French attack on German trenches From the movie "All Quiet on the Wester Front" (1930) I do not own any material in this video. All visual and audio in this video is owned by Unviersal Pictures.
My German grandgrandpa was one of the very few soldiers who survived and fought from late 1914 to the very end of the war in 1918. His daughter, my grandma, used to tell that her dad never talked about his experiences. When their dog died and they wanted to bury it in the garden, my grandgrandpa suffered from a seizurelike reaction. The combination of burying a dead body and having to dig a hole (trench) made him pass out completely and burst into tears.
I hadunc p es who fought in ww2 one from Normandy to the Elbe. The only time I ever heard him mentioning was once we when drunk he talked about having to get out of his cover to clear bodies to give his MA Hine bun a clear arc of fire,
From what I have heard WW1 was just like this movie but there were horses everywhere screaming with broken legs and terrible injuries and gas everywhere. To this day there must be active combat to some degree in order to make sure the horror's of WW1 combat incomitance never happens again.
My grandad fought in ww2 in Burma against the Japanese never spoke about it part for saying he once had a like a samari sword but gave it to his mate on boat back home. I wonder if it was a trophy.
It was very real to the extras as many were WW1 vets. when they had crossed that no mans land in the film they were back there all over again with PTSD and some had to be pulled apart to stop them killing each other. Probably the closest thing to it you will ever get to see.
This chills me now! The soldiers getting gunned down running towards the trench is horrifying and I thought i couldn't get any worse, then the trench fight ensued and I had to stop the vid. No wars are pretty but WWI was savage.
Also the fact that during the trench fight they really were screaming at each other, don’t think the whistling bombs helped neither, even see some of them make contact with the shovels and bayonets
My great uncle was killed in the Somme battle on September 15,1916.he was in a Scottish Regiment.His body was never found.His name is engraved on the Thiepval Memorial.
My great grandfather attacked at Thiepval (Northern Irish) and thankfully survived. My Dad was in the Highlanders. What regiment was your great uncle in?
Two out of my four great grandfathers died during WW1, and one came back in a vegetative state. They were all French soldiers. Both of my grandfathers were in the army, one fought in Indochina, he came back with PTSD, he was a totamly different man, he was violent, beat his children and wife almost daily, drunk himself to sleep, and then years later committed suicide, I was at his funeral. Europe has the highest concentration of death per square km far beyond any other place on earth. We have been at brotherly wars with each other since the first humans were in Europe.
One of my great uncles was in the Queens Rgt, like your great uncle, killed in the Somme, no grave, his name is also on the Thiepval Memorial, my daughter has visited the memorial to pay her respects....one of two brothers lost.....🌻🥀
@@1yoan3 Cambodia, China, India, and numerous places in the Middle East out Slaughtered Europe before the Roman Empire ever rose, and continue to do so to this day...
When I was young kid I knew a ww 1vet and described a mustard gas attack very tragic,that was a month before I went into the service.i have to this day remember how he told me , scary.
Check out they shall not grow old. Peter Jackson whose father served in the Western front made a mind blowing documentary where they restored footage to color but its so well done it almost looks like it was filmed today. Some amazing tales from recorded interviews with men who saw the horror. Also check out The Great War BBC its a 26 part documentary on youtube from the 1960s, most of those vets were still around in their 60s to 80s of age. Remarkable tales. We just dont have a clue how awful it was.
You know, from a purely technical standpoint of view, this battle scene was a pretty good job of directing and editing, especially when you think about the fact that the movie industry was only about 20 years old and talkies were around for less than 10. I love how the camera panned over the trench at 0:13.
