My year of WWI reading is coming to a close with less than two months to go. It’s fitting that towards the end I turned to what is probably the most famous book to come out of the war, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front; the original and most lauded anti-war memoir. It is apparently one of the best ever selling German language books, although banned by the Nazis in the 1930s. The original German title is “Im Westen nichts Neues”, which literally translates as “Nothing New From The West”, but the title of the first English language translation has become part of the culture and has stuck fast. I bought my copy on eBay just a month or two prior to reading it. It’s a very handsome Folio edition in perfect condition. The text is accompanied by period photographs of German soldiers, which are fascinating in themselves. The 15 page introduction by Geof Dyer, a British writer who’s written about WWI, was very good at setting the scene and describing the book’s gestation and reception.

Remarque’s hero is Paul Bäumer, an 18 year old German soldier from a poor rural village. We first encounter him in a rest area behind the lines with his schoolmates. They all joined up together and have remained in the same unit. He describes how their schoolmaster imbued them with patriotic zeal, and marched them to the recruiting office at the outbreak of war. It’s now 1916. They soon return to the front where the full horror of being under almost constant artillery bombardment is graphically described. How bodies are torn apart and maimed with by brutal chance. It’s not really fighting, just “cannon fodder”; occupying ground to deny it to the other side. The killing is mostly done randomly by high explosives. In one episode they are caught in an artillery strike while crossing a graveyard. The explosions excavate the bodies; “they were killed a second time”, but also tear into a convoy of horse drawn carts tragically maiming the poor animals. They shoot a comrade rather than leaving him to suffering that will on end in death. Remarque is very good on the psychological effects of war; how it destroys any mental peace and hope. His heroes ruminate on how they will live if the war ever ends, but it’s a distant unreachable fantasy. They feel they have become like animals, where all that counts is survival and any nobler thoughts are pointless. Bäumer returns home on leave, but finds the contrast with the front almost unbearable. He lies in his childhood bedroom and yearns to recover the happy mental state of his pre-war schoolboy life, but it proves elusive. He’s sickened by the jingoistic civilians and troubled by the mental strain on his ailing mother. In the end he concludes that it was a mistake to have come home and leaves again with some relief. He’s transferred to a training camp run by an old schoolmate, which provides a happy break from both the front and home. He soon returns to the front and finds himself on a night patrol in no-mans-land. He’s caught in an enemy attack and has to shelter in a shell hole for 24 hours. During the first night a French soldier jumps in. Paul stabs him and injures him and then has to watch the man slowly die over the next day. He feels utter remorse and sadness as he sits in the shell hole with the corpse. Why should two ordinary men with no hatred or even knowledge of each other be forced to fight and murder each other? He’s injured and sent away to a military hospital where he’s sees the grim reality of smashed and broken bodies. Eventually he recovers he’s sent back to the front where he sees his last old friend from home, Kat, killed. He loses all hope as the German armies collapse in the west. He’s finally killed in October 1918 on a quiet day, thus the “all quiet” of the title.

Remarque writes very intimately in the first person. It’s a crushing critique of the futility and hopelessness of war for the poor soldiers caught up in its vast machine. It struck me that the style is familiar to other war narratives I’ve read, but then I remembered that this was the original, all the others came later. It’s different from both the Robert Graves and Seigfried Sassoon memoirs; they at least thought there was justice in the cause, although both considered the cost far too high a price to pay. Remarque never tries to justify Germany’s actions, or questions why they are fighting in France and Belgium and not in Germany. In his mind he is just a pawn swept up by the grotesque ambitions of the powerful. It’s anti-war in sentiment, but never openly critical of Germany’s actions. But then why should an 18 year old schoolboy be required to make the distinction? Maybe I’m asking too much? Remarque does put his poor hero through the wringer though, It’s notable that Paul suffers for over two years at the front, whereas Remaque himself only spent a little over a month there before being seriously injured and spending almost all the remainder of the war in hospital. It’s not all relentlessly grim. He’s very good on the deep friendship and comradery of their group, their banter, and attempts to amuse themselves when they can. There is one very entertaining episode where they are sent to guard a supply dump and attempt to consume as much of the supplies as they can before it’s destroyed by artillery. Despite the grim material, it’s a very enjoyable and engaging read. No wonder it’s a considered a classic.