Summary: Fragmentary film of Canadian troops on the Western Front, probably during the Battle of Arras, April 1917.
Description: Sunrise over a battlefield. Canadians at a front-line machine gun post open fire. Canadian wounded are brought through to the rear areas of a battle, with German prisoners helping as stretcher-bearers. At a first aid post the stretchers are loaded into a motor ambulance. German prisoners have been led back to a rear-area village, where Canadian soldiers pick up their packs and go back up the line. German prisoners, one in body-armour, sit by a tent and shake lice out of their clothing. Portrait shots of German prisoners showing various degrees of nervousness and fatigue. In a quarry in the rear troops eat and drink; a chaplain offers drinks to tired and wounded men. German and Canadian stretcher-bearers, working together, share drinks and biscuits. In a trench one party of soldiers relieves another (one man deliberately shakes hands with another). A final view of a laughing soldier.
Production Details: Canadian War Records Office (Production sponsor)
Topical Film Company (Production company)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Canadian Army, Canadian Expeditionary Force (regiment/service)
Keywords: medical, Canadian military - movement (object name)
prisoners of war, German - movement (object name)
prisoners of war, German - reception: [+] (object name)
operations, Canadian military - sortie (object name)
equipment, German - personal: body armour (object name)
society, German military - hygiene (object name)
religion, Christianity - military, Canadian (object name)
society, Canadian military - sustenance (object name)
society, Canadian military - friendship (object name)
society, German military - friendship (object name)
01/3(4-15) (event)
01/3(4-15).63 (?) (event)
France (geography)
Arras, Pas-de-Calais, France (geography)
half-light (concept)