From Battleground World War 1,Jack Pearl.
Lieutnant Toma,a sensitive man,almost cried with joy when the Armistice bugles began to play.He was one of the first to disarm his men and surrender to the Americans.He rallied them on the parapets before the trenches and marched them across No-Man's Land to the American lines.Possibly Toma was too eager,possibly the doughboys in this sector had not heard the bugles..in any case when the Germans were half-way across the field,a machine gun opened fire on them.
Toma,hit superficially himself,watched in horror as his helpless men were mowed down.In an act of tragic despair and renunciation of the wretched world of men,Toma drew his pistol and shot himself in the head....Toma's tragic death ,it has been said,inspired the ending of Erich Maria Remarque's brilliant antiwar novel,All Quiet on the Western Front.