Manifesto of the film, drawing ABEA (1923)
Madariaga, of English nationality, one of the richest landowners in Argentina, despotic as a baron of the Middle Ages in regard to those who worked in his vast domain, yet full of heart and justice, has two daughters, Elena and Louise. Elena against the wishes of his father, had married the German Karl von Hartrott. From this union were born three sons and the whole family, educated Prussian, contrasted sharply with the soul of Madariaga, who instead preferred the family of Louise, wife of Marc Desnoyers, a Frenchman, who also administer the assets of the old Centaur.
The only cloud existing in the mind of the old was dissipated with the birth of Jules Desnoyers, where his grandfather concentrated all his affection, and then giving him a lot of money and a lot of freedom, fomented in him a tendency to licentiousness. He was the companion Madariaga into the discovery of the "Boca," where he dances with his ability and his youthful enthusiasm had become the favorite.
's grandfather, who had raised hopes to name his heir, died suddenly, but to the amazement of Julius, his fortune is left in equal parts between the two daughters of Madariaga. Karl von
Hartrott immediately decide you want to sell his part to return to Europe and better educated and better educate its children in the cult of the fatherland. Desnoyers, who, a student in 1870, was fugito France, appearing in the list of deserters, reluctant to return home, but driven by his wife and children, wishing all the pleasures of Paris to leave him, America with its share of the fortune of Madariaga.
Once in Europe, while the sons of Von Hartrott, imbued with the Prussian Kultur, and appointed official in the German army, become so many wheels in the great machine of destruction of the Kaiser, Marc Desnoyers threat to the bottom of his heritage with the mania of the objects antiques and art treasures to decorate with a castle that has become a Villeblanche on the Marne, while Julie continues its standard of living among the tango in Paris and find the women in his study of painting. Laurier
He meets Margaret, a young, beautiful and glowing, which has had to make a marriage of convenience with the austere Laurier that it does not like. The love these two together more and more young people up to his inevitable discovery by Laurier, who catches them in the study of Julius. This finding does not but other then that the divorce of spouses Laurier, because the world war soaks the protagonists.
After the tragedy of Sarajevo, Tchernoff, a Russian philosopher, the prophet shows in the book of Revelations of Julie S. John, and repeating the words of the Apostle: "And power was given them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with the beasts of the earth", he predicts the run of terrible dell'Apolisse Four Horsemen. Conquest, War, Hunger or fever and Death with his pale horse across the world.
was followed by immediate mobilization, everyone runs to the border to repel the invader, and, as Laurier took his place as officer, Daisy, even with it highly patriotic zeal, he enlisted in the Red Cross volunteer nurse. The new occupations of Margaret, the horrors that surround it on all sides by war, mean that his relationship with Julie - who had not enrolled because the English - it will slow down to when she is sent to Lourdes to help the wounded who were directed there.
Meanwhile, German troops invaded the beautiful lands of France. And while his Marc Desnoyers Castle sees the destruction of the country Villeblanche, German troops invade it to house a German general and his staff. Desnoyers witnessing the carnage that makes of its treasures, trembling, but not having courage to protest, see the drunken orgies of the troops, and when one recognizes the invaders Captain Otto von Hartrott, his nephew, he is recommended, but he so and rejects all justified by one word: "It's war!" And he does a prisoner. Meanwhile
of Lourdes is found among the wounded Laurier, blind, Margaret assists fully understanding his new mission to live at his side, and when Julie is here to achieve, it boldly introduced him to the inability to realize their dream, since the new duty that the war has created.
Julius returned to Paris to volunteer and finds his father, rescued by French troops who had repulsed the enemy troops from the Marne and describes the horror of war and what he had seen in his castle. And he, despite the prayers of his mother, part soldier to the front, between the blessings of his father, who sees his son, that whilst there is no obligation and does what he did and that was still his duty to do.
Despite his previous life, he adapts quickly to life in the trenches, proving brave soldier, as to be chosen for the mission more difficult and delicate. One day, in the second battle of the Marne, he is sent to a difficult recognition, while the trench opposite a German officer, Otto von Hartrott, exit with the same purpose. The two grandsons of Madariaga meet, and while Julius is going to perform the commandment of his father: "If you meet them, remember that your enemies are ... Kill, "a bullet explodes in the midst of them killing them both. Coming
peace, and Desnoyers Tchernoff visited the place where Julius fell from brave. "The angel of peace, he says, Desnoyers, kicked off the Four Horsemen." Tchernoff But sadly said: "Peace has come, however, the Four Horsemen still afflicts humanity causing continuous discord until all the hatred they are dead and not reign in the hearts of men just love. " (film, April 8, 1923)