This scene holds up incredibly well! Still haven't found a movie that so portrays the struggle of no man's land, with the barrage on infantry in the open, the opening up with the mgs in kill zones, and finally the hand to hand fighting. Talk about accurate my God! They don't even come close today, not one movie where I went "God damn so that's what it must have been like" except for this one, and das boot
Most countries were still releasing "silent" films when this was made, and "all-talkie" films hadn't been made until about three years prior to this. Really, American filmmaking had pretty much reached the highest heights in creating great movies by 1930. Materials used to make films look and sound better were yet to come but in terms of storytelling, direction, and editing, you can't get much better than All Quiet On The Western Front. To me, it is the best film about war that was ever made.
True...and the Great War had been over twelve years when this film was made, so, there were a lot of veterans of that war still around for any consultations.
@@adriangoodman8901 I would add the movies American Sniper (depicted going house to house, room to room, very well); also depicts the evolution of uniforms, vehicles and such better than any other movie. (I deployed multiple times, spending a total of a bit more than 5 years in theater. ) Zero Dark Thirty, and Body of Lies are also good. Some aspects of The Kingdom are decent. The TV show SEAL Team is also consistently good. Gettysburg, A Bridge Too Far, and The Bridges of Toko Ri, are older movies but depicted events superbly!
This film should be watched and digested by everyone on the face of the earth. It would change a lot of people's attitudes towards those who rule them and how they portray "others" as "the enemy." Our real enemies are those who seek power by turning us against one another.
A great Masterpeace of the Anti War Films, never realesed und to any Time!! A American Producion over firstWW, from sight the german's, it was, and it's very,,bemerkenswert,, i'm Not found the englisch vocal sorry..
The fact that this movie is almost 100 years old and really makes you think about the horrors of this war is incredible. I can’t even say it’s not realistic. It doesn’t have to show the gore the D-Day scene from Saving private Ryan does. It does WWI Justice and it must’ve been hard being a veteran of the war seeing this in theatres
Horrors of war... There is one more thing hardly mentioned. Both world wars occured after industrial revolution, accompanied by ... baby boom. There would have been no such great conflicts if politicians didnt have so many recruits.
A touching scene is when the German soldiers had a triste with the French women, providing bread for a night over. The scene fades when the door closes on the group. To this day a version of the movie has that fade out excised. Hays.
whats even more haunting is that alot of the extras might have very well been vets from the first world war. too many of them look like they know what they were doing in that trench
It’s very realistic, no unrealistic cgi then, the history is accurate, the chaos is accurate, the people were literally thought how to lay barbed wire, the scenes were inspired by shit that happened
This film will "pack a punch" 500 years from now if human civilization still exists then. By the way, as things are headed today, I doubt we'll make it to 2100.
@@sargentle8517even the plot, the story of All Quiet is literally just a soldier trying to survive as the war destroys his mind and life. No heroes, no valor, just pointless death.
There were WWI vets who were consulted about how trench fighting went, that's why you see men using sharpened spades, coshes and clubs in the close quarters fighting. By late 1915, early 1916, the Germans were starting to wear the 'Stahl-helm'. Many of the new recruits still had to wear the old 'pickelhaube', and a cheap pressed felt version instead of the leather pre-war helmet. Neither gave any ballistic protection, so many old sweats just wore the feldmutze. For production purposes, the German machine guns weren't properly positioned, they should be placed to give overlapping fields of fire, preferably at an angle to the direction of the assault. All the French seem to be wearing the Adrian steel helmet, which didn't become general issue until late 1916.
Give the filmmakers a break. They were American, and history film consultants weren't really a thing back then... Now that I think about it, not today either.
Oddly enough I was thinking along the same lines as you regarding the helmets, but having checked before I read your comment, there would have been an overlapping period in 1915 when it is possible that they would have been facing each wearing these helmets.
Wrong, the Adrian helmet is massivly equiped by french army before 1916. In February 1915 he is adopted and produced until September when army is directly equiped with. Its the first steal helmet invented.
@BossHossGT500 No im not "wrong", im french and its fact, just type "Adrian helmet" before to speak.. Hes adopted in february and equiped by September.
