Storm of Steel

I picked up Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger the other day, which is a first hand account of his experiences in the trenches during the First World War. It's interesting to be able to view the war through the eyes of a fairly ordinary German soldier. Not long ago, I read an account of the battle of Combles, from an Allied perspective, so it's fascinating to see the same events unfolding from an Axis point of view.

To be honest, apart from a certain Teutonic orderliness, and some differences in temperament, there is little to choose between the experiences on different sides of the divide. There are patches of almost lyrical intensity when Junger is suddenly assailed by beauty in the midst of destruction, like when the larks begin to sing over the detritus of war. There are also rare snatches of rather plodding humor. There are even a couple of occasions when the exaltation of battle makes Junger appear impervious to the bullets and deadly shrapnel falling around him. But most of the time, he is either bored out of his mind or scared out of his wits. Sudden violence is always only a split second away. Death is commonplace. Just like on the other side of no man's land.

The irony of Junger's war is self-evident in the name of his Hanoverian regiment. They were known as the 'Gibraltars' because of their staunch defense of that British possession at the end of the eighteenth century. Across the bloody fields of Flanders, old allies exchanged artillery ordinance; young men from Mannheim and Manchester laid down their lives for competing ideals, rival empires. Divided by ideology, or at least by the intransigence of old men, they were united in suffering, and in death.

It is sobering, and instructive, to witness war from the vantage point of the other. There would, perhaps, be fewer wars if men could see one another not in caricature, but in terms of common humanity.