Views of the gardens at the Palace of Versailles in Versailles France. Lined up trees along a path in the gardens. Few soldiers tour the gardens. Water pools at the gardens. People roam in the gardens.
Film starts showing and American soldier atop a hill in France during World War I. He is hatless and looking through a periscopic telescope mounted on a tripod. Next, American troops are seen preparing defensive positions at the base of a slope. They are using picks and shovels. Not far behind them, in the background are buildings of a French village. Closeup of soldiers in their entrenchment. One wears a headset and kneels by a field communications device. A lieutenant, smoking a pipe, comes to him with a log book and hands him a paper dispatch to transmit. The soldier transmits the message using a telegrapher's key. The next scene shows two soldiers at another communications site, near a tall slender transmission pole, rigged up with guy wires.
Opening scene shows American troops in the far distance, moving across open terrain in France during World War I. Some are on a road closer to the camera position. Next, an American unit, with horses and wagons, is seen pausing to reorganize its gear and supplies. View, again, of the American troops in the far distance, with smoke rising from a shell strike near them. More views of shells striking and white smoke spreading low across the terrain. Troops on horeseback and in wagons, coming from the shelled area along the road below the camera position. Multiple shell bursts striking closer to the camera. Suddenly, American troops with their wagons begin to move the opposite direction along the road (towards the area being shelled). One shell strikes right on the road, and other nearby. Scene shifts to group of American soldiers firing a Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun.
During a lull, American soldiers help comrades wounded by German shelling during World War 1. in France. They support ambulatory soldiers and carry another on a stretcher, along a road past a caisson and dead horses (and possibly dead soldiers). Next, soldiers carry wounded on stretchers from a defensive position littered with debris, from enemy shelling. An officer stops to check a completely covered soldier (dead) lying on the ground. Medics in a protected gully treat wounded soldiers and then experience some difficulty placing them on litters into a field ambulance.
Opening scene, shows a behind-the-lines medical evacuation area in a war-torn village in France,during World War 1. American soldiers, accompanied by a medical corpsman,carry, on their shoulders, a wounded comrade on a stretcher. Two American soldiers assist another wounded who walks with their help. Other medical corpsmen are seen in the area. Scene shifts to German prisoners of war carrying their wounded,under guard by American soldiers. One of the wounded German soldiers waves at the camera, from his stretcher. They proceed along a dirt road in the village until reaching a parked military ambulance, in which they place the wounded. Unharmed German prisoners are seen walking further through the village, and past a parked Renault F-17 tank, displaying a "diamond" symbol on its turret, indicating it was an American-operated tank. (The French displayed their playing card symbols elswhere their tanks.) Some of the prisoners carry rolled-up empty stretchers over their shoulders.
American troops served food at a field kitchen in France during World War I. Troops form chow-line and get their food. Scene shifts to a rustic wooden building serving as a local Headquarters. The date, "1916" is displayed in the wood on the porch roof overhang. Sentries at the entrance, salute officers as they exit the building. An American and two French officers are looking at a map and conferring in front of the building. More join the discussion. A closeup shows an aviator in flying garb, pointing with his arm as he holds and refers to the map. An American field grade officer in a side cap is listening intently. A French officer in steel helmet is behind him.