Balint Abady is forced to part the beautiful & unhappily married Adrienne Uzdy. Laszlo Gyeroffy is rapidly heading for self-destruction through drink & his own feckleness. The politicians quarrelling among themselves & stubbornly ignoring their countrymens real needs are still pursuing their vendetta with Habsburg rule from Vienna. Meanwhile they fail to notice how the Great Powers
- through such events as Austrias annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908
- are moving ever closer to the conflagration of 1914-1918 that will destroy their world forever.