The Radetzky March summary

From my first post on the book:

Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March traces the history of the Trotta family across three generations. The grandfather, Joseph, saved Emperor Franz Joseph’s life at the Battle of Solferino, an act that helps and haunts the family across the years. The novel parallels and intertwines the connection between sons and fathers in the Trotta family with the relationship between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its subjects. In both cases, the head of the family/empire becomes a symbol that proves to be wildly overblown, causing members on both sides of the relationship to struggle with unrealistic expectations.

Roth proves to be a little heavy-handed at times but usually he displays a deft and humorous touch. Roth takes a complex look at causes leading to the disintegration of the empire—while he finds fault with the codes of honor of the older generations, Roth highlights the greater danger from the lack of values in his own generation. Roth’s view of the empire adds to the ambiguity in the novel. Roth recognizes that the empire requires a monarchy with a strong personality in order to unite its disparate nationalities, but that is not the same as endorsing such an arrangement. Such a recognition points to reasons for the dissolution—weakness from above combined with increasing disunity and rot from below. Pressure from outside the empire is certain to destroy it since the empire has been hollowed out, the weakening of a common vision or purpose the catalyst to its collapse.

My ratings are loose at best, but I give this novel my highest recommendation (which doesn’t explain why it took me eight years to get beyond the first ten pages of it—I bought it in the San Francisco airport in August 2003).

I’ll have to apologize for the slow, scattershot writing about this book (well, worse than usual) but other events have been demanding my energy and focus.

A look at some quotes from two translations are here, The Overlook Press edition with translation by Joachim Neugroschel and Granta Publication’s edition with translation by Michael Hofmann.

Posts about and excerpts from The Radetzky March:

Part One

Each died a soldier’s death for the honor of the regiment

Part Two

A feeble attempt to click his heels under the blanket

A lovely secret in a ruinous castle

His own holy mission to die for the Kaiser at any moment


Part Three

Between lightning and thunder, eternity itself was crammed in

Tears wept by his brain

Twenty or rather fifteen years ago


For an alternate take, or rather supplemental data, on the popularity of Joseph Radetzky and the march named after him, see Vienna-Life.com. Contrary to the article's claim that the anecdote might explode "the solemnity of the novel's theme", the story and alternate lyrics support Roth's point about the divisiveness within the empire.

Update (10 Feb 2012): Michael Hofmann's article on the circumstances surrounding writing the book as reflected in Roth's letters.

The Radetzky March, Part Three: between lightning and thunder, eternity itself was crammed in

Most of these orders pertained to the evacuation of villages and town and the treatment of pro-Russian Ukrainians, clerics, and spies. Hasty court-martials in villages passed hasty sentences. Secret informers delivered unverifiable reports on peasants, Orthodox priests, teachers, photographers, officials. There was no time. The army had to retreat swiftly but also punish the traitors swiftly. And while ambulances, baggage columns, field artillery, dragoons, riflemen, and infantrists formed abrupt and helpless clusters on the sodden roads, while couriers galloped to and fro, while inhabitants of small towns fled westward in endless throngs, surrounded by white terror, loaded down with red-and-white featherbeds, gray sacks, brown furniture, and blue kerosene lamps, the shots of hasty executioners carrying out hasty sentences rang from the church squares of hamlets and villages, and the somber rolls of drums accompanied the monotonous decisions of judges, and the wives of victims lay shrieking for mercy before the mud-caked boots of officers, and red and silver flames burst from huts and barns, stables and haystacks. The Austrian army’s war had begun with court-martials. For days on end genuine and supposed traitors hung from the trees on church squares to terrify the living. (317)

(All quotes and page numbers are from the translation by Joachim Neugroschel.)

Roth intensifies the theme of deterioration, whether of individuals, families or empire, in Part Three. When looking at families and individuals there is an incapacitating weakness in each, often causing people to abandon their future to fate (the exceptions stand out even more because of this malaise). Weakness shows itself in many ways: increase in drunkeness, overindulgence in gambling, or shirking all responsibilities, personal or professional. Some characters, such as Lieutenant Carl Joseph von Trotta and his inheritance as the grandson of “the Hero of Solferino”, come to the realization that they have failed, not just to live up to an ideal held before them but even with more modest goals. “Not only did he have a thoroughly wicked character, but his mind was tired and foolish. In short: he was an utter failure.” (251) Carl Joseph’s father, Baron Fritz, while not sinking to the same depths as his son, realizes “how hard it is to be helpless yet maintain one’s dignity.” (267) The father and his generation usually receive the most sympathy from Roth. Their world was supposed to apply a rigid code inherited from their parents, yet such absolutes don’t seem to apply anymore. Roth provides ambiguous support for these codes of behavior, though. These codes can lead to honorable action but they also insist on mindless violence or taint future generations as well as the empire:

