All Quite on the Western Front

 

"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).