Behind the front lines, in a chateau filled with fine wine and classical music, paced. He had been promised a promotion if he could take "The Ant Hill," a German stronghold that was essentially a suicide trap. Mireau didn't care about the cost in blood; he only cared about the glory that awaited him on the other side of the slaughter. The Impossible Order

When the whistle blew, the attack was a disaster. The French soldiers were mown down by machine-gun fire before they could even clear their own wire. Seeing the retreat, Mireau flew into a rage and ordered his own artillery to fire on his troops to "force" them forward. The battery commander refused the illegal order.

Shortly after, Dax found his surviving men in a local tavern, rowdy and whistling at a captured German girl forced to sing for them. As she began a simple, mournful folk song, the room fell silent. The soldiers, reminded of their own humanity and the wives and mothers they might never see again, began to hum along, tears streaming down their dirt-caked faces.

To save face and "inspire discipline," Mireau demanded that 100 men be executed for cowardice. After a heated argument with Dax, the number was reduced to three—one from each company. The Farce of Justice

In the muddy trenches of France, 1916, the air smelled of wet earth and impending doom. , a former criminal lawyer turned soldier, looked at his men—exhausted, hollow-eyed, and barely clinging to life.

Dax watched from the doorway. He was ordered to return to the front immediately. There was no glory on the horizon—only the long, cold road back to the trenches.

The three soldiers were chosen not by their actions, but by chance and personal grudges: