Document 3: Excerpt from Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, a memoir of World War I written in 1929
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 peoples 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. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the
whole world see these things, all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our fathers
do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our acerunt? What do they expect of us if a
time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing: -- it was our first
calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out
of us?
5. What effect did World War 1 have on the soldier in this document?