All Quiet On The Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front was written by Erich Maria Remarque in 1928. A novel of social protest, Remarque portrays in his work the horrors of war and the fallacy of patriotism. The main protagonist is Paul BÐ'umer, who was still in his teens and barely out of school before he joined the German army along with several of his friends. He reminisces of his past and notes the triviality of it, that all he learned has no value in the trenches. He also notes the randomness of death and carnage, that it is not the fittest who survive, but the luckiest. Presently at the final stages of World War I, BÐ'umer knows the Germans are losing, as they are constantly retreating. After witnessing the horrific deaths of his closest friends, BÐ'umer also meets the same fate, his name forever lost as another statistic for history.

In this chilling and critical novel, Remarque points out the use of patriotism as propaganda. The rise of nationalism in England, France, Germany, Russia, and many of the European nations led wily leaders to ride on the patriotic wave and convinced many young men to enlist. All for the glory of the father was the reason for fighting. Remarque himself fought in the war as a German soldier and was wounded in battle. He has stripped war of the romantic glory that many nationalists proclaimed and showed the grimness and the waste of war.

Nationalism is "the idea that competing nations were a fundamental part of existence, that one owed one's first loyalty to one's nation, and that one's national identity was the core of one's overall identity." Though the idea of nationalism had been around for quite some time, only through the strength gained from modernization did nations take a zealous pride in themselves. This pride was the reason why many had clamored for war, to show off just how powerful they became through industrialization. Germany had the greatest army in the world at the time, and also began to build a navy that threatened England.

The strained relations between Germany and England is just an example of the tension felt all around Europe as entangling alliances were forged that ultimately dragged most of the national powers into the World War.

Remarque