Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth that was published in 1932.   It was recommended to me by a colleague who knows my interest in 20th Century history.  It is a remarkable chronicle of the decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire that follows the rise and demise of three generations of the Trotta family prior to World War I.  In a 1933 review in The New York Times, it was described as follows:

“The Radetzky March is an example of the way a good sociological novel should be written. Great events are present only as they are reflected in the lives of the characters- in this case the lives of the three Trottas, all of whom served the Emperor in one way or another. Joseph Trotta, a Slovene, son of a long line of south European peasants, happened to save the young Francis Joseph’s life at Solferino by stopping a bullet aimed at his Majesty’s head. For his services Joseph Trotta was made a baron, promoted to the rank of Captain, and rewarded more concretely by a dispensation from the imperial purse. His son, Franz, became a minister of the civil service, but Carl Joseph, the grandson of the “hero of Solferino,” found himself committed by the growing family legend to the cavalry.”

It has received accolades from a host of literary figures. 

“Roth’s masterpeice is one of he greatest novels written in the last century…magnificanet…life-enhancing to read.”  Allan Massie.

“Roth is Austria’s Chekhov.” William Boyd.

“One of the most readable, poignant, and superb novels in twentieth-century German: it stands with the best of Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin, and Robert Musil. Roth was a cultural monument of Galician Jewry: ironic, compassionate, perfectly pitched to his catastrophic era”  Harold Bloom.

In sum, I found the praise for this novel justified both for its story and its writing.

Below is a review that appeared in The New York Times.

Tony

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Books of The Times

The Radetzky March

By JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

October 17, 1933

oseph Radetzky, a veteran of Marengo, Wagram and other smoky battles of the Napoleonic wars, was one of the military glories of the now defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire. He lived to be over 90 and died in harness. For years he fought the red-tape artists who taught that military science, like the Rock of Ages, never changed. The measure of his success, as chief of staff and Field Marshal, may be found in the fact that during his lifetime Austria occasionally won a fight. After his death came the evil days; Austria was beaten by Louis Napoleon, by Bismarck, and, finally, in the World War. Francis Joseph, fated to rule the Austro-Hungarian Empire for some three-quarters of a century, was not born under a military star; he went forth to battle and he always- well, almost always- fell.

But the Radetzky March played on. It is one of the devices by which Joseph Roth manages to bind together his study of the disintegration of an empire, “Radetzky March.” Through the novel the two-four military time keeps its beat, but at the close the feet of the marchers are lagging, and many are out of step. Francis Joseph himself is dead; and the wind sown by Gavril Princip, who murdered the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to Francis Joseph’s throne, is about to blow down the flimsy structure of the monarchy. And soon the Radetzky March will be relegated to the lumber room of non-vital history.

All for the Emperor.

“Radetzky March” is an example of the way a good sociological novel should be written. Great events are present only as they are reflected in the lives of the characters- in this case the lives of the three Trottas, all of whom served the Emperor in one way or another. Joseph Trotta, a Slovene, son of a long line of south European peasants, happened to save the young Francis Joseph’s life at Solferino by stopping a bullet aimed at his Majesty’s head. For his services Joseph Trotta was made a baron, promoted to the rank of Captain, and rewarded more concretely by a dispensation from the imperial purse. His son, Franz, became a minister of the civil service, but Carl Joseph, the grandson of the “hero of Solferino,” found himself committed by the growing family legend to the cavalry.

All three Trottas are very limited people. Joseph was unimaginative enough to resign from the service when he discovered that the story of his exploit at Solferino had been dressed up for patriotic consumption in the Austrian school books. Franz lives his official’s life by rote, receiving the mail at precisely the same hour of a morning, never questioning his duty to God and to King, always thrilling to order at the overture to the Radetzky March. Carl Joseph himself, although faith is wearing thin on the eve of the World War, is still bound to his Majesty, who, indeed, saves him for Auld Lang Syne from the consequences of a debt incurred through dissipation. Nothing much happens throughout the 400 pages of the novel; life just dozes on. The officers do the usual things; they drill, drink a little or much, visit Fran Resi’s establishment (or others like it), play roulette, and generally mark time waiting for the war which must come. Carl Joseph doesn’t like the army, but has no will power to achieve a career in mufti.

But “Radetzky March” is not a slumbering novel. Just as the Russians can make great literature about the act of getting out of bed in the morning, so can Joseph Roth vitalize these pages about a vast calm before the storm of 1914. He makes spiritual paralysis exciting. Carl Joseph is held in thrall by two symbols. The Radetzky March binds him to the military life. And the portrait of the aging Emperor, his cold blue eyes staring out at his thousands of mixed subjects- Slovenes, Croats, Magyars, Germans, Bohemians, Italians, Poles and Ukrainians- seems to demand the loyalty expended by the first important Trotta, the hero of Solferino.

Where the Picture Hangs.

This portrait, as the book proceeds, seems to be all that holds the empire together. We meet with it in blowsy spirit shops, in fleshy gambling establishments, in cafes in Vienna or in the far marches on the Russian frontier, and in still more shady places. One of the most indicative passages in the book concerns Carl Joseph’s rescue of the Emperor’s picture from Frau Resi’s establishment; to such petty heroism is the Trotta line degraded. But the Emperor’s aged visage will not prevail. There is an uneasy feeling abroad in the army; as Dr. Skowronnek tells Franz von Trotta, “No young officer… can feel really satisfied with his job; that is to say, not if he thinks about it. He feels that war is his only chance, and yet he knows quite well that war means the end of the monarchy.”

The life of an officer in the empire of Francis Joseph must have been boring. Yet such is the richly tinted virtue of Joseph Roth’s style, admirably translated by Geoffrey Dunlop, that boredom becomes interesting as a spiritual state. It has its own wretchedness, its own dramatic values, when it is presented as a state of tension. Herr Roth’s pages are tense. They have a brilliant nostalgic charm. A St. Martin’s Summer coloring is in this book. “Radetzky March” explains much about the European past.

Grudges That Lie Deep.

Incidentally, it shed light on why Adolph Hitler- who was born in Austria- is what he is. Radetzky himself had a hankering for Anschluss. And the Germanic people in “Radetzky March” fear the Slavs and dislike the Jews. Hitler has merely inherited an old “earth hunger” which bids now to upset the peace of Europe, as it did in 1914. The old grudges lie centuries deep.

Joseph Roth is one of the authors who has had to flee Hitler. Along with the Zweigs, Stefan and Arnold, Lion Feuchtwanger, and others, he is now an exile from Germany. And he is one of the galaxy of great novelists of Mitteleuropa whose fate is perplexing the Viking Press, whose list, presided over by the shrewd and intelligent Ben Heubsch, includes the two Zweigs and Feuchtwanger. Marshall Best of the Viking staff is afraid the consequences of exile will show in future work by these writers. The test of being cut off from their subject material, their roots, must be met. Can it be met without resort to an overt propaganda which is nowhere apparent in the poetic and skilled pages of “Radetzky March”?