Two-part documentary following World War I's biggest archaeological dig, taking place at Messines in Belgium, uncovering some of the best-preserved trenches, bunkers and tunnels ever discovered on the Western Front and revealing the realities of trench warfare, a Christmas football match and poison gas.
In 1942, Huo Fei, a patriotic overseas Chinese businessman, returned to Shanghai and married Xia Meng Yao, the daughter of the big entrepreneur Xia Peng Ju. Luo Yun Kui, a member of the Communist Party of China, returned to Shanghai with Huo Fei. Under the arrangement of the organization, he hoped to use the shipping business of the Xia family to transport a batch of scarce medicines to the mainland. When the medicines were about to be shipped, they were seized by Nobunaga Kimura, the captain of the Japanese military police stationed in Shanghai.
Lieutenant Captains Pyotr Orlov and Ivan Muravyov have been serving on the Slavyanka submarine for a long time. The next trip to the sea is a planned combat exercise. But no one assumes that a catastrophe will happen this time — the waves from the training explosions will disturb the "sleeping" naval mine since the Second World War.
The Big Battalions tells the story of three families, Christian, Muslim and Jewish, and moves between Britain, Ethiopia, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.