Miss Nováková reports to Major Tuma (Karel Höger) from the police about the disappearance of her roommate, the model Zuzana. Shortly afterwards, a film director named Konrád (Otomar Krejca) asks Tuma to cooperate on a new cinéma-vérité film describing the story of Zuzana's disappearance.
Good-natured and garrulous, Švejk becomes the Austrian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of World War I -- although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards and getting drunk, he uses all his cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the police, clergy, and officers who chivy him toward battle.
