Blind to unsustainable losses, Monrad's government orders to fight on. The troops, under incompetent officers obeying blindly like Didrich, who reveals to Peter Laust and Inge's secret, wait in trenches for a devastating Prussian artillery bombardment, enough to cause serious shell-shock, then must storm ahead into bullet rains in mostly-doomed waves. After a premonition, Johan goes to extremes to save the brothers, for whom the only upside is they find each-other, only to witness one crumbling hit. The Germans offer reasonable terms, Monrad madly refuses in London to end the slaughter.
—KGF Vissers