On the Western Front read online. All Quiet on the Western Front - Remarque Erich

The novel All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1929. Many publishers doubted his success - he was too frank and uncharacteristic of the ideology of glorification of Germany, which lost the First World War, that existed in society at that time. Erich Maria Remarque, who volunteered for the war in 1916, in his work was not so much the author as a merciless witness of what he saw on the European battlefields. Honestly, simply, without unnecessary emotions, but with merciless cruelty, the author described all the horrors of the war that irrevocably destroyed his generation. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is a novel not about heroes, but about victims, among whom Remarque counts both young people who died and those who escaped from shells.

Main characters works - yesterday's schoolchildren, like the author, who went to the front as volunteers (students of the same class - Paul Beumer, Albert Kropp, Müller, Leer, Franz Kemmerich), and their older comrades (the mechanic Tjaden, the peat worker Haye Westhus, the peasant Detering, Stanislav Katchinsky, who knows how to get out of any situation) - they don’t so much live and fight as they try to escape from death. Young people who fell for the bait of teacher propaganda quickly realized that war is not an opportunity to valiantly serve their homeland, but the most ordinary massacre, in which there is nothing heroic and humane.

The first artillery shelling immediately put everything in its place - the authority of the teachers collapsed, taking with it the worldview that they instilled. On the battlefield, everything that the heroes were taught in school turned out to be unnecessary: physical laws were replaced by the laws of life, which consist in the knowledge of “how to light a cigarette in the rain and wind” and what’s the best way... to kill - “It is best to strike with a bayonet in the stomach, and not in the ribs, because the bayonet does not get stuck in the stomach”.

The First World War not only divided nations - it severed the internal connection between two generations: while "parents" they also wrote articles and made speeches about heroism, "children" passed through hospitals and dying people; while "parents" still placed service to the state above all else, "children" already knew that there is nothing stronger than the fear of death. According to Paul, awareness of this truth did not make any of them "neither a rebel, nor a deserter, nor a coward", but it gave them a terrible insight.

Internal changes in the heroes began to occur at the stage of barracks drill, which consisted of meaningless trumping, standing at attention, pacing, taking guard duty, turning right and left, clicking heels and constant abuse and nagging. Preparation for war made young men “callous, distrustful, ruthless, vindictive, rude”- the war showed them that these were the qualities they needed in order to survive. Barracks training developed future soldiers “a strong feeling of mutual cohesion, always ready to be translated into action”- the war turned him into "the only good thing" what she could give to humanity - "partnership" . But at the time of the beginning of the novel, only twelve people remained from former classmates instead of twenty: seven had already been killed, four were wounded, one ended up in an insane asylum, and at the time of its completion - no one. Remarque left everyone on the battlefield, including his main character, Paul Bäumer, whose philosophical reasoning constantly broke into the fabric of the narrative in order to explain to the reader the essence of what was happening, understandable only to a soldier.

The war for the heroes of “All Quiet on the Western Front” takes place in three art spaces: at the forefront, at the front and in the rear. The worst thing is where shells are constantly exploding, and attacks are replaced by counterattacks, where flares burst "rain of white, green and red stars", and the wounded horses scream so terribly, as if the whole world was dying with them. There, in this "ominous whirlpool" which draws a person in, "paralyzing all resistance", the only "friend, brother and mother" For a soldier, the earth becomes, because it is in its folds, depressions and hollows that one can hide, obeying the only instinct possible on the battlefield - the instinct of the beast. Where life depends only on chance, and death awaits a person at every step, anything is possible - hiding in coffins torn apart by bombs, killing your own to save them from suffering, regretting bread eaten by rats, listening to people screaming in pain for several days in a row. a dying man who cannot be found on the battlefield.

The rear part of the front is a borderline space between military and civilian life: there is a place for simple human joys - reading newspapers, playing cards, talking with friends, but all this one way or another passes under the sign of something ingrained in the blood of every soldier "coarsening". A shared restroom, theft of food, the expectation of comfortable boots passed from hero to hero as they are wounded and die - completely natural things for those who are used to fighting for their existence.

