An episode from the war in 1806 when a small troop of Prussian soldiers digs in at a mill in order to defend itself against the overwhelming advance of the French army.
Sous Louis X, la tour de Nesles est le theatre des orgies de la reine Marguerite de Bourgogne et de deux princesses de ses amies qui font assassiner leurs amants au matin.
The boy Simplizissimus grows up with simple farmers in the Spessart region. But the idyll is abruptly destroyed by the Thirty Years' War. Simplizissimus is sent to the besieged fortress of Hanau. When the lansquenets there play crude jokes on him, he flees with his friend Herzbruder to the Croats. But even here he does not fare much better.