<P> The play takes place during the 1885 Serbo - Bulgarian War . Its heroine , Raina Petkoff , is a young Bulgarian woman engaged to Sergius Saranoff , one of the heroes of that war , whom she idolizes . On the night after the Battle of Slivnitza , a Swiss mercenary soldier in the Serbian army , Captain Bluntschli , climbs in through her bedroom balcony window and threatens to shoot Raina if she gives the alarm . When Russian and Bulgarian troops burst in to search the house for him , Raina hides him so that he wo n't be killed . He asks her to remember that `` nine soldiers out of ten are born fools . '' In a conversation after the soldiers have left , Bluntschli 's pragmatic and cynical attitude towards war and soldiering shocks the idealistic Raina , especially after he admits that he uses his ammunition pouches to carry chocolates rather than cartridges for his pistol . When the search dies down , Raina and her mother Catherine sneak Bluntschli out of the house , disguised in one of Raina 's father 's old coats . </P>
when does the first act of arms and the man take place
during the 1885 Serbo - Bulgarian War