What are the motifs in A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot?

War is a recurring idea. No one comes out of World War I unscathed; war changes everyone. Every soldier who is a major or minor character in this novel either dies or loses the life he once had. Those who die have obviously lost everything. Six-Soux is shot down even in the midst of preaching peace, Common Law in the act of surrender. Both the Eskimo and Biscuit die at Bingo. The circumstances of the war have caused them to end their friendship and to pick it up again. Biscuit has been so desperate to leave the battlefield that he has suggested his wife sleep with his best friend in order to bring him another child, his ticket home.