"All Quiet on the
Western Front”
This is a book describing a German soldier’s experiences in
the World War I, which I had always wanted to read, but managed to read only
now. It is written by Eric Maria Remarque, originally published in 1928, and I got
to read the translation published in India in 2021. It is a tragic story. The
book was banned in Germany itself during Nazi era, that the book could
demoralize young recruits! When I saw that this book has been made into movie
and recently vied for 2023 Oscar nomination and lost to “Everything Everywhere
All At Once,” but still walked away with four awards, including one for the
Best International Feature film, my resolve to write a blog on it became firm.
And here is the story.
A bunch of boys, mere teenager school students, 18 and 19 year
olds, stirred by the patriotic speech given by their Schoolmaster, to be frank
the whole class, volunteers to join the army to defend their Fatherland in
World War I. They were taken to the Western front after training and some 22 of
them were in the same unit and underwent untold miseries of war, especially
trench warfare of yesteryears. With constant shelling from enemies, lack of
provisions and even water, living in dirt and mud, they fight to defend their
Fatherland, due to someone else’s ambition and desire for control other
countries. Paul, one of these boys is the narrator and through his eyes the
author paints us a graphic picture of the war front experiences.
I am not going into the graphic details of the war and the sufferings,
but touch upon only the effects on these boys. Many get killed and maimed by
bullet wounds, and the young boys soon grow old in their own eyes, no longer
young. Paul says contemplatively, “We are not youth any longer.” They are
emotionally drained, shaken and scared psychologically for life. Paul goes home
for a brief vocation, but could not find anything common with his own village
and home. He feels like a foreigner, a stranger, and hardly feels at home,
except for his attachment to his mother, who lay dying. He returns to the
battle field. In the trench shoots an enemy soldier and watches him die in
agony. He feels bad and apologizes to the dying man, and vows to return his
wallet to his family. But soon gets over it.
He and some of his friends were posted to guard a supply
depot in a village and for some time they eat well out of the provisions and
enjoy themselves. But it ends soon, and he and another friend get bullet wounds
and get admitted in Catholic hospital. There, while Paul was recovering, his
friend’s leg had to be amputated. His friend’s eyes kept following Paul’s good
legs as he walked around and Paul noticing this learnt to walk outside his
friend’s cot.
One by one most of Paul’s friends kept falling to the bullets.
The war was ending and the German troops were retreating. Finally a good friend
and a mentor, a bit older than the boys, by name Kit, gets hurt by a shrapnel
and Paul carries him from the trench and dashes to the nearby camp, but on
arrival he finds that Kat had died by a stray splinter in his head at the back.
Kat was talking to Paul just a few minutes back. Paul couldn’t comprehend it.
He loses all interest in life after this. For him to live or die would be of no
consequence. Their lives got twisted by the war and got wasted. He can no
longer get back to civilian life and be happy in it. War had changed him
totally. A generation had lived, matured and died in the trenches of the war.
In October 1918, almost at the end of the war, Paul also gets
killed hit by a bullet, as he leaned out of his trench to touch a butterfly
that alighted on his trench. His dead face was calm and serene. On the day he
died, the announcement of the army report from the front said, “All quiet on
the Western front.” May be after all Paul found happiness and peace in his
death. It looks as if death was his savior for he would have lived in night
mare after having lost almost all his friends and having to adjust to the
civilian life for which he was fit no more. Seeing people die on the battle
field of bullet wounds and fire does something horrible to the psyche of a
soldier. Army officers and politicians, who gamble the lives of such innocent
boys and men, do not understand these travails. As the war raged later on boys
were brought in to the front without much training even, just to die as
canon-fodder.
Reading this book was an eye-opener to what the young
soldiers go through in the front and in the trenches and the horrors of
starvation, death and sufferings, all for man-made ambitions and search after
power. Promising lives were lost in this mayhem. We see Putin’s ambition to
re-establish the Soviet Union and its glory once again has led to the war in
Ukraine; how many lives have been lost, young and old, on both sides, including
civilians on Ukraine’s side. How many sons and husbands lost to their families
and civilians uprooted from their own homes, and living as refugees in other countries?
What madness is this? And when will all these end?
I recall a verse from the Bible, “And they (nations) shall
beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning-hooks:
nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war
anymore” (Isaiah 2:4). There will be peace and prosperity with no madness about
war and death and decimation. When will this prophecy come true? I think only
when Jesus Christ returns and establish his rule on earth; only when he comes
as a King and destroys all these earthly rulers and their madness. Along with every
other believer in Christ, lets also respond to Christ’s announcement that, “”Yes,
I am coming soon,” with “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20).
