All Quiet on the Western Front

ERICH MARIA REMARQUE

Translated from German by Brian Murdoch

All wars are inhuman and every battle smells barbarianism. A soldier fights only because of his sense of duty and a desire to keep himself alive. As Samuel Johnson  told, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”, millions of men and women are forced into the agonies of war just to proclaim the glory of nationalism. Whether it is Alexander the Great or any other war mongering Generals of  the Twenty first Century, the basic motivation is the same. “All quiet on the Western front” is novel written in the backdrop of World War I, which brings out eloquently, the meaninglessness of War through the eyes of a young Soldier. Even though the novel was written in 1929, it is still highly relevant in today’s world. Also a movie was made based on this novel during 1930.

The Novel is written by Erich Maria Remarque who was exiled from Nazi Germany and lived in America and Switzerland. He died in 1970.In the Preface the author says “This book is intended neither as an accusation nor as a confession, but simply as an attempt to give an account of a generation that was destroyed by the war-even those of it who survived the shelling”. The narration of the incidents takes place as a commentary of one of the young soldiers, Paul Baumer. Baumer along with his friends were brain washed by their drill master to join the army at the tender age of nineteen. Straight from the school they join the army training camp. The mindless training , the cruelties and whims and fancies of the instructors to bring discipline among the young recruits itself generate boredom in their life.

Baumer and his friends, live every moment of their life with utmost insecurity and the thought of imminent attack from the enemy lines. Their life in the trenches, the poor quality of food served, the death of close companions etc. are narrated vividly and evokes thought from any callous mind on the meaning of war. The novel often reminds me another masterpiece on World War I –“Across the Black waters” by Mulk Raj Anand, which also tells about the war through the eyes of a young Indian boy who has gone to Europe to fight along with British Troupes.

When Baumer came on leave, to visit his mother, he found that how people are insensitive to the miseries of the soldiers. They consider war as glorious. They make strategic analysis on the importance of winning the war. News papers will write eulogies on victories. But nobody considers the life of a soldier, whose every moment is dangling between the desire to live life and fear of death.

Baumer narrates –“ we ‘ve stopped counting the weeks. It was winter when I arrived, and whenever a shell hit the ground, the frozen clumps of earth it sent up were almost as dangerous as shrapnel...War is another cause of death like cancer or tuberculosis or influenza or dysentery. The fatalities are just much more numerous, and more horrible.”Baumer loses his close friends one by one. The death of his close friend  Katczynski was more that that he could bear.

As the translator says  “The novel shows very clearly that war is something else: war is not about heroism, but about terror, either waiting for death, or trying desperately to avoid it, even if it means killing a complete stranger to do so, about losing all human dignity and values, about becoming an automation.....”

Anil Kumar R(2015)