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Lewis Back

Ms. Rindlaub

English 10 H, Period 5

23 April 2016

What They Really Fight Against

During World War I, the “enemy” was generally thought of as opposing countries such as

Germany and France. In war, every soldier fights not against other soldiers, but against death

itself. Soldiers sympathize with one another even if they are in opposite warring countries. In

each soldier, fear of death instead of patriotism drives them to fight. Erich Remarque

experienced this feeling during his time in the war and portrayed it in All Quiet on the Western

Front. The real enemy that every soldier fights against in war is death, not other soldiers.

Firstly, Remarque emphasizes death’s enmity by personifying it and blaming it directly

for character losses. When Kemmerich is wounded in battle and is resting, Paul comes to see him

in the hospital where he notes: “Death is working through from within. It already has command

in the eyes. Here lies our comrade, Kemmerich, who a little while ago was roasting horse flesh

with us and squatting in the shell-holes. He it is still and yet it is not he any longer” (Remarque

14). Remarque personifies death to make it sound like a disease or a higher power that is taking

over Kemmerich’s body. The soldier or shell that wounded Kemmerich is not portrayed as the

enemy but instead, death is blamed for this loss. Death is also personified during battle and

directly referred to as the enemy. While Paul and the other men are fighting in the front, he

describes the feelings of animosity that he feels toward death: “It is not against men that we fling

our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down—now, for

the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger” (113). Death is portrayed as
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another soldier that Paul and the others must fight against. Here, Remarque writes so that it

sounds as if the men have been waiting for three days to exact their revenge upon death. Paul and

the others look upon death with an intense hatred as if it is a person who is the source of their

problems.

Furthermore, Remarque expresses the fact that soldiers of opposing countries do not hate

or dislike each other directly as they do with death. After Paul’s two-week leave, he reports to a

training camp that borders a prison for captured Russian soldiers. He notes about his interactions

with them: “What great misery can be in two such small spots, no bigger than a man’s thumb—

in their eyes!” (191). He shows great guilt and shame at seeing the Russian prisoners which

shows that he does not see them directly as the enemy. Even amongst the prisoners, many are

claimed by death. Paul takes note of their deaths and also expresses guilt at it. Paul also

expresses guilt at wounding another soldier himself. After stabbing Duval when he comes into

Paul’s shell hole, Paul describes mournfully that it “is the first time I have killed with my hands,

whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing” (221). Paul is remorseful at stabbing

Duval and tries his best to bandage him but even to his best efforts, Duval will neither die nor

stay alive. Remarque writes as if to say that Paul aids Death in taking another life and regrets it

having done so. Soldiers from two warring countries do not want to take the lives of the other

soldiers. They want only to keep the other soldiers from taking their lives.

Death is the common adversary of soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front and in war.

All soldiers sympathize with one another and only fight to survive. They do not hate each other

or want to kill others. To summarize, all soldiers want is to stay alive and deprive death of the

ability to take their lives. Death is the real enemy of soldiers in war.