本剧由英国女作家Olivia Manning的同名系列小说改编。 二战初期，年轻的英国文学讲师Guy Pringle和他的新婚妻子Harriet是罗马尼亚首都布加勒斯特的英国社区中的成员。 电视剧围绕他们的生活轨道及感情发展，记载了战后与他们有着种种交集的形形色色的人群，其中包括外交官、间谍、文学工作者、没落贵族、男女同等等。

Fortunes of War is a 1987 BBC television adaptation of Olivia Manning's cycle of novels Fortunes of War. It stars Kenneth Branagh as Guy Pringle, lecturer in English Literature in Bucharest during the early part of the Second World War, and Emma Thompson as his wife Harriet. Other cast members included Ronald Pickup, Robert Stephens, Alan Bennett, Philip Madoc and Rupert Graves. The series stays relatively faithful to the original novels, with no notable departures from their plot.