That lost era, which was virtually buried under the fresh grave mounds of the fallen, was ruled by very different notions. If someone offended the honor of an officer of the Imperial and Royal Army, and that officer failed to kill the man apparently because he owed him money, then that officer was a misfortune and worse than a misfortune: he was a disgrace to his progenitor, to the army, and to the monarchy. (266)

While the Trotta family realizes the benefits from their grandfather’s heroic action in saving the emperor, the legacy carries disadvantages, too, as I hope I’ve pointed out in previous posts. Roth hammers home the difficulty in choosing such a code to live by when Carl Joseph carries out selfless acts, only to find his actions lead to his financial ruin and ultimately to death. The imagery of worms feasting on the dead, appearing throughout the novel, highlights the fate of all of us. But was a similar fate unavoidable for the Austro-Hungarian Empire?

Roth conveys a sense of inevitable doom for the empire throughout the novel. At a discernable point, Baron Fritz von Trotta loses faith in the empire and simply goes through the motions when doing his duties, although it could be argued he went through the motions prior to that point since he was unable to understand the danger posed by “revolutionary” individuals or groups. The distance and friction between ethnic groups within the empire mirror the distance and friction between generations. This lack of cohesion is called out directly, in particular by the younger Nechwal (231), as well as by Roth during the summer festival held at Chojnicki’s house (296), where a laundry-list of ethnic groups argue after Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination. Parts of Roth’s novel read like a sober Hašek (irony intended) or, even more perversely, a combination of Hašek and Barbara Tuchman (I’m thinking of The Guns of August here). The shadow cast by history is felt by the empire and the emperor to the same extent it helps/burdens the Trotta family.

A few sidenotes before I finish posting on The Radetzky March:

- Roth’s use of nature can be heavy-handed at times, such as the looming storm before the summer festival. The agitation of the pending storm mirrors the conflict about to spread across Europe, where “between lightning and thunder, eternity itself was crammed in.” (294) At other times, though, he shows a humorous touch that conveys several points in a deft manner. “He [Baron Fritz von Trotta] looked gaunter than usual, reminding his friend Hasselbrunner of the exotic birds at the Schönbrunn Zoo—creatures that constitute Nature’s attempt to replicate the Hapsburg physiognomy within the animal kingdom. Indeed, the district captain reminded anyone who had seen the Kaiser of Franz Joseph himself.” (275) Everything in nature, not just the emperor’s subjects, exists to serve or mimic the Hapsburgs.

- One motif within the novel focuses on the ability to see things clearly before death. At the summer festival Carl Joseph begins to pierce the fog of alcohol, history, expectations, and delusion. In Part One Dr. Demant has a miraculous improvement in his vision immediately before his duel. Carrying this motif a step further, Chojnicki accurately predicted what was going to happen. Actually seeing it unfold, however, drives him mad.

- As I mentioned in this post, music plays a role in the novel, which is fitting given the title. Part Three adds another example of this role during the summer festival. After Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination, the crowd calls for Chopin’s Funeral March. The earlier summer performances outside the Trotta home, with the elder Nechwal directing “The Radetzky March” and insisting musicians precisely follow the score, stands in marked contrast to this performance, highlighting how much has changed:

Men in uniform or in mufti escorted ladies. Their feet unsteadily obeyed the macabre and stumbling rhythm. For the bands were playing without scores, not conducted but accompanied by the slow loops that the black batons traced in the air. Sometimes one band lagged behind the other and then tried to catch up with the hastier one by skipping a few measures.

The guests walked in a circle around the empty, mirrorlike parquet floor. They circled round and round, each person a mourner behind the corpse of the one in front of him, and, at the center of the room, the invisible corpses of the heir apparent and the monarchy. (299-300)

The Radetzky March: tears wept by his brain

Continuing some short quotes until I have time for more...

The heart of The Radetzky March focuses on the relationship between fathers and sons, expanding that connection when looking at similar associations like emperor/subject or soldier/orderly. Onufrij, a peasant from the eastern border, is Carl Joseph’s orderly in pre-World War I Austria-Hungary. Onufrij’s devotion lies only to Carl Joseph and does not extend to include the army or the empire. For Carl Joseph, though, Onufrij will do almost anything. When the lieutenant finds himself hopelessly in debt, Onufrij travels to his nearby home to dig up his savings from the garden and to mortgage his land…all without hesitation or regret. Such sacrifice is hardwired into Onufrij and he performs it without flinching.

What causes Onufrij agony? From Part Three, translation by Joachim Neugroschel (page 263):

And Beniover [a local “banker”] opened a huge book. This book indicated that Onufrij owned four and a half acres of land. Beniover was prepared to lend him three hundred crowns on that.

