The story features Lola Montez and Otto von Bismarck as major characters, and fictionalises elements of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1843, 1847 and 1848.

Other characters include: The book is loosely based on the plot of The Prisoner of Zenda.

In a letter, Fraser wrote that during his researches into an earlier Flashman book he had discovered that in real life Bismarck and Lola Montez had been in London at the same time.

[1] The book's plot is anachronistic in depicting Bismarck already in 1848 striving for the unification of Germany.

Unlike his depiction in the book, Bismarck only took up German Unification much later in his career, when he could use it to enhance the power of the Prussian Monarchy and of himself.