French Machine Gun in the Wooded Country of the Argonne

A small band of French soldiers take to the woods of the Argonne in this military exercise - probably staged for the camera.

French soldiers wield their rifles in the Argonne, north-east France, an area which saw plenty of action later in World War I – the Battle of the Argonne Forest was part of the final Allied offensive on the Western Front in September 1918. In this film, shot circa 1915, the action is small scale with no sign of the enemy, suggesting that it is a training exercise.