Der Feind im Land (1913)

In the Franco-German border region in 1870, war suddenly breaks out between the two peoples. Henry Marteau, who earns his living as a railway gatekeeper in the quiet little town of Vithères, is called up to fight. Heavy-hearted, his wife Marianne and their little daughter Madeleine must let the head of the household go. In the first days of the war, Henry is killed after he and his men, surrounded by Prussian uhlans, have barricaded themselves inside a farmhouse. Eventually, Vithères too is occupied by Prussian soldiers. Fierce fighting breaks out, and the very German soldier who shot Marianne’s husband is wounded. Marianne is then ordered to care for this enemy on her own soil. When the wounded man puts a picture of her in her hand, Marianne realizes that he must have killed her husband. Grief overwhelms her, but she manages to overcome the impulse to take revenge, born of hatred, by executing her husband’s murderer herself. Instead, she focuses her revenge on spying on the military information of the enemy billeted in the railway keeper’s cottage and passing it on to her own people. And so she intercepts the messages the Prussians send by telegraph. The French do indeed gain an advantage as a result and are able to push the enemy back a little. The Germans soon identify Marianne as the cause of this setback and, after separating her from her child, bring her before a court-martial. Little Madeleine, deeply worried about her mother, sets out to break through the German lines and seek out the Crown Prince. She begs him to show mercy to her mother, who has been sentenced to death. Thinking of his own children, he promises the sobbing little girl: “Your mother shall live!” The courier gallops at full speed to the execution site to rescind the death sentence imposed on Marianne. But it is already too late: the sentence has been carried out. Little Madeleine stands alone at her mother’s grave.