WITH THE BEF IN ITALY [Main Title]

Log in to create clips, download free screeners and save clips/films in Collections. Click here to find out more.

  • Title: WITH THE BEF IN ITALY [Main Title]
  • Film Number: IWM 266
  • Other titles:
  • Summary: The rear areas of the British positions on the Italian Front, in the Asiago valley, probably early 1918.
  • Description: A pan over the valley with Asiago village in the distance. A British lorry convoy comes up a hairpin track to the top of a mountain ridge. Asiago, filmed from the British lines across the valley. British trenches cut out of the rock on the valley side, with a small ski hut used as an advanced headquarters. One of the brigade commanders (unidentified) sets out on foot patrol with two of his staff across the wooded slope. Royal Engineers use a pneumatic drill and blasting powder to dig trenches out of the rock on the slope. A "rope way", or improvised rope cable system where lorries unload supplies at the railhead and these are taken up into the mountains by the cables. A funeral, with full military honours, of two British officers and an NCO killed in an air raid, the first British casualties in Italy. The bodies are buried at a church, possibly Verona. General Sir Herbert Plumer, GOC Italian Front, inspects a British brigade which marches past. He converses with a British divisional commander (back to camera). A football match, possibly also in Verona, between teams from the British contingent and the Italians, ending with a posed group of both teams between the goalposts.
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM
  • Featured Period: 1914-1918
  • Production Date: 1918
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: Ministry of Information (Production sponsor) Topical Film Company (Production company) Raymond, H C (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Plumer, Herbert Charles Onslow (person) British Army, Italian Contingent (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: recreation, British military - sport: football (object name) recreation, Italian military - sport: football (object name) society, British military - friendship (object name) society, Italian military - friendship (object name) operations, British military - routine (object name) casualties, British graves - formal (object name) 01/3(45).8 (event) Italy & Asiago, Veneto (geography) Italy & Verona, Veneto (?) (geography) mountains (concept)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: None Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 1120 ft; Running time: 20 mins
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Notes: Title: this is taken from the shotsheet. Date: the store ledger gives the date of this film as August 1918. This is impossible as Plumer was in France at that date.
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    IWM 266

  • Related IWM Collections Objects:
Register