Erich Maria Remarque’s book has been touted as the greatest war novel of all time.  I would say it is more correct to call it the greatest ANTI-war novel of all time.  The story is told by Paul Baumer, a young German who enlists with his classmates under pressure from their schoolmaster.  He recounts the weeks of training under a martinet of a corporal who seemed to take special delight in harrassing them.  As arduous as this is, it is nothing compared to the horrors that Paul and his friends witness and suffer at the front.  In fact, the book begins with Paul and other members of his squad visiting a comrade in hospital who had lost his leg.  As much as they care for him, they are all eyeing a pair of British flying boots belonging to their sick friend.  They know it’s unseemly to mention it in front of him, but among themselves openly discuss the boots, saying, even if he does survive, what use would they be to him with one leg?  In the end, he does die and the the boots pass to one of the remaining squad.

This novel is a soldier’s story.  It could have been told by any man in any army on any side.  The endless waiting, the bombardments, the attacks and counter-attacks.  There is a fierce loyalty to those in his small unit.  The larger goals of the generals and politicians have no meaning for the ordinary soldier.  While they must follow orders, their only real interest is in keeping themselves and their buddies alive.  Paul describes his state of mind and that of the men around him; their going mad under the endless bombardments, their reluctance to speak of the terrible things they witness, their alienation from their previous ‘normal’ lives.  All those things that we today would describe as post-traumatic stress.  As tragic as the events are in this book, they are nothing compared to the fact that, only ten years after this book was published, 1929, the world was back at it on an even more devastating scale.