The movie “The Lost Battalion” is a movie about a battalion in 1918 that was sent out to battle during World War 1. Major Charles White Wittlesey is assigned by General Robert Alexander to lead his troops to the Argonne Forest with five hundred men where they face severally bloody battle with the Germans forces. However, the forces were supposed to be given support through the flanks retreat and communications with the head quarter of the 77th American Division are cut.
Major Wittlesey and holds his position with his men, mostly, Irish, Polish, Italian and Jewish immigrants from New York which are surround and outnumber by the German army; with no food, water, ammunitions and medical supplies. In this movie the main characters all developed a friendship for example Private Bob Yoder and Private Lipasti connected with the fact that they both volunteered for the battalion which lead to Yoder inviting Lipasti to visit his home town. Experiences was a symbolism that was a reoccurring aspect throughout the movie.
Experience was a problem for Major Wittlesey, in the beginning of the movie he realizes that he will need every man he can get so he could push through the German forces. Wittlesey gains a great number of inexperienced dough boys straight from the basic training who’ve never seen an actually battle before. Having men unaccustomed to a military battle became a burden because it slowed down the battalion causing more deaths then had could have been with experienced soldiers.
For an example, in the movie Major Wittlesey had to help a soldier (Find name) during mid-battle reload his gun, which could have been cost Major Wittlesey his own life. This is an important scene because it shows the struggle the Americans had to overcome, forcing them to learn from their mistakes throughout the battalion and also fight their hardest with all the obstacles they must face. The war affected American severely due to the lack of medical supplies, they were blinded by gas bombs and torched with flamethrower, killed by the Germans and either killed or injured by their own channels.
While trying to help their wounded they came across of not having any medical supplies so they couldn’t treat their wounded without reusing medical bandages. Which in some retrospect will leave them traumatized with what we call “shell shock and/or PTSD” by the things that they had seen in combat. The Lt. Teichmoeller who was in charge of firing the channel emotional broke down because he had gave permission to fire channel which landed on his troops. The ethnicity background in the lost battalion showed the integrations of different ethnic who are accustomed to hating each other finding their way of burying the hatchet in war.
The American and German headquarters had no respect for on another but Major Henrich Prinz understand how bad the war was becoming offered medical the American food and medical aid if the Americans surrender. The American soldiers and the German soldiers did not hate each other they were following orders. The troop on the Western front realized that their troops had been through purgatory which is why they needed to find them so they could start to extract their soldiers from battle safety. Weaponry in this war we’re very complex, German’s had their type’s guns while American’s had theirs.
During this war Americans were running out of bullets for their guns and therefore they took the dead of the Germans guns to fight against the Germans in the war. There were different types of guns in this war there were M1917 Revolvers that was used by Lt. Leak, Flat mainspring used by Major Wittlesey, Colt M1911 used by Captain Nelson Holderman and Captain George McMurtry, Luger P08 carried by German officer who shakes hands with an American. Rifles were used by the American, Mauser Gewehr 1898 were guns that German snipers, Germans also used Maxim MG08, Flammenwerfer M. 16 which are flamethrowers.
During the movie the Americans had no ammunition for their guns so they used the German guns. In my opinion this is far from a Hollywood movie: It clearly demonstrates the futility and horror of the attacks that the ordinary infantry soldier had to go through. It doesn’t leave out the fact that the generals only had few respect for people’s lives and it also shows that many mistakes were made like bombing the own troops. It all happened in reality and it is all shown very well in this movie. I would recommend this as an historical film because its shows a clear view of the 1918 battalion in WW1.
The battle scenes are very gone and realistic, in war of trenches and bayonet and the actors had a difficult task of trying to act fearful of their lives but yet hopeful of the accomplishing their lives. The Americans fought the Germans violently for five days without food, water, medical supplies and a very limited supply of ammunition. If it was not for the strength of those soldiers to overcome impossible conditions, the entire force may have been obliterated in five day siege. After the five day siege many soldiers earned awards.
