All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque - Book Report/Review Example

March , History Introduction The war front has a significant relationship with the home front. The paper delves on the lives of the gallant soldiers of World War I. the paper focuses on realities of life in a war-torn district. There is a direct relationship between the war front and the home front. Erich M. Remarque The Western Front during the First World War included several nations. The nations included Luxembourg. Another nation is Belgium. Another nation is France. A portion of France lined the Western Front as enemy forces fought to control the passage to the oceans. The Western Front included a lone entrenchment of soldiers stretched from the North Sea towards the Swiss part of France. Barbed wires, gun positions along the barbed wire defenses and machine gun placements imparted heavy mortalities and injuries on the forces from both sides of the lone line of barbed wire entrenchments. On the other hand, the Easter Front during the First World War included the war conducted along another long battle area. The battle area includes the long line of entrenched soldiers of the Russian Empire as well as Romania on one side of the Eastern Front. The other side of the Eastern Front included the Bulgarian forces, Austro_Hungarian soldiers, and the German soldiers. In the Erich book, Tjaden as well as Muller were described as bringing washbasins. Both soldiers muse over the distribution of personal items. The personal items included cigarettes. The personal items likewise included the squid chews (Remarque 3). Further, Erich shows the effects of war. In one attack, Katzinsky and the other soldiers avoided being hit by the enemy’s bullets. However, one soldiers suffered from a lone soldier’s hit. The soldier was Bhem. Bhem was hit by a bullet. The bullet entered and damaged his eyes. Consequently, the soldiers were forced to leave Bhem behind to die a painful death. The soldiers could not carry Bhem because they had to escape from the enemy’s bullets and artillery fire. The soldiers feared that carrying Bhem’s dying body with them, they would be slowed down. Consequently, the attacking enemy soldiers could reach the escaping soldiers, killing more German soldiers. The soldiers decided to reduce the number of German soldier deaths by leaving behind the dying Bhem. Blind and crying in pain, Bhem stood up and tried to search for his fellow soldiers. Spotting the blind Bhem, the enemy soldiers shot to death Bhem before the fellow German soldiers could reach him (Remarque 11). Erich describes the feeling of being injured during the war. The food of one of the German soldiers, Kemmerich, was hit by enemy fire. Consequently, the foot of Kemmerich had to be amputated (removed). Kemmerich produced a face characterized as yellow, ghastly, and wan (Remarque 13). Moreover, the home front during the occurrence of the First World War is definitely far away from the two fronts. One of the two fronts is the Eastern Front. The second front is the Western Front. Instead, the home front represents activities outside the fighting areas. From the term home, the topic focuses on the people’s contributions to the war. The civilians contributed to the success of the war fronts. Further, the home front includes the economic issues. Economic issues include money used in the successful war campaign. Money is use buy food for the soldiers. Money is used to pay for the bullets, guns, artilleries, and tanks needed during the war. Money is used by the allied forces to turn the war tide to their favor. The allied forces during the First World War included United States, United Kingdom and its allied nations. During the same war, the Central powers included Germany. Furthermore, the home front included busy ordinary people. The people include those who manufacture the guns, bullets, and tanks. The people included those who help built and purchase tanks and artillery pieces. The people included the farmers. The farmers grow the food needed by the soldiers. Without the farmers’ agricultural products, the soldiers assigned to either the Western Front or Eastern Front will die an avoidable hunger-caused death. Moreover, the home front included personnel. The utility personnel ensured that the offices of the military commanders are in order. The personnel help type and prepare the correspondences and orders sent from the home country’s army headquarters. The headquarters personnel run errands for the top military officers. In the war factories located far away from the Eastern Front and the Western Front, bullets and guns were produced. The factory supervisors checked the quality of the bullets and guns used in the war. If the factory sends faulty bullets and guns, the soldiers using the faulty guns and bullets will be the victims of war. The enemy soldiers will killed the defenseless soldiers or take them away as prisoners. Additionally, another home front activity is the transfer of soldiers and goods using ships. Ships will land at the enemy’s shores carrying both soldiers and military equipments. If the ships are interpreted before they arrive at the enemy’s ports, the ships will lose their valuable soldier and military equipment resources. Both German soldiers and British soldiers placed their soldiers at strategic locations along the coasts. The soldiers were tasked to prevent the landing of enemy ships along the landing areas. By preventing the arrival of the enemy ships, the enemy forces are preventing from receiving additional military weapons, bullets, artilleries, food, and