We know all the details of World War I: its beginning, its course, its end. Yet the truth about this fundamental upheaval of the West remains unknown to us. Vuillard brings this ignorance to light with his grand literary historical rhapsody. He blends the otherwise neatly separated perspectives and combines them into a new whole. With breathtaking, musically composed associations, he connects the great politics with the misery of the trenches, the detonations of gas grenades with the shared dances of the powerful beyond the front lines. In the ballad of the West, history becomes an actor, recognizable in the mosaic of images. Vuillard aims to free us, to sober us from the intoxicated indulgence in death, sacrifice, battles, destruction, and heroism.