The vacation given to Paul Bäumer and his immersion into the space of peaceful existence finally convince the hero that people like him will never be able to return back. Eighteen-year-old boys, just getting acquainted with life and beginning to love it, were forced to shoot at it and hit themselves right in the heart. For people of the older generation who have strong ties to the past (wives, children, professions, interests), the war is a painful, but still temporary break in life; for the young, it is a stormy stream that easily tore them out of the shaky soil of parental love and children's rooms. with bookshelves and carried it to who knows where.

The pointlessness of war, in which one person must kill another just because someone from above told them that they were enemies, forever cut off yesterday’s schoolchildren’s faith in human aspirations and progress. They believe only in war, so they have no place in peaceful life. They believe only in death, which sooner or later everything ends, so they have no place in life as such. The “Lost Generation” has nothing to talk about with their parents, who know the war from rumors and newspapers; The “lost generation” will never pass on their sad experience to those who come after them. You can only learn what war is in the trenches; the whole truth about it can only be told in a work of art.

We invite you to familiarize yourself with what was written in 1929 and read its summary. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is the title of the novel that interests us. The author of the work is Remarque. The writer's photo is presented below.

The following events begin the summary. "All Quiet on the Western Front" tells the story of the height of the First World War. Germany is already fighting against Russia, France, America and England. Paul Boyler, the narrator of the work, introduces his fellow soldiers. These are fishermen, peasants, artisans, schoolchildren of various ages.

The company rests after the battle

The novel tells about soldiers of one company. Omitting the details, we have compiled a brief summary. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is a work that mainly describes a company, which included the main characters - former classmates. It has already lost almost half of its members. The company is resting 9 km from the front line after meeting with the British guns - “meat grinders”. Because of the losses suffered during the shelling, the soldiers receive double portions of smoke and food. They smoke, eat, sleep and play cards. Paul, Kropp and Müller head to their wounded classmate. These four soldiers ended up in one company, persuaded by their class teacher Kantorek, with his “sincere voice.”

How Joseph Bem was killed

Joseph Boehm, the hero of the work “All Quiet on the Western Front” (we describe the summary), did not want to go to war, but, fearing refusal to cut off all paths for himself, he signed up, like others, as a volunteer. He was one of the first to be killed. Because of the wounds he received in his eyes, he was unable to find shelter. The soldier lost his bearings and was eventually shot. Kantorek, a former mentor to soldiers, sends his regards to Kropp in a letter, calling his comrades “iron guys.” So many Kantoreks fool young people.

Death of Kimmerich

Kimmerich, another of his classmates, was found by his comrades with an amputated leg. His mother asked Paul to look after him, because Franz Kimmerich was “just a child.” But how can this be done on the front lines? One look at Kimmerich is enough to understand that this soldier is hopeless. While he was unconscious, someone stole his favorite watch, received as a gift. There were, however, some good leather English knee-length boots left, which Franz no longer needed. Kimmerich dies in front of his comrades. The soldiers, depressed by this, return to the barracks with Franz's boots. Kropp becomes hysterical on the way. After reading the novel on which the summary is based ("All Quiet on the Western Front"), you will learn the details of these and other events.

Replenishment of the company with recruits

Arriving at the barracks, the soldiers see that they have been replenished with new recruits. The living replaced the dead. One of the new arrivals says that they ate only rutabaga. Kat (the breadwinner Katchinsky) feeds the guy beans and meat. Kropp offers his own version of how combat operations should be conducted. Let the generals fight on their own, and the one who wins will declare his country the winner of the war. Otherwise it turns out that others are fighting for them, those who do not need the war at all, who did not start it.

The company, replenished with recruits, goes to the front line for sapper work. The recruits are taught by the experienced Kat, one of the main characters in the novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” (the summary only briefly introduces readers to him). He explains to recruits how to recognize explosions and shots and how to avoid them. He assumes, having listened to the “roar of the front,” that they will “be given a light at night.”

Reflecting on the behavior of soldiers on the front line, Paul says that they are all instinctively connected to their land. You want to squeeze into it when shells whistle overhead. The earth appears to the soldier as a reliable intercessor; he confides his pain and fear to her with a cry and a groan, and she accepts them. She is his mother, brother, only Friend.

