The story is about Captain Florian von Hohenwart, a Captain in the Austro-Hungarian Cavalry, taking place during World War I and the years after that. His strength and courage help him to overcome wounds inflicted by the war and transforms him as a person. The leading women in his life are a volunteer in the Red Cross in Vienna and a young lady of society in Maryland. His life is full of happiness and love but also suffering. The novel intermingles real-life persons and events in Vienna, Serbia, Innsbruck, Washington DC, New York, Maryland, and Constantinople, with the many characters of the book. It ends with the dawning of the bleak future of National Socialism in Germany.
