about “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914” by Christopher Clark

Why did World War I start? I did not think I cared much about the answer until reading The Sleepwalkers.

It is a big book—over 550 pages—but it is so well written and organized that I read it all, even though my interest in the subject was passing and my appetite for reading in-depth long-form non-fiction on my own time had dwindled. Every page shares colorful details.

The reasons for The Great War go far beyond the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the shrinking Austria-Hungary throne.

The Sleepwalkers is a deep study of the communications and documented thoughts, the sequencing of events and decisions, and the pressures on European statesmen—the kings, prime ministers, diplomats, and generals—as they footed through the years and through their assumptions into one of the deadliest conflicts in history—a war in which about 9 million soldiers died, with 23 million more wounded along with 5 million civilian casualties.

I was interested to learn about the boiling tensions in the Balkans—especially Serbia and the violent streak of nationalism that organized the conspiratorial network, The Black Hand. Serbia was independent, but Slavic populations lived within Hapsburg land, and the plotters imagined the assassination could lead to a united Serbia.

I was also interested to learn about how the colonial interests of the major powers affected their relationships on the continent. In addition to the Balkans, colonial considerations included far east Asia (although Japan was rising as a major regional power), North Africa, South Africa, areas around the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Black seas, and more options opening up with the decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Christopher Clark depicts decision-makers going to war as if it were inevitable, as if narratively driven and somehow unable to imagine the death and destruction that would follow.

The Sleepwalkers impressed the hell out of me—a masterful treatment of a difficult and complex subject. Here are some quotes.

On explaining why Serbian nationalists assassinated Franz Ferdinand:

The archduke made no secret of the fact that he intended to restructure the imperial system after his accession to the throne. The key objective was to break or diminish the Hungarian hegemony in the eastern part of the monarchy. For a time, Franz Ferdinand favoured strengthening the Slavic element in the monarchy by creating a Croat (and, thus, Catholic-) dominated ‘Yugoslavia’ within the empire. It was his association with this idea that so aroused the hatred of his orthodox Serbian enemies. By 1914, however, it appears he had dropped this plan in favour of a far-reaching transformation by which the empire would become a ‘United States of Great Austria,’ comprising fifteen member states, many of which would have Slav majorities. [108, British styling in the book]

On some of the pressures facing the men in charge of Europe:

The press entered into the calculations of policy-makers in many different ways. It was never under their control, and they were never under its control. We should speak rather of reciprocity between public opinion and public life, a process of constant interaction, in which policy-makers sought intermittently to guide public opinion in a congenial direction, but were careful to shield their own autonomy and to protect the integrity of decision-making processes. On the other hand, statesmen continued to view the foreign press as an indicator not just of public opinion but of official views and intentions, and this meant that uncertainties about who was inspiring or licensing which utterances could further complicate communications between states. More fundamental—and more difficult to measure—were shifts in mentality that articulated themselves not in the calls of chauvinists for firmness or confrontation, but in a deep widespread readiness to accept war, conceived as a certainty imposed by the nature of international relations. The weight of this accumulated readiness would manifest itself during the July Crisis of 1914 not in the form of aggressive programmatic statements, but through the eloquent silence of those civilian leaders who, in a better world, might have been expected to point out that a war between great powers would be the very worst of things. [238-9, British styling in the book]

A book recommendation:

In a brilliant study of the US entry into the Vietnam War, Andrew Preston shows that while Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy were reluctant to wage war and the State Department was largely opposed to intervention, the smaller and more nimble National Security Council, which strongly favoured war and operated beyond congressional oversight, narrowed down the president’s options on Vietnam until war was virtually unavoidable. (240, British styling in the book)

And the book’s excellent final words:

... 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. (562)

Notes:

- Sophie Chotek, the Archduke’s wife, was assassinated along with her husband. She was a Czech noblewoman. Prague was part of Austria-Hungary. Their marriage was unlike many other marriages among royalty and power—Ferdinand loved Chotek, and his marriage to her cost him favor in Austria, and cost him favor with his uncle, the King.

-Christopher Clark is a professor and historian.