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The Great Battle
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Storm of Steel, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Manliness and Duty
Modern Warfare
Suffering and Death
Foreigners, Enemies, and Empathy
The Complex Reality of War
Summary
Analysis
On June 4, 1918, Jünger rejoins his regiment at Vracourt, receiving a hero’s welcome. As they rejoin the line, a haunting “carrion” smell reminds them of recent engagements. They take up an exposed position along the line, where they’re not allowed to entrench, but must stay on the offensive. Jünger spends much of his time sunbathing and feeling invulnerable, despite the ongoing shellfire. He also feels an unprecedented sense of fatigue and a loss of purpose. The war is a “puzzle” to him now.
After all this, one might expect Jünger to linger in his recovery, but as always, he’s eager to get back to his men. However, war no longer feels the same—after four years of fighting, and the looming reality of Germany’s loss, his steady sense of purpose has been obscured. Europe is so scarred by war at this point that the very landscape carries strong sensory reminders of traumatic violence.
Themes
During a rest period, Jünger has the opportunity to examine some shot-up tanks—what he calls “elephants of the technical war.” He also likens them to “huge helpless beetles” and feels sorry for the men who must traverse the countryside in them. The land is also dotted by downed planes, a further sign of the changing of the tide of warfare.
After weeks of very minimal gains and losses, Jünger is ordered to take some men on a mission to recapture a section of the trench that has been infiltrated by the British. Jünger is reluctant, and none of the men are eager to fight, but they obtain the objective. Nevertheless, the British are pressing ominously against their lines. Jünger narrowly avoids being shot by a sniper while reconnoitering one day, and on the cusp of another offensive, a number of men suffer terrible wounds from their own side’s shelling.
Jünger’s war-weariness is shown by the fact that, for the first time, the prospect of a daring mission doesn’t excite him. The following lapses of luck and tragic injuries fill the waning months of the war with a sense of exhaustion, purposelessness, and impending doom.
Themes
While attempting to retake another part of the trench, Jünger and his men face some fearsome New Zealanders in an unexpected bottleneck. They survive this, only to face a terrifying artillery barrage, which reduces the line to 15 men. They’re gratefully relieved a short time later. Jünger calls the enemy’s attacks a “storm of steel” that is only strengthening, thanks to draftees (like the New Zealanders) from all over the world.
Like the British Indian unit Jünger faced earlier in the war, the appearance of the New Zealand soldiers reminds him of Britain’s vast reach, its resources dwarfing Germany’s by this point in the war. The titular phrase “storm of steel” gives a sense of an unstoppable foe which has mastered the art of modern warfare.
Themes
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