The Wider War

The definitive history of the African and Middle Eastern theatres of the First World War, from the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Passchendaele and The Eastern Front

In the third and final volume of his landmark First World War trilogy, Nick Lloyd tells the story of the brutal but oft-forgotten struggles in Africa and the Middle East. As the Ottomans threw in their lot with the Germans in one of the most consequential gambles of the twentieth-century, the European war was transformed into a vast global conflict fought from the sands of Egypt and Mesopotamia to the dramatic mountain ranges of the Caucasus.

Reconstructing some of the most important campaigns of modern history, including the catastrophic British defeat at Gallipoli in 1915, the Arab Revolt in the Hejaz and the capture of Jerusalem in December 1917, this volume also explores the so-called ‘side shows’ in the colonial world as fighting spread across Africa. Perhaps more than any other front, ‘the wider war’ with its endless sand dunes and blistering heat required huge amounts of resources and manpower, fatally unbalancing the structures of European imperial rule.

Following the major figures of the war, from the mercurial Ottoman leader Enver Pasha to Germany’s ‘lion of Africa’ Colonel Lettow-Vorbeck, from the legendary T.E. Lawrence to the energetic First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, The Wider War is the epic conclusion to a monumental trilogy. Based on hundreds of previously untranslated sources, it describes how the Ottoman empire joined the war, only to collapse in 1918, with the Allied powers redrawing the map of the Middle East and setting the terms for a troubled century ahead.

Praise for The Eastern Front:

‘Masterly’ Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
‘Essential reading’ Margaret Macmillan, Financial Times
‘A masterwork’ Simon Sebag Montefiore
‘Magisterial’ Serhii Plokhy