A long time ago, John Miller emigrated from Germany to America. Now he wants his daughter Elinor to get to know his old homeland and sends her off to Heidelberg, where she is to study for a year. Pretty soon, the pretty young girl is in demand among the young men in town. Especially the students Dahlberg and Bornemann try to win Elinor's heart.
Following the Battle of Jena in 1806 as the French armies commanded by Napoleon overrun Prussia, a small detachment of Prussian troops take up position in a windmill and resolve fight to the last man to hold them off for as long as possible. Meanwhile, the windmill owner's daughter chooses to stay and fight alongside them.
Prevented from wedding a postman's daughter (her father prefers she marry a farmer) a Tyrol schoolteacher succeeds instead in having an opera of his acceptance in Vienna. But this isn't the happiness he wanted, he becomes a hobo.
