50 pages • 1 hour read
Ernst JungerStorm of Steel
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1920A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapter 15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Double Battle of Cambrai”
After a furlough and several days of moving around on trains and lorries, Jünger ends up at the castle of Baralle, where, on the first morning, German artillery begins a powerful pounding. That afternoon, Jünger and his men are sent forward, through scattered fire. At the reserve lines, Jünger runs into his old friend Tebbe again, but soon advances to the front, where Jünger learns that the German attack has not gone well so far. Jünger’s orders are to advance to Dragon’s Alley, where he hears foreign voices. Shells are exploding all around: “I was standing up on the rim, and, with every explosion, I could see the steel helmets assembled below me perform a deep and synchronous bow in the moonlight” (208).
The next morning, during a firefight, hundreds of British soldiers surrender to Jünger and his men, who ransack the British supplies, then set off again to fight. Soon, Jünger and his men are pinned down. They exchange rifle fire for some time, until a soldier, in a rage, charges forward: “Bravery, fearless risking of one’s own life, is always inspiring. We too found ourselves picked up by his wild fury, and scrabbling around to grab a few hand-grenades, rushed to form part of this berserker’s progress” (213). Following the fearless soldier, Jünger and his men clear out a series of trenches, though not without their own casualties, Jünger’s old friend Tebbe among them, struck down by a bullet through the head. Although shrapnel has physically wounded Jünger is wounded by shrapnel, Tebbe’s death has emotionally wounded him.
In the afternoon, Jünger is driven back to headquarters, where he reports to Colonel von Oppen, his battalion commander. In the rear, Jünger gives out the Iron Cross to several of his men who he believes fought bravely. He also receives a medal himself, the Knight’s Cross of the House Hohenzollern, which he says is his “souvenirs of the double battle of Cambrai, which will enter the history books as the first attempt to break out of the deadly stasis of trench-fighting by new methods” (218).
Chapter 15 Analysis
Jünger’s actions and thoughts in this chapter reveal two important points about the war. The first occurs when British soldiers begin surrendering to Jünger and his men: “I let them go by me, and said ‘Hands down!’ and summoned a platoon to lead them away. Most of them showed us by their confident smiles that they didn’t expect us to do anything too terrible to them” (209). After taking the prisoners, Jünger meets with their commander, a young man who is wounded but is still polite to Jünger. He tells Jünger about some wounded Germans, and Jünger agrees to take care of him and his men.
This exchange shows that even in war there exists, at times anyway, honor among enemies. The British soldiers know the Germans won’t shoot them; there are rules, even to warfare. The British officer, captured, lets Jünger know there are wounded Germans nearby because, even in war, the wounded must be taken care of.
Another significant moment that illustrates war occurs when Jünger reflects on the suddenness of death. One moment Jünger is talking to an NCO named Mevius, and the next Mevius is dead on the ground. Jünger meets Tebbe again, then learns just a few moments later Tebbe is dead, shot through the head. This death hits Jünger particularly hard because Tebbe was his oldest friend, going all the way back to the class they took together at Recouvrence early in the war. Of Tebbe, Jünger writes: “I could not grasp the fact” (216). Although Jünger has seen many deaths, he still has trouble understanding how quickly it can occur. Twice during this chapter he is wounded out of nowhere in the same way Mevius and Tebbe were killed. In another instance he claims the dead are peaceful: “They lay there in the relaxed and softly spilled attitude that characterizes those moments in which life takes its leave” (214). The difference here is that Jünger does not know any of these soldiers, and that he did not see them die, suddenly, out of nowhere.