“Let’s go to the mayor,” said Beniover. He called his wife, told her to mind the store, and he and Onurfrij Kolohin went to the mayor.

Here he gave Onufrij three hundred crowns. Onufrij sat down at a brown worm-eaten table and began writing his name at the bottom of the document. He removed his hat. The sun was already high up in the sky. It managed to send its burning rays through the tiny windows of the peasant hut where the mayor of Burdlaki officiated. Onufrij was perspiring. The beads of sweat grew on his low brow like transparent crystal boils. Every letter that Onufrij wrote produced a crystal boil on his forehead. These boils ran, ran down like tears wept by Onufrij’s brain. At last his name was at the bottom of the document.

The Radetzky March: twenty or rather fifteen years ago

I didn’t mean to completely disappear but August and September will be demanding beyond usual limit-pushing levels. For now I’ll post a few quotes over the next couple of days from Joseph Roth’s remarkable work.

From Part Three, translation by Joachim Neugroschel (pages 247-248):

Frau von Taussig stood on the platform in North Station. Twenty years ago—she imagined it was fifteen, for she had been denying her age for so long that she herself was convinced her years had ground to a halt and would not go till the end—twenty years ago she had likewise stood in North Station, waiting for another lieutenant, albeit a cavalry lieutenant. She climbed up to the platform as if it were a fountain of youth. She submerged in the caustic haze of coal dust, in the hissing and streaming of shunting locomotives, in the dense ringing of signal bells. She wore a short travel veil. She imagined it had been fashionable fifteen years ago. But it had been twenty-five years ago, not even twenty! She loved waiting on the platform. She loved the moment when the train rolled in, and she spotted Trotta’s ridiculous little dark-green hat at the compartment window and his beloved, perplexed young face. For she made Carl Joseph younger, as she did herself, made him more naïve and perplexed, as she did herself. The instant the lieutenant left the lower footboard, her arms opened as they had opened twenty or rather fifteen years ago. And from the face she wore today, that earlier one emerged, the rosy, uncreased face she had worn twenty or rather fifteen years ago, a girls’ face, sweet and slightly flushed. Around her throat, where two parallel rills were already digging in, she had hung the thin childish gold necklace that had been her sole ornament twenty or rather fifteen years ago. And, as she had done twenty or rather fifteen years ago, she rode with the lieutenant to one of those small hotels, where concealed love blossomed in squalid, squeaking, and delicious bed paradises that were rented by the hour.

As I mentioned in this post, disjointment or uncertainty about time is a common theme in the book. This quote provides one of the more humorous examples since it goes beyond uncertainty about time. One area going beyond the 15/20 year gag lies with the theme of alleged higher standards in previous times versus the dissolute standards of the current (pre-World War I) Austro-Hungarian empire. Such a comparison runs into a brick wall with Valerie. She highlights the deceptiveness in such comparisons since she operates at the same level she always has, which happens to be at a level slightly less than the nostalgic ideal.

The humor in this passage doesn’t stop there. By only mentioning Valerie’s current behavior and that of 15/20 years ago, Roth conveniently omits the intervening years with many similar trysts. Or the quip aimed at Carl Joseph’s current status in the infantry—he had been a lieutenant in the cavalry until his dishonor in provoking a duel “required” his reassignment. There’s an implied pun in the comparison between Carl Joseph’s and Valerie’s mounting and disembarking with the spring in the step of the Emperor Franz Joseph alighting from a carriage and the youthfulness his subjects seek to mimic. And, to randomly choose a stopping point before the subject is exhausted, Roth highlights the reliance on tokens of the past and their irrelevance, made even more ridiculous by describing the “two parallel riffs” where Valerie’s necklace dug in—the necklace may be the same but there’s no doubt she has changed. Everything has changed, despite outward appearances, and usually not in the manner the characters perceive...

The Radetzky March: Translations

I read two translations of The Radetzky March, The Overlook Press edition with translation by Joachim Neugroschel, which I’ve been using in my posts, and Granta Publication’s edition with translation by Michael Hofmann. I wanted to provide a few short quotes from both versions to give a flavor of their differences and similarities. Here are three passages regarding the following characters:

Lord von Winternigg
Joachim Neugroschel translation (page 20): Sometimes the hooves of the two horses taking Lord von Winternigg for a ride clopped along the broad road from north to south, from the landowner’s castle to his immense hunting preserve. Small, ancient, and pitiful, a little yellow oldster with a tiny wizened face in a huge yellow blanket, Lord von Winternigg sat in his barouche. He drove through the brimming summer like a wretched bit of winter.

