In early 1918, as World War I rages and the National Schism between royalists and Venizelists reaches its peak, two German submarines cross the Adriatic twenty days apart and secretly land on the shores of Messenia with two Greek officers each.

Their mission is to convey instructions from King Constantine, who is then exiled in Switzerland, to his son Alexander, who reigns in Athens at a time when Venizelos is in power. The fate of the first two is known: immediate arrest, trial, conviction for espionage, and execution by firing squad.

The fate of the other two – who hid in a barn in a Messinian village for thirty-two months until Venizelos fell in November 1920 – is revealed here with the publication of the manuscripts that the officers themselves had drafted. The manuscripts come from the family archive of the author, who brings them to light.

The book, published to mark the centenary of the events of 1915–1920, highlights the civil strife, fear, and deadlocks that characterized those times.