The Hush Hush Army: British Adventures in Central Asia during the First World War
Ian Senior

On 29 January 1918, an elite group of British and Dominion soldiers, fresh from the Western Front, left London’s Waterloo Station on a journey that would transform their lives. Known unofficially as the Hush-Hush Army, they were bound for Baku in Central Asia. Their secret mission was to prevent Turkish troops from crossing the Caspian Sea, advancing through Afghanistan and invading India, the jewel in the crown of the British Empire.

Using diaries, regimental histories and unpublished archival material, The Hush Hush Army tells how they fought the Turks at Baku and seized control of the Caspian Sea from the Bolshevik fleet with the help of a Royal Naval flotilla. They also overcame heavily-armed tribal warriors, rescued thousands of Armenian women and children from being massacred by the Turks, saved large numbers of Persians from starvation and fought alongside Russian Cossacks. They were supported by British secret agents who gathered intelligence, blew up enemy fuel and tyre dumps, rescued stranded Tsarist generals and took part in clandestine meetings with anti-Bolshevik conspirators.

It is fascinating but forgotten chapter in British military history, full of intrigue, daring and heroism which could have come from the pages of the Boy’s Own Paper or a John Buchan novel. For the soldiers who took part, it was a golden opportunity to escape from the Flanders’ mud and the horrors of the Somme; for the secret agents who smoothed their way it was a continuation of the Great Game which their spiritual ancestors played in the wilderness of the Hindu Kush and the deserts of Turkestan; for all of them, soldiers and secret agents alike, it was a life-changing and unforgettable adventure