The Dardanelles Conspiracy

January 1915. After Johnny Swift is caught warning German soldiers about a trench raid, the former diplomat avoids execution only by accepting a secret mission to Constantinople. Britain hopes that money and negotiation might detach the Ottoman government from the Central Powers and reopen the Dardanelles, offering the Allies an alternative to the deadlock on the Western Front. Swift must navigate rival embassies, factional politics and the influence of Ottoman leaders including Enver Pasha while his old adversary Lazlo Breitner works against him.

When diplomacy fails, the story moves into the military campaign at the Dardanelles and Gallipoli under General Sir Ian Hamilton. Swift is carried from clandestine bargaining into the consequences of Allied strategic overconfidence, difficult terrain and determined Ottoman defence. Bardos combines the little-known effort to bribe the Ottoman government with the opening battles of one of the First World War’s most costly failed campaigns, using Swift’s search for redemption to connect intelligence, diplomacy and battlefield disaster.