What's worse was they were either shot for disobeying orders or sent to a psychiatric hospital that treated them like rats as they didn't know what was wrong with them
TheGrimReaper54321 I knew they were treated in a psychiatric hospital for Shell Shock but didn’t know that they were still sent/stood at the front,since they would switch the regiments out for their leave and replace them with fresh ones
daAnder71 da Andre - not really. It’s a reference in a line in a poem that « the paths of glory lead only to the grave ». The film wasn’t necessary a totally pacifist one but it was definitely about generals wasting the lives of countless brave soldiers simply to garner personal glory for themselves and ultimately be willing to give the order to fire on, even kill, their own men in that same vain pursuit.
@@richardkluesek4301 The first audience that sae this movie were round about 200 war veterans, both german and french from ww1. They were invited to see it to consider how accurate this is
The 1930s movie audiences were horrified by the scenes shown in "All Quiet on the Western Front." This movie has the distinction of being one of the most banned films ever. The underlying passivist message of the film was not what many countries wanted their citizens to see in the years leading up to WWII, or well after. Not unexpectedly, France and Germany were the most hostile to the film.
@daAnder71 it's a story about a german soldier. Of course the french are the faceless mass because he saw them as a faceless mass. And then there are the french soldiers he killed or saw them dying and he could not forget their faces. If I wrote something wrong, well then sorry because english isn't my first language.
I understand.. but the people needed to see it. So that they could forever think about the consequences of sending our men to slaughter one another. Too many people live in a nieve sheltered war with thier eyes closed.
The primitiveness of the artform actually works in the favor of this scene. There is so little heroic photography and so few special effects it all looks so real. It looks very much as if someone with a camera oversaw a battle.
Two out of my four greatgrandfathers died during WW1, and one came back in a vegetative state. French soldiers. One of my greatgrandmas died during a bombing raid from the Americans during WW2. Also, both of my grandfathers were in the army, and one fought in Indochina, he came back with PTSD, he was a totaly different man, he became violent, almost unable to sleep, depressed, beat his children and wife very frequently (almost daily), alcoholic, and then years later committed suicide, I was at his funeral. Europe has the highest concentration of death per square km far beyond any other place on earth. We have been at brotherly wars with each other since the first humans were in Europe.
Yeah we are good at killing each other when goaded into by a third party the same party who funded all the black liberation movements such as ANC. I only discovered this late in life, oh I was a fool.
My mom dad was a World War 1 veteran in the 1970's he died from cancer not from chemical weapon but yet from chewing tobacco. He had his kids to salute to the American flag during the National anthem. The actor who plays as a German soldier Lew Ayres was an anti war pacifist he played in the 1978 movie Battlestar Galactica. Lew Ayres he played a great acting in this war movie.
My great grandfather was in the British Army during the Battle of the Somme. He got caught in a gas attack without a gas mask. He lived through it, but his mouth and throat were scarred and he lost his sense of taste. I think he died some time in the 1960s.
Did you happen to catch the grisly scene at 2:34 where the French soldier was grasping the barbed wire, just as a shell hit him, and left only his hands still on the wire? That scene was well done for its time.
actually according to the movie consult who participated as a german soldier during WW1, he saw this happened with his own eyes and he wanted to add it to the movie scene, it was such a brutal scene for its time and it took several approvals from movie execs to be in the movie or not, in the end they decided to add since there were no censorship of this type. so we all witnessed what that they soldier experienced
My Grandfather was in the trenches in WWI, destroy a loving caring man, he could not enjoy a simple 4th of July fireworks, and flinched at every strike of lighting. Our American Big Red One. Miss you Grandfather, hope youvarevat peace now.
Everyone has talked about how the modern movie 1917 is so impressive because of CGI. I kept telling them watch this movie and see how realistic it is even though there is no CGI.
@@yohannbiimu Thanks. It is an incredible movie. As I said, I have watched it a number of times, the first being after I had read the book in High School back in the 60s.
