of those books. Some of those books make a pretty solid argument. This is not one of them.
This volume tries to revive the thoroughly discredited theory that the war was the result of miscalculations by statesmen and diplomats on all sides. Clark consistently downplays egregious German and Austro-Hungarian aggression before and during the July Crisis to the extent of completely omitting extremely significant and well-known events and documents and applying the most sophistic and specious arguments imaginable to try to make his case.
Let's just take a couple of examples from chapter 10:
-Compares the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia (1914), which scandalized Europe, to the Ramboullet "Agreement" (1999) which would have given NATO an open-ended occupation of Serbia and was called by no less an authority on the rights of sovereign states than Henry Kissinger "an excuse to start bombing." Clark's take? Austria-Hungary was surprisingly moderate.
Well yeah, if you compare Charles Manson to Adolf Hitler, Manson is pretty moderate too.
-Talks about Serbian ministers "investing immense effort" in their reply "to create the appearance" of compliance, but the reply was a "subtle cocktail of acceptances, evasions and rejections."
It must've been a hell of an appearance, because it was good enough for the Kaiser, who thought the Austro-Hungarians should be satisfied with it. Clark neglects to mention that little detail, of course.
-Talks about Germany having no war policy (except hegemony in the Near East), forgets to mention the Germans were in a near-panic over French and Russian rearmament that was slowly tilting the balance of power in their favor.
Oddly he goes on about this very topic at some length in a previous chapter, to justify German fears of a Russian attack at some indeterminate time in the future. Oops!
-Claims German policymakers planned to accept a war if Russia should start one but did not plan a pre-emptive war.
PRE-EMPTIVE DECLARATION OF WAR LITERALLY WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
The author dances around the idea (but never actually says it) that Serbia was a rogue terrorist state and that, in the modern world, Austria-Hungary would be completely justified in an invasion and "regime change" such as USA applied to Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. Of course, the difference there is that, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Serbia was, at the time, the client state of a rival power that made it quite clear they would defend Serbia's sovereignty. So it would be more like China invading Taiwan over the attempted assassination of Zhou Enlai and then pretending to be surprised if the USA stepped in.
Overall, this book is like the work of a defense attorney defending a murderer who was seen by a dozen witnesses, left fingerprints and DNA all over the murder weapon, and signed a confession. All that's left for them is to try to obfuscate with irrelevant detail, and maybe imply that the son of a bitch had it coming.
The issue of who "really" started the First World War has been the topic of a hell of a lot of books. The immediate assumption (Germans did it), based on a simple reading of universally acknowledged facts, has been challenged in a lot of those books. Some of those books make a pretty solid argument. This is not one of them.
This volume tries to revive the thoroughly discredited theory that the war was the result of miscalculations by statesmen and diplomats on all sides. Clark consistently downplays egregious German and Austro-Hungarian aggression before and during the July Crisis to the extent of completely omitting extremely significant and well-known events and documents and applying the most sophistic and specious arguments imaginable to try to make his case.
Let's just take a couple of examples from chapter 10:
-Compares the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia (1914), which scandalized Europe, to the Ramboullet "Agreement" (1999) which would have given NATO an open-ended occupation of Serbia and was called by no less an authority on the rights of sovereign states than Henry Kissinger "an excuse to start bombing." Clark's take? Austria-Hungary was surprisingly moderate.
Well yeah, if you compare Charles Manson to Adolf Hitler, Manson is pretty moderate too.
-Talks about Serbian ministers "investing immense effort" in their reply "to create the appearance" of compliance, but the reply was a "subtle cocktail of acceptances, evasions and rejections."
It must've been a hell of an appearance, because it was good enough for the Kaiser, who thought the Austro-Hungarians should be satisfied with it. Clark neglects to mention that little detail, of course.
-Talks about Germany having no war policy (except hegemony in the Near East), forgets to mention the Germans were in a near-panic over French and Russian rearmament that was slowly tilting the balance of power in their favor.
Oddly he goes on about this very topic at some length in a previous chapter, to justify German fears of a Russian attack at some indeterminate time in the future. Oops!
-Claims German policymakers planned to accept a war if Russia should start one but did not plan a pre-emptive war.
PRE-EMPTIVE DECLARATION OF WAR LITERALLY WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
The author dances around the idea (but never actually says it) that Serbia was a rogue terrorist state and that, in the modern world, Austria-Hungary would be completely justified in an invasion and "regime change" such as USA applied to Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. Of course, the difference there is that, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Serbia was, at the time, the client state of a rival power that made it quite clear they would defend Serbia's sovereignty. So it would be more like China invading Taiwan over the attempted assassination of Zhou Enlai and then pretending to be surprised if the USA stepped in.
Overall, this book is like the work of a defense attorney defending a murderer who was seen by a dozen witnesses, left fingerprints and DNA all over the murder weapon, and signed a confession. All that's left for them is to try to obfuscate with irrelevant detail, and maybe imply that the son of a bitch had it coming.
August 26, 2021
“Главните герои от 1914 са лунатици, нащрек, но невиждащи, преследвани от мечти, но слепи за реалността на ужаса, който са на път да причинят на света.”
May 7, 2018
Nu jau vairs gandrīz nevaru atminēties, kā šī grāmata tika izvēlēta iegādei. Šķiet, ka kaut kur lasīju kādas top listes ar nenovērtētām vēstures grāmatām, lielu daļu es jau biju novērtējis, bet šī man šķita lasīšanas vērta. Pasūtīju bookdepository, un nepagāja ne pāris mēneši, kad pastniece pārmeta grāmatu pāri žogam. Saņēmis grāmatu vairs tādu vēstures entuziastu sevī nespēju atrast un atliku lasīšanu uz pusgadu.
Var uzskatīt, ka viens no pērnā gadsimta pagrieziena momentiem bija brīdis, kad Gavrilo Proncips iznācis no pūļa nošāva automobilī sēdošo Austroungārijas troņa mantinieku Franci Ferdinandu. Šis terora akts savā vienkāršumā nudien sasniedza visus plānotos mērķus. Tas atbrīvoja Bosniju Hercegovinu no Hapsburgiem, radīja jaunu un stipru Serbiju. Blakus efekti bija četru impēriju sabrukšana, miljoniem kritušo un kara vešana jaunā kvalitātē. Kas gan padarīja pārtikušo un mierīgo Eiropu tik nestabilu, ka pietika ar vienu slepkavību?
Un uz to atbildi dod šī grāmata. Autors ir rāvies melnās miesās, lai atrastu kaut ko jaunu šajā tēmā. Viņš ir orientējies uz pirmdokumentu izpēti, salīdzinājis daudzus avotus, lai atmestu malā dažādus memuārus, kur tiešie kara izraisītāji hroniski slimo ar atmiņas zudumiem dienās, kad tika pieņemti galvenie lēmumi. Pēc kara jau daudzas valstis publicēja oficiālas atskaites par kara gaitu un kādēl vispār tika karots, taču tā vairāk ir vainas nogrūšana uz citiem un pašu slavināšana. Lai vai kā autoram ir izdevies radīt kopainu par notiekošo Francijā, Krievijā, Lielbritānijā, Serbijā, Austroungārijā un vēl daudzās citās valstīs.
Es neteikšu, ka lasīšana bija aizraujoša un aizrāva mani no pirmajām lapaspusēm. Vēstures grāmatas reti kad ir aizraujošas, tās lielākoties ir informatīvas. Es domāju, ka nevienam autoram nebūtu pa spēkam aptvert vismaz pārdesmit paralēls sižeta līnijas, kuras noris vienlaicīgi, kur galvenie varoņi ir pašpārliecināti un nekompetenti ļaudis, kas sevi uzskata par visgudrākajiem valdniekiem, ministriem vai vēstniekiem. Tādi, kuriem domas mainās acumirklī, un kuri pie nopietnākas krīzes pazūd no sabiedrības redzesloka. Lasītājs te varēs izlasīt vairāk par Balkānu mudžekli, kā viņš jelkad varētu vēlēties uzzināt. Bonusā beidzot arī sapratīs, kādēļ Dienvidslāvijas sabrukums izraisīja tādu slaktiņu. Varu derēt, ka tas nebūt nebija pēdējais, jo lielas idejas nenomirs pat gadsimtu laikā. Vajag tikai aunu baru un nacionālistisku idiotu galvgalī, lai viss sāktos no gala.
