The core of the plot is the romantic triangle formed by the protagonist, a conscripted soldier named Private Brigg, a worldly professional soldier named Sergeant Driscoll, and Phillipa Raskin, the daughter of the Regimental Sergeant Major. The location is a British army base in Singapore during the Malayan Emergency.
In a remote Kyrgyz village, Dzhamilya follows her parents' orders when she marries a man without loving him. Then World War II breaks out and her new husband has to leave the village. While being alone, Dzhamiliya meets the returning soldier Daniyar and falls in love with him instead. Years later, their young friend Seid reminisces about the couple.
In January 1943 the German army, afraid of an Allied invasion of the Balkans, launched a great offensive against Yugoslav Partisans in Western Bosnia. The only way out for Partisan forces and thousands of refugees was the bridge on the river Neretva.
During France’s Hundred Years’ War, a Parisian student seeks refuge by the sea and falls in love with an aristocrat. As they find shelter in a monastery, their romance is overshadowed by the ongoing conflict between peasants and noblemen.
Heinz is a German soldier stationed as a sniper overlooking his own army from a tree. When he falls asleep, his troops are gone and he is left alone to defend the incoming enemy invasion. Flashbacks recall his wartime experiences and his transition from a human being into a sadistic murderer and rapist.
In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing an attempted Nazi invasion.
Betrayed by an informant, Philippe Gerbier finds himself trapped in a torturous Nazi prison camp. Though Gerbier escapes to rejoin the Resistance in occupied Marseilles, France, and exacts his revenge on the informant, he must continue a quiet, seemingly endless battle against the Nazis in an atmosphere of tension, paranoia and distrust.
England, World War II. Quint Munroe, RAF officer and new leader of a Mosquito squadron, is tasked with destroying a secret Nazi base in France while trying to overcome the disappearance of a brother-in-arms.
A British Colonel is angry with his superiors after his entire platoon is slaughtered by the Germans in what he saw as a suicide mission. So for his next mission, he takes along a platoon a convicted criminals - to prepare the Normandy beaches for the D-Day landings.
A twist of fate leads a recent Westpoint grad into being responsible for the execution of two fellow American GIs. The young lieutenant comes of age, and the two battle hardened veterans achieve a state of grace through acts of sacrifice.
In 1917 a village which lies directly on the front line at Marasesti is evacuated. One of the few who decide to stay is an old man together with his 12 year old granddaughter named Mariuca. The girl befriends a Romanian radio operator who had set up an artillery observation post in their yard.
Japan and Russia clash in what comes to be known as the Russo-Japanese War. An attempt by the Japanese fleet and army to take Port Arthur fails, and a Russian fleet bears down on the Sea of Japan. Admiral Heihachiro Togo sends his fleet to confront the Russians, with results which stun both nations. Meanwhile, Major Genjiro Akashi makes secret negotiations with the Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia, negotiations that have repercussions far beyond the conflict at hand.
American marines are sent to a Japanese-occupied Pacific island that has been subjected to a bombing campaign, only to encounter heavy resistance from the surviving enemy forces.
During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his isolated castle hoping they will defend it against the advancing Germans.