Yorck (1931)

Europe, 1812. In the course of the Coalition Wars, Napoleonic troops have conquered large parts of the continent. Prussia has been brought to its knees militarily and is forced to join forces with Napoleon. Now the emperor also wants to defeat Russia once and for all, with Prussian troops providing support on the flank. The Prussian king’s veteran generals remain steadfastly loyal to their monarch’s orders, while the young officers begin to grumble and even rise up against Napoleon so they can drive him out of their own country. The brave officer Yorck, too, no longer wants to be a puppet of the megalomaniacal conqueror and intends to resign from the army. He warns of the consequences that Prussia’s fighting alongside the French could have for the country, but eventually gives in to the king’s wish that he become the new commander-in-chief of the Prussian auxiliary corps. Yorck’s immediate superior is to be the French Marshal MacDonald, who deeply mistrusts him. In Courland, Yorck’s troops are to cover the left flank of Napoleon’s army. For his own security, MacDonald sends his confidant, the Vicomte de Noailles, to the Prussians to keep a close eye on Yorck. Noailles is to inform him, MacDonald, immediately if Yorck misbehaves. In fact, Yorck’s men go into battle against the Russians with little enthusiasm. Yorck’s moment arrives when the French are defeated by the Russians for the first time and have to retreat. When MacDonald then calls on him and his men to sacrifice themselves heroically for France’s ‘Grande Armée,’ the Prussian patriot changes sides. He meets his Russian counterpart, Field Marshal Diebitsch-Sabalkanskij, at the Poscheruner Mill and signs the Convention of Tauroggen, which establishes a ceasefire between Prussia and Russia. Meanwhile, Friedrich Wilhelm III hesitates for a while to end the brotherhood in arms with France and considers declaring his senior officers Yorck, Kleist, and Gneisenau traitors under pressure from MacDonald, whom he has received. But MacDonald treats the king so arrogantly that he changes his mind. At last, the monarch recognizes that Yorck was right to act as he did. He even tears up a pro-French decree and the state treaty with France. Finally, Friedrich issues a proclamation, ‘To My People,’ with which he at last declares war on the hated occupier. When Yorck enters Berlin, the crowds greet him enthusiastically with cheers.