All Quiet on the Western Front :: All Quiet on the Western Front Essays

Whenever one reads or hears about humans struggle I or World War II, you hear of the struggles and triumphs of the British, Americans or any of the other Allies. And they always speak of the detestation and menacing German army. However, All Quiet on the Western bowel movement gives the reader some insight and a look at a group of young German friends who are participationing in World War I. This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of in all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It ordain try simply to tell of a generation of men who, crimson though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the state of war..... The soldiers of this war felt they were neither heroes nor did they know what they were argueing for. These soldiers were pulled from the innocence of their childhood, and thrown into a world of rage. Yet somehow they still managed to have heart and creed in man kind and could not look the opponent in the eye and kill him. For he was man too, he too had a wife and children at home, he too was pulled out of his home to fight for a cause he didnt understand. The comrades were taught to fight. They were taught to kill the British and their allies. The comrades had no ain reason to fight with the other, except that it was an order and must be done. They were not fighting because they held a strong passion for their country, or felt deep for the cause of the war. Albert simply states, ...almost all of us are simple folk. And in France, too, the mass of men are laborers, workmen, or poor clerks. Now proficient why would a French blacksmith or a French cobbler want to attack us? No, its merely the rulers. I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchmen as regards us. They werent asked about it any more then we were. These soldiers lacked passion for the war. They didnt observe heroic because they did not hate the French nor the British. Therefore they lacked zeal to fight the war and did not fit the title of hero, they clung on to their life at all times.