1917 wasn't impressive to me at all. It suffered what Dunkirk had, its too polished and somewhat bloated and yet it lacks heart and soul. I watched them once and I have zero interest in watching them again.
my great grandad came back from this war an absolutely rage-filled, cynical man. My grandfather constantly spoke of how much he beat his children to make them harder, as if he felt he was not hard enough himself. most people have ancestors that gave absolute sacrifice in this bloodshed and you're somehow here today despite a majority of them coming home having lost most of themselves
WW1 had the most hand to hand combat out of any war since Napoleon, especially in Belgium in ‘15. I like how they showed soldiers using spades since that was the preferred weapon in the trenches. Just the sight of it coming at you was enough to get a man to surrender
@@strikeforce5331 The folly of waging endless wars within the limits of politically correct rules of engagement just short of success and believing the propaganda of your side that just one more charge, pne more sacrifice, that the enemy is about to collapse while your side is staying strong, and that a glorious victory lies in the light at the end of the tunnel.
richard kluesek this would be smart or deep if it sometimes weren’t necessary to go to war. One can argue about this one as well as any other war, but most of the time when stuff like this happens, you have positions that dont go together. Simply surrender yours? Thats even more short sighted. So what do do you do? Once you established the fact that its sometimes appropriate, the means to do it and ways of doing it become reasonable. One shouldnt be so quick to put down what these men did or suffered through. Or the reasons that lead to these battles. But we certainly learned one thing as europeans now... The wars of the last century hurt us so bad that we destroyed our empires, hurt mostly ourselves and did nothing that benefitted any of us in the long run.
@@kloschuessel773 Thanks for your take. There are some enemies who can be diplomatically discoursed with and others who cannot, and some who are if they prevail the order of civilization will be maintained in the long term, while there are others so evil and barbarous that everything would be destroyed in zero sum. And as I interpret your remarks people in the past should not harshly be judged according to modern standards. We owe the men who fought on all sides for what they believed in and thought was honorable, right and worthwhile. There are some who would villainize the Germans for instance, but it was one of them who told this story in the movie from the common soldier/ citizen's point of view whatever the nationality. Notice as well that all the main characters are enlisted, little attention to Non Coms, Officers, and none at all to Generals, in contrast to other accounts. Learn and rebuild.
These French hands weren't just fiction! There exists a real photograoh of them. And in 2000 I found on a battleground in the Vosges Mountains (Hartmannswillerkopf, their southmost mountain) right beside a German trench the leg and half of the pelvis of an unknown soldier. Today these bones rest in the large Ossuarium (30 000 dead) on that mountain *. . .*
Wow. I'm on a quest for the most realistic Ww1 movies scenes. This, being black and white, looked as though it would be weak. Turned out to be one of the best yet. It really conveys the carnage, brutality and futility of it all. Hats off!
Try the attack on the Ant Hill in the film Paths of Glory (also in black and white). This is on You Tube. It doesn't get more realistic than that, although All Quiet on The Western Front is an excellent movie. Many entered this war looking on it as an adventure. Erich Maria Remarque who wrote the book, and served with the German Army in WW1 stated that 'Death is not an adventure for those who stare it in the face.' And he was right.
Everytime I watch this movie, I read the book when I was Jr. High School, I become an more impressed with it. Many of the battle scenes were filmed in the hills overlooking Corona Del Mar California, where I grew up around. The realism is incredible, and many of the soldiers shown were actual combat veterans from both sides, approximately 150 Americans and 300 Germans.
Yet, many young Men persevered, and did their Duty. Perhaps it was not wise to endure combat. However, most work conditions were harsh too, on in a factory, worse in a smelter, foundry, or mine; stoking the boilers of a steam ship, farming, picking cotton, fishing from a trawler, or just about anything else in that era!
Those mortar rounds sounds crazy, probably favorite black and white movie of all time. Not many modern movies can come close to the brutality in this scene.
