Book Review: All Quiet On The Western Front Quiet, yet loud

Histories of wars are written mostly by the victors.  Mainly because they still have the resources and the manpower after the final shot or stab.  They have the extra drive to display their medals and accolades and tell of the campaigns and achievements they won and the glories they reaped for themselves.

It's usually a different tale from the side of those who lost.

All Quiet on the Western Front was written by Erich Maria Remarque, a German soldier who survived World War I (known as The Great War before World War II).  First published in Germany in 1929 it tells the story of a student, Paul Baumer, and his entire class who decided to enlist to fight for their country even before they left school.

Little is known to most of us about World War I (1914-1918), mainly because the Philippines was not part of it.  Another reason could be that it was eclipsed by is more globally-widespread "big brother" two decades later.

Without going into the minute details, World War I was started by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by Serbian student Gavrilo Prinzip.  The retaliation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire against the Kingdom of Serbia quickly spread to the rest of Europe after their respective allies and enemies threw their hats in.

One of the many fronts of that war was the stretch of earth between France and Germany also known then the "Western Front".  This shatter, shell-pocked "No-man's land" was where German and French soldiers (later to be joined by the English and Americans), fought for a position to push into the enemy country.

Remarque paints a gritty picture of a soldier's life in the frontline from the view of naïve students who --caught up in the fervor of nationalism – sign their lives away to fight a war they do not completely understand.

It's a sad yet beautiful tale of how they lived, fought, and for some, died, and their horrible transformation from innocent schoolboys to hardened men "ready to kill their mothers".

During that time warfare was not yet much of a "science" compared to how it is viewed today.  Medical assistance in the field was adequate at best, there was no psychological rehabilitation for traumatized soldiers and "battle fatigue" was not factored in professional terms.

Simply put, the foot soldier was left on his own to cope with whatever came his way.

Remarque would later say he did not mean for the book to become a memoir of his own experiences but rather a warning to people who think violence is the best way to solve problems.  It was for this belief that copies of his book were ordered burned by Adolf Hitler during the infamous Nazi book burnings in 1933.

However, copies of the book continue to see print until this day and, despite its antiquated setting, is still seen as one of the best stories of modern warfare.

 My first copy of this book was a 1958 paperback I used to read every summer, until college when someone borrowed it and never returned it.  My second copy, a 1996 edition, was claimed to have been directly translated from Remarque's German notes, but the cover erroneously features soldiers of the Entente Powers (Germany's enemies).

I notice slight differences and sometimes even total overhauls of words, sentences and paragraphs but the general story idea remains the same, beautiful, haunting and chilling, despite the decades.

Generals, historians and pundits analyze war, but it is often the foot solders, those who have their face to the dirt and cold fingers on the trigger, who can paint the bloodiest and often best picture of how it was fought.