Who does the Prussian nobleman want to march into Paris?
During World War I, the wily and attractive French POW Sergeant Dumaine is sequestered in a prison camp near the castle of a prideful Prussian nobleman and military general, Count Reichendorf, who lives for the day that his four sons will march triumphantly into Paris. Having lost three sons to the French and English armies, and left with only one son, Dietrich, Reichendorf laments the days when his family made Prussia "the might of land." He is forced to recruit military men from the prison camp. Axelle, the daughter of one of the sons, who became his ward when her parents died, lives in the Reichendorf castle and makes periodic goodwill visits to the prison compound, where she first encounters Dumaine. Captain Ebbing, the martinet and disfigured prison commandant, develops an interest in Axtelle. He courts her, but Axelle shows little interest in him, and when he reminds her how he dazzled her before he went into battle, she rejects his affections and tells him that she is engaged to Dietrich. Ebbing pleads with her, insisting that his love for her is more intense and enduring than that of any other man, but she is not swayed.
Ebbing soon puts Dumaine and the other prisoners to work at the unpleasant task of burial detail. When Dumaine, Fichet and other prisoners escape by overpowering the guards, they break into the Reichendorf castle and take refuge there, but are soon discovered by Axelle and taken back to the prison. One day, after noticing billows of smoke coming from the castle, Dumaine heroically rushes into the castle and puts out a kitchen fire. In gratitude for his valor, Ebbing commissions Dumaine, an electrical engineer by profession, to wire the castle. Dumaine's new assignment puts him in close contact with Axelle, and they soon become friends. After one month, Axelle begins to trust Dumaine and suggests that he remove his prison number from his uniform.
his four sons