Michael Hofmann translation (page 23): Sometimes the hooves of the horses went at a brisk clip, as Herr von Winternigg was driven down the wide avenue from nort to south, from his manor house to his vast hunting grounds. Small, old and pathetic, a yellowed old man under a large, yellow blanket, with a tiny, wizened face, Herr von Winternigg sat in his calèche. Like a pathetic remnant of winter he drove through the plenitude of summer.

Frau von Taussig
Joachim Neugroschel translation (page 188): But old age was approaching with cruel, hushed steps and sometimes in crafty disguises. She counted the days slipping past her and, every morning, the fine wrinkles, delicate webs that old age had spun at night around her innocently sleeping eyes. Yet her heart was that of a sixteen-year-old girl. Blessed with constant youth, it dwelled in the middle of the aging body, a lovely secret in a ruinous castle.

Michael Hofmann translation (page 207): But age drew nearer with cruel and silent tread, and oftentimes in treacherous disguise. She counted the days that ran past her, and each morning the delicate wrinkles—the hair-fine mesh that old age had spun overnight round her innocently sleeping eyes. All the while her heart remained the heart of a sixteen-year-old girl. Blessed with everlasting youth, it dwelt within an ageing body, a beautiful secret in a crumbling castle.

Onurfrij (Carl Joseph’s orderly)
Joachim Neugroschel translation (page 263): Onurfrij sat down at ta brown worm-eaten table and began writing his name at the bottom of a document. He removed his hat. The sun was already high up in the sky. It managed to send its burning rays through the tiny windows of the peasant hut where the mayor Burdlaki officiated. Onurfrij was perspiring. The beads of sweat grew on his low brow like transparent crystal boils. Every letter that Onurfrij wrote produced a crystal boil on his forehead. These boils ran, ran down like tears wept by Onurfrij’s brain. At last his name was at the bottom of the document.

Michael Hofmann translation (page 289): Onurfri sat down at a worm-eaten brown table, and began to sin his name on a document. He pulled off his cap. The sun was already high in the sky. It was able to thread its already burning rays even through the tiny windows of the peasant hut where the burgomaster of Burdlaki had his office. Onurfri was sweating. On his low brow, the beads of sweat grew like transparent crystal boils. Each letter that he formed caused a crystal boil to stand out on his brow. The boils ran down, ran down like tears that Onurfri’s brain had shed. At last his signature stood on the document.

The Radetzky March, Part Two: his own holy mission to die for the Kaiser at any moment

A few notes and some additional quotes (all from the translation by Joachim Neugroschel). I wanted to highlight a few things before moving on to Part Three.

Roth tends to overemphasize the impending destruction from World War I, as in the case of describing a visit of Russian and Austrian officers. Even with this overemphasis, his imagery remains powerful:

When evening set in, the kegs, kicked along by the Cossack boots, trundled and rumbled over the bumpy streets toward the Russian officer’s club, and a soft splashing and gurgling revealed the contents of the kegs to the populace. The czar’s officers showed His Apostolic Majesty’s [Emperor Franz Joseph’s] officers the meaning of Russian hospitality. And not one of the czar’s officers and not one of His Apostolic Majesty’s officers knew that Death was already crossing his haggard, invisible hands over the glass beakers from which the men drank.

I won’t go into detail about the opening of a casino house where the troops on the border are stationed other than to say gambling becomes a substitute for battlefield heroics. The soldier’s code leads Carl Joseph to assume an IOU in order to support his fellow officer: “Because he was drunk, his heart was bursting with the commiseration for the captain. The poor comrade had to be rescued. He was in great danger.” Roth’s gambling scenes have the feel of Dostoevsky’s The Gambler. Even when someone wins at the roulette table they aren’t happy. The winnings are never enough to satisfy the winner and there is a lingering feeling that fate is still somehow cheating them.

Carl Joseph descends into alcoholism, a state that gives him a sense of belonging as well as numbness. He becomes good friends with those around him during his inebriation, highlighting an underlying theme in the novel of belonging. Unfortunately for someone trying to live up to the standard of his grandfather’s heroics, Carl Joseph recognizes his shortcomings and his unpayable debt to everyone, dead or alive: “The dead! I can’t forget the dead! Father, I can’t forget anything! Father!” The appeal across the generations cannot be heard by a father overwhelmed because of his own powerlessness and the changes going on around him. The father feels alone and helpless, too. Yet despite his feelings of ineffectualness, the father carries on while the son succumbs to his weaknesses. The feeling of powerlessness and weakness adds another tie between fathers/sons and emperor/subjects (see quotes on Franz Joseph in the previous post). Carl Joseph keenly feels his detachment from everything around him:

The army had become alien to him. The Supreme Commander in Chief was alien to him. Lieutenant Trotta resembled a man who had lost not only his homeland but also his homesickness for his homeland. He pitied the white-bearded oldster who drew nearer and nearer, curiously fingering kit bags, bread pouches, tin cans.

