Buchan’s life in politics and his work for the Intelligence Corps gave him knowledge and an insight that few others could have at the time. Packed with incident and incredible feats of derring-do the story culminates at the offensive. Blenkiron make their different ways to Constantinople to find the elusive Greenmantle and do what they can to avert disaster.īut who is Greenmantle and what dastardly part has the sinister fanatic Hilda von Einem to play in the game which will determine the outcome of the war. Pursued by the barbaric General Stumm, Hannay and his old South African friend and teacher Peter Pienaar with fellow soldier Sandy Arbuthnot and American engineer and less than ‘nootral’ John S. In an attempt to manipulate their Turkish allies the Germans have created a religious figurehead, a prophet of a new order to unify the disparate tribes of Asia and crush the allied offensive. Robert Baden-Powell and the Russian imperial family both read the book when it was first released as they awaited the outcome of the revolution in 1917.The second of Richard Hannay's adventures takes him from the trenches of the First World War on a mission of vital importance to the British campaign in the East. Bullivant informs Hannay on the Middle Eastern political situation, implying that the Germans and their Turkish allies are planning to incite a Muslim rebellion that will destabilize the region as well as India and North Africa. Senior intelligence officer Sir Walter Bullivant summons Hannay to the Foreign Office.

Hannay and his friend Sandy are in the book's opening scene recovering from injuries sustained during the Battle of Loos in November 1915. Once there, he and his companions must foil German efforts to exploit religion as a weapon of victory, which will culminate in the battle of Erzurum. Hannay travels through dangerous enemy territory to see his friend Sandy in Constantinople after being asked to look into reports of an insurrection in the Muslim world. The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), Hannay's earliest and best-known adventure, takes place in the years just before the war. The other Hannay book set during the Great War is Mr. London's Hodder & Stoughton published it for the first time in 1916. The second of John Buchan's five books with the Richard Hannay character is titled Greenmantle.

Greenmantle by john buchan