The senselessness of war affects even the best of people and turns them into people you wouldn't be able to recognize. In the novel, All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the main character Paul Baumer gets sent to fight in the German war where they did not have the best fighting technology. This led to many tragic incidents taking place and Paul being severely affected by them. Throughout the novel, Paul starts questioning if war is really necessary. Paul begins to believe war is senseless like when he is forced to kill a French soldier who jumped into his shell hole, and when Paul witnesses all of his friends die, and how leaders create wars, yet they do not fight in them.
Paul first starts realizing war is senseless when he is forced to kill a French soldier named Gerard Duval. Pauls's mental health is getting worse when he says, “My state is getting worse, I can no longer control my thoughts” (222). After Paul has his interaction with the French soldier, he has a conversation with his best friends about how war is senseless. In this conversation, they all agree that powerful leaders create wars that they don't fight themselves and that's what makes war senseless. After Paul kills the French soldier, he feels emotions he's never felt before but then is brought back to the reality of war, “With one bound the lust to live flares up again and everything that has filled my thoughts goes down before it” (226). Paul realizes he cant hold onto such harsh emotions from something he was forced to do. He feels as though he cannot let something that he was forced to take over him and control his emotions. Paul concludes that war is senseless because of the terrible emotions he feels.
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Paul's most important things in the war were his friends who turned into family, but when they all started dying, Paul realized how much they impacted his life. Paul's close friend Muller died after being shot in the stomach and Paul received two items that impacted him, “Before he died he handed over his pocket-book to me, and bequeathed me his boots-the same that he once inherited from Kemmerich” (279). Paul receives belongings that once were passed on through his friends, and they hold a sentimental value that can never be replaced. The boots once belonged to Paul's friend Kemmerich, who died early on in the war but then got passed down to Muller. Paul's best friend Kat, dies in Paul's arms which causes a lot of trauma for him. Kat has been hit in the head by a fragment of an exploding shell, “There is just one little hole. It must have been a very tiny, stray splinter. But it has sufficed. Kat is dead” (291). Paul was trying to save Kat by carrying him on his back to safety. When Paul laid Kat down on the ground, he realized that Kat had died in his arms. Soldiers are truly affected by war when horrific tragedies occur such as death and that is what proves war is senseless.
A frequent theme in the novel is how leaders create wars that they do not fight in. Paul reveals his thoughts on this topic; “How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is” (263). Paul feels extremely lonely now that all of his friends have died, so he has retreated to thinking about all of the horrific incidents he's been in. Once Paul analyzes the different situations he's been in over time and notices what a toll it has taken over his mental well-being. An instance where Paul recognizes that leaders create wars, but don't fight them is when “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how people are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring” (263). Many soldiers in war don't know what they are getting themselves into, only after they have experienced dreadful conditions. When leaders create wars, they make soldiers fight for them, although these soldiers don't exactly know what they are fighting for. Paul reflects on the situations he's been in for the last couple of months and he concludes that war is full of innocent people getting killed and wounded fighting for things they do not know on.
Overall, the novel All Quiet On The Western Front reveals how senseless war is. In many ways, this novel proves that war is senseless when Paul is forced to kill someone who jumped into the same shell hole as him when Paul watches his closest friends die in the line of war, and how leaders make wars that they force soldiers to fight in.
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