On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Great Game and the Great War (Not a Series) - Tapa dura

Under the banner of a Holy War, masterminded in Berlin and unleashed from Constantinople, the Germans and 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 spy story "Greenmantle". Here, told for the first time, is the extraordinary story of the Turco-German jihad of World War I 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 narrative is a sequel to his best-selling "The Great Game" and his three earlier works set in Central Asia. It is also a highly topical one in view of recent events in this volatile region where "the Great Game" has never really ceased.

Peter Hopkirk travelled widely in the regions where his six books are set: Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, Russia, India and Pakistan, Iran, and Eastern Turkey. He worked as an ITN reporter, the New York correspondent of the old Daily Express, and - for twenty years - on The Times. No stranger to misadventure, he was twice held in secret police cells and has was also hijacked by Arab terrorists. His works have been translated into many languages. All six of his books are available from John Murray: THE GREAT GAME, ON SECRET SERVICE EAST OF CONSTANTINOPLE, SETTING THE EAST ABLAZE, TRESPASSERS ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD, FOREIGN DEVILS ON THE SILK ROAD and QUEST FOR KIM.