A journalistic film edited from newsreels and fragments of feature films /Crossroads, Wooden Crosses/.
There are also feature episodes shot specifically for this film.
The film paints a picture of a world armed to the teeth and continuing to frantically arm itself.
The film puts forward the idea that while totalitarian countries are hastily arming themselves, democratic countries /including France/ remain ill-prepared for a future war.
The film calls on France to step up the arms race.
Chronicle of military operations during World War I. Explosions.
Trenches.
Weapons of war, a machine gun firing.
Wounded.
Red Cross.
Bombing of a city, people fleeing.
Fires.
The history of weapons since the time of ancient man.
Caves, rock paintings.
Sharpening a stone.
The Middle Ages: fortresses, suspension bridges.
The first guns.
Knights with spears on horseback rushing into the attack.
Archers with a bow repel an attack.
Bow /close-up/.
The first cannon.
Various cannons.
Improvement of cannons.
Paris.
World Exhibition of 1900. Views of the city, exhibition pavilions.
The first automobiles, train, horse-drawn carriages.
Restaurant.
A singer sings and dances.
Conversation of two men with a singer.
Waltzing audience in the hall.
Meeting of crowned heads.
City tram.
Vienna.
Emperor Franz Joseph with his family.
Berlin.
Meeting /?/.
St.
Petersburg.
Tsar Nicholas II with Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and Tsarevich Alexei walk surrounded by high-ranking officials.
Russian clergy.
July 14, 1914. The French army goes to war.
Chronicle of military operations.
Soldiers shoot, run.
Tanks, artillery, cannons.
Explosions, fires.
Trucks, infantry.
Destruction.
Bugler
war 1 world, weapons, bombardment, city, restaurant, personalities, explosions, wounded, destruction
Cemetery with crosses.
French flag.
Revival of life after World War I. Clearing rubble, men collecting stones, working with a pickaxe.
One of them finds a shell fragment.
City, streets, traffic.
Entertainment on the dance floor: music, dancing, an orchestra playing.
Politicians from different countries: speaking from the rostrum, reviewing troops.
Europe establishing new borders after the war.
Map of Italy with the shadow of an axe.
Construction and agricultural work after the war.
Combine harvester in the field. 1925, signing of the Locarno Treaties.
These are seven treaties that resulted from negotiations held in Locarno, Switzerland from October 5 to 16, 1925 and signed on December 1 in London by the heads of seven states /Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia/.
German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, Czechoslovakia representative Dr.
Edvard Beneš, Great Britain Austen Chamberlain, and others.
Spring.
Trees and flowers are blooming.
Women at agricultural work: picking grapes, loading hay.
Cutting trees, floating logs down the river.
Fishing, industrial processing.
Other types of industry and machine tools.
Building a ship, an airship, an airplane.
September 1930. Breguet's airplane with a crew consisting of Costes and Bellonte made the first non-stop flight from Paris to New York. 1932. Geneva.
Sign on the building: Conference on the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments.
Conference work.
Sports: high jump, hurdles, equestrian sports, hockey, water polo, football.
Development of science: devices, scientists, experiments.
The world is having fun and getting rich.
USA. Model competition.
Girls have their waist, chest, and hips measured.
Gold bars.
Dancing, carnival.
Stock exchange.
Paris Soir newspaper headline: New York Stock Exchange Crash
policy, personalities, conference, destruction, restoration work, industry, sport, entertainment, dancing, stock exchange, city, transport
Stock exchange.
Falling rates.
Crush.
Panic.
Factories are closing.
No work /sketches in different languages/.
Unemployment all over the world.
Unemployed with slogans.
Distribution of hot food, bread on the streets.
Statistics on the number of unemployed in 1932 by country.
The rise of fascism.
Hitler.
Excerpt from Hitler's speech.
Meeting the motorcade of Marshal Hindenburg (Reich President of Germany).
Parade of German troops.
Industry of Germany: factories and workshops are working.
Sights of the city of Nuremberg.
The first military parade with the participation of Hitler.
America.
Election of President Roosevelt.
A new construction program is adopted.
Construction of a bridge.
France.
Launching of a new transatlantic vessel.
Great Britain sends the "Queen Mary" on a voyage.
Germany.
Review of troops of the new Hitlerite army.
France and America: new trains, a new plane.
President Roosevelt launches the largest dam in the world.
The dam in operation.
Airplane over the dam.
France built the largest dam in Europe.
View of the dam.
Construction and launch of the canal.
San Francisco: opening of the new concrete highway over the bridge.
Military exercises in Germany
stock exchange, unemployment, unemployed, Hitler, fascism, parade, Germany, America, France, United Kingdom, industry, teachings, policy, personalities, Roosevelt
France.
