Product Description

Under the banner of a Holy War, masterminded in Berlin and unleashed from Constantinople, the Germans and the Turks set out in 1914 to foment violent revolutionary uprisings against the British in India and the Russians in Central Asia. It was a new and more sinister version of the old Great Game, with world domination as its ultimate aim.
German hawks dreamed of driving the British out of India and creating a vast new Teutonic empire in the East, using their Turkish ally as a springboard. At the same time Turkey's leaders aimed to free the Muslim peoples of Central Asia from the Tsarist yoke - and rule them themselves as part of a new Ottoman empire.

The shadowy and often bloody struggle which followed was fought out between the intelligence services of King, Kaiser, Sultan and Tsar. It was to spill over into Persia, Afghanistan, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and be felt as far afield as the United States and China. It was around this colossal conspiracy that John Buchan wove his immortal spy story Greenmantle.

Here, told in epic detail and for the first time, is the extraordinary story of the Turco-German jihad of the First World War, recounted through the adventures and misadventures of the secret agents and others who took part in it. Pieced together from the secret intelligence reports of the day and the long-forgotten memoirs of the
participants, Peter Hopkirk's latest narrative is an enthralling sequel to his best-selling The Great Game, and his three earlier works set in Central Asia. It is also highly topical in view of recent events in this volatile region where the Great Game has never really ceased. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and fears of a resurgent Russia and Germany add greatly to its significance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #581534 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

About the Author
Peter Hopkirk has travelled widely over many years in the regions where his six books are set - Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, India and Pakistan, Iran, and Eastern Turkey. Before turning full-time author, he was an ITN reporter and newscaster for two years, the New York correspondent of the Daily Express, and worked for nearly twenty years on The Times: five as its chief reporter, and latterly as a Middle and Far East specialist. In the 1950s he edited the West
African news magazine Drum, sister-paper to its legendary South African namesake. Before entering Fleet Street he served as a subaltern in the King's African Rifles - in the same battalion as lance-corporal Idi Amin, later to emerge as the Ugandan tyrant. No stranger to misadventure, Hopkirk has twice been held in secret police cells - in Cuba and the Middle East - and has also been hijacked by Arab terrorists. His works have been translated into thirteen languages.

Customer Reviews

The most gripping reads I've had in ages.
If you have any interest at all in the intrigue of The Great Game or you have read John Buchans "Greenmantle" this is an absolute must. This has to be one of the easiest factual books I've ever read, with all the suspense of a thriller novel in the form of historical accounts. I honestly couldn't put the book down.

Another masterpiece
In this book, Hopkirk takes up where 'The Great Game' ended. In it, he examines Axis attempts to divert British resources and effort away from the Western Front during World War One. It is an intriguing story. Who would have known about the battle for Kut? Who could have guessed at the presence of pro-German Swedish officers in the Persian police? No matter how much you think you know about history, you will learn something from Hopkirk.

Well recommended
Peter Hopkirk's book is an excellent read, covering aspects of history in these distant lands that often get overshadowed or overlooked by those more familair with the better known campaigns of the Great War and it's aftermath.

It's a great account of the plots and dangers endured and experienced as the Empire tried to adapt to the vaccuum left by the collapse of Tsarist Russia, and the rise of Republics and Bolshevism throughout Central Asia.

Into this maelstrom you find some incredible characters who went to great lengths to bring safety and security out of the chaos and anarchy. Once you start reading Hopkirk's easy going narrative, you find yourself drawn in - indeed, it is hard to put this book down.