Using the technique of animating still photographs the film reconstructs the main events of the Boer War from authentic records of the time. This war saw the first use of many new methods of fighting — trenches, barbed wire, armoured vehicles — as well as one of the last great cavalry charges. Vivid pictures of the fighting itself and of daily life at the front are shown, together with the reactions of the people in England, where the war provoked passionate feelings and conflicting opinions as to its rights and wrongs.