other war requirements. Further, the home front included the heroic deeds of women citizens (Remarque 136). Women did their share to helping the soldiers win the war in the Eastern Front and the Western Front. The women include the contributions of the wives to encourage the men to keep up their spirits during the times of despair or hopelessness in the front line (Remarque 17). Furthermore, Erich described in the same person’s book, All_Quiet on the Western_Front, the realities of war. The book described the soldiers continued fight for survival. The war had swept the soldiers from a life of comfort and safety at home to a life of dangers in the front line (Remarque 18). During their battles, the soldiers were forced to shoot guns even when their stomachs were strongly and painfully craving for food. The soldiers could not freely move around to find food. By roaming around to find food, the soldiers feared the enemy soldiers will kill them one by one. The soldiers took turns watching for the enemy soldiers’ possible attacks. The attacks included the use of machine guns from the enemies’ hidden positions. Similarly, the attacks included the use of long range artillery. One artillery bullet can kill several soldiers within a few meters from the epicenter of the artillery hits. Moreover, the story of Erich includes the German school teacher, Kantorek, encouraging the students to join the German Army (Remarque 10). The teacher’s encouragement to serve the German nation as soldiers of war resulted to the many students’ eagerly application to fight alongside other German soldiers along the front lines. One such student who abided by his teacher’s persuasive encouragement to join the war was Paul_Baumer. Paul served as soldier in the Western Front. At nineteen years of age, Paul and his classmates are accepted into the German army (Remarque 4). As expected, of Paul’s friends, classmates, and neighbors enthusiastically entered the Western Front using the prestigious German uniform (Remarque 4). As expected, Paul realized the realities of war (Remarque 10). War was not such a glamorous activity. Paul soon realized that the war was not a happy vacation from school activities. Paul and other German soldiers lining the Western Front had to stay entrenched under very dirty and uncomfortable fighting conditions. While fighting at the front,2 Paul met and became friends with other German soldiers. One such soldier is Stanislaus_Katczinkey. Stanislau taught Paul the rudiments of war survival. Further, Erich, the author of the book, explains the book was written for personal reasons of the author. The author reiterated that the book was not written to find fault (Remarque 20). The author never intended to place the blame for the deaths of soldiers from both sides of the war on one person or group of persons. Instead, the author wants to impress on the readers of the book the difficulty of engaging in war. The book clearly discourages the readers from ever joining another war. Similarly, Erich had not written the book to seek forgiveness (Remarque 20). Since Erich does not find fault on any person or group of persons, it then follows that forgiveness is not expected. Forgiveness only crops up when a person seeks forgiveness. A person will seek forgiveness if e or she realizes he or she was to blame for an incident or act. Since Erich never intended to find fault, then Erich automatically does not create an impression on the readers that any person should seek forgiveness. Describing the realities of war, Erich creates a horrifying impression on the book readers that joining a war is not a favorable adventure (Remarque 56). By discussion the frustrations, stresses, and uncomfortable war conditions, the author is a realist, not an idealist. The realist is a person who accepts reality for what it is (Fisher 16). The idealist is a person who strives to contribute to the establishment of an ideal society. The book shows the realities of a soldier facing possible death. For 24 hours, the soldiers fear that one of the enemies’ artilleries will rip wide open the soldiers’ entrenched positions. When this happens, everyone hit by the artillery will be shredded to pieces, limbs flying away from the dead soldier’s body. Further, the author, Erich, does not glorify or make the soldiers heroes. The book never intends to shower the soldiers with flattering hollow words of praise. Instead, the book focuses on the effects of war on the soldiers, including Muller’s wounded leg (Remarque 16). The book especially focuses on the side effects of being fired upon by enemy soldiers. The side effects of being injured and surviving bring down even the bravest and most loyal soldier down to reality. The readers are made to feel the pain of a bullet piercing through the soldiers’ body. The readers are made to experience dying from an avoidable war. Furthermore, the Erich book describes normal human activities. Normal human activities crawling out of one’s hideouts to replace the tired front line soldiers. While inside the hideouts, the soldiers enjoy cooked food. Cooked food smelt greasy. The greasy cooked food effectively nourished the hungry soldiers. With their stomachs filled with food, the soldiers have the renewed energy needed to defend against the approaching enemy soldiers. Albert_Kropp is described as very hungry during one of the meal activity (Remarque 4). Moreover, the same book vividly shows the soldiers’ hope of returning home from the Front Line alive. Kropp informs his fellow German Soldiers of the idea of going home after the war (Remarque 