A Memory of Sulferino is full of passages describing acts of what could be best understood as traditional or idealized heroism. Men are described passing a battle flag from one to the other as each in turn succumbs to grievous wounds or death. Many work to secure positions with little to no concern for their personal safety, and are illustrated amongst scenes of profound carnage. This created a sense of futility that left me questioning the significance of these individual acts. I had never heard of the battle of Sulferino before. And yet so many gave their lives in an effort to secure this small area of land. Was it worth it to die for individual glory if no one remembered the act? Was it worth it to sacrifice oneself for one’s country, if the battle had no bearing a century later?
This sense of futility reminded me greatly of Erich Remarque’s work All Quiet on the Western Front. Taking place roughly 50 years later during WWI, this novel follows a group of students who join the German army in hopes of achieving honor and protecting the Fatherland. Yet what they find instead is brutality and horror. The story’s main protagonist descends into cynicism and despair, watching helplessly as his former classmates fall one by one. The book illustrates the utter destruction that war brings to all participants. One of the characters reflects: “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.”
These reflections mirrored my own thoughts as I read of the destruction and pain following the battle of Sulferino. Many suffered a torturous death or else left the field of battle a cripple, a far cry from the glorified images of triumph and self-sacrifice. The sacrifices made were not glorious. Indeed, they were painful and often prolonged. And the question remains, why? Individuals have asked that question for many long years, and perhaps no one will ever truly define the answer. Perhaps, instead, we would be better served to define what it is not. In the cases of both the men Sulferino and the characters of All Quiet on the Western Front, it is clear that the explanations of glory and honor are facades that, juxtaposed next to the carnage, fail to justify it.
This was a trailer I created several years back for the 1930 film adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, which I felt was a particularly fitting companion for this reading.