Night shelling

As Kat thought, the shelling was very dense. The pops of exploding chemical shells are heard. Metal rattles and gongs announce: “Gas, gas!” The soldiers have only one hope - the tightness of the mask. All funnels are filled with “soft jellyfish”. We need to get up, but there is artillery fire there.

The comrades count how many people from their class are left alive. 7 killed, 1 in a mental hospital, 4 wounded - a total of 8. Respite. A wax lid is attached above the candle. Lice are dumped there. During this activity, the soldiers reflect on what each of them would do if there was no war. The former postman, and now the main torturer of the guys during the Himmelstoss exercises, arrives at the unit. Everyone has a grudge against him, but his comrades have not yet decided how to take revenge on him.

The fighting continues

The preparations for the offensive are further described in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Remarque paints the following picture: coffins smelling of resin are stacked in 2 tiers near the school. Corpse rats have bred in the trenches, and they cannot be dealt with. It is impossible to deliver food to the soldiers due to the shelling. One of the recruits has a seizure. He wants to jump out of the dugout. The French attack, and the soldiers are pushed back to a reserve line. After a counterattack, they return with the spoils of booze and canned food. There is continuous shelling from both sides. The dead are placed in a large crater. They are already lying here in 3 layers. All living things became stupefied and weakened. Himmelstoss is hiding in a trench. Paul forces him to attack.

Only 32 people remained from a company of 150 soldiers. They are being taken further to the rear than before. Soldiers smooth out the nightmares of the front with irony. This helps to escape from insanity.

Paul goes home

In the office where Paul was summoned, he is given travel documents and a vacation certificate. He looks at the “border pillars” of his youth from the window of his carriage with excitement. Here, finally, is his house. Paul's mother is sick. Showing feelings is not customary in their family, and the mother’s words “my dear boy” say a lot. The father wants to show his friends his son in uniform, but Paul does not want to talk to anyone about the war. The soldier craves solitude and finds it over a glass of beer in quiet corners of local restaurants or in his own room, where the atmosphere is familiar to him to the smallest detail. His German teacher invites him to the beer hall. Here, patriotic teachers, acquaintances of Paul, talk brilliantly about how to “beat up the Frenchman.” Paul is treated to cigars and beer, while plans are made on how to take over Belgium, large areas of Russia and the coal areas of France. Paul goes to the barracks where the soldiers were trained 2 years ago. Mittelstedt, his classmate, who was sent here from the infirmary, reports the news that Kantorek has been taken into the militia. According to his own scheme, the class teacher is trained by a career military man.

Paul is the main character of the work "All Quiet on the Western Front." Remarque writes about him further that the guy goes to Kimmerich’s mother and tells her about the instant death of her son from a wound to the heart. The woman believes his convincing story.

Paul shares cigarettes with Russian prisoners

And again the barracks, where the soldiers trained. Nearby there is a large camp where Russian prisoners of war are kept. Paul is on duty here. Looking at all these people with the beards of the apostles and childish faces, the soldier reflects on who turned them into murderers and enemies. He breaks his cigarettes and passes them in half to the Russians through the net. Every day they sing dirges, burying the dead. Remarque describes all this in detail in his work (“All Quiet on the Western Front”). The summary continues with the arrival of the Kaiser.

Arrival of the Kaiser

Paul is sent back to his unit. Here he meets with his people. They spend a week racing around the parade ground. On the occasion of the arrival of such an important person, soldiers are given a new uniform. The Kaiser doesn't impress them. Disputes are beginning again about who is the initiator of wars and why they are needed. Take, for example, the French worker. Why would this man fight? The authorities decide all this. Unfortunately, we cannot dwell in detail on the author’s digressions when compiling a summary of the story “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

Paul kills a French soldier

There are rumors that they will be sent to fight in Russia, but the soldiers are sent to the front line, into the thick of it. The guys go on reconnaissance. Night, shooting, rockets. Paul is lost and does not understand which direction their trenches are located. He spends the day in a crater, in mud and water, pretending to be dead. Paul has lost his pistol and is preparing a knife in case of hand-to-hand combat. A lost French soldier falls into his crater. Paul rushes at him with a knife. When night falls, he returns to the trenches. Paul is shocked - for the first time in his life he killed a man, and yet he, in essence, did nothing to him. This is an important episode of the novel, and the reader should certainly be informed about it when writing a summary. “All Quiet on the Western Front” (its fragments sometimes perform an important semantic function) is a work that cannot be fully understood without turning to the details.

