Title:A LA GLOIRE DU TROUPIER BELGE 1 PARTIE [Main Title]
Film Number:IWM 1050
Other titles:TER EERE VAN DEN BELGISCHEN SOLDAT 1 DEEL [Alternative Title]
Summary: Belgian film of the outbreak of the First World War, and the activities of their own troops in Flanders, 1914-1916.
Description: The progress of the war is represented by animated maps. A hand reaches out from Germany into Belgium and grabs Liège at the start of the war. A young soldier, in an acted scene, says goodbye to his mother and sets out with his friend to the war, the start of a "calvaire sanglant et sublime". Columns of troops march to war and dig trenches. A map shows the German bombardment of the Liège fortress. German soldiers advance through woods. Belgian refugees flee before them. Belgian troops on the Yser early in the war, with shells hitting buildings for the first time. The sluices holding back the sea are opened in October and flood the lowlands between Nieuport and Dixmude. Belgian troops settle down to hold the line. They are next shown in 1916, some behind heavily piled sandbag barricades, others warming themselves by a fire in the snow. Some wash their clothes, or pick lice out of them. A platoon walks in single file over a footbridge in the flooded area. Troops enter a trench system. Two men open a corned beef tin. A sniper uses a rifle from behind a metal shield, and two others fire from slits. In the flat, flooded countryside the trenches have been built up above the ground with sandbags, rather than dug down into it.
Alternative Title:TER EERE VAN DEN BELGISCHEN SOLDAT 1 DEEL [Alternative Title]
