This feature-length film, made in 1964, is set on the Austro-Hungarian front during World War One. A lieutenant who participates in the hanging of a Czech deserter is so tormented by remorse that he ends up deserting too, but he gets caught, and is sentenced to death himself.In 1916 as an officer in the Habsburg Army ethnic Romanian Apostol Bologa is torn between remaining loyal to the Habsburgs or deserting to the Romanian Army across enemy lines.