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May 13, 20224 min read

THE ROAD BACK

BY ERIC MARIA REMARQUE




A first-hand account of the destructive experience of war even for those who survive


4 stars out of 5 stars


“The Road Back” is a sequel to “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The central fictional character was Ernst Birkholz, a German soldier who enlisted at the beginning of the First World War at the young age of eighteen, whose experience during the War was the subject of the earlier novel. After four years fighting in the front, during which he experienced trench warfare, constant bombardment, hand-to-hand combat, strong comradeship with fellow young soldiers in the same company, etc., he and a handful of his comrades survived when the war ended. The Road Back is an account of the experiences of Ernst and several of his surviving friends when they tried to pick up their lives that were broken up by the War.


There were external and internal experiences. Externally, people who had not been to war thought that war was a glorious and patriotic undertaking and did not understand what the soldiers had experienced. This caused difficulties with parents, former teachers, and hometown folks in general. Internally, the war experience produced profound changes in one’s outlook of life. There was the realization that one’s youthful enthusiasm, hopeful dreams and love of life before the war were shot to pieces. Conditions in society were worse than before the war, including decline in morals, scarcity of food, and civil unrest. Hence it was obvious that all their sacrifice was in vain. The feeling among many returning soldiers was that they were not welcome, and that they were not good for anything else other than soldiering. This led to depression, lack of confidence, and even suicide. Indeed, one former comrade, Georg Rahe, concluded that the most suitable thing for him to do was to go back to be a soldier again, hoping to find some remnants of comradeship there. Instead, what he found was mere “barbarized gang spirit”, he told Ernst. Deeply disillusioned, he ended his life by killing himself. A poignant description was given of what went through Georg’s mind while dying.


There were other noteworthy poignant passages.


- On one occasion, Ernst was at his parents’ home and dosed off. When he woke up, he found his mother staring at him in horror. Apparently, he said something in his dream, using languages common for soldiers at the trenches, not the kind he would use before he enlisted. When he asked his mother what caused her concern, his mother said that she was shocked how bad things happened even to her gentle child. In her mind, the war was full of bad people trying to harm her child, who was always gentle and innocent. She had no idea what her child had gone through and had changed into a soldier – he had endured constant bombardment and had watched his comrades blown to pieces; he had killed soldiers on the other side and watched their slow, agonizing death. These young soldiers killed by her son, through no faults of their own, were thrust into the war just like her child. The passage was among the most moving account of how war was misunderstood and how people were changed by its horrific experience.


- When peace was announced and the soldiers were to be dispersed, the company commander, a fellow named Heel, in a parting conversation with Mark Weil, said that although Weil’s life will henceforth be less bloody, it will be less heroic. Being heroic, in Heel’s opinion, is the best thing in life. To which Weil responded: “The misery of millions is too big a price to pay for the heroics of a few.”


- There was a melancholy and tragic narration of the parade of wounded soldiers who protested about high inflation, food prices, and that the government had not adequately provided for them. The parade was formed by sections, marching in fours. Big white placards were carried: “Where is the Fatherland’s gratitude?” “The War Cripples are starving.” There were men with one arm carrying the placards, followed by blind men with their sheep dogs. Behind the blind came the men with one eye, the tattered faces of men with head wounds: wry, bulbous mouths, faces without noses and without lower jaws……. On these follow the long lines of men with legs amputated….


- Mark Weil, though not wounded, supported the parade by speaking out on behalf of the protesters. He was shot to death by order of Heel, who was on the side of the government.


Although the book deals with serious matters, there were occasional passages that invoke smiles. One was a remark by Ernst when he arrived home that it had been two years since he saw an egg. Another was that, in a dinner party, the friends found they were being looked at by others because they were eating with their hands, since this mode of eating was what they were accustomed to in the trenches. They had forgotten that forks and knifes were to be used.


At the end of the book, the author, in his reflections, came up with a memorable quote:


“All learning, all culture, all science is nothing but hideous mockery, so long as mankind makes war in the name of God and humanity with gas, iron, explosive and fire.”


In conclusion, The Road Back is a first-hand account of the disastrous experience of war even for those who survive. I read the book in May 2022, when war was raging savagely in Ukraine and humanity is again at a very dangerous moment.


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