Stalky’s Forlorn Hope

When Russia crashed out of the First World War following the Revolution in 1917, Britain was desperate to prevent its German and Turkish enemies seizing the oil-rich port of Baku on the Caspian Sea. But the country had few soldiers to spare and Baku was hundreds of miles from the nearest British army. So a ramshackle plan was hastily thrown together by officials with little local knowledge to block the Turks, and a small group of enterprising, fearless and often reckless men were tasked with implementing it. One was a charismatic and unorthodox career soldier, who had been the model for one of Rudyard Kipling’s most popular characters. One was a Scottish aristocrat and diplomat who smuggled millions of roubles for the war effort. One was a brilliant inventor and the younger brother of one of the British army’s most senior generals. One was a seemingly indestructible soldier who was held hostage for five months in horrific conditions. The fifth was a spy who printed his own currency and would eventually emerge as an author at the age of ninety-nine.

Nick Higham is a writer and former journalist who spent nearly thirty years as a BBC correspondent. His history of London's water, The Mercenary River, was published in 2022. Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One is his second book.

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