Feast in Time of Plague

Soldiers are sent to guard a food warehouse. From their squad, only 6 people survived: Deterling, Leer, Tjaden, Müller, Albert, Kat - all here. In the village, these heroes of the novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Remarque, briefly presented in this article, discover a reliable concrete basement. Mattresses and even an expensive bed made of mahogany, with feather beds and lace are brought from the homes of escaped residents. Kat and Paul go on reconnaissance around this village. She is under heavy fire from In the barn they discover two frolicking piglets. There's a big treat ahead. The warehouse is dilapidated, the village is burning due to shelling. Now you can get anything you want from it. Passing drivers and security guards take advantage of this. Feast in Time of Plague.

Newspapers report: "No change on the Western Front"

Maslenitsa ended in a month. Once again the soldiers are sent to the front line. The marching column is being fired upon. Paul and Albert end up in the monastery infirmary in Cologne. From here the dead are constantly being taken away and the wounded are being brought back again. Albert's leg is amputated all the way down. After recovery, Paul is again on the front line. The position of the soldiers is hopeless. French, English and American regiments advance on the battle-weary Germans. Muller was killed by a flare. Kat, wounded in the shin, is carried out from under fire on his back by Paul. However, while running, Kata is wounded in the neck by a shrapnel, and he still dies. Of all his classmates who went to war, Paul was the only one left alive. There is talk everywhere that a truce is approaching.

In October 1918, Paul was killed. At this time it was quiet, and military reports came in as follows: “No change on the Western Front.” The summary of the chapters of the novel that interests us ends here.

Rated the book

Today we would wander around our native places like visiting tourists. A curse hangs over us - the cult of facts. We distinguish between things like traders and understand necessity like butchers. We stopped being careless, we became terribly indifferent. Let us assume that we remain alive; but will we live?
We are helpless, like abandoned children, and experienced, like old people, we have become callous, and pitiful, and superficial - it seems to me that we will never be reborn.

I think that this quote can say everything that I experienced... All the misfortune of the lost generation of the war. And it doesn’t matter what kind of war it is, the important thing is that after it you lose yourself in the world.
A very powerful piece. This is the first time I've read about a war that is told from the perspective of a German soldier. A soldier who was yesterday's schoolboy, who loved books and life. Who was not broken by difficulties - he did not become a coward and a traitor, he fought honestly, difficulties did not break him, he just got lost in this war.. One of his friends said correctly - let the generals go one on one, and from the outcome of this fight they would determine would be the winner.
How many destinies... How many people. How scary it is.

We see people who are still alive, although they have no head; we see soldiers running although both their feet have been cut off; they hobble on their stumps with splinters of bone protruding to the nearest crater; one corporal crawls two kilometers on his hands, dragging his broken legs behind him; another goes to the dressing station, pressing the spreading intestines to his stomach with his hands; we see people without lips, without a lower jaw, without a face; we pick up a soldier who, for two hours, pressed his teeth against an artery in his arm so as not to bleed; The sun rises, night comes, shells whistle, life is over.

How attached I became to Remarque’s heroes! How they did not lose heart during the war, maintained a sense of humor, fought hunger and supported each other. How they wanted to live.. Yesterday’s boys who had to grow up so quickly. Who had to see death, who had to kill. Of course, it is difficult for them to adapt to the other life from which they came straight into war.
And how Remarque vividly describes this through the mouth of the main character. And you begin to understand that for some people human life is worth nothing... But Paul, sitting in a trench with a killed French soldier, thought about all this. I thought that they were defending their fatherland, but the French were also defending their fatherland. Someone is waiting for everyone. They have a place to return to. But will they be able to live later?
The war constantly echoes in the souls of those who went through it. No matter what kind of war it is, it always cripples destinies. And those who survived - the winners and the vanquished - suffer, and the relatives and friends of those who did not return from the war suffer. And for a long time they dream, shuddering at every rustle.
This is a very difficult piece. And we should collect all these books about wars in different times, in different countries and give them to read to all those who unleash this bloodshed. Is something trembling in your chest? Will your heart hurt?
Don't know..