Medical examination of children.
Children's home.
Babies in arms, on a swing, in a basket.
Making dolls.
Girls are taught to knit.
Doll fashion show.
Boys play military games.
Italy.
Parade of teenagers and young men.
Germany.
Young people swear allegiance to Hitler.
Hitler.
France.
Peasant life.
Home.
Farm.
Germany.
Airplanes flying in the sky in the form of a swastika.
Review of military vehicles.
Children outdoors, going swimming in the river, toddlers - to the pool.
Playing in the sand.
Sports and freedom: diving, swimming, water skiing, figure skating, skiing (unsuccessful descent), bobsleigh, ski sailing, air sports, auto racing, aerobatics.
America, England: troop parades.
Map of Ethiopia.
Military equipment, soldiers, local troops.
Palestine.
Soldiers, equipment.
France builds a dam in southern Tunisia (1927-28).
Construction work.
Germany.
Cologne.
Soldiers march.
Scottish soldiers.
Spain.
Construction work.
Planes in the sky.
Clearing rubble after Japanese aggression.
Coffins, crying Japanese women.
Entertainment: dancing.
Oath to Hitler.
Austria becomes part of Germany.
Troops parade
France, Italy, Germany, Spain, children, Hitler, fascism, sport, America, United Kingdom, parade, Palestine, construction, entertainment, dancing
Belgium.
Military parade.
Great Britain.
Military parade.
USSR. Military parade on Red Square.
Aviation in the sky.
USA. Testing a new model of a high-speed tank at a proving ground.
France.
Testing a new model of a tank.
A tank knocks down a tree.
A tank crosses a river.
A tank destroys the wall of a house.
A new model of a warship.
The crew’s daily routine: rise, formation, raising the flag.
French flag, British flag, American flag.
Sailors wash the decks, stretch the sails.
Ships at sea.
American Pacific Fleet.
Baltic Fleet.
North Sea.
Naval exercises of the French fleet.
Mechanisms of a warship.
Dropping torpedoes.
Explosions.
Dropping mines.
The submarine goes under water
Belgium, United Kingdom, USSR, USA, France, parade, weapons, Navy, North Sea
American warship.
Periscope, selecting a target.
Dropping a mine underwater.
Submarine emerges from underwater.
Air attack: dropping bombs from planes onto a ship.
Gunfire from a ship.
Airplane landing on an aircraft carrier.
Loading bombs into a fighter.
Fighters in the sky.
Pilot.
British Air Force.
Airplanes taking off.
German, Italian Air Forces.
American aircraft in the sky.
Dropping bombs.
France.
Military bunker on the border with Germany.
Border protection.
Rise.
Formation.
Trolleys carrying soldiers through an underground tunnel.
Lifting bombs in an elevator.
Telephone communication.
Underground observation post.
Shot from underground.
Underground military plant.
Autonomous electricity.
Soldiers-mechanics.
Production of bombs, bullets, etc.
Construction work.
Air defense.
Searchlights, radars.
Fire drills.
Firefighters in gas masks.
Air raid siren in the city, people running
America, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Navy, weapons, BBC, teachings, military plant, soldiers, Air Defense, military industry, military structure
1938. Hitler.
German and Italian armies on exercises.
Maneuvers of the French army.
American troops practice landing from a boat to the shore, an attack on the coast.
A detachment of the British Army in London with Big Ben in the background.
France, America, Italy: exercises, exercises, exercises: Prague, Charles Bridge.
A man listens to a radio broadcast from Germany.
Announcements in the city about recruiting volunteers.
Game scenes: a conversation about the war, about recruitment into the army, seeing off to war.
Paris, East Station.
Great Britain.
A bugler sounds the assembly of sailors on a ship.
London.
Volunteers go to enlist in the army.
Mobilization of troops on the border with Germany.
Rome.
The Pope calls for reconciliation.
Headlines of the Paris Soir newspaper: The Fuhrer's reply to Chamberlain, The Fuhrer agrees to postpone mobilization for 24 hours.
Munich, 1938. The signing of the Munich Agreement, drawn up in Munich on September 29, 1938, and signed on September 30 of the same year by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.
The agreement concerned the transfer of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany.
Joyful meetings of the heads of state: Chamberlain in London, Daladier in Paris.
Speech by Franklin Roosevelt, leader of the United States: America hopes for peace.
Steel mill.
Army and agriculture.
Destruction of war.
Soldiers of different countries.
Navy and air force.
Call to lay down arms
Germany, France, Italy, America, United Kingdom, 1938, Hitler, army, teachings, mobilization, policy, personalities, military industry, factory, soldiers, aviation, fleet