ANNALES DE LA GUERRE 33 [Main Title]

French newsreel of the offensive by Sixth Army from the River Aisne to the Chemin des Dames, Western Front, 23rd-27th October 1917.

Subtitle captions give the French gains in the offensive as the strongpoints Fruty, Bohery and Montparnasse, the fort at Malmaison, and the villages of d'Allemant, Vaudesson, Chavignon, Pinon and Pargny. The effect was to secure the Chemin des Dames. The film itself shows the preparation for the offensive. A pile of 75mm, 105mm and 155mm shells being assembled at a dump with a light railway engine running alongside. Then the Infantry, in campaign dress, marching up a leafy lane to their final positions. The bombardment, by 340mm railway guns (with corresponding shell-bursts over the battlefield) and other guns, while horse-drawn wagons move supplies up the roads to the front. In the blue mists of dawn on 23rd October Schneider CA1 tanks move up for the assault, very dimly seen. Engineers work on the assault trenches, and the Infantry move into position. A 400mm railway gun continues the bombardment. The Infantry file out of the trenches and across no man's land into the mist. The Red Cross men begin to bring back stretcher cases through the mist. In daylight the reserves follow up in single file through the captured German trenches and onwards, followed by men carrying boxes of equipment and supplies. German prisoners (most of them reacting to the camera) come back through the trenches. In the rear areas German and French Red Cross men work to evacuate the stretcher cases. The prisoners and walking wounded then turn away from the battlefield. Casualties from both sides are brought into a First Aid Post, from which the wounded are evacuated by stretcher or on foot. The caption claims that the French took 237 officers and 11,157 other ranks prisoner, and 180 guns. The column of prisoners, under escort, moves back to a temporary holding camp where, obviously cold and shaken, they wait behind the wire.

35mm