Most war movies seem a bit detached compared to this, with its first-person views of attacking soldiers, machine gun crews and never ending noise of shelling drowning everything out. It really creates a sense of terrifying, transfixing, exhilarating (in a negative way) chaos. Not even innovative depictions like 1917 feature a full frontal attack on a trench. Usually we are looking at soldiers fighting-here it feels like we are in danger together with them.
Dont forget Frénch( France )🇨🇵 that Waste Life for saving for there country i think you have lack of History study , you are Américan🇺🇸 or something foreigner but you don't Even know thé country called France 🇨🇵
@@angelinaofficieletefigjika9902 France? Did they ever have something like an "army"? They frankly lost every war since 1813. Every war. Especially WW2. An embarrassing capitulation after just 6 weeks!
Mad respect to the gutsy actors and stunt men who ran along fields of explosions and jumped into trenches with bayonets, spades, and knives. They didn't look like rubber replicas to me. I doubt they had the safety standards back then as we have today. I cannot help but wonder how many were injured or even killed making this scene. In any case, it made for an authentic scene of the horror of war.
The movie is originally 150 minutes long but was cut to 140 minutes for American cinemas. In 1934, Universal cut the movie further. During the Korea-war the movie got cut even further to make it a war-movie instead of an Ani-war-movie. In France, the love-scenes between the french women and german soldiers were cut, before it was banned completely. In Germany, the film was further cut and showings were disrupted by the SA before it was banned in 1931. It was also banned in Austria, Italy and Australia. But no PC...right...
For being a 1930 war movie it looks realistic battle field. Slaughtering your opponent was actually a waste of human life. But yet in any war it's you or him, you get him or he gets you.
Its insane that this is a 1930 film. This is several decades ahead of its time. Add color, and this seems like a movie that would've been made 40 years after it was actually made.
Probably one of the best shot war movies ever made the cinematography, choreography, Acting etc in it is outstanding considering this was made in 1930. For frame of reference take a look at "paths of glory" combat scenes which was made 27 years later and the quality is pretty similar. The movie really captures the essence, fear, speed, confusion and barbarity of battle, the hands on the wire was poignant and that image was burned in my brain when i saw this as a kid.
Millions and millions of lives thrown away for nothing. Human waves attacking machine guns and mown down like wheat. An entire generation sacrificed. When will we ever learn?
The best war film ever, banned in nazi Germany and you can see why, this film should be shown to all military recruits and they will see how they maybe throwing their lives away for nothing.
My father said that men were cut in half by machine gun fire on either side of him, yet he got through the war without a scratch. He was captured, however (in Italy), and spent a year as a POW. Twenty years later, I was stationed about 30 miles from where he was held prisoner.
My Fathers Brother was with the 69th Rainbow Division, 1917- 1919 On cold winter nights when He and Two other veterans would sit around the Kitchen table with my Father who was to young to be in the service and after who knows how many glasses of wine would begin to swap stories, I would sit there and hang on to every word . I still have his Honorable Discharge papers and a formal portrait of him in his uniform.
AQOTWF, is a master piece, one of the all time greats, I saw it when I was a 11, and it shook me to the core,. It was the first war film that showed war as it really is brutal , dirty, painful and a tragic waste of life.
In the recent documentary "They shall not Grow Old". A recording of a vet talking about turning a corner in a trench and seeing a man unconscious with his chest cage full open and his lungs inflating and deflating shook me to my core. They said they put him out of his misery. Savagery of the likes we will hopefully never know.
@@wangsakamoto573 I don't think that makes @suiterd62 Gay. I am also a Desert Storm/Republic of Viet Nam Vet. You don't laugh, hehe, when your death may be moments away. Retching is more like it. The most serious Business you conduct in your entire life.
And all that without any CGI. Absolutely riveting and believable. Both my Grandfathers fought there. One was in the Kings Own Yorkshire light Infantry, and the other in the Royal Horse Artillery. Neither of them would say a word about it. Both were wounded in the legs.
