An Antiwar Masterpiece - The Anti-War Write Off

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.
-Introduction to All Quiet on the Western Front

The mark of great literature, and indeed great art in general, is in its ability to make the reader feel, in a profound sense, a new experience without actually reliving it. Sometimes this experience could be some personal expression of the artist. Other times, it may simply be something at which the author is pointing. Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war classic is one such novel. Set in the German trenches of World War I, it is the story of a group of young men who learn first hand that warfare is a dehumanizing, barbaric ritual, which means certain death, if not physical then certainly emotional and spiritual.

I came across this book almost by accident. A few years ago I was at a used book sale that was a fundraiser for a local youth recreation center. It was like a humongous garage sale, and there were literally thousands of old books that looked like they were dug out of someone’s attic. At that time, I was into reading classic literature. I had already picked up some Hemmingway and Dickens when I came across this dusty old paperback. I had heard the title, but I wasn’t sure what it was about. For the price of $0.25, I figured it was a low-risk purchase. Looking back, it was an amazing bargain.

A young German soldier named Paul Baumer narrates the story in the first-person perspective. Baumer and company had all enlisted in the German army, in what seems like ages ago, at the prodding of their schoolteacher, who filled their young heads with visions of wartime glory. These young, naïve boys are told they are the “Iron Youth” of the Fatherland, and tales of their heroic battlefield deeds will immortalize them. The teacher even singles out Baumer, as the group’s “leader”, questioning his patriotism. As he falls prey to his teacher’s hawkishness, the rest of the group of teens fall in line and rush off to the recruiting station.

The book opens as Baumer’s company has just returned from a post at the front. There is an argument with the cook who had prepared enough rations for 150 men, yet only 80 arrive. The cook refuses to believe that so many have been killed, but eventually is ordered to serve up the entire batch. Meanwhile, Baumer and friends decide to pay a visit to another classmate who was injured. The friend is a bit delirious, and keeps complaining about severe pain in his leg. As the friend is obviously on his deathbed, Baumer doesn’t have the nerve to tell him that the leg has been amputated.

Anyone who has studied the history of the First World War is familiar with the fact that it was a grueling, war of attrition that had a staggering casualty rate. It’s funny how they call the Korean conflict the “Forgotten War”, when contemporary historians barely ever acknowledge World War I as being of any real interest. As the History Channel likes to display, it seems that World War II is the much more compelling drama, with it’s more Hollywood friendly cast of characters (e.g. Hitler, FDR, Churchill, Pearl Harbor, etc.) This book does a marvelous job of bringing the reader to experience to sheer futility of combat. The author talks of how most of the time the sit and wait in their trenches, surrounded by the continual explosive pounding of bombs from enemy mortar. The soldiers have to do all they can to avoid from going crazy. Eventually, when the shelling lets up, they make a charge on the enemy and overtake his positions. The enemy then regroups and counter attacks. At the end, both forces are exactly where they were in the beginning, only now dozens, even hundreds of soldiers have fallen. Such pointless actions, and random death, take a heavy toll of the soldiers. One passage (among countless others) drives the point home:

”We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death with hands and helmets is hunting us down – now, for the first time in three days, we can see his face, now, for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to save ourselves and be revenged”

Much of the prose is very detailed and graphic, which has a real purpose. War is ugly. Like Baumer finds out, war is not a glorious, heroic enterprise. It is senseless debasement of the human existence. It turns boys into old men. It consumes the optimistic fertility of youth, and defecates withered, gangrenous poverty.

There is one particularly moving scene, when during an attack and counterattack, Baumer unexpectedly finds himself caught in a blown out crater with a French soldier. In a rush to defend himself, he stabs the enemy soldier with a mortal blow. The Frenchman does not die immediately, and Baumer is forced to watch him die slowly. Furthermore, he has to share the trench with the corpse for an entire day, until it nighttime provides enough cover for him to find his way back to his lines. During this time, he starts to reflect on the fighting.

The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and say to him: “Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are just poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony – Forgive me, comrade; how could you be the enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life comrade, and stand up – take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now”

What I find incredibly interesting is that there are so many parallels between this novel, written in 1928 and today. First, there is a scene where the soldiers are discussing the causes of war. One of them suggests war happens when the politicians from one country get mad at the politicians in another country over something trivial and inconsequential to the common man. He suggests then, what they should do, instead of having huge armies fight each other, is to rope of a big area, and round up the Kaiser, the King and all of the other politicians, and have them fight to the death. He wryly comments, “you could even sell tickets”. I found this perspective come flying back when a few months ago, the Vice-President of Iraq suggested that he and Saddam have a two-on-two duel with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I’d buy a ticket to see that!

There is also another scene, which underscores the sheer ignorance of non-combatants to the realities of warfare. Baumer gets a short leave from duty and returns home. He meets up with his father and some of his friends at a local pub. These armchair generals insist that Baumer must be well fed (“nothing but the best for our troops!”). They even proceed to tell him how, simply from looking at a map, an easy victory is within their grasp. (“All you need to do is….”). The frustrated disconnection Baumer feels is obvious to the reader, who finds sympathy with Baumer’s eagerness to return to the front. I think of this every time I hear some Neocon war hawk spout off how removing Saddam Hussein is going to be a “cakewalk”, and how we can use our military to impose a western style democracy on every nation in the world (whether they want it or not!).

Overall, All Quiet on the Western Front is a powerful novel that will leave the reader somber, and sober. Not surprisingly, when this book was first published, it created quite a stir. It was even the target of censorship by the Nazi regime, which was trying to foment a pro-war sentiment in Germany. There was an academy award-winning movie made from the book, that cost a whopping, for the time, $1.5 million. As usual, the book is much better than the movie, but the movie is worth renting if you ever find it. I can say, without a doubt, that this is the best single novel I have ever read. It really drives home how fragile life is, and how utterly indifferent war is to such a precious gift. It also teaches us to be very hesitant about going to war, especially for light and transient causes, as the price is often very high, both in spiritual and economic terms. Terms like “collateral damage” simply divert our attention away from the robbery of life that occurs during combat. And whether we are talking of civilian casualties, or the death of military personnel, every combat death diminishes humanity that much more, despite what opportunistic politicians claim. Are there times when armed conflict is appropriate? Most certainly indeed, there are. But when the goals are dubious, and the motives even more suspect, I think there is a moral obligation upon any person who considers themselves among the civilized to stand up and protest with their very last breath, the wanton destruction of humanity itself.


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This review is a part the ANTI-WAR write-off, hosted by yours truly. Be sure to check other participants.

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