Bez milzīgas vēsturisku faktu gūzmas es ieguvu diezgan labu perspektīvu uz Balkānu reģionā notiekošo, jo autors “vēsturi cilā” jau no deviņpadsmitā gadsimta piecdesmitajiem gadiem, kad prūši parāda savu varenību un padzen pagaldē frančus. Jā, Pirmā pasaules kara iedīgļi aizsākās jau tad līdz ar Vācijas apvienošanos, radās lielvalsts bez impērijas.
Grāmatai lieku 10 no 10 ballēm. Ja gribi nosvilināt smadzenes un izlasīt kaut ko patiešām derīgu, tad silti rekomendēju šo grāmatu. Bet esi gatavs, ka lasīšana nebūs ātra un viegla. Iespējams pēc simts lapaspusēm jau būsi sajaucis Rumāņu ministrus ar Serbu ministriem.
Var uzskatīt, ka viens no pērnā gadsimta pagrieziena momentiem bija brīdis, kad Gavrilo Proncips iznācis no pūļa nošāva automobilī sēdošo Austroungārijas troņa mantinieku Franci Ferdinandu. Šis terora akts savā vienkāršumā nudien sasniedza visus plānotos mērķus. Tas atbrīvoja Bosniju Hercegovinu no Hapsburgiem, radīja jaunu un stipru Serbiju. Blakus efekti bija četru impēriju sabrukšana, miljoniem kritušo un kara vešana jaunā kvalitātē. Kas gan padarīja pārtikušo un mierīgo Eiropu tik nestabilu, ka pietika ar vienu slepkavību?
Un uz to atbildi dod šī grāmata. Autors ir rāvies melnās miesās, lai atrastu kaut ko jaunu šajā tēmā. Viņš ir orientējies uz pirmdokumentu izpēti, salīdzinājis daudzus avotus, lai atmestu malā dažādus memuārus, kur tiešie kara izraisītāji hroniski slimo ar atmiņas zudumiem dienās, kad tika pieņemti galvenie lēmumi. Pēc kara jau daudzas valstis publicēja oficiālas atskaites par kara gaitu un kādēl vispār tika karots, taču tā vairāk ir vainas nogrūšana uz citiem un pašu slavināšana. Lai vai kā autoram ir izdevies radīt kopainu par notiekošo Francijā, Krievijā, Lielbritānijā, Serbijā, Austroungārijā un vēl daudzās citās valstīs.
Es neteikšu, ka lasīšana bija aizraujoša un aizrāva mani no pirmajām lapaspusēm. Vēstures grāmatas reti kad ir aizraujošas, tās lielākoties ir informatīvas. Es domāju, ka nevienam autoram nebūtu pa spēkam aptvert vismaz pārdesmit paralēls sižeta līnijas, kuras noris vienlaicīgi, kur galvenie varoņi ir pašpārliecināti un nekompetenti ļaudis, kas sevi uzskata par visgudrākajiem valdniekiem, ministriem vai vēstniekiem. Tādi, kuriem domas mainās acumirklī, un kuri pie nopietnākas krīzes pazūd no sabiedrības redzesloka. Lasītājs te varēs izlasīt vairāk par Balkānu mudžekli, kā viņš jelkad varētu vēlēties uzzināt. Bonusā beidzot arī sapratīs, kādēļ Dienvidslāvijas sabrukums izraisīja tādu slaktiņu. Varu derēt, ka tas nebūt nebija pēdējais, jo lielas idejas nenomirs pat gadsimtu laikā. Vajag tikai aunu baru un nacionālistisku idiotu galvgalī, lai viss sāktos no gala.
Bez milzīgas vēsturisku faktu gūzmas es ieguvu diezgan labu perspektīvu uz Balkānu reģionā notiekošo, jo autors “vēsturi cilā” jau no deviņpadsmitā gadsimta piecdesmitajiem gadiem, kad prūši parāda savu varenību un padzen pagaldē frančus. Jā, Pirmā pasaules kara iedīgļi aizsākās jau tad līdz ar Vācijas apvienošanos, radās lielvalsts bez impērijas.
Grāmatai lieku 10 no 10 ballēm. Ja gribi nosvilināt smadzenes un izlasīt kaut ko patiešām derīgu, tad silti rekomendēju šo grāmatu. Bet esi gatavs, ka lasīšana nebūs ātra un viegla. Iespējams pēc simts lapaspusēm jau būsi sajaucis Rumāņu ministrus ar Serbu ministriem.
April 6, 2017
Does history repeat itself? A Cambridge University historian’s study of the causes of World War I
Six little boys tussle in a sandbox, pushing and shoving, sometimes openly, sometimes when none of the others are looking. One of them, a runt, is getting the worst of it, but he’s a vicious little guy and manages to hold his own within his own tiny corner of the sandbox. The biggest boys exert the least effort but command the most space. They all look confident, but secretly they’re terrified of one another, leading them to combine forces in a constantly shifting pattern of partnerships to fend off the others.
This is the image that comes to mind of Europe in the summer of 1914 from reading Christopher Clark’s new inquiry into how the First World War came to be. Naturally, Professor Clark had something much more grown-up in mind when he wrote the book. After all, he is a Fellow at St. Catherine’s College at the University of Cambridge, where he received his Ph.D. in History, and we all know that a Cambridge Don would never indulge in such belittling imagery.
In all fairness, to put the event in proper perspective, “The conflict that began that summer mobilized 65 million troops, claimed three empires [Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian], 20 million military and civilian deaths, and 21 million wounded. The horrors of Europe’s twentieth century were born of this catastrophe.”
With The Sleepwalkers, Clark muscles into the seemingly endless debate about why and how all this came to pass. Not that anybody on the street is talking about this stuff, of course. But among modern European historians these questions pass for excitement, and no wonder: the Great War is generally taken as the climax of the well-ordered Victorian Era that launched the human race with a lurch into the 20th Century. The origins of the cataclysm that upended tens of millions of lives are variously found in Prussian militarism, the colliding interests of European empires, the arms race, the profit motive among arms merchants, and other cross-border phenomena, but Professor Clark apparently will have none of this. He’s a practitioner of that brand of history that finds truth in the quotidian details of human interaction — in short, in the day-to-day decisions of living, breathing human beings tossed together in a crisis that nobody foresaw.
In the first of its three parts, The Sleepwalkers thus explores the political environment, highlighting the major players in each of the contending nations — Serbia, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Germany, France, and England — in the years running up to 1914. Part II takes a broader look at the Continent, discussing the interplay of the leading states in the closing years of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th. In outline, the stable alliances of the late 1880s had given way to a bipolar system by 1907, with the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and (loosely) Italy facing off against the interlocking fortunes of Russia, France, and Great Britain. Clark asserts that “[t]he polarization of Europe’s geopolitical system was a crucial precondition for the war that broke out in 1914.” Then, in Part III, Clark delves deeply into the day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour, decisions of the leading players from June 28, when Gavrilo Princip shot to death the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife, until the early days of August, when all the chips had fallen into place and war was declared on all fronts.
In Clark’s view, “1914 is less remote from us — less illegible — now than it was in the 1980s. Since the end of the Cold War, a system of bipolar stability has made way for a more complex and unpredictable array of forces, including declining empires and rising powers — a state of affairs that invites comparison with the Europe of 1914.” Although Clark makes it easy to see history repeating itself in small ways — for example, the genocidal course pursued by Serbia in the 1990s was little different from its behavior in the decades leading up to 1914 — it’s difficult to see the parallels to most of today’s international crises. Surely, Professor Clark wouldn’t pretend that the U.S. invasion of Iraq — one of the seminal events of our times and perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in American history — was anything but the result of hubris and colossal miscalculation on the part of an ideology-driven clique within the U.S. government.
