The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

Was World War I inevitable? This splendid and readable book argues that it was not, focussing a series of specific policy choices made by individual national leaders in several different countries. Taken together, these choices unleashed the maelstrom, but Clark suggests that different choices could have been made, and that a different and more peaceful outcome might have followed. This brings us up against two key themes -- or more accurately points of disagreement -- in World War 1 historiography. First, there's what another reviewer succinctly describes as the powder keg vs. the match. The "powder keg" view argues that political and economic tensions in Europe in 1914 were so intense that war was inevitable, making the Sarajevo assassination and subsequent events nothing more than a trigger: had they not happened, something else would have done. The "match" view argues that a general European war was not inevitable, which makes Sarejevo very important indeed. Clark argues that the match mattered a great deal, more by detailing what actually did happen than by presenting counter-factuals. For me, this was a compelling approach. His detailed presentation of the Balkan situation and of Serbian internal politics is particularly enlightening, suggesting that Austria's response was not as irrational as is often assumed. And his discussion of the domestic pressures working on various political leaders taught me a great deal that I did not know. As well as specific issues -- he argues that much of the British military establishment saw a European war as something that could stop Home Rule in Ireland -- he discusses the cultural and even personal pressures that worked on key actors. Overall, he describes a policy environment in which internal communications were poor and lines of command blurred -- an environment in which mistakes were all too possible. Second, there is question of national war guilt, which has been a central issue ever since the Treaty of Versailles put all of the guilt on Germany. This was of course a major political issue in the interwar period, which tended to be pushed aside after World War II. But Fritz Fischer reopened the argument with a bang in 1961; in "Germany's Aims in the First World War", Fischer argued that Germany planned the war as a step towards European domination, making Hitler's policies a continuation rather than an aberration. The debate that Fischer opened up is still wide open. Some who disagree with him argue that another country (Russia, or France, or England) bore at least a large part of the responsibility, while others argue that war was triggered by a series of mistakes that left all participants (or no participants) responsible. All involved have tended to move towards more nuanced points of view, but big differences persist. Clark's title makes it clear where he stands in this debate: "Sleepwalkers" argues that the war resulted from mistakes rather than intention, though several national leaders were only too ready to move towards the brink. The institutional issues are critical here, in that leaders did not have accurate information, and did not communicate clearly, on a national as well as an international level. Moreover, he describes a situation in which all the major players had belief systems -- different and contradictory belief systems -- which allowed them to convince themselves that highly aggressive actions were in fact defensive. Overall, this is an illuminating and very interesting book. Any historian of course selects and arranges his evidence, and Clark does so quite brilliantly. I am not entirely convinced that the war could in fact have been avoided. But reading this book has certainly shown me how much individual misjudgements and random chance had to do with the war's outbreak,and how much Sarajevo really did matter.

This is a masterpiece.It is the clearest and best documented account in one volume of why and how the 1st WW happened,not by the Sarajevo assassination but by events going back many years. Reading this very well written book one understands the strength of the possible when it becomes probable until,"Some stupid thing in the Balkans"happens, as Bismarck had foreseen thirty years previously. The book combines deep and broad research,diligent and profound analysis and intelligent and rational synthesis of a tremendous amount of data.It also provides a rationale (to the extent that a rationale exists)for the acts of the various players of that period up to the start of the War.Every nation's and every caste's within the nations are examined exposed and understood better than before. The shaping of intentions and the shaping of actions by intentions ,all originating in perceptions is clearly demonstrated ,analysed and exposed for our judgement The best way I can describe this book is that it shows how the various political,diplomatic and military clouds formed, how these clouds interacted within a nation,between two nations,and in the whole of Europe and the results of these interactions. It shows how every year from about 1905 to 1914 ,brought the conflict closer and the probability of a war increasing as time went by. Reading the book is like watching a collision in slow motion.The irreconciiability of perceived interests of every nation with opposing nations led to the formation of the two alliances.Professor Clark demonstrates also that Great Britain was not the undecided bystander in this conflict as often presented,but there also a Team of Players in power ,with or without parliamentary legitimization in a convoluted way,contributed to the build-up of the momentum that led to the collision. The principal conclusion of the book is that there ware no innocent parties except Belgium,and each,unable to act for Peace,dominated by fear ,perceived potential danger,and greed and forced to a confrontational rectitude by the stiffness of their male egos,accepted by steps the fatality of war. The book is significant not only for its Academic Honesty and Intellectual Integrity but also for the depth of its perception of causes an effects even the very minor ones,and the presentation of them all for the reader to be the final judge. The first part of the book is the most interesting part ,also because the second part is much more written about and known.The author elegantly avoids to assign responsibilities in a more even handed than necessary and somewhat insipid way,hence my 4 1/2 stars instead of 5. The writing by a gifted storyteller is in an elegantly simple and free of conceit prose,arranging the real events in such a way as to create the interest to the reader.It is a pleasure to read. D.V.Kokkinos PS It is the sarcasm of History that Serbia was grown to Yugoslavia after the 1st WW for the wrong reasons and was reduced again to small Serbia after 75 years again for the wrong reasons by the Great Powers of the times

