Poor but happy, young Nello and his grandfather live alone, delivering milk as a livelihood, in the outskirts of Antwerp, a city in Flanders (the Flemish or Dutch-speaking part of modern-day Belgium). They discover a beaten dog (a Bouvier, a large sturdy dog native to Flanders) and adopt it and nurse it back to health, naming it Patrasche, the middle name of Nello's mother Mary, who died when Nello was very young. Nello's mother was a talented artist, and like his mother, he delights in drawing, and his friend Aloise is his model and greatest fan and supporter.
Sergeant Victor comes to the French Foreign Legion after taking the blame for his brother's crime. Cigarette falls in love with him though Major Doyle is in love with her. Doyle sends Victor on dangerous assignments to be rid of him. He falls in love with Lady Venetia Cunningham, a visitor to the garrison
Vere Herbert lives with her wicked mother, Lady Dolly (Marie Curtis), who is living in sin with Lord Jura (Glen White). Although Vere is in love with an opera singer, Lucien Correze (Harry Hilliard), Lady Dolly convinces her that marrying the dissolute Prince Zouroff (Walter Law) will save her father's honor. But the Prince makes her miserable and insists on having his mistress, Jeanne deSonnaz (Caille Torrez), live with them.
The Legion's mascot, Cigarette falls for an Englishman, Bertie Cecil (Herbert Heyes), and when he is sentenced to a firing squad, she heroically takes the bullet herself.
Tells the story of an English aristocrat, apparently in disgrace, who disappears and joins a French battalion in Algeria, loosely based on the Foreign Legion.