Disagreements aside, however, The Sleepwalkers is an outstanding piece of work. Professor Clark’s knowledge of the period he writes about is both broad and deep, and he writes with grace and verve that’s highly unusual in academic circles.
Six little boys tussle in a sandbox, pushing and shoving, sometimes openly, sometimes when none of the others are looking. One of them, a runt, is getting the worst of it, but he’s a vicious little guy and manages to hold his own within his own tiny corner of the sandbox. The biggest boys exert the least effort but command the most space. They all look confident, but secretly they’re terrified of one another, leading them to combine forces in a constantly shifting pattern of partnerships to fend off the others.
This is the image that comes to mind of Europe in the summer of 1914 from reading Christopher Clark’s new inquiry into how the First World War came to be. Naturally, Professor Clark had something much more grown-up in mind when he wrote the book. After all, he is a Fellow at St. Catherine’s College at the University of Cambridge, where he received his Ph.D. in History, and we all know that a Cambridge Don would never indulge in such belittling imagery.
In all fairness, to put the event in proper perspective, “The conflict that began that summer mobilized 65 million troops, claimed three empires [Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian], 20 million military and civilian deaths, and 21 million wounded. The horrors of Europe’s twentieth century were born of this catastrophe.”
With The Sleepwalkers, Clark muscles into the seemingly endless debate about why and how all this came to pass. Not that anybody on the street is talking about this stuff, of course. But among modern European historians these questions pass for excitement, and no wonder: the Great War is generally taken as the climax of the well-ordered Victorian Era that launched the human race with a lurch into the 20th Century. The origins of the cataclysm that upended tens of millions of lives are variously found in Prussian militarism, the colliding interests of European empires, the arms race, the profit motive among arms merchants, and other cross-border phenomena, but Professor Clark apparently will have none of this. He’s a practitioner of that brand of history that finds truth in the quotidian details of human interaction — in short, in the day-to-day decisions of living, breathing human beings tossed together in a crisis that nobody foresaw.
In the first of its three parts, The Sleepwalkers thus explores the political environment, highlighting the major players in each of the contending nations — Serbia, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Germany, France, and England — in the years running up to 1914. Part II takes a broader look at the Continent, discussing the interplay of the leading states in the closing years of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th. In outline, the stable alliances of the late 1880s had given way to a bipolar system by 1907, with the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and (loosely) Italy facing off against the interlocking fortunes of Russia, France, and Great Britain. Clark asserts that “[t]he polarization of Europe’s geopolitical system was a crucial precondition for the war that broke out in 1914.” Then, in Part III, Clark delves deeply into the day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour, decisions of the leading players from June 28, when Gavrilo Princip shot to death the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife, until the early days of August, when all the chips had fallen into place and war was declared on all fronts.
In Clark’s view, “1914 is less remote from us — less illegible — now than it was in the 1980s. Since the end of the Cold War, a system of bipolar stability has made way for a more complex and unpredictable array of forces, including declining empires and rising powers — a state of affairs that invites comparison with the Europe of 1914.” Although Clark makes it easy to see history repeating itself in small ways — for example, the genocidal course pursued by Serbia in the 1990s was little different from its behavior in the decades leading up to 1914 — it’s difficult to see the parallels to most of today’s international crises. Surely, Professor Clark wouldn’t pretend that the U.S. invasion of Iraq — one of the seminal events of our times and perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in American history — was anything but the result of hubris and colossal miscalculation on the part of an ideology-driven clique within the U.S. government.
Disagreements aside, however, The Sleepwalkers is an outstanding piece of work. Professor Clark’s knowledge of the period he writes about is both broad and deep, and he writes with grace and verve that’s highly unusual in academic circles.
June 21, 2014
Theoretically, the book is about how the various governments of continental Europe got enmeshed in World War I. In fact, the book is an endless (and ad nauseaum) series of chapter-long mini-studies of a host of pre-WWI crises that convulsed Europe. Clark really doesn't get to the actual decision-making about WWI until the very end of the book, and then treats it as little different from the other crises.
Clark's theory is that foreign policy decision-making in the governments of Europe was diffuse, and many actors in each government had their fingers in the pie. Some of these actors were quite low-level, and yet were able to wield enormous power over decision-making. To support his thesis, Clark beats the dead horse about 1,000,000 times with endless case studies of crisis after pre-war crisis. Never does Clark show that these mini-crises had an influence on the crisis of July 1914, nor does he show that they locked in the diffuse decision-making processes that he documents so clearly.
Perhaps the best part of Clark's book are the early chapters on Serbia. His in-depth and eye-opening discussion of Serbian politics and Black Hand's role in it is excellent. The research is superb, the writing crystal clear, and the enormous cast of characters handled deftly. This section of the book is a terrific addition to WWI studies, for it makes sense out of much of what Serbia did during the July Crisis.
I can't say that Clark handles the rest of the book as well. Sometimes, it seems like he's merely name-dropping for the sake of name-dropping, and at other times he becomes so bogged down in relating yet another crisis that you want to just flip 100 pages ahead to get on with the narrative.
My biggest problem with the book regards its central thesis: Clark implies repeatedly that the diffuse decision-making structures of pre-war Europe dragged the continent into war. But, quite frankly, my perception of his research and other histories of Europe throughout the 19th and 20th centuries is that this has always been the case. It's nothing new. Clark implies it is new; indeed, he seems to feel it is something so radically different that it is worth delving deeply into it and devoting several hundred pages to it. But Clark never establishes that it was new, and never addresses the common conclusion that it continued long after the war (and continues to this day).
Clark is probably right that diffuse decison-making dragged Europe into war. But so what? Diffuse decision-making structures have been part of governmental processes for millenia. Why is this different now, in World War I? Although Clark shows that diffuse decision-making structures were nothing new and existed for decades prior to WWI, he never says that they worsened (which is why war broke out), or got better (which is why war broke out), or that they got locked in by decades of use (which is why war broke out). I came away from the book with the feeling "guns kill people". Why, yes -- yes, they do. And diffuse decision-making leads to crisis and war. Yes, yes, it does. So?
One final complaint: Many reviewers bad-mouth Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and compare it unfavorably to Clark's book. Ignore those reviews. Clark is a decent academic writer, but his prose is mediocre for the most part (and often dense, dull, and boring at its worst). Tuchman is eminently more readable, and nothing in Clark's book shows that her factual recounting of the events leading up to World War I is incorrect.
Clark's theory is that foreign policy decision-making in the governments of Europe was diffuse, and many actors in each government had their fingers in the pie. Some of these actors were quite low-level, and yet were able to wield enormous power over decision-making. To support his thesis, Clark beats the dead horse about 1,000,000 times with endless case studies of crisis after pre-war crisis. Never does Clark show that these mini-crises had an influence on the crisis of July 1914, nor does he show that they locked in the diffuse decision-making processes that he documents so clearly.
Perhaps the best part of Clark's book are the early chapters on Serbia. His in-depth and eye-opening discussion of Serbian politics and Black Hand's role in it is excellent. The research is superb, the writing crystal clear, and the enormous cast of characters handled deftly. This section of the book is a terrific addition to WWI studies, for it makes sense out of much of what Serbia did during the July Crisis.
I can't say that Clark handles the rest of the book as well. Sometimes, it seems like he's merely name-dropping for the sake of name-dropping, and at other times he becomes so bogged down in relating yet another crisis that you want to just flip 100 pages ahead to get on with the narrative.
My biggest problem with the book regards its central thesis: Clark implies repeatedly that the diffuse decision-making structures of pre-war Europe dragged the continent into war. But, quite frankly, my perception of his research and other histories of Europe throughout the 19th and 20th centuries is that this has always been the case. It's nothing new. Clark implies it is new; indeed, he seems to feel it is something so radically different that it is worth delving deeply into it and devoting several hundred pages to it. But Clark never establishes that it was new, and never addresses the common conclusion that it continued long after the war (and continues to this day).
