Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Nick Higham
Book: Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution, and the Forgotten Battle of World War One (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Release Date: October 10, 2025

This episode spotlights Nick Higham’s latest book, which uncovers the little-known story of the British military adventure in Baku (present-day Azerbaijan) at the end of World War I. Eschewing the well-trodden trenches of France, this narrative follows a cadre of unconventional British soldiers, diplomats, and spies—“mavericks”—through empire, revolution, oil intrigues, and the peripheries of the Great War. Higham shares how he reconstructed these "forgotten histories," the vivid personalities at the heart of the story, and how their postwar lives reflect deep themes in imperial and personal adventure.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Origins of the Book and Its Subjects

• Higham’s Journey to the Story ([02:47])
  • Retired from the BBC, Higham stumbled upon Ronald Sinclair’s home movies of pre-WWII India, spurring curiosity about Sinclair’s unusual travels.
  • Further research unearthed Sinclair’s involvement (and those of other mavericks) in a “forgotten battle” in Baku during 1918.
  • The book follows five key adventurers—soldiers, spies, oilmen—whose exploits connect through this pivotal campaign.

“There was this extraordinary collection of really colorful people, so I focused on five of them, Sinclair is one of them, and tried to tell the story of the battle...but also their biographies, their backstories and what happened to them after the battle.”
—Nick Higham [04:14]

Researching Forgotten History: Sources and Pitfalls

• Piecing Together Truth from Memoir, Diary, and Official Record ([05:25])
  • Three main sources: unpublished/published memoirs, contemporary diaries and letters, and a “avalanche” of India Office official records (memos, minutes, cables) archived in the British Library.
  • Diaries and memoirs, though first-person, often distorted by selective memory or outright fiction. Higham had to cross-verify through official cables and documentation to separate fact from invention.

“One of the problems is that people who write diaries and then put them in the public domain often rewrite them...And in one case, candidly, I came to the conclusion rather reluctantly that the memoirs written by one of my characters, half of them, were simply made up, pure invention.”
—Nick Higham [07:19]

Setting the Stage: Why Baku, and Why “Mavericks”?

• Strategic Importance of Baku ([08:42], [10:52])
  • The Russian Revolution & the Eastern Front collapse opened the Caucasus to Turkish-German expansion.
  • Baku was a critical oil city—by 1900, half the world’s oil came from there. British concerns centered on denying its resources to the enemy and preventing strategic instability in Persia and British India.
• Lionel Dunsterville: The Archetypal Maverick ([08:42–13:14])
  • Major General Dunsterville’s mission: undertake the near-impossible, bribe local factions to resist the Turks, and travel 600+ miles across snowbound, mountainous terrain in midwinter.
  • Chosen not just for rank, but for his reputation as the real-life template for “Stalky,” Rudyard Kipling’s mischievous, resourceful schoolboy hero.

“Everybody knew, including the planners at the war office in London, that Lionel Dunsterville was the model for Stalky. And they thought what we need here is someone who’s not only militarily experienced but somebody who’s kind of got a Stalky like ability to think outside the box.”
—Nick Higham [12:32]

Other Key Mavericks: Motivations and Engagements

• MacDonell and Noel: Diplomats, Oilmen, Adventurers ([13:33])
  • MacDonell: Oil company executive and vice consul in Baku, instrumental in the British liaison efforts and covert money transfers to sway local powers.
  • Edward Noel: Adventurous vice consul in Persia, skilled at dealing with local tribes crucial to British oil interests. His role as a behind-the-scenes fixer remains mysterious—even to his superiors.
• Unconventional, Multilingual, and Not Always “Posh” ([17:29–19:48])
  • Aside from Sinclair (born to a Liverpool schoolmaster), the team was largely drawn from elite backgrounds. Sinclair’s own “social ascent” came through linguistic gifts (Russian, German, French, Indian languages) and continental education.

The World They Operated In: Risk, Mobility, Secret War

• Hazards of Operating on the Imperial Periphery ([20:17])
  • Persia (nominally neutral) was famine-stricken, war-torn, and riddled with tribal strife. The British missions crossed deserts and mountains in cars and trucks on terrain barely suited for mules—a logistical nightmare.
  • Dunsterville’s column was civil-military, not built for direct combat, yet perpetually at risk.

