Operation Michael, the assault on the English fortress on the Western Front known as the the Labyrinth is underway. When all the senior field officers are down, it's up to Major Mathias Wieman, who wrote the plan, to carry out the assault on one of the surrounding towns that guard the Labyrinth. The English, however, counter-attack, and the German guns are too worn out to target the area without striking the German positions.
Operation Michael was one of the four German operations that made up the Spring Offensive in 1918, resulting in the First Battle of the Somme, 1918. It was an effort to separate the British army from the French and drive them into the sea. Its eventual failure meant the effective end of the Western Front; American forces entered the War, while the Germans had no reserves.
Karl Ritter's movie is derived from the Hans Fritz von Zwehl stage play, and opens it nicely. Judging by what I saw on screen, the play is set purely at the command center of the operation, with information coming in from the field. The movie shows the audience the field, with its attendant destruction and death, shifting the focus from those who give the orders and regret it to those who suffer the consequences.
