All Calm on the Western Front is the story of the First World War through the eyes of twenty-year-old Paul Baumer, a character created by a veteran. himself, Erich Maria Note. In this greatest war novel of all time, Remarque exposes the emotions a soldier of the Lost Generation would have felt. Among these emotions was betrayal. Betrayal is very important in understanding this novel, because it provides answers to why this younger generation of soldiers becomes so lost and distant. This lost generation could no longer believe that anything their government, their parents, or their teachers did for them was the right thing; they learned it through so many betrayals. Paul and his friends were persuaded to join the war by their parents and teachers, but when they arrived at the war front, they felt betrayed. They felt betrayed, because neither their parents nor their teachers had ever told them how terrible the war would be. “For us, boys of eighteen, they should have been mediators and guides towards the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress, towards the future. We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. (Note 12) This generation, practically children, trusted the older generation to lead them in the right direction, if the older generation had told them to jump in front of a bus they would have done it. Paul's generation believed their parents and teachers had their best interests in mind, but when they arrived at the border they realized they had been thrown into a place filled with bombs, hunger and dead, they no longer think of their parents and teachers as guides, because the guides would never have sent them to such a terrible place. For Paul and the man...... middle of paper ......ter discover that it was false. The betrayal that Paul felt with the rest of his generation, caused them to become even more lost than they already were. They no longer knew what or who to believe. Their parents, teachers and the government had in many cases left them to fend for themselves. This caused the Lost Generation to lose their youth and become elderly, which probably also explains the animal nature they developed. The government and media influencing how the soldiers of one country perceived the soldiers of another made animal nature worse. All of these betrayals probably also took an emotional toll on all the soldiers; even those who survived will not be able to forget the betrayal. The only positive thing that all the betrayal of parents, teachers, governments and media has brought is the strong bond of camaraderie..