I can't find it, but there is a silent film shot during the Great War, which has a scene about casualties in the filmed battle that uses real soldiers -- who were later sent back to the front lines, so many of them died. It's haunting.
Best ever anti-war movie, Second: the unknown soldier Finland 1955,Third:die Brücke,Germany 1959 ! In nearly all the modern movies the soldiers were shown as heroes,not victims of war!
I agree as well:Kirk Douglas at its best! But to my mind that movie has been more an anti-army-leadership accusement,therefore a long time forbidden in France!
But the French had to stop once their Troops got close to the enemy trench. Two of the big take aways from the war was a need for more rifle grenades and mortars.
Some of the directors from the early cinema era really know how to tell a story. In the pre-Hayes Code era they started making movies that were honest and adult, and matched today's more acceptable openness.
i recently watched Naploeon 1927 and fell in love with not only how it told a story but the promiscuity on display by the actresses and the seduction depicted because before the ultra censorship of 1930s films, the direction the industry was going was very modern, it would take half a century imo for films to return back to the point of morality they left off in their progression
That artillery barrage marching toward the camera was brutally majestic. One of the best war movies. I am told the outdoor movie sets were the subject of a university-led archaeology dig. Many tons of explosives used.
The violent graphic nature of this film (including soldiers being shown dismembered and blown up) was possible only because the Motion Picture Production Code a/k/a Hays Code didn't go into effect until 1934. That code prohibited the kind of realistic violence and bloodshed shown here. Whether this experience as an actor changed Lew Ayers ( playing the lead German soldier shown) is open to debate but in WWII he was at his request given a non-combat role.
Amazing how well that movie holds up! The shells aren't exploding gasoline bombs like the movies show nowadays. Every time I see that barrage of big shells come down in front of the attacking French, I want to turn and run too!
Among movies that depicted combat well, I would include the movies American Sniper (depicted going house to house, room to room, very well); also depicts the evolution of uniforms, vehicles and such better than any other movie. (I deployed multiple times, spending a total of a bit more than 5 years in theater. ) Zero Dark Thirty, and Body of Lies are also good. Some aspects of The Kingdom are decent. The TV show SEAL Team is also consistently good. Gettysburg, A Bridge Too Far, and The Bridges of Toko Ri, are older movies but depicted events superbly!
Honestly, I think the 1930 version is better the book and the 1979 version. I like the more linear structure that the 1930 version has, it feels like an actual story rather than just unrelated fragments like in the book. It's hard to get invested into the characters when we aren't given a clear picture of what their experience was like. The 1930 movie fixes that problem and tells the film as a cohesive story. It pulls all the punches and does not hold back on the brutality of WWI, which I think the 1979 film failed to do.
Towards the end of the war, the allies learned to walk their shells towards the enemy, with their soldiers coming up just behind. Far superior to the earlier way of shelling the enemy trenches, stopping and then having their men charge across no mans land.
When he was taking the machine gun apart and breaking it down to be moved during the evacuation at 4:22, the scalding hot barrel would have burned his unprotected hands. He should have been wearing his asbestos glove. That was one error I spotted. But for the most part the scene was pretty good.
Well, if you want to pick the scene apart like that, I could point out that the MG position you mention isn’t exactly covered in spent casing and perhaps that particular gun was covering an area not attacked? It’s not like the trench line was a straight line, and the MGs just covered area set at 90 degrees from such a line. It could be set up to enfilade ground in front of an unattacked neighboring position. Or fresh water could have been put on seconds before? Or the man was scared out of his mind and high on adrenaline? It is only a fault in the scene if you make assumptions about what has happened just before the camera arrives. Assumptions are easily dispelled, all it takes is some imagination - as I have just shown you.
The game verdun represents this movie itself. You attack the enemy trench(get in it but its hard to keep it), then the enemy reinforcements comes, you retreat then the same happens with the opposite side and at the end, all sides loses a lot of troops and the battle is a draw.
