World War I: We Won't Go!

This film addresses the Great War through the words and acts of those who refused it, whether soldiers on the front lines or conscientious objectors, pacifists or revolutionaries. In the historiography of the Great War, military disobedience, mutiny and engaged pacifism have become a silent myth. For a long time, these acts of refusal were taboo and largely unknown and they carry a strong symbolic weight. They are the first manifestations of what will later become conscientious objection and that will spread during the following wars, in particular during the Vietnam and Algerian wars. From the truce of Christmas 1914 up to the mutiny of Kiel in October of 1918, men have rebelled against the war. A hundred years later in Verdun, the ground still bears traces of the war. Out of this symbolic and forever marked soil, rise the voices of those who have refused: Austro-Hungary, Russia, Germany, France, Great-britain, Canada, Italy, Usa, Switzerland, Netherlands.

Dokumentär om första världskriget genom ord och handlingar från dem som var emot kriget, vare sig de befann sig i frontlinjen, var vapenvägrare, pacifister eller revolutionärer. I första världskrigets historia har motståndshandlingarna varit något av ett tabu, men dessa första manifestationer kom att sprida sig till senare krig, i synnerhet Vietnamkriget.