Winston Churchill claimed this film came closest to capturing the atmosphere of the First World War and exposing the workings of the military mind. Director Stanley Kubrick was said to be a great admirer of Napoleon, and this fearsome indictment of the futility of war can also be read as a lament for the decline of the once glorious French army. As the general who orders a hopeless attack on a German position, Adolphe Menjou is a villain not because he is an officer slavishly adhering to the letter of army law, but because he is an arrogant aristocrat, motivated more by fear of the lower classes than by hatred of the enemy. Kirk Douglas and Timothy Carey are outstanding among the troops on the front line, while Kubrick's relentlessly probing camera offers constant evidence of a film-maker at the height of his powers.

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.