So why the title The Radetzky March? Music plays an important role in the book, none more important than the title march by Johann Strauss, dedicated to the Austrian Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radet in 1848. The piece invokes pride for the empire (or at least what it used to be), which Roth describes in Carl Joseph’s response during the Corpus Christi parade:

Inside Carl Joseph the old childish and heroic dreams surfaced, the ones that had filled him and made him happy during vacations at home, on his father’s balcony, when he had heard the strains of “The Radetzky March.” The full majestic might of the old empire passed before his eyes. The lieutenant thought about his grandfather, the Hero of Solferino, and the unshakable patriotism of a father who was like a small but strong rock amid the towering mountains of Hapsburg power. He thought about his own holy mission to die for the Kaiser at any moment, on water or on land, or also in the air—in short, any place. The oath he had perfunctorily sworn a few times came alive. It rose up, word for word, each word a banner. The porcelain-blue eyes of the Supreme Commander in Chief—eyes grown cold in so many portraits on so many walls in the empire and now filled with a new fatherly solicitude and benevolence—gazed like a whole blue sky at the grandson of the Hero of Solferino.

Roth also uses music to highlight irony or deterioration, such as the whorehouse piano player breaking into The Radetzky March as soldiers arrive at the establishment, or when the hotel casino adds a band with “renowned chanteuses” singing songs like “Underneath my frock I wear pink and pleated undies.” Also heard during Part Two is a new piece of music, sung at the workers’ strike, which will have implications for the future—“The Internationale.”

On to Part Three.

The Radetzky March, Part Two: a lovely secret in a ruinous castle

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the themes and motifs in Part Two develop those listed in Part One. I love Roth’s style so I’ll make liberal use of quotes again (from the translation by Joachim Neugroschel) in looking at three new characters in this section.

Count Wojciech Chojnicki: “one of the richest Polish landowners in the area” (where Carl Joseph Trotta was transferred, on the Russian/Austrian-Hungarian border). His role appears to be something like a Cassandra figure, although not everyone disbelieves him. His warnings resonate with Carl Joseph and his father although they don’t completely understand him:

For years now, he [Count Chojnicki] had been a deputy to the Imperial Council, routinely reelected by his district, beating all other candidates with the help of money, violence, and surprise attacks; a minion of the government, he despised the parliamentary body to which he belonged. He had never given a speech and never heckled. Impious, derisive, fearless, and without qualms, Chojnicki used to say that the Kaiser was mindless and senile, the government a gang of nincompoops, the Imperial Council a gathering of gullible and grandiloquent idiots, and the national authorities venal, cowardly, and lazy.

…

“This empire is doomed. The instant the Kaiser shuts his eyes, we’ll crumble into a hundred pieces.”

Even though the Trotta’s feel “the dark weight of his prophecies”, they are unable to do anything about it. Befuddlement about what they could do fits in with the feeling of inertia, the sense that nothing can change what is coming. The Trotta grandfather, the “Hero of Solferino” demonstrates how one man can impact history. To some extent, so does Carl Joseph in a conflict on the border, where he gives the orders to fire during battle. The battle occurs not between warring armies but between the army and striking workers. Carl Joseph’s father, a slave to his routine, fails to recognize dissent in his district. He doesn’t even know the real name of his family servant. Ironically, Chojnicki proves to be more of a father figure to Carl Joseph than either his real father or the emperor in his role of protector of the grandson of the “Hero of Solferino”.


Valerie von Taussig: the disjointment of time runs through the novel, where characters lose their sense of place and experience an uncertainty in time. One theme overrides this displacement, though: the unrelenting march of time toward a given fate. Frau von Taussig, a widow that remains single after her husband's death, provides a good example of the toll of time in human terms.

But old age was approaching with cruel, hushed steps and sometimes in crafty disguises. She counted the days slipping past her and, every morning, the fine wrinkles, delicate webs that old age had spun at night around her innocently sleeping eyes. Yet her heart was that of a sixteen-year-old girl. Blessed with constant youth, it dwelled in the middle of the aging body, a lovely secret in a ruinous castle.

She temporarily plays an important role in her young lovers’ eyes, which feeds her self-worth. She accurately assesses Carl Joseph as someone that has “experienced sad things, but he hasn’t grown any wiser.” She has experienced sad things and grown wiser but is unable to change her course from its trajectory, due in part to her advanced age.