Rated the book

We are no longer young people. We are no longer going to take life by battle. We are fugitives. We are running from ourselves. From your life. We were eighteen years old, and we were just beginning to love the world and life; we had to shoot at them. The first shell that exploded hit our heart. We are cut off from rational activity, from human aspirations, from progress. We don't believe in them anymore. We believe in war.

I usually give a book a perfect rating if it's a compelling read or simply blows my mind. Neither of these happened here. The novel was read normally, nothing more, everything was calm and without any special emotions, I didn’t learn anything new. But when the last pages passed, I felt somehow strange. And after that the hand was no longer raised to give a four. Because damn, this is an insanely powerful book.

World War I. These guys were students just yesterday. They found themselves thrown out of life straight into the trenches. Yesterday's boys, who turned into old men under machine-gun fire, left the care of their parents, but did not have time to fall in love, did not have time to choose a path in life. Young Paul loses his friends one by one, death becomes part of everyday life, but is it so scary? Much more terrible is the question of what to do when peace comes (if it comes!). Will any of them be able to live on? Or is it better that it all ends here on the battlefield?

The best books about war are those written in this language. Dry, ordinary. The hero-storyteller is not trying to squeeze a tear out of you, scare you, or make you feel sorry for him. He simply talks about his life. And it is behind this calm story that the true horror of war is shown, when things terrible in their cruelty turn into an ordinary weekday.

But what distinguishes this novel from other similar works is not the actual description of military operations and inevitable tragedies, but the frightening psychological atmosphere. The young soldiers are still alive, but at heart they are actually dead. Yesterday’s children, they don’t understand what to do with life, if, of course, they stay alive, they don’t understand why they are fighting. They defend their fatherland, but their French enemies also defend theirs. Who needs this war? What's the point?
But the main question is: do these guys have a future? Alas, there is no future, and the past has dissolved, sunk into oblivion and seems so funny, unreal and alien...

Shells, clouds of gases and tank divisions - injury, suffocation, death.
Dysentery, flu, typhus - pain, fever, death.
Trenches, infirmary, mass grave - there are no other possibilities.

A very, very powerful thing. And when you read, you don’t feel anything like that, the whole enormity of this small book grows gradually behind the pages, but to such an extent that in the end it looms menacingly over your consciousness.

Rated the book

I really respect books about war and, despite all their severity, I definitely read one or two a year. Many people wonder why they should torture themselves and read about blood, guts and severed limbs, of which there is a lot in this work. I agree that such descriptions do not add happiness, but I would not dwell on them either; in war this is not the main thing and this is not the worst thing. It is much more terrible to lose your human appearance, dignity, to break under pressure and torture, to betray your loved ones for the sake of a piece of bread or an extra minute of life. This is what you need to be afraid of. Any military action a priori presupposes a “meat grinder,” the description of which is intended to prove that war is contrary to human nature. War is like a Russian revolt - “senseless and merciless.” And it doesn’t matter at all who started it and why. Despite the fact that the heroes of Remarque’s book are German soldiers (and as you remember, it was Germany that started both world wars), this makes them no less sorry.

Not only people suffer from war... well-known words come to mind: it seems that the earth itself is groaning, drenched in blood. For example, I still get chills when I remember the episode with the wounded horses.

The screams continue. These are not people, people cannot scream so terribly.
Kat says:
Wounded horses.
I've never heard horses scream before, and I can't believe it. It is the long-suffering world itself that groans; in these groans one can hear all the torments of living flesh, burning, terrifying pain. We turned pale. Detering stands up to his full height:
Monsters, flayers! Yes, shoot them!
Detering is a peasant and knows a lot about horses. He's excited. And the shooting, as if on purpose, almost completely died down. This makes their screams heard even more clearly. We no longer understand where they come from in this suddenly quiet, silvery world; invisible, ghostly, they are everywhere, somewhere between heaven and earth, they are becoming more and more piercing, it seems there will be no end to this - Detering is already beside himself with rage and shouts loudly:
Shoot them, shoot them, damn you!

