World War I snatches a young poet from the streets of Paris and hurls him into battle, where he encounters death, disillusionment, and love.

Karl Schiller, a popular German poet, finds himself in Paris when Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated. Within days, Schiller is called back to Germany, then rushed into the front lines of the German army as it violently advances across Belgium and France in a frantic push to capture Paris and win the war. Violets for Sergeant Schiller details WW I as experienced by a sensitive man unwillingly drawn into the glamor, glory, and horrors of all-out war, and how those experiences change his life forever.