Emperor Franz Joseph (the Kaiser): Chapter 15 provides a delightful view from the emperor’s vantage point: “He saw the sun going down on his empire, but he said nothing. He knew he would die before it set.” Roth paints an emperor that knows more than those around him thinks, yet he says little or nothing to correct them. When spending the night at a castle while visiting the troops on the eastern border, he performs little acts of defiance such as getting out of bed and opening the window. Yet he’s scared he will be caught out of bed, giving rise to his feeling of helplessness that come from many sources:

The night was blue and round and vast and full of stars. The Kaiser stood at the window, thin and old in a white nightshirt, and felt very tiny in the face of the immense night. The least of his soldiers, who could patrol in front of the tents, was more powerful than he. The least of his soldiers! And he was the Supreme Commander in Chief! Every soldier, swearing by God the Almighty, pledged his allegiance to Kaiser Franz Joseph I. He was a majesty by the grace of God, and he believed in God the Almighty, who hid behind the gold-starred blue of the heavens, the Almighty—inconceivable! It was His stars that shone up there in the sky, and it was His sky that arched over the earth, and He had allocated a portion of the earth, namely the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, to Franz Joseph I. And Franz Joseph I was a thin old man, standing at the open window and fearing that his guards might surprise him at any moment.

The distance between the emperor and his subjects has been seen and felt from the citizens’ point of view, where the Kaiser’s omnipresent portraits overlook them but cannot respond. Roth shows the distance occurs in the other direction, too, as Franz Joseph becomes something akin to a painting on a wall:

Sometimes he felt he was actually floating away from people and from the earth. They all kept shrinking the longer he gazed at them, and their words reached his ears as if from a remote distance and fell away, indifferent clangs. And if someone met with some disaster, the Kaiser saw that they went to great lengths to inform him gingerly. Ah, they didn’t realize he could endure anything! The great sorrows were already at home in his soul, and the new sorrows merely joined the old ones, like long-awaited brothers. He no longer got annoyed so dreadfully. He no longer rejoiced so intensely. He no longer suffered so painfully.

The Radetzky March, Part Two: a feeble attempt to click his heels under the blanket

I want to highlight some quotes (all quotes are from the translation by Joachim Neugroschel) from this section since the themes I outlined in the post on Part One continue in Part Two. I’ll go into detail on some of the themes and motifs of Part Two in a separate post. While the following quotes can be easily understood and enjoyed, I recommend reading the post on the first part to catch the shades of humor and irony in them. OK, now…some quotes:

He [Emperor Franz Joseph] stood in front of the lieutenant for a while, but he saw neither Trotta nor the others. He no longer felt like striding along the lines, but he had to go on lest people realized he was frightened by his own age. His eyes, as usual, peered into the distance, where the edges of eternity were already surfacing. But he failed to notice that a glassy drop appeared on his nose, and that everyone was staring, spellbound, at that drop, which finally fell into his thick, silvery moustache, invisibly embedding itself.

And everyone felt relieved. And the march-past could begin.

Lieutenant Trotta, the grandson of the “Hero of Solferino”, attends what Roth later calls “the rainbow splendor of the Corpus Christi pageant,” a procession that Roth describes by highlighting all the colors seen in the parade:

The porcelain-blue eyes of the Supreme Commander in Chief—eyes grown cold in so many portraits on so many walls in the empire and now filled with a new fatherly solicitude and benevolence—gazed like a whole blue sky at the grandson of the Hero of Solferino. The light-blue breeches of the infantry were radiant. Like the serious embodiment of ballistic science, the coffee-brown artillerists marched past. The blood-red fezzes on the heads of the azure Bosnians burned in the sun like tiny bonfires lit by Islam in honor of His Apostolic Majesty. In black lacquered carriages sat the gold-decked Knights of the Golden Fleece and the black-clad red-cheeked municipal councilors.

There’s more descriptions but the comparison of the blood-red fezzes to tiny bonfires captures Roth’s colorful prose. I mentioned in the previous post that he includes a lot of humor, much of it easy to miss since it passes so quickly. Here’s a short passage where Baron Fritz Trotta, the middle Trotta of the three generations shown, visits his sick servant. The servant’s reaction to the baron provides a view into one of the older generation's understanding (Jacques is over 80) of their role in the world:

The district captain sat on a bedside chair and said, “Well, the doctor’s just told me it’s not so bad. Probably a cold in the head.”
“Yessir, Herr Baron!” replied Jacques, making a feeble attempt to click his heels under the blanket. He sat up. “Please forgive me,” he added. “It’ll be over by tomorrow, I think.”

