The Sleepwalkers (Christopher Clark) and Joyeux Noël (a film by Christian Carion)

As the Christmas Movie Night in the Chapel of Europe (www.ressurection.be) was an event that drew the attention to the film Joyeux Noël, I want to share some thoughts on that movie with the book The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark as an intellectual background. While the film tells the story of the Christmas truce 1914, an unofficial ceasefire in World War I, Christopher Clarks tackles the question how Europe went to war in the first place.
I am especially interested how advisors in government decision making used representations of Europe to legitimize particular actions. That is why a scene in which an Anglican bishop is bringing the soldiers back on the battle track in a sermon especially struck me. When he is preaching on more or less the forces of good against the forces of evil, I see this as an example of the narrative of an righteous Europe against a dark Europe. When we look with Clark at the political culture that brought Europe’s men to this not so merry Christmas situation 1914 the question remains: Was it a crime or a tragedy (p. 561)?
In good Anglo-saxon tradition, Clark writes in vivid, capturing style and starts his story how Europe went to war with a personal story in the acknowledgments. As a nine-year-old, he talked to his great-uncle Jim (p. xvi):

I asked him whether the men who fought in the war were scared or keen to get into the fight. He replied that some were scared and some were keen. Did the keen ones fight better than the scared ones, I asked. ›No‹, said Jim ›It was the keen ones who shat themselves first.‹ I was deeply impressed by this remark and puzzled over it – especially over the word ›first‹ – for some time.

Family vase from Jerusalem | (c) dia-eu

When I read this I realized that there is only one story I can recall being told in our family on World War I. Maybe I am typically German in this respect, the stories from World War II are probably responsible for the lack of remembrance of the trenches, of the No Man’s Land and so on.
My grandfather was born in Jerusalem and there are a few items that still remind me of this unusual fact for a German. One of them is a vase ornamented with Arabian characters. A part from being a remnant of this Jerusalem early youth it also is a symbol that the family did not have the chance to take a lot of their belongings with them when they were forced to leave the city in 1917 as the »World War« did not exclude the Near and Middle East.
All of this, the Christmas truce, the World War coming to the holy city and the Australian great-uncle talking about keen and scared soldiers seem absurd and far away to me. But I admit that there are similarities between our situation today and 1914, even if I am sceptical on some of the comparisons that Clark unfolds, for example the Eurozone crisis and the pre-war insecurities (p. 555). Just like our decision makers of 1914, are we sleepwalkers today, »watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality« (p. 562)?

Robert Harris: Fatherland (1993)

The year 2014 is of course the remembrance year of countless real events in connection with the beginning of the really dark Europe: World War I (100 years) and World War II (75 years). But I will not remind anybody of real events, but of the contra-factual idea that the British author Robert Harris brought to live in his 1993 novel Fatherland. The action takes place in a very different Berlin 1964, so 50 years before our actual reality. Example of a news bit cited in one of the introductory sections of the novel:

Herbert von Karajan to conduct a special performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – the European anthem – at the Royal Albert Hall in London on the Führer’s birthday.

It is a European dystopia that is unfolded bit by bit while a German police officer of the criminal police investigates in a series of murders that are connected to highest circles in the German Reich which has more or less won World War II in Europe: The European Community is in existence, consisting of twelve European nations under the domination of Germany. Albert Speer’s Berlin has been built, including a European Parliament on one of the gigantic axis. The flag with the swastika in front of this Parliament is twice as big as the one of the rest of the sattelite states.
It is pretty clear that Harris just did not like the idea of European integration very much when he wrote this detective story with a political message. Even if one likes European integration, the story still leaves an impression. I kept thinking in the process of reading that the author and the cover editor of some editions took it a little to far with the integration bashing. But I have to admit that it is quite fun for those who are vulnerable to the question: »What if...«

I got the message... | en.wikipedia.org

I will not be a spoiler, if you are one of those people intrigued by contra-factual history, you should read for yourself. But I will be a typical historian: Some of the facts and details that Robert Harris brought together some 20 years ago (he is using original documents and historical persons partly) seem to be researched rather quickly and without much accuracy.
In a time when the European integration utopia style is still oftentimes believed to be irreversible, it might be a good idea to look in this very British dark Europe to be reminded that everything human might turn out a whole lot different than the original idea.