In 1915, on the Eastern front, in Galicia, Croatian soldiers under the Austro-Hungarian flag are waging a war against the Russian army and gangs of Chircassians. An Austro-Hungarian soldier, wounded and robbed, wakes up in the battlefield. He takes a uniform and army tag from a fallen soldier and so he accidentally acquires a new identity. Under his new nom-de guerre, Sergeant Josef, he begins his journey across this unfamiliar, foreign and war-torn land. Josef is captured by Lieutenant Tiffenbach, who questions his identity and takes him to be shot..