Die Standarte - Review by Guy R. Vowles
In: Books Abroad, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Spring, 1936), Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, p. 205
In language as beautiful as that of Hermann Hesse on a theme reminiscent of Joseph Roth's Radetzky March, the Austrian Lernet-Holenia has written a fascinating novel, in which a love-story is woven in among the events of the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The fate of "Die Standarte", of which the hero of the novel is the bearer, runs "like a silver thread" through the story. The clash between the spirit of the Austrian oath of loyalty and the disintegrating forces within the Austrian army, with its polyglot troops, is tellingly portrayed. Without the crassness of Remarque's The Road Back (Der Weg zurück) this novel brings home to the reader with even greater poignancy that feeling of utter futility with which men of intelligence and culture tried to readapt themselves to civilian life after the war. Incidentally the inefficacy of compulsory oaths of loyalty is very evident.