Storm of Steel

During the month of May in 1917, Jünger’s regiment moves about often, from the famous Siegfried Line—a line of forts and tank defenses in Northern France—to a farm named Riqueval-Ferme. The farm, Jünger writes, is completely untouched by the war, and he and his fellow soldiers spend their days wandering its pathways in the fine spring weather: “The blooming hawthorn avenues in the park and the attractive surroundings gave our existence here an intimation of the leisurely country idyll that the French are so expert at creating” (142).

In June, with a troop of 20 men, he invests an outpost on the company front. Jünger goes out on patrol several times, crawling near enemy lines: “There is something stimulating about such excursions; the heart beats a little fast, and one is bombarded by fresh ideas” (145-6). After one such excursion, Jünger is awakened by an attacking force. There follows a series of fighting and fleeing in the darkness, until Jünger and his men are facing a dark wood from which they hear movement. Following a firefight in the darkness, Jünger discovers the bodies of several Indians, fighting for the British: “So these were Indians we had confronted, who had travelled thousands of miles across the sea, only to give themselves a bloody nose on this god-forsaken piece of earth against the Hanoverian Rifles” (150).