WW

A brilliant young doctor living in Paris joins the German Army in 1915 as a private when his childhood friend is called up from the reserves by the Kaiser; together they struggle to survive the horrors of the Western Front. He and his friend (who calls himself by the Americanized name Joe Smith) use their talent for invention and other skills left over from a childhood of survival on the mean streets of a German mining town to navigate their way through some of the worst action of the First World War, from the mined tunnels of Messines to the gas attacks at Ypres.

Their exploits become the subject of an illustrated series of pamphlets that brings them unwanted attention from both Kaiser Wilhelm and the British Security Chief Winston Churchill. After being arrested for treason, the two friends are forced to accept a secret mission to kidnap the French Premier along with a young and dangerous corporal named Adolf Hitler. Upon accidentally discovering the gruesome secret of a French family's underground meat factory, they face their worst trial yet.