About the book (from Wikipedia):
One of Bailey’s more well-known adventures occurred in 1918, when he travelled to Tashkent in Central Asia on a mission to discover the intentions of the new Bolshevik government, specifically in relation to India. During the mission, he also shadowed Raja Mahendra Pratap, an Indian nationalist who had established the Provisional Government of India in Kabul in 1915. Pratap was liaising with Germany and Bolshevik authorities for a joint Soviet-German assault into India through Afghanistan. It was then that the first plans for the Soviet Kalmyk Project was first considered. Bailey eventually had to flee for his life from the city and escaped only by taking on the guise of an Austrian prisoner-of-war and joining the Cheka with an assignment to find a rogue British agent, himself. Upon his return to England, he was a national hero. Bailey later recorded his exploits in his book Mission to Tashkent.
About the author (from Wikipedia):
Frederick Marshman Bailey CIE FRGS (3 February 1882, Lahore, British India – 17 April 1967, Stiffkey, Norfolk) was a British political officer and one of the last protagonists of The Great Game. His expeditions in Tibet and Assam Himalaya gave him many opportunities to pursue his hobbies of photography, butterfly collecting, and trophy hunting in the high Tibetan region. Over 2000 of his bird specimens were presented to The Natural History Museum, although his personal collection is now held in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. His papers and extensive photograph collections are held in the British Library, London.
