Andreas Latzko

After high school, he served in the Imperial and Royal Austria-Hungarian army as a one-year volunteer and was a reserve officer of the Ersatzheer.

In August 1914, at the beginning of World War I, he returned to Egypt and served as an officer in the Imperial and Royal Wehrmacht of Austria-Hungary.

He fell ill with malaria, but he was not sent away from the front until he suffered a severe shock from a heavy Italian artillery attack near Gorizia.

Karl Kraus wrote in his magazine Die Fackel, "This book is a scream and a relevant document about the Great War and humanity.

It was widely praised, with one critic describing the novel's theme of "disillusionment and an almost morbid sympathy with mental and physical suffering" as well as "a prevailing nihilistic tone".

Latzko wrote and published two more novels in 1918: The Judgement of Peace, about the lives of German soldiers on the Western Front, and The Wild Man.

[clarification needed] He was expelled from Bavaria and moved to Salzburg, where he met Georg Friedrich Nicolai during the latter's visit to Stefan Zweig.