Writing inside. The novel, first published in 1916, tells a tangled tale of the French and German sons-in-law of an Argentinian land-owner who find themselves fighting on opposite sides in the First World War. When Julio finally decided to fight, the world and his family knew him for a different man. In the end the man who was once a spoiled son of privilege, became a man of honor and integrity, noble soldier in the war to end all wars.