Ernst Jünger’s books grew out of a habit of close observation. In Storm of Steel, he records the life of a German infantry officer on the Western Front with an eye for details that official histories rarely capture. A night patrol, a meal brought up to the trenches, or an odd remark from a fellow soldier can tell as much about the experience of war as a description of an assault.

First published in German in 1920 as In Stahlgewittern, Storm of Steel draws on notebooks Jünger kept during the First World War. The metre house edition uses Basil Creighton’s English translation. Readers interested in firsthand accounts of the war will find a sustained view from the German lines, from the routine of sentry duty and life in reserve to the artillery barrages and infantry attacks of the Somme and the German offensive of 1918.

Jünger’s exacting attention to what he saw gives the book much of its force. He remembers the landscape as keenly as he remembers the fighting, and brief moments of humor and companionship sit beside descriptions of wounds and death. The result is a memoir that shows how the routines of ordinary life persisted under extraordinary pressure.