Thoughts on "All Quiet on the Western Front"

    The group heads to the front two days earlier than scheduled due to an offensive being made by the Allies, and as they near the front, they see a wall of a hundred coffins stack in a wall two coffins tall. The English have strengthened their front; bringing more cannon to push the offensive.
    Meanwhile, in the trenches, the Axis' own cannon are worn out and their shots are often landing in the trenches of their own. Two of the men in the Second Company are wounded by their own side's shells.

    During this time, Paul thinks about how much random chance and luck really do rule soldiers' lives. He notes that in a "bomb-proof dug-out" he may be killed by a shell and may survive ten hours of bombardment totally uninjured. In my opinion, a bomb-proof dug-out in which a soldier can be killed by a single shell is not very bomb-proof.

    In the trenches there are numerous rats. The rats nibble at the bread of almost all the soldiers until they put a stop to it. They cut out the gnawed bread, throw it in a heap on the floor, and turn out the lights. After the rats have gathered sufficiently, the soldiers turn the lights back on and strike at the pile of rats. They repeat this process repeatedly until the rats stop gathering, and yet in the morning all the gnawed scraps of bread have been carried off. It's the mystery of the rats.


    I'm not a soldier or an accountant, but it seems to me like it would be less expensive to replace the Axis cannon than to buy coffins for all those who end up getting killed by their own side's shelling. Not only that, but if the English are pushing an offensive on the Axis front then I would doubly want to be able to hit them instead of my own men to try to push them back.
    Random chance truly does rule soldiers' lives, as it does for everyone. However, the difference is that for everyone else random chance might cause one to be stuck in traffic or to meet an old friend. For a soldier random chance might cause one to have a hole in the head or be slightly grazed by splinters.

    As for the rats, I certainly don't pretend to have the slightest understanding as to how rats can appear and disappear so easily from practically everywhere. With human soldiers I can make at least some connection even if I've never had those experiences myself, because they're members of the same race as I am.
    However, rats aren't even human beings. How they can both not reappear after a massacre of that scale and simultaneously carry off all the bread is beyond me. Rats may not have brains the size of ours, but they certainly have the ability to navigate small hidey-holes quite effectively.
    In this, they're not so different from the soldiers: The rats hide in crevices to stay away from the slashing knives of the soldiers, and the soldiers hide in crevices to stay away from the slashing explosions of the Allies.