The title, The Sleepwalkers, says it all. I have never understood WHY the great powers of Europe went to war in 1914 and after reading this, it is clear that they did not know either. This book is about HOW it happened, in a huge narrative on all the contributing players, from the tubercular assassin of Archduke Ferdinand to the ineffectual Tsar in Russia and the erratic Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, to struggling bureaucrats in the French and British Foreign Ministries. It is agonizingly fascinating and above all, as Clark keeps reminding the reader, it didn't have to turn out the way it did; the what-ifs are so numerous and so possible that the Great War might have been avoided. After all, even the major powers persisted right up to the end in thinking that the crisis could be resolved in weeks if not a few months. The grenade pin for all this seems to have been Serbia, a brutal backwater and recently established kingdom in the Balkans. As the Ottomans are beaten back, the impoverished societies that remained began to fight each other for territory, irredentist ambitions, and proto-fascist nationalism. Because Austria-Hungary was involved in Croatia, the Serbs became a proxy for Russia as it pursued an ill-defined pan-slavism and harassed its Habsburg rivals. How did Serbia become such a crucial player? With the exception of republican France, all the involved European powers were monarchies, ranging from a constitutional one in the UK, through the semi-autocracies in Austria-Hungary and Germany, to full blown despotism in Russia. In their evolving modalities, the foreign policy apparati were in chaotic states, with the sovereign in nominal control while bureaucrats and aristocrats fought for influence; in theory, the executives should issue official orders and at best, play the role of balancing all the competing interests, but none of them seemed up to that task. As a result, policy making was an opaque process in which aims, signals, and actions were impossible to discern clearly; this increased uncertainty and led the actors into decisions that further aggravated the dangers and uncertainties. Moreover, there was no neutral power or multi-lateral diplomatic body that could mediate, provide a space to openly discuss the situation, or de-escalate situations in which military courses of action had been initiated. It was like a massive Rube Goldberg machine with ten entry points, each player trying to balance complex equations of military stability, prestige, ego, societal and economic needs, and the like. One might also picture the situation as a teetering boulder atop a mountain with all manner of actors throwing rocks at it and at each other. Another unfortunate development was the diplomatic configuration that had emerged with secret protocols, vague promises, and volatile pronouncements. On the one hand, there was the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy), which pledged mutual defense. On the other hand, there was the looser Entente, whereby Britain, France, and Russia pledged to defend each other if attacked or in the event that any member of the Triple Alliance fully mobilized its military. The end result was extreme polarization, pitting central European powers against vast colonial Empires. Their principal playing field consisted of the territories opening up with the Turkish retreat and peripheral areas such as Serbia and Bulgaria (they were intermittently at war); the former was allied to Russia, the latter to Austria-Hungary. There were so many flash points, with multiple crises resolved, that it all seemed grist for the mill. The concerns of each country are examined in detail. Not only are there fascinating mini-biographies, but the geopolitical situations are explained and subtly interpreted. Beyond the obvious, such as Germany's fear of a war on two fronts, there are many surprises here. The cumbersome dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, for example, was by no means doomed in Clark's view, but an evolving and stabilizing force; even Archduke Ferdinand comes off as a man of great potential in spite of his unpopularity. Perhaps this kind of detail is of interest only for history buffs, but I learned an immense amount from these analyses. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo was the last straw, the pebble that loosed the boulder and sent it to smash everything. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and issued demands for an investigation and humiliating surrenders of sovereignty. Russia backed Serbia, emboldening it to resist, and began to mobilize its troops, triggering Germany to mobilize in support of Austria-Hungary. France of course supported Russia and, after some hemming and hawing, the UK committed itself to the defense of France, particularly if neutral Belgium was attacked by Germany. Although in the weeks between the assassination and war's outbreak, there were many opportunities where mobilizations were ordered halted so that talks could begin, once in motion the military machines appeared unstoppable. Kaiser Wilhelm even cut short his summer vacation to slow things down, but his orders were ignored or lost. The book ends on the eve of the war. This is one of the most satisfying reading experiences I have had in years. Clark is a great writer, finding the right biographical detail or quote to support a point, always with extremely human sensibilities and empathy. He questions many accepted conventions, which are sure to be controversial but highly stimulating. I cannot recommend this book more highly or more enthusiastically. If the book occasionally gets bogged down or lost in detail, it always returns to a powerful narrative, whose momentum builds over nearly 600 pages. This is a masterpiece.

