PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR NO 13 [Main Title]

II. US film of their own forces on the Italian Front, October or November 1918.

I. US film mainly of their own forces on the Western Front, October or November 1918.

III. US film of captured German war trophies displayed in Paris and the state visit of George V, December 1918.

A column of men from 1st Balloon Company, in the Meuse or Moselle region, march through a village. British "8-inch Naval rifles" (in fact 6-inch Mk VII guns) being fired by gunners of 27th (New York) Division. One chalks on a shell "from first squad, New York". US Black troops of the Signal Corps, 92nd (Buffalo) Division, repairing wires after the capture of the Breslen trenches. US troops help issue supplies to refugees, loading the goods onto rail flatcars. French refugees return to Bohain, mainly old people and children who carry an American flag down the street. In recently-liberated Montbrehain 79-year-old Madame Josephine Wassaux talks to Lieutenant C A Daniels of 105th Field Signal Battalion, 27th Division. German prisoners work carrying boxes, and sit delousing themselves, at Saint Pierre des Corps station in the Loire area. At Puteaux five US volunteers test the effects of "sneeze gas" on American and German gasmasks. All emerge from a room full of the gas. The three without masks are badly affected, as is the one wearing a German mask. The man wearing the American mask does not seem to be affected.

The contingent is 332nd Infantry Regiment. The men march through the streets of Treviso and under the main arch. At the River Sile Italian soldiers give them instructions in river crossing using punts. The Americans march to and occupy the "Royal Dyke" defences on the River Piave. Bonfires are prepared as protection against gas. A gas exercise near Varago-Maserada, with the men donning their masks. More of the trenches on the River Piave. General Charles G Treat and Mr Samuel Gompers (the American labour leader) with Colonel William Wallace, commanding 332nd Regiment, at his headquarters at Treviso. Mr Gompers talks to an Italian soldier, and in a formal ceremony the "New York Sons of Young Italy" presents its colours to the regiment, and they are carried back to its headquarters.

The centre of the city. Captured German and Austrian 77mm field guns are parked along the Champs Elysées, and there is an exhibition of war trophies in the Place de la Concorde (the camera is on a car travelling at high speed). Enemy planes and guns are on display in the Tuileries gardens. In the Champs Elysées is a plaster-of-paris study of a planned statue of "Poilu", a French soldier beside a female personification of France. A visit of King George V to France, probably December 1918. He emerges from the Bois de Boulogne station and enters a horse-drawn carriage with President Poincaré. The Prince of Wales is behind them. Their carriage and a number of others pass the camera too quickly for the occupants to be identified. With an escort of French soldiers the carriages cross the Seine into the Place de la Concorde.

35mm