[3] He attempts to do so by using strategy or brute force, but his failures put him behind bars at the otherwise disused fortress.
The stories are set on an open field in a parallel version of the Netherlands which in reality has generals but no marshals.
The drive from the tree, where the general lives with his pet duckling, to the fortress is lightened up by a revolving host of supporting characters; some of them have religious backgrounds, like the pastor who relies on the importance "chewing your sandwiches well" (Dutch slang for sandwiches: bammetjes) or the gospel-spreading samba-percussionist and his fellow convert.
The most notorious character is the police scout who has his own ambitions to fulfill; receiving the Honorary Brass Whistle.
He thinks that fining the general will help him achieve his goal, but instead he drifts further away from it; his motorbike gets trashed while his boss relegates him to cleaning jobs of even greater disaster.