After France's defeat at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina in 1954, a unit of paratroopers led by Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Raspeguyis sent to North Africa to quiet the Algerian freedom fighters. One of the unit's officers, Lieutennt Ben Mahidi, joins forces with the rebels. Raspeguy, meanwhile, takes up with Countess de Clairefons, a wealthy beauty widowed when her husband, a general, was killed in Asia. Son of a peasant, Raspeguy is well below her socially, but her attraction to him is such that she gets him posted to Algeria, where she hopes he can quickly rise from lieutenant colonel to general. If he comes back a general, she will marry him. Raspeguy takes over a ragged unit and persuades his two wartime comrades, the sensitive Captain Philippe Esclavier and Captain Boisfeuras, the affable officer whose outside demeanor hides the heart of a vicious killer who loves the bloodlust of battle. Together they try to mold the ragtags into shape and turn them into a fighting unit. The unit's plans misfire, however, when Esclavier becomes involved with Aicha. Unknown to Esclavier, Aicha is Lieutenant Mahidi's sister, and she is reporting Raspeguy's every move back to her brother. Frustrated over the pointlessness of war Esclavier eventually deserts the military.