Unfortunately, they end up in Cologne on July 31, 1914. His German friend gets word that he's to report for military duty and he warns Stewart to go home as quickly as possible. Stewart, however, is determined to see Charlemagne's remains at Aix-la-Chapelle before leaving Germany. Once there, he becomes entangled with a female spy and the rest of the novel follows their attempts to get out of Germany and make it to France through Belgium. The romance isn't terribly interesting, but the descriptions of the outbreak of war provided a (fictional) contemporary view of the horrors of war. Stevenson (an American author and librarian) also makes several impassioned arguments through Stewart for why America should be involved in the war.