Rating: 
Summary: Heroic but Bumbling: Kaiser Bill's Ineffectual Secret Agents
Review: Though iron-willed, heroic and indefatigable, the agents whom Imperial Germany sent to destabilise the British Empire via its Islamic peoples and neighbours come across as a bumbling group of amateurs, none of them in the Lawrence mould. The plots themselves, if such a collection of hare-brained, ill-planned and poorly-supported ventures merit such a description, proved incompetent in the extreme. The reader is left with conflicting feelings of admiration for the agents'dedication and courage and of contempt, mingled with pity, for their ineffectual blunderings outside their intellectual depth and cultural sympathies. The story is an entertaining one however, well told by Mr.Hopkirk, who must have gone to incredible lengths to gather the material. At the end of it one realises that Richard Hanny and Sandie Arbutnoth, not to mention Pieter Pienaar, could just as well have stayed at home - the Germans would have done the job for them if left to their own devices!
Rating: 
Summary: Like Hidden Fire
Review: When it comes to history, many of the most engrossing books are what the French call "haute vulgarisation"-popularizing studies with an emphasis on a tale well-told. Like Hidden Fire is this; but it is more too, rescuing from obscurity a forgotten yet critical series of events during World War I. Hopkirk recounts how the Germans and Ottomans worked together from 1914 on to dislodge the British and Russians from the Caucasus, Iran, and Central Asia. For the Germans, this was the route to India; for the Turks, it offered a Pan-Turkic realm. Even readers versed in twentieth-century history will probably shake their head in amazement at their own ignorance of the German role in this jihad, a story full of drama and memorable figures. Highlights include the career of Wilhelm Wassmuss, "the German Lawrence," singlehandedly causing havoc for the British in southern Iran; the Niedermeyer-Hentig expedition to Afghanistan which came close to lighting the fuse of revolution in India; the near-success of Prince Henry of Reuss, Germany's minister to the shah's court, in bringing Iran into the war on the Entente side; and how the loss of a German codebook in the Persian desert contributed to the United States entry into the war. In addition, Hopkirk also tells the remarkable tale of British diplomats, spies, and soldiers in the anti-Soviet rebellion in Baku. The Great War so profoundly changed the Middle East that its consequences continue to be felt; therefore, the events described in Like Hidden Fire need urgently to be incorporated into the standard history. Middle East Quarterly, March 1995
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