13). Erich shows Muller bring his school textbooks to the war front. While resting from the previous battle, Muller reads his school textbooks. This image is very inspiring. Likewise, Erich shows another German soldier friend of Paul, Leer. Leer dreams of returning home after the war. Returning home, Leer wants to have romantic meetings with some of the women in Germany. Leer feels it is easier to pay girls from the Brothel. The officers of the German army frequent some brothels (Remarque 4). Further, author Erich described the normal activities of soldiers when it is quiet at the war front (Remarque 6). Some soldiers feel the long quiet hours waiting for the enemy to attack as boring. There are lots of free hours doing nothing but wait for the enemy to unexpectedly attack the soldiers’ defense positions. Some soldiers could hear the bumble bees searching for food as they swarm near the soldiers’ entrenched positions. The soldiers look up at the clear blue sky which creates a temporary peace environment. Meeting in their hideouts, the soldiers exchange cigarettes, food, and other items. Furthermore, Erich explains some German individuals did not prefer joining the war. One of the war-hating German individuals included Joseph_Behm. Joseph hated joining the German soldier. If Joseph refused to join the German army, Joseph’s parents were ready to tease him for being a coward. Joseph may suffer from being ostracized (Remarque 10). Peter Englund Peter Englund mentioned in his book entitled The Beauty & The_Sorrow one participant in the battle was a Laura de_Turczynowicz in his book (Thomson 1). She was the wife of one of Poland’s aristocrats. Her eyewitness account to Peter Englund shows the realities of war during World War I. She describes her unfavorable fate stating that she was on the wrong side of the war fence. She happened to be within the German-occupied Poland. Laura sees the German invaders forced the starved prisoners of war to hard work. Being forced into hunger-tainted slavery, the German occupiers’ prisoners soon lost their humanity. After being led to a state of inhumane living, the German soldiers easily ended their miseries by killing them. Further, Englund discussed in his book the thoughts of one of the Danish soldiers’ feelings of the war (Barber 1). Kresten_Andresen was accepted into the German Army. Kresten’s soldier years did not include 100 percent loyalty to the German leaders. Kresten espoused that soldier should not through the dangers of war for patriotic purposes, protecting and serving one’s nation during both times of war and peace. In the same manner, Kresten insisted that a soldier should not go to war primarily to snap out the life of another person, especially the innocent unarmed civilians. Instead, Kresten emphasized a person should go to war in order to favorably hone one’s character to a more advanced level. The same person reiterated that a soldier should join a war in order to strengthen one’s character. The strengthening should include the use of power and will. Likewise, strengthening must incorporate one’s culture and habits. Seeing man of his comrades die and dwindle and size, Kresten suddenly vanished in to thin air when he arrived in Somme during the 1916 period of the war. Furthermore, a third person discussed in Englund’s book is Alfred_Pollard (Barber 1). Alfred worked as a London Insurance employee. During the holiday month of December during 1916, Alfred writes to his mother. Alfred is writing the letter from the Western front. Alfred thanks his mother for the football uniform sent to Alfred during the Christmas season. At the Western Front, Alfred enters the war as a full pledged soldier. During the war, Alfred was able to heroically fight back the better trained and better equipped advancing German soldiers. With his small group of fellow soldiers and some pieces of scarce grenades, Alfred’s group won the battle against the advancing German soldiers. For his successful defense, Alfred was awarded the British Empire’s highest military medal, Victoria Cross. The awarding of the medal was performed at London’s Buckingham Place. King George V personally awarded to medal to Alfred for being a fine example of a brave and intelligent United Kingdom soldier. Writing a letter to his mother during the war, Alfred informed her he pitied the untimely killing of the Hun soldiers. Alfred felt that the Hun soldiers’ lives were unceremoniously cut short at such young ages by the war (Barber 1). In the Battle of Somme alone, more than one million soldiers died from both sides of the war. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, the home front activities significantly affect the war result. The soldiers need personal necessities to survive longer in the war zone. The factories produce the guns and bullets used in the War. Drivers and other individuals bring the food, clothe and military equipments to the war front. Soldiers are typical American residents. The wives and other civilians care for and bring food and medicines to the War front. Evidently, there is a direct relationship between the war front and the home front as the home front helps cater to the food, clothing, and other needs of the front line soldiers. Works Cited Barber, Tony. "The Beauty and the Sorrow." Financial Times 12 November 2011.Print. Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism. New York: J.Hunt Press, 2009. Print. Remarque, Erich_Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Random House Press, 2013. Print. Thomson, Ian. "War and Sorrow." The Guardian 11 November 2011.Print. Read More