Storm of Steel

In his first battle, as artillery falls around them, Jünger sees his first casualties, or their remains: “A little later, we passed the spot that had been hit. The casualties had already been removed. Bloody scraps of cloth and flesh had been left on bushes around the crater” (23).

He also sees dead soldiers all around, and the artillery shells rip in everywhere. Near dark, Jünger stumbles upon dozens of unburied French corpses, months old. As the day brightens, the artillery begins again, and in the midst of battle, Jünger shows his inexperience: “Still unfamiliar with the sounds of war, I was not able to distinguish the hisses and whistles and bangs of our own gunnery from the ripping crash of enemy shells” (27). As the battle continues, Jünger wishes for the experience his fellow soldiers have already won:“While all this was going on, I suffered from a rather curious anxiety. I was envious of the old ‘Lions of Perthes’ for their experience in the ‘witches cauldron,’ which I had missed out on through being away in Recouvrence” (29).

When he is wounded later in the battle, Jünger experiences terror and runs:“Like a bolting horse, I rushed through dense undergrowth, across paths and clearings, till I collapsed in a copse by the Grande Tranchée” (31).