Clark is probably right that diffuse decison-making dragged Europe into war. But so what? Diffuse decision-making structures have been part of governmental processes for millenia. Why is this different now, in World War I? Although Clark shows that diffuse decision-making structures were nothing new and existed for decades prior to WWI, he never says that they worsened (which is why war broke out), or got better (which is why war broke out), or that they got locked in by decades of use (which is why war broke out). I came away from the book with the feeling "guns kill people". Why, yes -- yes, they do. And diffuse decision-making leads to crisis and war. Yes, yes, it does. So?
One final complaint: Many reviewers bad-mouth Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and compare it unfavorably to Clark's book. Ignore those reviews. Clark is a decent academic writer, but his prose is mediocre for the most part (and often dense, dull, and boring at its worst). Tuchman is eminently more readable, and nothing in Clark's book shows that her factual recounting of the events leading up to World War I is incorrect.
July 16, 2023
An exhaustive study about the beginnings of WWI, written rather for initiated than simple history amateurs. A very labyrinthine work, with some redundant parts (the entire fourth chapter, I'd say) and no final claims in declamation of truth, even one hundred years later. Perhaps Germany had not the greatest culpability, perhaps Russia would have been another country in the absence of the war, perhaps even Romania would have been a smaller country. Who knows?
October 22, 2014
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Macedonia, Transylvania – the names float like ghosts over a map of early 20th century Europe. It was a map in flux. The Ottoman Empire was disintegrating. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was suddenly threatened by the unrest of it's numerous ethnic minorities: Croats, Slavs, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenes, Serbs, Romanians.... Major European powers were jockeying for colonial dominance: England in Egypt and India; France in North Africa and Southeast Asia. Russia sought control of the Turkish Straits. The delicately balanced foreign policy of Bismark was jettisoned by his successors (too complicated!) in favor of the “free hand.” Historian Christopher Clark sifts through the changing array of politicians, short-term foreign policy objectives, domestic conflict, misunderstood signals, and flawed assumptions with the goal of understanding how the catastrophe that was World War I could have come about. The over 34 million casualties and the aftermath that paved the way for Hitler in Germany demand an explanation to the logical mind.
However, from the outset, he redirects us from the intriguing question: “What caused World War I?” to a more subtle view of causation – one I see as influenced by 20th century chaos theory. Clark seems to implicitly acknowledge this in his introduction: “...the question of why invites us to go in search of remote and categorical causes: imperialism, nationalism, armaments, alliances, high finance, ideas of national honour, the mechanics of mobilization. The why approach brings a certain analytical clarity, but it also has a distorting effect, because it creates the illusion of a steadily building causal pressure; the factors pile up on top of each other pushing down on the events; political actors become mere executors of forces long established and beyond their control.”
Clark's exposition reflects this complexity. He begins his story on June 11, 1903, working both backward and forward from this arbitrary event – the assassination of the Serbian king and queen by a conspiracy of Serbian army officers. The violence serves both as an illustration of the instability of the Serbian government (political assassination was almost the norm since the country broke free of the Ottoman Empire), and the beginning of a growth industry – terrorism.
One way to follow his narrative is by tracking a few key events leading up to 1914. 1905-1906 saw commercial relations between Serbia and Austria-Hungary severed in favor of a new alignment with France. With a lucrative armaments contract signed with a French manufacturer rather than its Austrian rival, and a massive military build-up financed by French credit, Serbia signaled a major destabilizing political realignment. Meanwhile a parochial and xenophobic peasantry deterred outside investment in the domestic economy. Clark calls it 'growth without development' and argues that a stagnant ultra-conservative society encouraged jobless youth to join the growing number of pan-Slavic cells funded in part by the Serbian government.
In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, provinces that were nominally part of the Ottoman Empire but had been under Austrian occupation for the past 30 years. The annexation was a rallying point for pan-Slavic militants and put Russia in the uncomfortable position of restraining Serbia while seeking to anchor its influence in the Balkan peninsula. It's plan to acquiesce in the Austrian annexation in exchange for access to the Turkish Straits was rejected by England (a disappointment which would influence future decision-making); and it's about-face policy resulted in deteriorated relations with Germany.
October 1912-May 1913 marked the First Balkan War. Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece drove Ottoman forces out of Albania, Macedonia and Thrace. The event signaled the end of a foreign policy calculus that saw the preservation of the Ottoman Empire as a stabilizing force, and the beginning of a free-for-all grab for Balkan real estate. The war was almost immediately succeeded by the Second Balkan War from January to July 1913 in which Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Romania fought Bulgaria for territories in Macedonia, Thrace and Dobrudja. This war placed the Austro-Hungarian empire in an awkward position. It could not back Bulgaria against Serbia because it would place the empire in opposition to Romania as well, which would invite unrest among the sizeable Romanian population in Hungarian Transylvania. The war ended in considerably expanding Serbia's borders, and Serbia was still the breeding ground for active anti-Austrian terrorist cells.
Clark describes a series of changing defensive postures and understandings which moved with the swiftness of a game of musical chairs. When the music stopped, Berlin suddenly found itself in an isolated position, with Russia and France forming ever closer relations, the Ottoman Empire dissolving, and England issuing maddeningly mixed signals which if not overtly anti-German, were definitely not pro-German. In one of his more lucid passages, Clark notes: “It was a striking example of what international relations theorists call the 'security dilemma', in which the steps taken by one state to enhance its security 'render the others more insecure and compel them to prepare for the worst'.”
Overlaid on this chronological schema, Clark embarks on a detailed examination of the principals involved. Nikola Pašić (Prime Minister of Serbia), Nikolai Hartwig (Russian ambassador to Serbia), Edward Grey (British Foreign Secretary), Paul Cambon (French ambassador to England), Alexander Izvolsky (Russian foreign minister), Raymond Poincaré (Prime Minister of France), Sergei Sazonov (Foreign Minister of Russia), Maurice Paléologue (French ambassador to Bulgaria and later to Russia),
and Vladimir Sukhomlinov (Russian war minister), to name but a few. Citing the constellation of players in Paris, St. Petersburg, Belgrade and Vienna, Clark wryly notes: “One is reminded of a Harold Pinter play where the characters know each other very well and like each other very little.”
On a personal note, I was astonished at how influential ambassadors were in influencing and enacting foreign policy.
This is a long book. The serious history buff of the period will find this a “must read.” The rest of us perhaps less so. I found the opening chapter on Serbia the most interesting due to the sociological observations Clark makes about “growth without development.” Perhaps beyond that, my concentration began to blur with the ever-growing lists of names and events. Moreover, Clark has a meticulous but annoying style: On the one hand... . On the other hand.... I was able to finish this book only due to a parallel reading experiment with my husband. He is listening to some Dan Carlin podcasts as well as Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August. At breakfast we are able to compare notes on the run-up to World War I. It's a delightful way of learning history. As a result, I'm giving this book my ambivalent 3-star rating!
Clark does an admirable job of dispelling some popular myths. Not all of the players wanted war; and in fact many realized that war would be long and catastrophic. He critiques the 'Fischer thesis' that blames Germany for engineering the war. Nor does he believe that the Kaiser's belligerent “sabre-rattling” was the driving force of German foreign policy. (A discussion of the Kaiser, though, does lead to one of Clark's livelier passages: “He was an extreme exemplar of that Edwardian social category, the club bore who is forever explaining some pet project to the man in the next chair. Small wonder that the prospect of being buttonholed by the Kaiser over lunch or dinner, when escape was impossible, struck fear into the hearts of so many European royals”). Despite the coalescence of two oppositional alliance blocs, the Austrian-Serbian conflict did not automatically dictate world war. A series of conscious decisions were made that led to that result. Inflamed public opinion was more influential in domestic political calculations than a direct contributor to hostilities.
NOTE:
Try to read this in hard copy; you will find the maps easier to read.
However, from the outset, he redirects us from the intriguing question: “What caused World War I?” to a more subtle view of causation – one I see as influenced by 20th century chaos theory. Clark seems to implicitly acknowledge this in his introduction: “...the question of why invites us to go in search of remote and categorical causes: imperialism, nationalism, armaments, alliances, high finance, ideas of national honour, the mechanics of mobilization. The why approach brings a certain analytical clarity, but it also has a distorting effect, because it creates the illusion of a steadily building causal pressure; the factors pile up on top of each other pushing down on the events; political actors become mere executors of forces long established and beyond their control.”
