BEHIND THE LINES [Main Title]

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  • Title: BEHIND THE LINES [Main Title]
  • Film Number: IWM 1057-2
  • Other titles: WITH OUR FRENCH ALLY [Series Title]
  • Summary: Everyday life for French soldiers in the battle zone of the Western Front, 1917.
  • Description: The film opens with Marshal Joffre talking to General Pershing. It then shows French soldiers in the rear area peeling potatoes, moving around woods, saddling pack horses to take them for a ride, and generally performing routine duties. Other men build corduroy roads or join in road-mending gangs. A bridge is built over a river using a pile-driver. A pontoon bridge is built. Infantry and guns move up the roads towards the front line, including long 155mm naval guns and 75mm field guns. Piles of expended shells by the roadside. Railways, of narrow and broad gauge, are built, and rolling stock operated. Shells for the guns are brought up by light railways and offloaded at ammunition dumps. At a field hospital ambulances are started up. Patients rest inside a hospital. A hospital train has patients loaded onto it. Inside a hospital a nurse tends a patient. In a hill area mules carry a battery of 140mm mountain guns forward on pack saddles. Horses and soldiers gallop through snow. Views of various railway guns being loaded: the 270mm, the 300mm, the 320mm and the 340mm railway howitzer. A 220mm howitzer is elevated. Engineers lay telephone cables in trenches and raise a radio mast. A 270mm and 280mm heavy howitzer fire. A 370mm railway howitzer and 400mm railway howitzer prepare to fire. Schneider CA1 tanks move with foot soldiers up a road. Soldiers in a rear area build barbed wire entanglements and move through rear trenches. Soldiers in a front line trench shovel out earth for a mine. The charge is wired up and the mine detonated (fake).
  • Alternative Title: WITH OUR FRENCH ALLY [Series Title]
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised: Yes
  • Object_Number: IWM 1057-2
  • Sound: Silent
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM (IWM 1057-2)
  • Featured Period: 1914-1918
  • Production Date: 1917
  • Production Country: France
  • Production Details: Section Cinématographique de l'Armée Française (Production sponsor) Pathe Freres (Production company)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Joffre, Joseph Jacques Cesaire (person) Pershing, John Joseph (person) French Army (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: operations, French military - routine: [+] (object name) society, French military - sustenance (object name) engineering, military, French (object name) equipment, French - engineering: pile-driver (object name) transport, French military - rail: narrow gauge train (object name) transport, French military - rail: hospital train (object name) supplies, French, movement [FA] - munitions (object name) operations, French military - movement: road (object name) weapons, French - gun: 155mm naval gun (object name) weapons, French - gun: 75mm field gun (object name) transport, French military - ambulance (object name) medical, French military - hospital (object name) animals, mammals: horse (object name) animals, mammals: mule (object name) weapons, French - gun: 140mm mountain howitzer (object name) weapons, French - gun: 270mm (railway mounted) (object name) weapons, French - gun: 300mm (railway mounted) (object name) weapons, French - gun: 320mm (railway mounted) (object name) weapons, French - gun: 340mm (railway mounted) (object name) weapons, French - gun: 220mm howitzer (object name) communications, French military - wire (object name) communications, French military - electronic (object name) weapons, French - gun: 270mm howitzer (object name) weapons, French - gun: 280mm howitzer (object name) weapons, French - gun: 370mm (railway mounted) (object name) weapons, French - gun: 400mm (railway mounted) (object name) armour, French - tank: Schneider CA1 (object name) defences, French - emplacement: trenches (object name) defences, French - passive: barbed wire (object name) combat [simulated], French - mine explosion (object name) 01/3(4-15).7 (event) France (geography) snow (concept)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: English Subtitle language: English
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 980 ft; Running time: 16 mins
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    IWM 1057-2

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