The story takes place in a 20th century where the Second World War hasn't taken place, the First World War having lasted twenty years, followed by a Prussian protectorate which ended only in the 60s. For different reasons, the great figures linked to 39-45, especially Churchill and de Gaulle, are not at the forefront of history. The young woman narrator is one of our contemporaries.

1914, the Great War. After a disastrous first battle, the English decide to carry out Operation Frankenstein: rather than making tanks, why not make cannon fodder?

With the help of the celebrated doctor's archives (in the possession of the descendants of the explorer Robert Walton who collected the dying confessions of Victor Frankenstein near the North Pole, where he had been in pursuit of his creature) and thanks to progress in industrialised electricity production, the Operation consists in making ‘Tommies' that can be sacrificed without remorse - the "raw material" would come from the battle fields of northern France. Winston Churchill, chosen to be head of the research facility on regeneration, disappears from official records.