“This was not country where wheeled vehicles were particularly welcome or particularly at home...You know, this was a hazardous business.”
—Nick Higham [21:53]

Escalation: The Forgotten Battle of Baku

• Secret Missions and Hush-Hush Armies ([22:35])
  • Dunsterville delayed in Persia due to Bolshevik hostility; in the interim, he does local famine relief with a practical eye (“money he pays them will enable them to buy food for themselves and their families.” [23:24]).
  • Reaches Baku with 1,200–1,500 troops, including a contingent of especially tough officers—possibly proto-Special Forces—drawn from the “White Dominions.”
• The Battle’s Outcome ([27:19])
  • Forced to defend Baku with little local support; after six weeks of tough fighting, British and allies evacuate under threat. Tactically a defeat, but the delay “kept the oil-rich city out of enemy hands for six weeks”—a strategic partial win.

Dangerous Retreat and Daring Escapes

• Dramatic Exfiltration, Near Disaster ([27:24])
  • Evacuation led by Dunsterville; especially harrowing for Colonel Toby Rawlinson, who alleged he sailed out of Baku under fire, having threatened to blow up his own dynamite-laden ship rather than surrender.

“[Rawlinson] stands there on the bridge with his gun to this chap's head...lines the bridge with, with piled up cases of dynamite containing extremely...fragile detonators...The gunships at the harbor mouth, Julie, open fire...but astonishingly, the dynamite doesn't go off.”
—Nick Higham [29:02]

Aftermath: Maverick Lives in Peacetime

• War Doesn't End for Everyone in 1918 ([30:25–34:22])
  • Rawlinson: Imprisoned by Turkish nationalists, starved, barely survives as the British government fails to act.
  • Dunsterville: Retires with financial difficulties, founds the Kipling Society, keeps up his reputation as a kind of “elder maverick.”
  • MacDonell: Shifts from adventurer to journalist and author of an unreliable but entertaining memoir.
  • Noel: Becomes a north-west frontier commissioner, radio enthusiast, pursues outlandish schemes like charcoal-fueled cars (which immediately fail).
• Sinclair/"Reginald T. Jones": Living With a Deadly Secret ([34:22–43:40])
  • After the war, Sinclair (born Reg Jones) is haunted by Soviet claims that he masterminded the massacre of the 26 Baku Commissars (actually, a local Transcaspian action), even though he wasn’t present.
  • Spends his life under a new identity; public acknowledgment of his dual life only emerges on his death at age 99.

“He carried this secret with him to the grave...And about three or four weeks after it was published, he died, not surprisingly. And there was an obituary of him in the Times...a second obituary in the Times in which was pointed out that actually he wasn’t Ronald Sinclair, he was in reality Reginald T. Jones and had had an even more colorful life than obituary number one had suggested.”
—Nick Higham [42:15]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On sources and the joy/pitfall of research:

  “The memoirs are just so problematic because people misremember things. People tell stories to make themselves look good or to make what they did sound more exciting...half of them were simply made up, pure invention.”
  —Nick Higham [07:06]

• On the mission’s bizarre qualifications:

  “It was not just what’s on paper...what we need here is someone who’s got a Stalky-like ability to think outside the box. And that, I believe, is why Dunsterville got the job.”
  —Nick Higham [13:05]

• On cultural/language skill:

  “One of the things about these people that astonishes me is their command of language...someone who is, you know, barely able to express himself, even in schoolboy French—I find this staggering.”
  —Nick Higham [19:20]

• On the realities of operating on the imperial fringes:

  “Their racist assumptions, the anti-Semitism, it’s very hard to take. They had wonderful qualities, but they were also, by our modern standards, often rather sort of Neolithic in their attitudes.”
  —Nick Higham [33:24]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Book Genesis & Research Methods: [02:36]–[08:19]
• Enter the Mavericks—Who Were They? [08:19]–[16:59]
• The Mission in Context: Baku's Oil, Geopolitics, WWI: [08:42]–[13:14]
• Class, Language & Maverick Characteristics: [17:29]–[20:17]
• Hazards and Logistics of the Persian-Caucasus Campaign: [20:17]–[22:35]
• Escalation & Outcome: The Battle and Its Aftermath: [22:35]–[30:25]
• Postwar Fates and Lingering Legacies: [30:25]–[43:40]
• Projects on the Horizon for Nick Higham: [44:13]–[46:47]

Further Reading & Next Steps

• Higham alludes to possible future works on other eccentric British imperialists, Victorian fraudsters, and a quirky social/art history of laundry.
• The book, Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution, and the Forgotten Battle of World War One, is now available from Bloomsbury.

For Listeners Wanting More

This episode offers a thrilling, often humorous but rigorous deep dive into a neglected theater of WWI, full of vivid personalities, imperial panic, daring escapes, tragic and comic postwar lives, and a frank look at both the admirable and problematic qualities of British adventurers. Higham’s storytelling and Dr. Melcher’s probing questions deliver a true slice of historical adventure—with all its mess, myth, and magic.