Storm of Steel

“The breath of battle blew to us, and we shuddered. Did we sense that almost all of us—some sooner, some later—were to be consumed by it, on days when the dark grumbling yonder would crash over our heads like incessant thunder?”

Jünger’s introduction to the war is sudden and shaking. He starts with the train stopping, with the soldiers getting out, and with the sounds of the war already upon them. Essentially, he starts the book with not only his first look at the war, but this premonition: that despite their excitement, the breath of battle would consume them. Like thunder, darkness, and the rumbling of bombs and artillery, they would not be able to hide from it.

“War had shown its claws, and stripped off its mask of cosiness. It was all so strange, so impersonal. We had barely begun to think about the enemy, that mysterious, treacherous being somewhere. This event, so far beyond anything we had experienced, made such a powerful impression on us that it was difficult to understand what had happened. It was like a ghostly manifestation in broad daylight.”.

Jünger and his fellow soldiers have just arrived at the front when an artillery shell strikes a chateau near where they are quartered and kills 13 people. Until this point, Jünger and the others have been eager to experience war, even though they don’t understand what it is. This one incident, before they even arrive at their battle stations, does not open their eyes as to what war is, but rather confuses them further. Since Jünger says that the incident also causes auditory hallucinations for him all through the war, readers know it has a lasting effect, and that his confusion about war lasts as well.