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In the Chalk Trenches of Champagne
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
After a short time of being quartered in Bazancourt, Jünger’s regiment sends him to the remote village of Recouvrence for a training course. Jünger finds life there to be an odd mix of military drill and student life. During the day, they undergo rigorous training, and in the evenings, both they and their instructors apply themselves with equal energy to drinking and occasional youthful hijinks.
While Jünger’s narrative doesn’t flinch from war’s terrible realities, it’s also filled with camaraderie and frank enjoyment of the good things of life. For Jünger, such things are almost as much a part of war as fighting—it provides contrast to the suffering and imbues it with meaning.
Themes
While in Recouvrence, Jünger forms some close friendships with men like Clement (who was to die at Monchy), Tebbe (at Cambrai), and the Steinforth brothers (at the Somme), who all form a household together. The villagers of Recouvrence were surprised by the men’s fluent French. One day, at the barber’s, a Frenchman told the barber to just cut Clement’s throat. He was then horrified when Clement replied in French, “I’d just as soon hang on to it.” Jünger describes Clement’s attitude as “the kind of sang-froid that a warrior ought to have.”
This amusing anecdote reveals a couple of things about Jünger’s outlook. “Sangfroid” refers to coolness under pressure, an attitude Jünger repeatedly equates with “manliness,” or the ideal warrior’s attitude. A warrior should be unflappable, then, whether on the front lines or while dealing with the hostility of locals. Despite Jünger’s general regard for the foreigners he encounters, the Germans are occupiers, which inevitably complicates relations with locals in occupied areas.
Themes
In mid-February, the members of the 73rd Regiment are grieved to learn that their fellows have taken heavy losses in battle at Perthes, earning their regiment the nickname “The Lions of Perthes.” At the end of March, the graduates of the officer training course return to Bazancourt. Then the regiment travels to Brussels and is combined with two other regiments to form the 111th Infantry Division, which is what they remain until the war’s end.
Jünger regrets being unable to participate in the regiment’s honored actions, even as he continues climbing the ranks of leadership. This shows that his heart is with the other men, in the pressures of combat, and not with recognition for its own sake.
Themes
After this, around the time of Jünger’s 20th birthday, the battalion is housed in a small Flemish town, Hérinnes. Jünger admires the half-Flemish, half-Walloon population. He befriends the owner of a café, a Socialist freethinker, who insists on treating him to lunch on Easter Sunday. Many of his fellow soldiers strike up similar friendships, visiting local farms on their afternoons off, conversing “in a blend of Flemish and Lower Saxon.”
Belgium comprises Flanders, a region in which Dutch (or Flemish, a Dutch variation) is primarily spoken, and Wallonia, where French dialects are spoken. Flemish is similar enough to German dialects to make conversation possible. Jünger again shows his sensitivity and genuine interest in the people of Germany’s occupied lands.
Themes
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In April 1915, the battalion is moved to the battlefield of Mars-la-Tour, in Lorraine. It’s right on the German border, and the soldiers sometimes cheer themselves by walking “home” in the evenings. Later that spring, they are moved to the Moselle hill country, ultimately to the village of Hattonchâtel, where they make camp beside the Grande Tranchée. Rumor has it that battle will begin in the morning.
The Grande Tranchée, or Tranchee de Calonne, was a road, about 15 miles long, along which many early tranches had been dug. The Battalion, therefore, is drawing deeper into the heart of the war, with more intense action to come.
Themes
