All Quite on the Western Front

HIST 234 March 21 All lull on the Western Front All Quiet on the Western Front is narrated by capital of Minnesota Baumer. capital of Minnesota was solitary(prenominal) a nineteen year old fighting in the German army on the French sc becrow with some of his classmates Albert Kropp, the cle atomic number 18st thinker among them Muller, a physics-inclined academic and Leer, who wears full beard and lusty nature for girls. Their friends include Tjaden, a skinny 19-year-old locksmith who love to eat Haie Westhus a wide-ranging peat-digger, also 19 Deterring, a married peasant and Stannislaus Katczinsky their wise and crafty 40-year-old leader. summon 3 they every last(p blushing(a)icate) joined the army voluntarily after listening to the stirring superpatriotic speeches from their teacher, Kantorek. But after experiencing ten weeks of brutal training at the reach of the petty, cruel Corporal Himmelstoss and the unimaginable brutality of life on the front, Paul and his friends bui ld realized that the ideals of nationalism and patriotism for which they enlisted are simply reverse line. They no longer believe that fight is glorious or honorable, because they experience in constant physical terror.At the very beginning of the book Erich mare Remarque says This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of on the whole an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It impart try simply to tell of a generation of custody who, dismantle though they may defend escaped shells, were destroyed by the state of war. Page 0 This novel does not focus on daring stories of bravery, notwithstanding rather gives a view of the conditions in which the sol operaters find themselves. According to the author no one has the vaguest idea what we are in for. The wisest were just low and simple people.They knew the war to be a misfortune. page 11 The humdrum between battles, the constant threat of artillery fir e and bombard custodyts, the young soldiers peel to find food and the lack of training of young recruits meaning lower berth chances of survival. In the novel the author writes our early life is cut murder from the mowork forcet we came here and that without our lifting a hand page 19. The young soldiers would frequently look back and try to find explanation but neer quite succeed, since they consider themselves young and extraordinary vague because they were in the 20s they only had their parents and maybe a girl, hich was not consider in any case much influences. Whereas older hands take aim a strong oscilloscope that cannot be destroy, they linked to various life for example they had a family, wife, children, occupations, relate and a background which was strong, which means that war cannot destroy their memory of family. During the war soldiers spent their time on the front line, in an infantryman and in front line oceanic abysses. The working conditions became very p redictable since it was spent for the most part in the trenches. Soldiers recall the boredom of life in the dreary, lice-ridden, diseases spreading, muddy and inhuman trenches.The writer describes the unsanitary conditions of life at the front as Tjaden, timeworn of killing lice one by one, scrapes them off his skin into a boot-polish tin. He kills them by heating the tin with a flame. Haies lice have red crosses on their heads, and he jokes that he got them at a hospital where they tended to(p) the surgeon general. Paul remembers he and his friends were embarrassed to use the general latrines when they were recruits but now they find them a luxury. With Behms death, Paul and his classmates lost their aboveboard trust in authority figures such as Kantorek.Kantorek writes a earn to them filled with the empty phrases of patriotic fervor, calling them Iron Youth and glorifying their heroism. The men reflect that they once idolized Kantorek but now despise him they demonic him fo r pushing them into the army and exposing them to the horror of war. They would wake up middle of the night by hearing loud booms. According to Paul he believed that they have lost their senses of other consideration because they are artificial since only the facts are real and important to them.Page 21 As Paul sits with Kemmerich who knew his leg has been amputated, he tries to cheer him up, but Kemmerich is convinced he will die, Paul has gather inn friends die before, but growing up with Kemmerich makes life harder, the orderlies were not befriendful, and when they return, Kemmerich has died. Paul collects his things and they contract the body to free up the bed for more wounded. As jr. soldiers arrived, Paul and his friends feel like mature veterans. Paul believes every order has one or two resourceful people, but Kat, a cobbler by trade, is the smartest he knows. Page 37.Paul is glad to be his friend, and tells a trading floor to illustrate his strength as a leader. For example Kat, bunking in a small, ravaged factory one night, Kat finding straw for the men to sleep on, and when they are hungry with no food, Kat goes off once more and returns with bread and horse-flesh without providing an explanation. page 37 It was assumed that Kats sixth sense help locating food and his special talent. As men return from the fronts, they see the shells shattered and coffins pilled by the dozens, however they made jokes in order to length themselves from the unpleasant knowledge that coffin are made for them.Their first front was completely demolished by a direct hit and the stand by only to discover it has been buried. Captured Russian soldiers, who are reduced to picking done and through the German soldiers garbage for food, which means there might not be any food in the garbage. Food is so scarce that everything is eaten. looking for at the Russian soldiers, Paul can scarcely believe that these men with honest peasant faces are the enemy. Since nothing ab out them suggests that he is essentially different from them or that he should have any reason to pauperization to kill them.Many of the Russians are slowly starving, and they are stricken with dysentery in large numbers. But most people simply ignore the prisoners begging, and a hardly a(prenominal) even kick them. When Paul returns to the front, he finds Kat, Muller, Tjaden, and Kropp still alive and uninjured. He shares his potato cakes with them. There is excitement among the ranks the Kaiser, the emperor of Germany, is coming to see the army. In preparation for his visit, everything is cleaned thoroughly, and all the soldiers are given new clothes.But when the Kaiser arrives, Paul and the others are disappointed to see that he is not a very funny man. After he leaves, the new clothes are taken away. Paul and his friends muse that if a certain thirty people in the humans had said no to the war, it would not have happened. They conclude that wars are effective only for lead ers who want to be in history books. During the commodious War millions men lost their lives in one of the greatest acts of atrociousness the world has ever seen. The heroism and sacrifice of troops in the trenches is belike without parallel.The pretexts for execution for British soldiers had a common theme many were scummy shell shock or now recognized as direct Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most of those men were young, defenseless and vulnerable teenagers who had volunteered for duty. Millions of men lost their lives fighting for war and millions of men came home without a leg, an arm, or blind, or deaf, or mentally broken payable to the things they had to live through in the trenches. Others had their lives cut short through the effects of poison gas, and injuries due to blast, with collapsed lungs.While others came home whole in body, appearing normal, but with such sound nervous and mental conditions that they could not work, and were confined to mental hospitals for the r est of their lives. It should be noted that most, especially on the Allied side, later believed the war to have been worthless. Technological and military innovations such as poison gas, the machine gun, and trench warfare revolutionized combat during World War I, and Remarque effectively dramatizes how these innovations made the war bloodier, longer, and more costly.In almost every case, military innovations make the soldiers lives more dangerous, turn medical innovations lag increasingly far behind. Kemmerich, for instance, dies from complications from a relatively ignition wound. Glory and patriotism cease to be rational ideals in the contravene because advanced technology limits the effect that an individual soldier can have on the conflict and alienates him from the consequences of his actions. Life and death thus become meaningless.