Clark's exposition reflects this complexity. He begins his story on June 11, 1903, working both backward and forward from this arbitrary event – the assassination of the Serbian king and queen by a conspiracy of Serbian army officers. The violence serves both as an illustration of the instability of the Serbian government (political assassination was almost the norm since the country broke free of the Ottoman Empire), and the beginning of a growth industry – terrorism.
One way to follow his narrative is by tracking a few key events leading up to 1914. 1905-1906 saw commercial relations between Serbia and Austria-Hungary severed in favor of a new alignment with France. With a lucrative armaments contract signed with a French manufacturer rather than its Austrian rival, and a massive military build-up financed by French credit, Serbia signaled a major destabilizing political realignment. Meanwhile a parochial and xenophobic peasantry deterred outside investment in the domestic economy. Clark calls it 'growth without development' and argues that a stagnant ultra-conservative society encouraged jobless youth to join the growing number of pan-Slavic cells funded in part by the Serbian government.
In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, provinces that were nominally part of the Ottoman Empire but had been under Austrian occupation for the past 30 years. The annexation was a rallying point for pan-Slavic militants and put Russia in the uncomfortable position of restraining Serbia while seeking to anchor its influence in the Balkan peninsula. It's plan to acquiesce in the Austrian annexation in exchange for access to the Turkish Straits was rejected by England (a disappointment which would influence future decision-making); and it's about-face policy resulted in deteriorated relations with Germany.
October 1912-May 1913 marked the First Balkan War. Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece drove Ottoman forces out of Albania, Macedonia and Thrace. The event signaled the end of a foreign policy calculus that saw the preservation of the Ottoman Empire as a stabilizing force, and the beginning of a free-for-all grab for Balkan real estate. The war was almost immediately succeeded by the Second Balkan War from January to July 1913 in which Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Romania fought Bulgaria for territories in Macedonia, Thrace and Dobrudja. This war placed the Austro-Hungarian empire in an awkward position. It could not back Bulgaria against Serbia because it would place the empire in opposition to Romania as well, which would invite unrest among the sizeable Romanian population in Hungarian Transylvania. The war ended in considerably expanding Serbia's borders, and Serbia was still the breeding ground for active anti-Austrian terrorist cells.
Clark describes a series of changing defensive postures and understandings which moved with the swiftness of a game of musical chairs. When the music stopped, Berlin suddenly found itself in an isolated position, with Russia and France forming ever closer relations, the Ottoman Empire dissolving, and England issuing maddeningly mixed signals which if not overtly anti-German, were definitely not pro-German. In one of his more lucid passages, Clark notes: “It was a striking example of what international relations theorists call the 'security dilemma', in which the steps taken by one state to enhance its security 'render the others more insecure and compel them to prepare for the worst'.”
Overlaid on this chronological schema, Clark embarks on a detailed examination of the principals involved. Nikola Pašić (Prime Minister of Serbia), Nikolai Hartwig (Russian ambassador to Serbia), Edward Grey (British Foreign Secretary), Paul Cambon (French ambassador to England), Alexander Izvolsky (Russian foreign minister), Raymond Poincaré (Prime Minister of France), Sergei Sazonov (Foreign Minister of Russia), Maurice Paléologue (French ambassador to Bulgaria and later to Russia),
and Vladimir Sukhomlinov (Russian war minister), to name but a few. Citing the constellation of players in Paris, St. Petersburg, Belgrade and Vienna, Clark wryly notes: “One is reminded of a Harold Pinter play where the characters know each other very well and like each other very little.”
On a personal note, I was astonished at how influential ambassadors were in influencing and enacting foreign policy.
This is a long book. The serious history buff of the period will find this a “must read.” The rest of us perhaps less so. I found the opening chapter on Serbia the most interesting due to the sociological observations Clark makes about “growth without development.” Perhaps beyond that, my concentration began to blur with the ever-growing lists of names and events. Moreover, Clark has a meticulous but annoying style: On the one hand... . On the other hand.... I was able to finish this book only due to a parallel reading experiment with my husband. He is listening to some Dan Carlin podcasts as well as Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August. At breakfast we are able to compare notes on the run-up to World War I. It's a delightful way of learning history. As a result, I'm giving this book my ambivalent 3-star rating!
Clark does an admirable job of dispelling some popular myths. Not all of the players wanted war; and in fact many realized that war would be long and catastrophic. He critiques the 'Fischer thesis' that blames Germany for engineering the war. Nor does he believe that the Kaiser's belligerent “sabre-rattling” was the driving force of German foreign policy. (A discussion of the Kaiser, though, does lead to one of Clark's livelier passages: “He was an extreme exemplar of that Edwardian social category, the club bore who is forever explaining some pet project to the man in the next chair. Small wonder that the prospect of being buttonholed by the Kaiser over lunch or dinner, when escape was impossible, struck fear into the hearts of so many European royals”). Despite the coalescence of two oppositional alliance blocs, the Austrian-Serbian conflict did not automatically dictate world war. A series of conscious decisions were made that led to that result. Inflamed public opinion was more influential in domestic political calculations than a direct contributor to hostilities.
NOTE:
Try to read this in hard copy; you will find the maps easier to read.
August 14, 2023
Desde un punto de vista académico, este libro es apabullante. La labor de investigación del autor es inmensa y es sin duda la referencia actual para el periodo de preguerra. Basta buscar en Wikipedia a algunos de los hechos o protagonistas de aquellos días para encontrar este título en las referencias bibliográficas.
Sin embargo, si como es mi caso, vas buscando un acercamiento a la Primera Guerra mundial, creo que no es el libro adecuado. Sólo se trata de los años previos al conflicto y cómo se gestó sin ninguna referencia a las batallas de la guerra ni a las consecuencias de la misma.
Un libro excelente para fans del tema pero un tanto excesivo para neófitos como yo.
Sin embargo, si como es mi caso, vas buscando un acercamiento a la Primera Guerra mundial, creo que no es el libro adecuado. Sólo se trata de los años previos al conflicto y cómo se gestó sin ninguna referencia a las batallas de la guerra ni a las consecuencias de la misma.
Un libro excelente para fans del tema pero un tanto excesivo para neófitos como yo.
November 3, 2013
No review could do this work justice, so this will have to suffice. Clark's book is an exhaustive and intriguing history of the war’s origins and outbreak. Clark’s story is meticulously detailed and quite dense, but still readable. Still, this is not for the casual reader: the narrative requires some concentration. You’ll get bogged down in a lot of parts, but I think it’s worth it.
Clark’s coverage of the European alliance system is particularly good. He gives us a readable account of all their motivations, interests and policies. Clark gives us a good account of the development of the various secret alliances among the European powers, relating to it the role of the governments, the presses, the diplomats, and the military establishments.
Clark also shows what the various secret alliances meant on paper and how they functioned in reality. They were pretty insecure, and never offered any of the powers a true sense of security. He also examines all of the fateful decisions made during the run-up to to the war. Many of them seem pretty dumb when examined on their own, but Clark places them in context so that they all make a perverse sense.
If I had one problem, it was the title. The whole “sleepwalkers” concept is a little lame. Supposedly it is a counterbalance to the thesis of Europe being a tinderbox waiting to explode, but is there really that much difference? Clark fails to make solid case for this, but the book is so exhaustive that you forget what his thesis is, anyway.
I don’t think anybody “slept-walked” into war. The years leading up to 1914 was full of crises, threats, war talk, war preparations, and proxy wars. In fact, there were so many indirect conflicts that the European powers were desensitized: they thought the war of 1914 would be just another short war.
Clark’s coverage of the European alliance system is particularly good. He gives us a readable account of all their motivations, interests and policies. Clark gives us a good account of the development of the various secret alliances among the European powers, relating to it the role of the governments, the presses, the diplomats, and the military establishments.
Clark also shows what the various secret alliances meant on paper and how they functioned in reality. They were pretty insecure, and never offered any of the powers a true sense of security. He also examines all of the fateful decisions made during the run-up to to the war. Many of them seem pretty dumb when examined on their own, but Clark places them in context so that they all make a perverse sense.
