christopher clark the sleepwalkers summary

He had planned to create a kind of 'United States of Europe' to avoid a conflict he truly believed was not inevitable. When the Archduke and his wife made their fateful trip to Sarajevo in 1914, it happened to be on the 525th anniversary of a major historic loss for the Serbs in the Battle of Kosovo against the Turks. Then in 1912, Serbia invaded Albania, slaughtering hundreds of Muslims until finally, they were forced out under pressure by pretty much the entire rest of Europe. These nationalists felt betrayed by European powers from the United Kingdom to Russia who allowed this to happen. This sense of nationalism had deep roots, stemming from wars fought in the 1300s in which Slavic people lost huge amounts of land to predominantly Muslim countries like Turkey.

Serbian nationalists were infuriated by the annexation because they felt Slavic states like Bosnia should be independent. Another fuse was lit in 1908, Clark asserts, when Austria annexed Bosnia. Later, these same Serbians would be responsible for the murder of Archduke Ferdinand. From this position, he helped stir dissent among Serbians and other Slavic races against the non-Slavic leaders of Austria-Hungary. The leader of the plot, Dragutin DimitrijeviÄ‡, was rewarded by being named the head of the Serbian military. This attack, though horrendous, was wildly 'successful,' at least by the terrorists' standards. In 1903, Serbian militants stormed the royal home in Belgrade and brutally murdered King Alexander and Queen Draga, shooting them, stabbing them, and mutilating their faces. While the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand is frequently cited as the spark that began World War I, Clark begins his narrative eleven years before that killing, describing a different terrorist act that would reshape global politics forever. Clark explores the complicated geopolitical situation of the early twentieth century, which allowed a global conflict to erupt from the assassination of an archduke few outside of Austria knew or cared about at the time. In his non-fiction book, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (2012), Australian historian Christopher Clark traces the sources of World War I.

Christopher clark the sleepwalkers summary