La Marcha Radetzky

In 1859, in the battle of Solferino, the Slovenian lieutenant Trotta saved the life of the emperor Francisco José. He is promoted, decorated and ennobled, and over the years his name appears in the history books of the schools of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But in them the episode is narrated deformed and Trotta, disappointed, requests the retirement and prohibits his son Franz from being a soldier. The novel became a landmark in twentieth-century literature, for its genius scrutiny of the Empire's two great pillars - the army and the administration - and its chronicle of a long decline that, unnoticed by the regulated life of its protagonists, leads to the First World War. While the Radetzky March sounds in ceremonies, taverns and brothels and all the symbols of the Empire seem to have a life of their own, nationalisms and revolutionary movements spread