Do not be mislead by the deceptive title - the front was anything but quiet. And though All Quiet on the Western Front may appear, at first glance, as a novel committed to revealing the senseless horrors of modern warfare with an extraordinary fierceness - indeed, it partly was - beneath the graphic prose resides a perception of World War I unprecedented for its time. The advent of Nationalism in late 19th century Europe formed a perilous situation for the citizens of every great power in the world. Yet, Remarque was the only one to actually acknowledge this fact in writing, having witnessed the epic chaos of the front for months before sustaining injuries serious enough (from grenade splinters) to warrant sending him home. This combination of awareness and honesty would render Remarque both praised by many for his literary genius and despised by the ultra-Nationalist Nazi regime - the latter held book burnings of All Quiet on the Western Front after exiling Remarque to Switzerland. Before it is possible to delve into the aforementioned themes of the futile agonies of war and the perils of Nationalism, it is necessary to understand the political and social climate in which Remarque was writing. (All subsequent historical references from HI 30 class lecture on 10/7/2003.).
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sole heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, may have lit the fuse of The Great War, but the domino effect that would follow had been in place for some time prior. As early as the 1870s, disruptions to the carefully calculated balance of power in Europe began to shift, with much of Europe embarking on a global scheme of Imperialism, fueled at least in part by a growing sense of Nationalism within the many countries of Europe. Italy and Germany, newly consolidated nation-states at the time, soon joined in the contest to claim every plot of known land - and spread the glory and superiority of their respective cultures.
