Books: Osterreich

Österreich

RADETZKY MARCH — Joseph Roth — Viking ($2.50).

Before the Nazis came to power in Germany, Radetzky March was the leading best-seller there. Author Joseph Roth has now taken his place with Exiles Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front), Stefan Zweig (The Case of Sergeant Grischa), Lion Feuchtwanger (Power, Success). On the strength of this book, critics would have put him among them anyhow.

Radetzky March is the tale of a simple, loyal Austrian family whose sun rose and finally set by the old Emperor Francis Joseph. Grandfather Trotta, a Slovene peasant, was an infantry lieutenant who saved his Emperor’s life at the battle of Solferino. He was ennobled and given the Order of Maria Theresa. When a children’s reader appeared with a flattering but garbled account of his exploit, he resigned from the army, brought his only son up to be a civil servant. Son Trotta, all his life a good official against his will, brought Grandson Trotta up to be a soldier. Grandson Trotta was not cut out for the army. He did his best, but when his part in a duelling scrape got him transferred from the Uhlans to a far-off infantry garrison he began to go downhill. Love affairs, finally drink, became his only interest in life. When he saw that his own disintegration was an echo of the Empire’s break-up he resigned from the army. Then came War; he re-enlisted and was shot ingloriously in a border skirmish. His aged father and the decrepit Emperor were left to watch their world dissolve.