This moment penetrates to the depths of your soul, like an icy January wind, you begin to appreciate life more deeply. The main thing that I learned from this book by Remarque is that when the news once again talks about the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere, this is not an empty ringing, behind these familiar and seemingly tedious reports hide the eyes of real people who All these horrors are seen every day, who, like you and me, cannot simply isolate themselves from what is happening - not open a book or turn on the TV. They cannot escape from blood and horror, for them this is not fiction or an exaggeration of the author, this is their life, which the big and important men who gave the order to drop the bombs decided for them.

My verdict: be sure to read and always remember that war is not a dry news report about the number of killed and wounded somewhere in the Middle East, where they are constantly at war, this can happen to anyone and it is, indeed, very scary.

Erich Maria Remarque

No change on the Western Front. Return

No change on the Western Front

This book is neither an accusation nor a confession. This is only an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped from the shells.

We are standing nine kilometers from the front line. Yesterday we were replaced; Now our stomachs are full of beans and meat, and we all walk around full and satisfied. Even for dinner, everyone got a full pot; On top of that, we get a double portion of bread and sausage - in a word, we live well. This hasn’t happened to us for a long time: our kitchen god with his crimson, like a tomato, bald head himself offers us more food; he waves the ladle, inviting passers-by, and pours out hefty portions to them. He still won’t empty his “squeaker,” and this drives him into despair. Tjaden and Müller obtained several basins from somewhere and filled them to the brim - in reserve. Tjaden did it out of gluttony, Müller out of caution. Where everything that Tjaden eats goes is a mystery to all of us. He still remains as skinny as a herring.

But the most important thing is that the smoke was also given out in double portions. Each person had ten cigars, twenty cigarettes and two bars of chewing tobacco. Overall, pretty decent. I exchanged Katchinsky’s cigarettes for my tobacco, so now I have forty in total. You can last one day.

But, strictly speaking, we are not entitled to all this at all. The management is not capable of such generosity. We were just lucky.

Two weeks ago we were sent to the front line to relieve another unit. It was quite calm in our area, so by the day of our return the captain received allowances according to the usual distribution and ordered to cook for a company of one hundred and fifty people. But just on the last day, the British suddenly brought up their heavy “meat grinders”, most unpleasant things, and beat them on our trenches for so long that we suffered heavy losses, and only eighty people returned from the front line.

We arrived at the rear at night and immediately stretched out on our bunks to first get a good night's sleep; Katchinsky is right: the war would not be so bad if only one could sleep more. You never get much sleep on the front line, and two weeks drag on for a long time.

When the first of us began to crawl out of the barracks, it was already midday. Half an hour later, we grabbed our pots and gathered at the “squeaker” dear to our hearts, which smelled of something rich and tasty. Of course, the first in line were those who always had the biggest appetite: short Albert Kropp, the brightest head in our company and, probably for this reason, only recently promoted to corporal; Muller the Fifth, who still carries textbooks with him and dreams of passing preferential exams: under hurricane fire, he crams the laws of physics; Leer, who wears a thick beard and has a weakness for girls from brothels for officers: he swears that there is an order in the army obliging these girls to wear silk underwear, and to take a bath before receiving visitors with the rank of captain and above; the fourth is me, Paul Bäumer. All four were nineteen years old, all four went to the front from the same class.

Immediately behind us are our friends: Tjaden, a mechanic, a frail young man of the same age as us, the most gluttonous soldier in the company - for food he sits thin and slender, and after eating, he stands up pot-bellied, like a sucked bug; Haye Westhus, also our age, a peat worker who can freely take a loaf of bread in his hand and ask: “Well, guess what’s in my fist?”; Detering, a peasant who thinks only about his farm and his wife; and, finally, Stanislav Katchinsky, the soul of our squad, a man with character, smart and cunning - he is forty years old, he has a sallow face, blue eyes, sloping shoulders and an extraordinary sense of smell about when the shelling will begin, where you can get food and how It's best to hide from your superiors.

Our section headed the line that formed near the kitchen. We began to get impatient as the unsuspecting cook was still waiting for something.

Finally Katchinsky shouted to him:

- Well, open up your glutton, Heinrich! And so you can see that the beans are cooked!

The cook shook his head sleepily:

- Let everyone gather first.

Tjaden grinned:

- And we are all here!

The cook still didn't notice anything:

- Hold your pocket wider! Where are the others?

- They are not on your payroll today! Some are in the infirmary, and some are in the ground!

