Paris threatens to report him, starting a sequence of events that will factor into the trial for cowardice of Paris and two other innocent soldiers (Timothy Carey, Joe Turkel). On his rounds, during which he strikes a shell-shocked soldier, Mireau clashes with Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), commander of the 701st, who makes the mistake of quoting Dr Johnson at him: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.' A nocturnal foray by Lieutenant Roget (Wayne Morris), Corporal Paris (Ralph Meeker), and a private (Kem Dibbs) ends with the latter being killed by a grenade thrown by the panicking Roget. He changes his mind immediately when Broulard says he will be rewarded with promotion if the attack is successful. The scar on Mireau's right cheek indicates he is not a coward personally, but – claiming concern for his 8,000 men – he is reluctant to follow Broulard's order to direct his division against a formidable German position called the Anthill. Paths of Glory begins at an opulent chateau where, in 1916, the urbane, devious General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou, pictured right) and his ambitious subordinate, General Mireau (George Macready), are secluded from the squalor of the trenches. A year later, Réveilhac was relieved of his command and given a reserve unit. Réveilhac subsequently had 30 men tried as mutineers. He demanded that his divisional artillery fire on a French trench to force the soldiers there to attack, but the artillery commander refused to comply without a written order. In February 1915, at Souain-Perthes-lès-Hurlus, General Géraud Réveilhac became frustrated by his 60th Infantry's repulses from a German position. Stanley Kubrick's fourth feature was adapted from Humphrey Cobb's 1935 novel, which was inspired by the French execution of soldiers chosen arbitrarily to pay for the disciplinary failure of their unit during an attack in the Marne.

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