All Quiet on the Western Front · Chapter
Chapter IV explained
The company moves to the front, enduring heavy bombardment and the horrific screams of wounded horses.
What happens
The company moves to the front, enduring heavy bombardment and the horrific screams of wounded horses. Paul reflects on the primal, animal instinct that takes over soldiers under fire, and the deep connection to the earth as a protector. The chapter ends with the silencing of the horses' cries after they are shot.
Themes in this chapter
Survival and Animal Instinct
Paul describes the 'animal instinct' that throws soldiers to the ground and saves them, and the earth as a protector.
The Horrors of War
The graphic depiction of wounded horses screaming and dying, and the soldiers' psychological torment, highlights the brutality of war.
Dehumanization and Loss of Identity
The column of soldiers is described as 'not men at all' but a dark wedge, and the front reduces them to 'human animals.'
Characters to notice
- Paul Bäumer
Narrates the chapter, describing the bombardment and the instinctual survival responses.
- Katczinsky
Restive and nervous, he expresses a wish to be back home; later comments on the wounded horses.
- Albert Kropp
Asks Kat what's wrong and later speaks with Paul about the wounded horses.
- Detering
A farmer who is deeply distressed by the suffering of the horses, cursing and wanting to shoot them.
- Müller
Uses his glasses to try to see the wounded horses.
Key passages
“I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use horses in the war.”
Detering condemns the use of horses in warfare as the lowest form of cruelty.
Reflects the soldiers' empathy for animals and the senseless suffering caused by war.
“To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shellfire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother.”
The earth becomes a soldier's sole refuge and source of comfort during bombardment, offering protection and a sense of security.
Highlights the primal bond between soldiers and the ground they fight on.
“It is this other, this second sight in us, that has thrown us to the ground and saved us, without our knowing how.”
An unconscious instinct guides soldiers to take cover from shells, often without conscious awareness of the danger.
Emphasizes the theme of survival instinct overriding rational thought.