Excellent WWI novel which quickly turns into an anti-war story, from the perspective of a Frenchman for a change of pace.

"Back in 1914 I embarked on a future that I wanted to be full and rich and in fact, I've got nothing at all. I am spending my best years here, wasting my youth on mindless tasks, in stupid subservience; the life I'm living goes against everything that is dear to me, it doesn't offer me any goal but burdens me with privations and constraints, and may well finish with my death... I've had enough! I am the centre of the world, as each of us is for himself the centre of the world. I am not responsible for others' mistakes, I have nothing to do with their ambitions and their appetites, and I have better things to do than pay for their glory and their profits with my blood. Let those who love war make it, I want nothing more to do with it."