Film starts showing diagrams of German army artillery firing plan supporting Battle of France during World War 2. German army officers are seen viewing maps and going over plans. Animated map shows British and French forces in the West and German break-through army poised to the East of the Maginot Line. The animated German break-through forces advance behind artillery. View of a German gun crew firing a 21cm heavy howitzer, and its shells exploding in the distance. Various views of German gun crews loading and firing heavy artillery and the shells striking with large explosions. German infantry soldiers seen moving through area filled with obstacle defenses. A line of German Panzer I tanks moving along a road between the obstacles. More views of German artillery firing. Machine gun firing and fires breaking out at night, and German tanks moving over fires burning on the ground. Machine fun tracer rounds seen in the dark. Many buildings being consumed by flames. Surrendered French soldiers being searched by German soldiers. A large open air compound containing many French prisoners of war taken by the German forces. Various views of the prisoners in the compound.
Opening slate identifies Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Commander of British Forces, and the Right Honorable Arthur J. Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, meeting and conferring in France, during World War 1. They are seen seated side by side on a bench in a park-like setting.
Soldiers walk along with prisoners of war at a field in France. Vehicles pass on the field. Soldiers move on tank. They rest in the field.
Soldiers in trenches in a field in France. They dig trenches. Trees in the background. Soldiers stand in a foxhole. They move on horse-carts on the field. Cars passing on the street. Soldiers load luggage on the horse-carts and move on the field. They enter Longmont. Wrecked houses, buildings and trees in the area. Wreckage in the field.
Members of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps (Corpo Expedicionário Português or CEP) are seen having a civilized lunch at a second line trench, where they served under British and/or French control, on the Western Front in France during World War 1. Portuguese soldiers emerge from a well-established dugout deep in a wood lattice-reinforced trench. Lengthwise view of Portuguese troops lined up in the deep trench. Several make their way single-file toward the camera. Slate identifies a telephone station in the secondary trench. A soldier in a French Adrian steel helmet stands at the entrance of a heavily fortified dugout. Numerous phone wires extend outward and upwards from the dugout entrance. (They are difficult to see against the rocks reinforcing the entrance.)
Opening scene shows Portuguese soldiers in a deep lattice-reinforced frontline trench in France, during World War 1. One is standing on a platform looking over the edge of the trench, as an officer stands nearby. Glimpse of the soldier wearing an Adrian French steel helmet as he peeks above the trench. View of cameraman using a periscopic viewer to look over a heavily sandbagged section of trench.
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