Upon learning of what had happened, the kitchen god was struck down. He was even shaken:

- And I cooked for a hundred and fifty people!

Kropp poked him in the side with his fist.

“That means we’ll eat our fill at least once.” Come on, start the distribution!

At that moment, a sudden thought struck Tjaden. His face, sharp as a mouse, lit up, his eyes squinted slyly, his cheekbones began to play, and he came closer:

- Heinrich, my friend, so you got bread for a hundred and fifty people?

The dumbfounded cook nodded absently.

Tjaden grabbed him by the chest:

- And sausage too?

The cook nodded again with his head as purple as a tomato. Tjaden's jaw dropped:

- And tobacco?

- Well, yes, that's it.

Tjaden turned to us, his face beaming:

- Damn it, that's lucky! After all, now everything will go to us! It will be - just wait! – that’s right, exactly two servings per nose!

But then the Tomato came to life again and said:

- It won’t work that way.

Now we, too, shook off our sleep and squeezed closer.

- Hey, carrot, why won’t it work? – asked Katchinsky.

- Yes, because eighty is not one hundred and fifty!

“But we’ll show you how to do it,” Muller grumbled.

“You’ll get the soup, so be it, but I’ll give you bread and sausage only for eighty,” Tomato continued to persist.

Katchinsky lost his temper:

“I wish I could send you to the front line just once!” You received food not for eighty people, but for the second company, that’s it. And you will give them away! The second company is us.

We took Pomodoro into circulation. Everyone disliked him: more than once, through his fault, lunch or dinner ended up in our trenches cold, very late, since even with the most insignificant fire he did not dare to move closer with his cauldron and our food bearers had to crawl much further than their brothers from other mouths. Here is Bulke from the first company, he was much better. Although he was as fat as a hamster, if necessary, he dragged his kitchen almost to the very front.

We were in a very belligerent mood, and, probably, things would have come to a fight if the company commander had not appeared at the scene. Having learned what we were arguing about, he only said:

- Yes, yesterday we had big losses...

Then he looked into the cauldron:

– And the beans seem to be quite good.

The tomato nodded:

- With lard and beef.

The lieutenant looked at us. He understood what we were thinking. In general, he understood a lot - after all, he himself came from our midst: he came to the company as a non-commissioned officer. He lifted the lid of the cauldron again and sniffed. As he left, he said:

- Bring me a plate too. And distribute portions for everyone. Why should good things disappear?

Tomato's face took on a stupid expression. Tjaden danced around him:

- It’s okay, this won’t hurt you! He imagines that he is in charge of the entire quartermaster service. Now get started, old rat, and make sure you don’t miscalculate!..

- Get lost, hanged man! - Tomato hissed. He was ready to burst with anger; everything that happened could not fit into his head, he did not understand what was going on in this world. And as if wanting to show that now everything was the same to him, he himself distributed another half a pound of artificial honey to his brother.

Today turned out to be a good day indeed. Even the mail arrived; almost everyone received several letters and newspapers. Now we slowly wander to the meadow behind the barracks. Kropp carries a round margarine barrel lid under his arm.

On the right edge of the meadow there is a large soldiers' latrine - a well-built structure under a roof. However, it is of interest only to recruits who have not yet learned to benefit from everything. We are looking for something better for ourselves. The fact is that here and there in the meadow there are single cabins intended for the same purpose. These are quadrangular boxes, neat, made entirely of boards, closed on all sides, with a magnificent, very comfortable seat. They have handles on the sides so the booths can be moved.

We move three booths together, put them in a circle and leisurely take our seats. We won't get up from our seats until two hours later.

I still remember how embarrassed we were at first, when we lived in the barracks as recruits and for the first time we had to use a common restroom. There are no doors, twenty people sit in a row, like on a tram. You can take one look at them - after all, a soldier must always be under surveillance.

Erich Maria Remarque is not just a name, it is an entire generation of writers of the 20th century. Enlisted in the ranks of "", the writer, probably like no one else in the world, drew a line of unprecedented width between peaceful life and war. The sadness and hopelessness caused by the war, like a red thread, runs through all of Remarque’s works, and each of his new books seems to be a continuation of the previous one, thereby blurring the line between them, but there is one work on which I would like to place special emphasis. This is the great novel All Quiet on the Western Front.