If I had one problem, it was the title. The whole “sleepwalkers” concept is a little lame. Supposedly it is a counterbalance to the thesis of Europe being a tinderbox waiting to explode, but is there really that much difference? Clark fails to make solid case for this, but the book is so exhaustive that you forget what his thesis is, anyway.
I don’t think anybody “slept-walked” into war. The years leading up to 1914 was full of crises, threats, war talk, war preparations, and proxy wars. In fact, there were so many indirect conflicts that the European powers were desensitized: they thought the war of 1914 would be just another short war.
April 19, 2013
As Clark points out in his Introduction, historians started debating the cause of the First World War even before it began! For it did seem inevitable to many at the time, although the eventual scope – resulting eventually in the mobilization of 65 million troops and ending with the destruction of three empires, 20 million military and civilian deaths, and 21 million more wounded, was unanticipated. Clark notes that while a few leaders warned of “Armageddon” and a “war of extermination” and “the extinction of civilization”, they didn’t really believe it. They also made glib observations on the glory of arms. To this extent, he opines, “the protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world.”
Clark bemoans the difficulties of sorting through the oceans of documents on the War to get to the real facts behind its genesis, and of separating history from historical revisionism, an inevitable result of any conflict in which the victors usually control most of the narratives. [He reminds us that our moral compass in our tendency to assign blame on the one hand, or perceive justified actions on the other, has shifted as well.] In addition, there are gaps in the records; the many “secret societies” involved did not keep records, nor did we have the benefit of someone smuggling an IPhone into their proceedings to record them for posterity.
Thus, Clark maintains that he is not going to get into why the war happened; rather, his intention is more “to look closely at the sequences of interactions that produced certain outcomes.”
This distinction may sound like hair-splitting, but it does serve to allow him to concentrate his history on what actually happened rather than what didn’t happen or what might have happened, the last two “contingent” approaches characterizing a number of recent books about the Great War. On the other hand, he can’t really avoid talking about historical events and the international economic, social, and political situation of the time.
The “Sleepwalkers” of the title are the foreign policy decision makers of the major powers. Clark contends that they stumbled into the war, in part because they grossly misunderstood the motivations of the other principal actors. A sub-theme of the book is that the decision-making apparatuses of all the powers except France were diffuse and confused, without clear chains of command. They were all monarchies whose kings or emperors who were no longer absolute rulers, but who exerted an ill-defined amount of power on their countries’ foreign policies. [Nevertheless, the tendency of these rulers to consider prolonged vacations a divine right of office enabled their war ministers to work themselves up into frenzies of paranoia, champing at the bit to effect pre-emptive strikes.]
Clark calls the crisis of July 1914 the most complex event of modern times. Much modern scholarship of the War downplays the role of Serbia, implying that the prevailing confusing interlocking system of alliances was bound to produce a widespread conflict eventually. But Clark argues that in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, it is more difficult to envision Serbia as “a mere object or victim of great power politics and easier to conceive of Serbian nationalism as an historical force in its own right.”
Therefore, Clark begins his narrative not with the Sarajevo assassinations of 1914, but with the assassinations of Serbian King Alexander and Queen Draga in 1903. He observes:
"…the conspiratorial network that had come together to murder the royal family did not simply melt away, but remained an important force in Serbian politics and public life.”
That network (sometimes known as the “Black Hand”) was still extant in 1908 when Austria-Hungary inflamed Serbian resentment by annexing the formerly Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus were Belgrade’s aspirations to creating a “Greater Serbia” dashed. The Serbian public was furious, and a new mass movement grew sprang up overnight “powered by this wave of outrage.” This dangerous dynamic in Serbian society still obtained when the unlucky Archduke Francis Ferdinand came visiting the newly absorbed provinces on June 28, 1914.
The archduke was murdered in Austrian territory. So what was the role of the Serbian government of Prime Minister Nikola Pašić? Although the Black Hand was not an official organ of the Serbian state, Clark concludes, “It is virtually certain that Pašić was informed of the [assassination] plan in some detail.” The government of Austria-Hungary was understandably incensed by the murder, but was unable to prove Serbian government complicity in the immediate aftermath. Nevertheless, key Austrian decision-makers determined that only a military response would do. The Austrian reaction set in motion the immensely complicated series of diplomatic and military maneuvers (such as making sure that Germany was on board) that ultimately resulted in the outbreak of World War I five weeks later.
A simplistic description of the war as a conflict between the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Russia, France, and Great Britain) does not do justice to the complexities of interlocking alliances and “understandings” that bound the Great Powers to assist one another in the event of mobilization for armed conflict.
Clark assiduously describes this maze, stating:
"The chaotic interventions of monarchs, ambiguous relationships between civil and military, adversarial competition among key politicians in systems characterized by low levels of ministerial or cabinet solidarity, compounded by the agitations of a critical mass press against a background of intermittent crisis and heightened tension over security issues made this a period of unprecedented uncertainty in international relations.”
Clark does not ascribe blame for the war. He says, “There is no smoking gun in this story; or, rather, there is one in the hands of every major character. Viewed in this light, the outbreak of war was a tragedy, not a crime.”
Evaluation: This is a long and densely packed history centering on the five weeks leading up to World War I. The emphasis is therefore on relatively minute events rather than sweeping generalizations about historical trends and long-festering causation. Nevertheless, the author includes a comprehensive background description of the military and diplomatic situation in each of the great powers. His description of numerous key individuals is masterful. To summarize this 550+ page account would take many more pages than is appropriate in a review. It is an excellent addition to the voluminous literature of the causes of World War I, but is probably not primarily for the casual reader looking for an overview of the War.
Moreover, I should note that his theory of “sleepwalkers” goes against the conviction of other WWI scholars, who tend to see the onset of WWI in a similar light as some analysts view the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Important policy makers wanted this war to happen, and the military-industrial complex supported their enthusiasm. The rest, as they say, is history.
Note: Maps, photos, and voluminous notes are included with the text.
Clark bemoans the difficulties of sorting through the oceans of documents on the War to get to the real facts behind its genesis, and of separating history from historical revisionism, an inevitable result of any conflict in which the victors usually control most of the narratives. [He reminds us that our moral compass in our tendency to assign blame on the one hand, or perceive justified actions on the other, has shifted as well.] In addition, there are gaps in the records; the many “secret societies” involved did not keep records, nor did we have the benefit of someone smuggling an IPhone into their proceedings to record them for posterity.
Thus, Clark maintains that he is not going to get into why the war happened; rather, his intention is more “to look closely at the sequences of interactions that produced certain outcomes.”
This distinction may sound like hair-splitting, but it does serve to allow him to concentrate his history on what actually happened rather than what didn’t happen or what might have happened, the last two “contingent” approaches characterizing a number of recent books about the Great War. On the other hand, he can’t really avoid talking about historical events and the international economic, social, and political situation of the time.
The “Sleepwalkers” of the title are the foreign policy decision makers of the major powers. Clark contends that they stumbled into the war, in part because they grossly misunderstood the motivations of the other principal actors. A sub-theme of the book is that the decision-making apparatuses of all the powers except France were diffuse and confused, without clear chains of command. They were all monarchies whose kings or emperors who were no longer absolute rulers, but who exerted an ill-defined amount of power on their countries’ foreign policies. [Nevertheless, the tendency of these rulers to consider prolonged vacations a divine right of office enabled their war ministers to work themselves up into frenzies of paranoia, champing at the bit to effect pre-emptive strikes.]
Clark calls the crisis of July 1914 the most complex event of modern times. Much modern scholarship of the War downplays the role of Serbia, implying that the prevailing confusing interlocking system of alliances was bound to produce a widespread conflict eventually. But Clark argues that in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, it is more difficult to envision Serbia as “a mere object or victim of great power politics and easier to conceive of Serbian nationalism as an historical force in its own right.”
Therefore, Clark begins his narrative not with the Sarajevo assassinations of 1914, but with the assassinations of Serbian King Alexander and Queen Draga in 1903. He observes:
"…the conspiratorial network that had come together to murder the royal family did not simply melt away, but remained an important force in Serbian politics and public life.”