OK, maybe you had to read all of the lead-in to this quote...I can’t help but laugh at Jacques’ involuntary reaction. The final chapter of this section goes into great detail inside the world of Emperor Franz Joseph and it’s the point where the book went from very good to great. In addition to the opening quote on the bead of sweat on the emperor’s nose (although it may have been something else since he was had the sniffles and was trying to hide that fact from his retinue), Roth goes into detail about a few things that give the emperor pleasure, including his well-intentioned acts meant to reward people. In this excerpt, Franz Joseph, on a surprise visit to the eastern border of the empire, tries to soothe the nerves of the local barber:

”What’s your name?” asked the Kaiser. …
“Hartenstein!” cried the barber.
“Why are you jumping like that?” asked Franz Joseph. But he received no answer.
The corporal timidly reapproached the Kaiser and completed his work with hasty hands. He wished he were far away and back at the camp.
“Hold on!” said the Kaiser. “Ah, you’re a corporal! Have you been serving for a long time?”
“Six months, Your Majesty!” the barber breathed.
“I see, I see! Corporal already? In my day,” said the Kaiser, as veteran might have said, “it never went that fast. But then you’re a very smart-looking soldier. Do you plan to stay in the military?”
Hartenstein the barber had a wife and child and prosperous shop in Olomouc and had already tried feigning rheumatism several times in order to get out fairly soon. But he couldn’t say no to the Kaiser. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, knowing he had just messed up his entire life.
“Fine. Now you’re a sergeant. But don’t be so nervous!”
So. The Kaiser had made someone happy. He was glad. He was glad. He was glad. He had done something wonderful for that Hartenstein.

The ruin of a man’s life in an instant appears so easy, as does the tripartite delight it provides the granter. Hartenstein’s ruin provides a comparison with the benevolence shown to the Trotta family, benefits that continue down to the third generation due to the “long memory” of the emperor’s gratitude and the “long arm” of his benevolence. The question that lingers around those acts for the Trotta family is how helpful were they? The youngest Trotta is a complete mess, mirroring the deterioration of the empire.

I’m working on paring down an additional post on Part Two since I want to include so much of this wonderful book. I will probably limit it to the new character introduced and the role that music plays in the book…the title comes from a Johann Strauss’ march, after all.

The Radetzky March, Part One: each died a soldier’s death for the honor of the regiment

Back then, before the Great War, when the incidents reported on these pages took place, it was not yet a matter of indifference whether a person lived or died. If a life was snuffed out from the host of the living, another life did not instantly replace it and make people forget the deceased. Instead, a gap remained where he had been, and both the near and distant witnesses of his demise fell silent whenever they saw this gap. If a fire devoured a house in a row of houses in a street, the charred site remained empty for a long time. For the bricklayers worked slowly and leisurely, and when the closest neighbors as well as casual passerby looked at the empty lot, they remembered the shape and the walls of the vanished house. That was how things were back then. Anything that grew took its time growing, and anything that perished took a long time to be forgotten. But everything that had once existed left its traces, and people lived on memories just as they now live on the ability to forget quickly and emphatically.

(all quotes are from the translation by Joachim Neugroschel)

Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March traces the history of the Trotta family across three generations. The grandfather, Joseph, saved Emperor Franz Joseph’s life at the Battle of Solferino, an act that helps and haunts the family across the years. The novel parallels and intertwines the connection between sons and fathers in the Trotta family with the relationship between the Austro-Hungarian empire and its subjects. In both cases, the head of the family/empire becomes a symbol that proves to be wildly overblown, causing members on both sides of the relationship to struggle with unrealistic expectations.

Captain Joseph (Trotta von Sipolje): for saving the emperor’s life he was awarded the Order of Maria Theresa and a knighthood. Upon learning that textbooks include an exaggerated account of his exploit he requests a discharge from the army, earning the nickname “The Knight of Truth”. Even though he requests the verses to be purged from textbooks, the lie and its use in propaganda fuels a simmering rage in him, leading him to lash out at times at people around him.

Baron Fritz: Joseph’s son, raised in an emotional and fiscally parsimonious manner. His father forbids him from joining the army. His father’s heroic act, though “disappeared from the authorized schoolbooks” “had not vanished from the secret files of the higher political authorities.” He rises to the level of a district captain.

Carl Joseph: relationship with his father (Fritz) follows very formal lines. Fritz constantly reminds his son that he does not live up to expectations even though Carl Joseph mimics his father’s actions as often as he can. He is assigned to the Tenth Lancers after being given a lieutenant’s commission. He becomes “A tool in the hands of misfortune”, an unfortunately accurate statement since Carl Joseph indirectly causes two deaths related to his amorous actions.

Max Demant: the Tenth Lancers regimental surgeon. Max represents a true, earned achievement of family improvement in status, although whether or not such elevation proves good for him can be debated. Although Max avoids most social contact, he proves to be “a good doctor…and thus in every respect an oddity among army medics.” Desiring to have a private practice, his dreams are frustrated by his lack of money. Max may be the one likeable character in this section but his wife, Eva Knopfmacher, is Roth’s marvelous creation. Max’s love for her is misplaced since she doesn’t love him. Worse, she makes his life more, a theme that can be expanded to other characters’ relationships.