Uma pena que a edição brasileira tenha alcançado um preço proibitivo. O livro em nenhum momento trata da primeira guerra em si, mas como começou e porquê, voltando ao final do século XIX.

Man kann streiten, ob Europa nur "schlafwandelnd" (sleep walking) in die Katastrophe des I. Weltkriegs gerutscht ist, oder ob nicht einige diesen Krieg unbedingt wollten, andere nur bedingt als frühe Prävention gegen ein militärisch stärker werdendes frz.-russ. Bündnis, so trägt auch Deutschland, wenngleich nur in dritter Reihe, Mitschuld an dem "Großen Krieg", der zur Entmachtung West- und Mitteleuropas und zum imperialen Mächtig- und Übermächtigwerden Russlands führte. An die Stelle der von Leibniz noch ins Auge gefassten Chinesisch-Europäischen allianz ist mittlerweile eine Chinesisch-Russische Prädominanz geworden, die v.a. im Ostpazifikraum für ein gewisses Brodeln sorgt. Von daher, aber auch mit Blick auf den "Mittleren Osten", sind heute 2014 die Chancen der Kriegsvermeidung um ein Vielfaches schlechter als1914. Jener Krieg war leicht vermeidbar, trotz des Drängens von Paris in St. Petersburg, gegenüber der Doppelmonarchie und seinen Verbündeten hart zu bleiben und einen Krieg nicht feige zu vermeiden. Hätte Frankreich das Resultat gekannt und mit Versailles seine Mitschuld an der Katastrophe des 20.Jhs., dann hätte es den Krieg nicht so unbefangen forciert (wie dann ja später auch von dt. Seite). Also: Schlafwandeln ist eine Seite, definitiv den Krieg als Mittel der Selbstdurchsetzung bejahen (wie heute noch Rußland und China, früher eben auch europäische Staaten) ist die andere. Gut ist auch, wie Clark die "Serbian Ghosts" beschreibt und so deutlich macht, dass der serbisch-russische (unheilbare und bis heute unbelehrbare) Nationalismus am Anfang dieses Kapitels der nationalistischen Selbstzerfleischung Europas stand. Heute ist man geneigt, den Mord von Sarajewo als kleine politische "Provokation" anzusehen, der gegenüber man besser "cool" reagiert hätte. Aber Clark rückt das sehr anschaulich in ein anderes Licht, sehr detailreich und kenntnisreich. Zu meiner Schulzeit (bin Jg. 55) dominierte im Geschichtsunterricht die These von Fritz Fischer: Deutschland ist primär schuld gewesen 1914, und später -1939- hat dann ein Österreicher namens A.H. den II. Weltkrieg "angezettelt". Clark behauptet wohl zurecht, dass uns die These Fischers auch heute noch "im Blut" ist: It still dominates unsere Betrachtung des Weges in den Krieg (p. 560). Manche sind regelrecht verliebt in die These der deutschen Schuld (so dass sie blind werden für die Konstellationen, die faktisch in Hass, Mord und Untergang führen) - wir sind eben ein gut protestantisch geprägtes Land, haben ein narzißtisches Verhältnis zu unserem (wirklichen oder imaginären) Schuldigsein. "The Sleepwalkers" ist ein differenziertes, gehaltreiches Buch. Das englische Original ist schwerer zu lesen (weil kleiner gedruckt), aber durchaus noch im "grünen Bereich" von der Letterngröße her.

An eye opener for a history buff like me. Maybe the trained Historians know all this but the facts and the characters brought out by this book is like amazing

Excelente libro! Muestra la enorme serie de factores, relacionados entre sí de manera compleja, que llevaron a la primera guerra mundial. No cae en la comodidad de ninguna hipótesis simple como culpar a una sola nación de la guerra.