That network (sometimes known as the “Black Hand”) was still extant in 1908 when Austria-Hungary inflamed Serbian resentment by annexing the formerly Ottoman provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus were Belgrade’s aspirations to creating a “Greater Serbia” dashed. The Serbian public was furious, and a new mass movement grew sprang up overnight “powered by this wave of outrage.” This dangerous dynamic in Serbian society still obtained when the unlucky Archduke Francis Ferdinand came visiting the newly absorbed provinces on June 28, 1914.
The archduke was murdered in Austrian territory. So what was the role of the Serbian government of Prime Minister Nikola Pašić? Although the Black Hand was not an official organ of the Serbian state, Clark concludes, “It is virtually certain that Pašić was informed of the [assassination] plan in some detail.” The government of Austria-Hungary was understandably incensed by the murder, but was unable to prove Serbian government complicity in the immediate aftermath. Nevertheless, key Austrian decision-makers determined that only a military response would do. The Austrian reaction set in motion the immensely complicated series of diplomatic and military maneuvers (such as making sure that Germany was on board) that ultimately resulted in the outbreak of World War I five weeks later.
A simplistic description of the war as a conflict between the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Russia, France, and Great Britain) does not do justice to the complexities of interlocking alliances and “understandings” that bound the Great Powers to assist one another in the event of mobilization for armed conflict.
Clark assiduously describes this maze, stating:
"The chaotic interventions of monarchs, ambiguous relationships between civil and military, adversarial competition among key politicians in systems characterized by low levels of ministerial or cabinet solidarity, compounded by the agitations of a critical mass press against a background of intermittent crisis and heightened tension over security issues made this a period of unprecedented uncertainty in international relations.”
Clark does not ascribe blame for the war. He says, “There is no smoking gun in this story; or, rather, there is one in the hands of every major character. Viewed in this light, the outbreak of war was a tragedy, not a crime.”
Evaluation: This is a long and densely packed history centering on the five weeks leading up to World War I. The emphasis is therefore on relatively minute events rather than sweeping generalizations about historical trends and long-festering causation. Nevertheless, the author includes a comprehensive background description of the military and diplomatic situation in each of the great powers. His description of numerous key individuals is masterful. To summarize this 550+ page account would take many more pages than is appropriate in a review. It is an excellent addition to the voluminous literature of the causes of World War I, but is probably not primarily for the casual reader looking for an overview of the War.
Moreover, I should note that his theory of “sleepwalkers” goes against the conviction of other WWI scholars, who tend to see the onset of WWI in a similar light as some analysts view the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Important policy makers wanted this war to happen, and the military-industrial complex supported their enthusiasm. The rest, as they say, is history.
Note: Maps, photos, and voluminous notes are included with the text.
July 17, 2020
”A war between Austria and Serbia did not appear likely in the spring and summer of 1914. The mood in Belgrade was relatively calm in the spring of that year, reflecting the exhaustion and sense of satiation that followed the Balkan Wars.”
The Austrian declaration of war on Serbia was signed by emperor Franz Joseph on the morning of July 28th 1914. However, the chain of events that had steered Europe into the direction of war was of an incredibly complex nature.
The assassination in Sarajevo has been engraved in public memory as the trigger that pushed the European powers into a war of attrition, inevitable in nature. Christopher Clark challenges this notion, arguing that while the murders in Sarajevo were an important event that was used to create a pretext for war- it was not the major catalyst for the conflict. Contemporary political documents, such as the Matscheko memorandum, are surprisingly enough devoid of hints that ”Vienna regarded war - whether of the limited or more general variety - as imminent, necessary or desirable.”
The grand scale - not of the conflict itself but of its origin and causes- can be grasped when one considers that half of the book is devoted to issues with roots in the late 19th century and early 20th century, not at all related to what we primarily view as the causes for the Great War. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife is mentioned in depth for the first time on page 367.
Clark paints a picture of a Europe in the early beginning of the twentieth century. A shattered landscape where political intrigue was to be found in every corner. While the débris of eras long gone, such as autocratic monarchies and old-world diplomacy was still much present, he makes the claim that the war was not the result of "a long-run deterioration" - but rather a consequence of "short-term shocks to the international system." The war made its entrance suddenly; in the spring of 1914 two future enemies were planning an exchange of prisoners and relations between Vienna and Belgrade were slightly warming up.
The Balkans in pre-war Europe were an intricate and tangled political landscape. The regicide of 1903 had installed former conspirators at the political forefront and the nation’s democracy was fragile, nationalistic currants running amok. The Austrian annexation of Bosnia in 1908 had created a rift in the Vienna-Belgrade relations. The Sleepwalkers begins with detailed focus on the Balkans, and Serbia in particular. Clark discusses how the structure and attitude of the Serbian government towards the murders at Sarajevo and the lassitude towards the organisation and ideology that had orchestrated them was a reason for the agitated Austrian response. ”Perhaps, the Austrians really were demanding the impossible, namely that the official Serbia of the political map shut down the expansionist ethnic Serbia of irredentism. The problem was that the two were interdependent and inseparable.”
Each chapter is more or less a separate essay, discussing different sides of the origins of the Great War. The chapters are of varying quality, some more academic than others but overall they are well-written, detailed and provide important perspectives to the reader. Since the study is very focused, it allows for elaborate descriptions of international relations and foreign policies at the time. The book also manages to make the arguments and motivations of all key actors clear and understandable. The declarations of war or the somewhat illogical reactions from certain leaders and diplomats are explained in such a way that one begins to understand each and every one of their actions and why they decided to act in a certain manner and what it was that led them there.
While it is an excellent book on an immensely complex subject, the narrative can sometimes feel disorganised which is slightly confusing at times. The prose is fine but does at times get quite academic and sometimes very abstract. But on the other hand, is it possible to thoroughly analyze the origins of this conflict without the result being a complex one? The First World War and its mechanisms still perplexe historians to this day and to simplify it would not do the subject justice. Clark does say at the beginning of the book that the July crisis, to this day, is perhaps the most complex event of modern times.
The confusion that this intricate tangle of policies, alliances and events resulted in at the outbreak of war is illustrated well at the end of the book. "As the great alliance blocs prepared for war, the intricate chain of events that had sparked the conflagration was swiftly lost from view." The discussion at the end of the book is quite interesting too, on whether it really is important to pin the blame on one, two or all of the actors involved. More interesting, and more rewarding is studying the mechanisms that allowed for the war to happen - which is exactly what Christopher Clark has done.
The Austrian declaration of war on Serbia was signed by emperor Franz Joseph on the morning of July 28th 1914. However, the chain of events that had steered Europe into the direction of war was of an incredibly complex nature.
The assassination in Sarajevo has been engraved in public memory as the trigger that pushed the European powers into a war of attrition, inevitable in nature. Christopher Clark challenges this notion, arguing that while the murders in Sarajevo were an important event that was used to create a pretext for war- it was not the major catalyst for the conflict. Contemporary political documents, such as the Matscheko memorandum, are surprisingly enough devoid of hints that ”Vienna regarded war - whether of the limited or more general variety - as imminent, necessary or desirable.”
The grand scale - not of the conflict itself but of its origin and causes- can be grasped when one considers that half of the book is devoted to issues with roots in the late 19th century and early 20th century, not at all related to what we primarily view as the causes for the Great War. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife is mentioned in depth for the first time on page 367.
Clark paints a picture of a Europe in the early beginning of the twentieth century. A shattered landscape where political intrigue was to be found in every corner. While the débris of eras long gone, such as autocratic monarchies and old-world diplomacy was still much present, he makes the claim that the war was not the result of "a long-run deterioration" - but rather a consequence of "short-term shocks to the international system." The war made its entrance suddenly; in the spring of 1914 two future enemies were planning an exchange of prisoners and relations between Vienna and Belgrade were slightly warming up.