Roth implies the older generation was heroic by nature, as demonstrated by the grandfather. Carl, on the other hand, has to deliberately think about traits that were second-nature to his grandfather. Don’t take this as a blanket endorsement of the older generations, though. There is a distance, rarely bridged, between fathers and sons, paralleling the gulf between emperor/state and subjects. The veneer of glamour and affectations masks the true inefficiency and incompetence of the empire.

Several traits of the older generations destabilize families and empire (and by implication in families, too). There is a uniformity in behavior and actions that cover many areas, some inconsequential like the same dinner every Sunday at the Trotta house while adherence to the military code of honor costs lives for no good reason. Related to this uniformity is a form of inertia, an inability to change the direction things are headed, even if what is being done no longer makes sense.

I have probably made the book sound preachy and dull, which would be a mischaracterization. Even though the shadow of 1914 looms larger as the story progresses, Roth’s style makes the book a delight to read. His sentences are deft and lively, conveying action or description in a minimum of words and with unexpected turns. I plan to include several examples in the next couple of posts on The Radetzky March to demonstrate his remarkable ability. For the remainder of this post I want to look at a few significant ideas that recur throughout this first part.

Roth constantly highlights the detachment between an ideal and its reality. Examples of this distance begins early with the grandfather reading in schoolbook the unrecognizable, exaggerated account of saving the emperor’s life in a school reader. Not able to overlook the falsehood, he lodges a complaint. The official reply: “[T]he primer selections of historic significance, in particular those relating to the august person of His Majesty Emperor Franz Joseph…are to be adjusted to the intellectual capacities of the pupils and kept consistent with the best possible pedagogic goals.” History is rewritten for simple understanding and to provide lessons supporting the empire. The rewriting of events carries through to the end of this section, when “In the afternoon, the junior officers on duty read Colonel Kovac’s announcement to the troops: Captain Count Tattenbach and Regimental Surgeon Dr. Demant had each died a soldier’s death for the honor of the regiment.” No…no they didn’t. They died because of a rigid adherence to a code of honor that no longer has any principles underlying it save carrying out the code. The adjustment “to the intellectual capacities”, a nice way of saying infantilization, expands to cover not just students but all subjects. Messages are not the only disconnection from reality—symbols of the empire lose their meaning over time, too. Swords become decorations and uniforms turn into holiday costumes. The bases for such messages and symbols have eroded over the years until there is no longer a connection to their original intent or meaning.

In addition to distance from original meaning, the distance between Emperor Franz Joseph and his subjects as well as the mirrored distance between fathers and sons is shown in several ways, such as Roth’s use of paintings:

Carl Joseph’s gaze focused on the portrait of the Kaiser on the opposite wall. …The painting seemed to be hanging very far away, farther than the wall. Carl Joseph remembered that during the first few days in the regiment that portrait had offered him a certain proud comfort. He had felt that the Kaiser might step out of the narrow black frame at any moment. But gradually the Supreme Commander in Chief developed the indifferent, habitual, and unheeded countenance shown on his stamps and coins. His picture hung on the wall of the club, a strange kind of sacrifice that a god makes to himself.

The theme of distance happens often within the Trotta family. The grandfather’s promotion after saving the emperor’s life adds distance between him and his father, making their relationship more formal and measured. Carl Joseph never meets his grandfather until the hero’s funeral. His father admonishes Carl Joseph to not forget his grandfather but the boy cannot forget what he does not know. As Carl Joseph grows, the grandfather he knows comes from the legend, reflecting a partial truth, and from a painting. Similar to gazing at the portrait of the emperor, Carl Joseph would stare for long periods of time at a painting of his grandfather: “The grandson’s mute conversations with the grandfather took place every summer vacation. The dead man revealed nothing; the boy learned nothing.”

Death, and the foreshadowing of death, runs throughout this section. Max Demant comments to Carl Joseph as they stroll through a graveyard:
“There are so many graves,” said the regimental surgeon. “Don’t you feel as I do the way we live off the dead?”
“I live off my grandfather,” said Trotta.

Roth isn’t subtle about death (see opening quote) or the impending carnage of World War I about to occur. Within these direct addresses is the hint of the death of the empire:

Death hovered over them, and they were completely unfamiliar with the feeling. They had been born in peacetime and became officers in peaceful drills and maneuvers. They had no idea that several years later every last one of them, with no exception, would encounter death. Their ears were not sharp enough to catch the whirring gears of the great hidden mills that were already grinding out the Great War.

In the interest of wanting to start reading Part Two, I’ll stop here…