The monstrous and shocking events that took place in the first half of the 20th century became a tangible impetus for the appearance of a number of works dedicated to anti-war movements and calls to lay down arms. Along with such high-profile novels as "" by Ernest Hemingway, "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington and many others, we have no right to ignore "All Quiet on the Western Front."

The history of the creation of the novel is very interesting. Being one of the first works by Remarque, “All Quiet on the Western Front” largely predetermined the further, including creative, fate of the writer. The fact is that Remarque published his anti-war novel in 1929 in Germany, a country that was in a kind of transitional stage between the two world wars. On the one hand, the country that lost the First World War was defeated and was in a serious crisis, but on the other hand, revanchist ideas were glowing in the minds of the population, and therefore pro-war sentiments were revived with renewed vigor. Before the Nazis came to power, Remarque's novel gained universal recognition for its author, which, to a certain extent, became a real revelation. After the establishment of the Nazi regime, the writer’s work was banned, his book was publicly burned, and the writer himself was forced to leave the aisles of his beloved and once native land. The writer's departure allowed him some freethinking, which cannot be said about his sister, who remained in Germany. In 1943, she was sentenced to death for "unpatriotic statements."

Remarque said about his novel that this is not an attempt to justify himself to the public, that his book does not act as a confession to the millions of victims who died during the conflict. Thus, he is only trying to show the situation from the inside, as an eyewitness and direct participant in the hostilities. Everyone knows that the writer took part in hostilities, so he was familiar with all the horrors firsthand. This is probably why his book is filled with such realistic and sad events. Remarque's hero does not look like a typical American savior, a worn-out image of Superman. His hero does not kill enemies in droves, he does not rush into battle first with a sword drawn, on the contrary, he is a completely down-to-earth person with an instinct for self-preservation, who is essentially no different from hundreds and thousands of other soldiers of the same kind. Realism also lies in the fact that we do not see pictures that are pleasing to the eye with a happy ending or miraculous salvation of the characters. This is the usual story of ordinary soldiers who are caught in the meat grinder of war; there is no need to think anything out, it is enough to just tell without embellishment how everything really happened. And in this regard, for the reader who historically holds political views different from the Germans, it will be doubly interesting to observe what the soldiers felt and how they lived on the other side of the barricades.

All Quiet on the Western Front is largely an autobiographical novel. The main character, on whose behalf the story is told, is named Paul. It is noteworthy that the writer’s birth name was Erich Paul Remarque, and later took the pseudonym Erich Maria Remarque. It is safe to say that Paul in “All Quiet on the Western Front” is Remarque himself, with the only difference being that the writer managed to return from the front alive. While still a schoolboy, Paul, along with his classmates, was overtaken by wartime, and as mentioned above, wartime sentiment reigned in the country and it was not appropriate for a young man in the prime of his life to sit at home, therefore, out of duty, everyone was supposed to go to the front along with other volunteers , otherwise constant sidelong glances from the side would be ensured. Paul, side by side with his school friends, volunteers to join the army and sees with his own eyes all the fear and horror that is happening. Arriving at the front as a yellow-throated chick, after a short time, the surviving comrades meet the new arrivals already at the rank of experienced fighters, who have seen the death of their brothers-in-arms and the hardships of war. One by one, the war, like a sickle cutting off young ears of corn, mowed down former comrades. The scene of a dinner in a village burning from shelling looks like a real feast during the plague, and the height of all the recklessness and senselessness of the war was the episode in which Paul carries away his wounded comrade from under fire, but upon reaching a protected place, he turns out to be dead. Fate did not spare Paul himself!

We can debate for a very long time about who is right and who is wrong in that war; and whether we could have avoided it altogether. But it is worth understanding that each side fought for its own beliefs, even if it is difficult for us to understand, and most importantly, accept the ideals of the other side. But in that war the same ordinary soldiers fought, driven forward by obese generals. One of the characters in All Quiet on the Western Front, Kropp, said: “Let the generals fight themselves, and the winner will declare his country the winner.” And it’s true, it would be fun if kings, kings or generals fought themselves, risking life and health. Such wars hardly lasted long, if at all they lasted even one day!