All War is the same. Whether fought between Napoleon and Alexander or between William and Nicholas, War is powerful men poised on paper against one another, whose declarations drive common men to fighting for their lives. Such are the stories of Jakob Walter in The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier and of Erich Maria Remarque in All Quiet on the Western Front. In each, men are reduced to animalistic struggle on battlefields drawn by those whom they will never know. In a comparison of the two books, the thesis presented here is that, regardless of the age in history, War affects those who fight in the same way: War dehumanizes us. Three themes to be briefly explored are the irony of men on the Wrong sides of War, the dehumanizing struggles of men at War, and the ways in which War changes men's lives.

Reflecting on history it is easy to see that the soldiers of Napoleon and those of William II fared miserably because they were on the Wrong sides of War. For Walter, little did he know that after the march on Moscow the great Napoleonic army would have to retreat in such dishonor. Ironically, in fact, going into the march to Moscow, the soldiers were oblivious to the real outcome. "Although the outlook did not seem very good, I and all the soldiers were very merry . . . so that everyone had his field flask voluntarily filled with wine and his pockets with cookies at the time of departure" (p. 33). For Remarque also, as Baumer's company becomes one of the flying divisions shortly before their defeat, there is an attempt to shine things up for an inspection by the Emperor. Afterwards, however, all the shiny things are taken away as if they are too good to be ruined. "We have to return almost all the new things and take back our old rags again. The good ones were merely for the inspection." (p. 207). An obvious comment to both of these episodes is that no one goes into War expecting to lose. On the other hand, an assumption can be made that in each of these instances, they were being led into battles in which those in command knew quite well that the chance of victory was slight. The special treatment was a means of boosting morale, a morose kind of enticement with sweets and clean clothes.

Concentrating on the dehumanizing struggles of Walter and Remarque, it is important to properly place the blame for their plight on those in command and not on the men themselves. For Walter, most of his struggles involve the search for food. However, there are other terrible deeds he and others commit as well. At first as a young man of nineteen, he witnesses others his age brandishing weapons to scare the townspeople, and he describes the whipping of a village smith accused of being a spy (p. 4). Very soon afterward there is an incident described where Jewish kosher law is flagrantly broken in a blatantly joking manner (p. 8). More serious atrocities are committed in a siege,“ . . . under a rain of large and small bullets . . . women and children were stabbed and shot to death, and some were hurled alive . . . over the sides of the walls" (p. 15). There are the scenes of the dead and the wounded as on the road to St. Petersburg " . . . one saw the wounded men brought together to be operated on . . . Many arms and legs were amputated and bandaged. It all looked just like a slaughter house" (p. 51). These are disgusting accounts of what men can be led to do.

Remarque's accounts are even more gruesome. "We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off . . . On every yard there lies a dead man" (p. 134). In contrast to Walter, however, he goes on to comment on the morality of forcing men to commit these acts. He talks about the cause of War. "At some table a document is signed by some persons whom none of us knows, and then for years together that very crime on which formerly the world's condemnation and severest penalty fall, becomes our highest aim" (p. 194). He questions the rationale of such carnage occurring on the mere whim of a man who "has to go to the latrine the same as [anyone else]" (p. 203). He wonders “ . . . whether there would have been a War if the Kaiser had said No" (p. 203). More accusatory than Walter, Remarque contemptuously comments that “ . . . every full-grown emperor requires at least one war, otherwise he would not become famous" (p. 206). (Will Clinton take his?)

While such strong antiWar sentiment is not really found in Walter's work, it is safe to say that he hated War no less fervently. At once upon his return home and before he was even back to complete health he sought his discharge (p. 111). It is as if he could not regain complete health until he was free of the military. Assessing the way in which War changed Walter, it is seen not so much in his writing itself but in the implications of the writing, and in what may have been left out. Just the fact that the account was not written until some forty years after the War stands to show that he could not forget it. Even though it was only intended for his family and not for the general public, as family property subject to future inheritance it becomes highly significant. Obviously, he wanted future generations to be aware of what he had gone through. In some of the passages, important logical steps seem to have been omitted, apparently considering the intended readers, his family, who would have been terribly hurt by the complete truth.

Remarque can be assessed in a far more straightforward manner, word for word right out of his book. While, the same as Walter, War drove Remarque to write about it, War also caused him terrible bitterness. He is severely cynical of mankind. His comment on history is that man has not changed at all since the coming of Christ. "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" (p. 271). Quite bluntly, "war is the cause of death" (p. 271). Further assessment comes from information about Remarque's later life, that he became a cemetery stonecutter, continuing to live with death even after War.

In these two books, the accounts of War are not by historians who tend to concentrate on the results of War as they pertain to borders, but by common men driven to fight for their lives. Universal to the stories told by them and by others like them is that in order to survive they were debased to resort to their lowest animalistic instincts. This is certainly seen in both the accounts of Walter and Remarque. Not through any fault of their own but forced into it, they witnessed and committed atrocities and were forever changed. More broadly, this is the case in any War. All War is the same. Significant to the books compared here is that both of the writers were on the Wrong sides. From the perspective of the victors, it is justifiable to condemn the Wrongful aggression of the defeated as a pretense. But wouldn't it also be justified to condemn the victors against the horror of War if Napoleon or William had won instead?

Jakob Walter, The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier (New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1991).

Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (New York: Ballantine Books, 1991).