The Balkans in pre-war Europe were an intricate and tangled political landscape. The regicide of 1903 had installed former conspirators at the political forefront and the nation’s democracy was fragile, nationalistic currants running amok. The Austrian annexation of Bosnia in 1908 had created a rift in the Vienna-Belgrade relations. The Sleepwalkers begins with detailed focus on the Balkans, and Serbia in particular. Clark discusses how the structure and attitude of the Serbian government towards the murders at Sarajevo and the lassitude towards the organisation and ideology that had orchestrated them was a reason for the agitated Austrian response. ”Perhaps, the Austrians really were demanding the impossible, namely that the official Serbia of the political map shut down the expansionist ethnic Serbia of irredentism. The problem was that the two were interdependent and inseparable.”
Each chapter is more or less a separate essay, discussing different sides of the origins of the Great War. The chapters are of varying quality, some more academic than others but overall they are well-written, detailed and provide important perspectives to the reader. Since the study is very focused, it allows for elaborate descriptions of international relations and foreign policies at the time. The book also manages to make the arguments and motivations of all key actors clear and understandable. The declarations of war or the somewhat illogical reactions from certain leaders and diplomats are explained in such a way that one begins to understand each and every one of their actions and why they decided to act in a certain manner and what it was that led them there.
While it is an excellent book on an immensely complex subject, the narrative can sometimes feel disorganised which is slightly confusing at times. The prose is fine but does at times get quite academic and sometimes very abstract. But on the other hand, is it possible to thoroughly analyze the origins of this conflict without the result being a complex one? The First World War and its mechanisms still perplexe historians to this day and to simplify it would not do the subject justice. Clark does say at the beginning of the book that the July crisis, to this day, is perhaps the most complex event of modern times.
The confusion that this intricate tangle of policies, alliances and events resulted in at the outbreak of war is illustrated well at the end of the book. "As the great alliance blocs prepared for war, the intricate chain of events that had sparked the conflagration was swiftly lost from view." The discussion at the end of the book is quite interesting too, on whether it really is important to pin the blame on one, two or all of the actors involved. More interesting, and more rewarding is studying the mechanisms that allowed for the war to happen - which is exactly what Christopher Clark has done.
July 19, 2018
A much quoted book (*) which seems to have been something of a landmark in the study of the causes of the Great War. The book concentrates solely on this and closes exactly as war is declared between all the parties. The book is well written and enjoyable to read despite its length with the known final declaration of war giving the book a clear end point and structure and adding a slightly "whodunit" type nature to the narrative.
One of Clark's key contentions is that in fact the story doesn't have the satisfactory ending of an Agatha Christie novel with a clear villain; in this he explicitly rejects the common view that the Germans were the key culprits and spreads blame widely across them, Austro-Hungary, France, Russia and especially Serbia (much less so England).
Clark's other central thesis is that far from being a pretence for the non Balkan powers to start a war the Balkans had very much become centre stage in European affairs and that the first two Balkan Wars (firstly a concerted attack on Ottoman territory and secondly a war among the aggressors to distribute the spoils) critically changed the political landscape.
Some critical factors here included: the alignment of Bulgaria with the French (due to loans) and Russian concerns about the Bulgarians advances close to the Dardanelles (both of which effectively crystallised their decision in a dilemma they were facing between whether to support Serbia or Bulgaria); the acceptance by France (as a way of firming up their alliance) that their understanding with Russia would include supporting them in actions arising from the Balkans and in exchange demanding that Russia strongly committed to a rapid mobilisation against Germany from the east in the event of war; the increasing strains on the dual empire of Austro Hungary meaning it lost its ability to easily partly mobilise; the growing distrust by them of the Serbians whose lack of any prosperous middle or upper class to support democracy meant their politicians were forced to espouse nationalistic ideals of a Greater Serbia (or face military or extremist overthrow) and who as a result were notoriously unwilling to deal with extremism.
Other key areas that Clark explores include: the polarization of Europe into twin main alliances which for various complex reasons got stronger and stronger; the complexity of foreign policy making in all the states split between Monarchs, government, military, ambassadors and central Foreign offices; that much of the pre war detente actually worsened the situation as it lead to countries panicking that their allies may switch sides and so look for ways to lock them in closer.
In terms of the declaration of war itself: for the Germans Clark argues that they were very aware that the triple Entente allies were much more likely to win a war in 5 years. Rather than this meaning they fought a preventative war now he argues that their logic was that the Russians also knew this and so would either not force a wider war over Serbia (in which case the Austro-Hungarians could afford to be aggressive) or if they did it would prove they were bent on war and so the Germans may as we'll fight it now; he argues for the Russians ( he admits with limited direct evidence) that their Dardanelles fixation and their view that the weakening of the Ottoman empire meant someone would occupy the straights soon meant they were prepared to risk all to back their chosen Balkan ally; France was sticking to the alliance and Balkan commitment it had made to the Russians - it believed the Germans would back down but if they didn't was prepared for war given that a Balkan cause for it would guarantee full Russian commitment and so divide German forces; the English he portrays as less bought in due to the invasion of Belgium (albeit the German decision to invade near to the critically important Channel ports increased British interests) but due to moral pressure from France who pointed out that as part of the Entente France had removed its Channel defenses so that Britain was morally obliged to defend France in this area.
Finally the "much-quoted" comment is not restricted to historical non-fiction: the book forms an important role in the Booker shortlisted All That Man Is by David Szalay.
One of Clark's key contentions is that in fact the story doesn't have the satisfactory ending of an Agatha Christie novel with a clear villain; in this he explicitly rejects the common view that the Germans were the key culprits and spreads blame widely across them, Austro-Hungary, France, Russia and especially Serbia (much less so England).
Clark's other central thesis is that far from being a pretence for the non Balkan powers to start a war the Balkans had very much become centre stage in European affairs and that the first two Balkan Wars (firstly a concerted attack on Ottoman territory and secondly a war among the aggressors to distribute the spoils) critically changed the political landscape.
Some critical factors here included: the alignment of Bulgaria with the French (due to loans) and Russian concerns about the Bulgarians advances close to the Dardanelles (both of which effectively crystallised their decision in a dilemma they were facing between whether to support Serbia or Bulgaria); the acceptance by France (as a way of firming up their alliance) that their understanding with Russia would include supporting them in actions arising from the Balkans and in exchange demanding that Russia strongly committed to a rapid mobilisation against Germany from the east in the event of war; the increasing strains on the dual empire of Austro Hungary meaning it lost its ability to easily partly mobilise; the growing distrust by them of the Serbians whose lack of any prosperous middle or upper class to support democracy meant their politicians were forced to espouse nationalistic ideals of a Greater Serbia (or face military or extremist overthrow) and who as a result were notoriously unwilling to deal with extremism.
Other key areas that Clark explores include: the polarization of Europe into twin main alliances which for various complex reasons got stronger and stronger; the complexity of foreign policy making in all the states split between Monarchs, government, military, ambassadors and central Foreign offices; that much of the pre war detente actually worsened the situation as it lead to countries panicking that their allies may switch sides and so look for ways to lock them in closer.
In terms of the declaration of war itself: for the Germans Clark argues that they were very aware that the triple Entente allies were much more likely to win a war in 5 years. Rather than this meaning they fought a preventative war now he argues that their logic was that the Russians also knew this and so would either not force a wider war over Serbia (in which case the Austro-Hungarians could afford to be aggressive) or if they did it would prove they were bent on war and so the Germans may as we'll fight it now; he argues for the Russians ( he admits with limited direct evidence) that their Dardanelles fixation and their view that the weakening of the Ottoman empire meant someone would occupy the straights soon meant they were prepared to risk all to back their chosen Balkan ally; France was sticking to the alliance and Balkan commitment it had made to the Russians - it believed the Germans would back down but if they didn't was prepared for war given that a Balkan cause for it would guarantee full Russian commitment and so divide German forces; the English he portrays as less bought in due to the invasion of Belgium (albeit the German decision to invade near to the critically important Channel ports increased British interests) but due to moral pressure from France who pointed out that as part of the Entente France had removed its Channel defenses so that Britain was morally obliged to defend France in this area.
Finally the "much-quoted" comment is not restricted to historical non-fiction: the book forms an important role in the Booker shortlisted All That Man Is by David Szalay.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,167 reviews