Radetzkymarsch is an early example of a story that features the recurring participation of a historical figure, in this case the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (1830–1916).

[1] In northern Italy, during the Battle of Solferino (24 June 1859), the well-intentioned, but blundering, Emperor Franz Joseph I, is almost killed.

Elevation to the nobility ultimately leads to the Trotta family's ruination, paralleling the imperial collapse of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918).

The perceptions and expectations of society eventually compel his reluctant integration into the aristocracy, a class amongst whom he feels temperamentally uncomfortable.

As a father, the first Baron von Trotta is disgusted by the historical revisionism that the national school system is teaching his son's generation.

Following a fatal duel the young Trotta transfers from the socially elite Uhlans to a less prestigious Jäger regiment.

It is a novel of the ironies and humour inherent in the well-intentioned actions that led to the decline and fall of a family and an empire; the Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria-Hungary remains ignorant of the unintended, negative consequences of so rewarding his subjects, and he continues conferring great favors, as with Lt. Trotta, after the Battle of Solferino in 1859.

During an interview on the United States TV show Charlie Rose in November 2001 on occasion of his own latest political novel, The Feast of the Goat, being published in English, Peruvian writer (and later 2010 Literature Nobel Prize winner) Mario Vargas Llosa, ranked The Radetzky March as the best political novel ever written.

[3] When time passed, the multi-generation family saga Radetzky March brought its author an acclaim and recognition as "one of the greatest German-language writers of the 20th century.