Explore "The Storm of Steel" by Ernst Jünger on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On the very day that I came back from leave we were relieved by the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 5. We then went into quarters in Labry, a village in the neighbourhood dirty enough to be typical of it. The vain search for a water-closet is the outstanding memory one has of the villages of Lorraine. Baths appear to be unknown. I have had some strange experiences of this description in France. One has to pass with a smile over certain shady sides of even the most magnificent mansions. Much as I esteem the French, I cannot help thinking that this is a characteristic side of their life. I know indeed that hostile races always call each other dirty, and that we were ourselves called "sales Boches" by the French. Nevertheless, I feel we are fully justified in returning this compliment to the Latin races.
On the 17th of October 1917 we were entrained, and after a day and a half trod the soil of Flanders once more, after an absence of two months. We spent the night in the little town of Iseghem, and next morning marched to Roulers or, in Flemish, Rouselaere. The town was in the first stages of devastation. Things were still for sale in the shops, but the inhabitants were already living in their cellars, and their ordinary way of life was being broken up by frequent bombardments. A milliner's window opposite my billet seemed to me to be very much out of place in the tumult of war. By night looters tried to break into the houses of those who had already left.