Slight hijack: I just finished Ernst Jünger’s Storm of Steel (In Stahlgewittern), an absolutely fabulous eyewitness account of trench warfare in WW1. It is a haunting book, beautifully written and highly recommendable.
Damn. War must be Hell.
Nah, it’s just the continuation of policy by other means.
About the mystery item they’re trying to identify / coin purse, a contributor below the article had this to offer:
“The unidentified round item(s) are ember disks for a Catholic priest’s incense burner (notice the cross on them). The disks are lit to create a glowing ember in the incense burner upon which myrhh is placed. The myrhh then smolders on the ember making smoke. The other item is the pouch used by the altar boy or deacon to hold the disks.”
Fascinating article.
I agree it’s a great book, although it’s very different from the received notion of World War One that most of us are used to. Junger seems to have enjoyed his time at the front by and large:
[QUOTE=Ernst Junger]
Time only strengthens my conviction that it was a good and strenuous life, and that the war, for all its destructiveness, was an incomparable schooling of the heart.
[/QUOTE]
True. It’s quite odd how he describes the horrors of the war, even his own feelings of terror and resignation, but still ends up liking the experience. War at times seems like sport to him. To each his own, I guess.