All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque

• The excerpt is from All Quiet on the Western Front, the most famous literary work to emerge from WWI


• Remarque was a verteran of the trenches himself, and he graphically describes the slaughter that robbed Europe of its young men


• His narrator is a young German Soldier


• Describes the terrifying and horrible conditions in the trenches


• Depicts a long bombardment from the enemy, and its effects on the men


• An attack on them by French troops is detailed, the wholesale slaughter of hundereds of men is made apparent in the text


• "We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and kill"