Looks like a great read for those interested in WW1.
The historiography of World War I is immense, more than 25,000 volumes and articles even before next year’s centenary. Still, Clark, offers new perspectives. The distinctive achievement of “The Sleepwalkers” is Clark’s single-volume survey of European history leading up to the war. That may sound dull. Quite the contrary. It is as if a light had been turned on a half-darkened stage of shadowy characters cursing among themselves without reason. He raises the curtain at 2 a.m. on June 11, 1903, 11 years before Sarajevo. We see 28 Serbian army officers shoot their way into the royal palace in Belgrade. King Alexandar and Queen Draga, betrayed and defenseless, huddle in a tiny closet where the maid irons the queen’s clothes. They are butchered, riddled with bullets, stabbed with a bayonet, hacked with an ax and partially disemboweled, their faces mutilated beyond recognition and the bloody half-naked remnants tossed from the royal balcony onto the grounds.
Clark argues a direct connection between the assassins of Belgrade and Sarajevo.
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