Once, young Lieutenant Joseph Trotta saved the life of Emperor Franz Joseph I in the Battle of Solferino and was knighted for it. However, he forbade his son Franz from pursuing a military career, and instead, Franz became a high-ranking official in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. With his sensitive son Carl Joseph, the once-glorious family begins to decline. Stationed as a soldier at the remote Russian border, Carl Joseph neither exhibits the heroism of his grandfather nor the sense of duty of his father, but instead succumbs to alcoholism and gambling addiction.