Reference no: EM133291626
Letters of Alfred Vaeth, 26, Killed 26 October 1915
4 November 1914: The worst thing is lying still under enemy shell fire. Nothing else is to be compared with that. It is a frightful strain on the nerves. Anyhow, waiting and not being allowed to do anything is much worse than fighting. The French have withdrawn a bit today. Before that, we were only about 100 yards away from each other. The unpleasant part of that was that one was always expecting to be blown up by a mine. I shouldn't like to die that way. I should prefer a fine, sunny day when the barrage has cleared the way, and the inspiriting order comes: "Fix bayonets! Charge! Hurrah!"
Question 1: How did Vaeth describe war? Explain.
Question 2: What did he hope for? Why?
Ernst Junger, Storm of Steel: A Dairy of a German Storm-Troop Officer on the Western Front, 1929
Hours [under artillery bombardment] were, without doubt, the most awful of the whole war. You cower in a heap alone in a hole and feel yourself the victim of a pitiless thirst for destruction. With horror, you feel that all your intelligence, your capacities, and your bodily and spiritual characteristics, have become utterly meaningless and absurd. While you think it, the lump of metal that will crush you to a shapeless nothing may have started on its course. Your discomfort is concentrated in your ear, which tries to distinguish amid the uproar the swirl of your own death rushing near...
Question 3: How did Junger describe war? What was he referring to? Explain.
Question 4: Did he feel that his presence would make a difference in the war? Why or why not? Do you think his presence made a difference or was it pointless? Explain.