Chapters 4-6 are filled with violence of bombardment, attack, and counter-attack. What results are achieved? What does this suggest about war???
Remarque depicts the brutality of modern warfare with spare, poetic precision. Artillery and gas shells, terrible and awesome sights and sounds, and grotesque injuries mark the unrelenting bombardment; if Remarque has not yet convinced the reader that war is hell, he surely has after this chapter. Haie is wounded in the back. Men lose body parts. In the end, the battle is a "success" for the Germans, who have yielded just a few hundred yards to the French--"But on every yard there lies a dead man." The men are relieved, ride away, and regroup. Second Company has thirty-two men left.
