The Wildest Province

Oct 10, 2024 3:15 PM

Author:Roderick Bailey

In 1943, small teams of elite British soldiers began parachuting into the mountains of Axis-occupied Albania. They were members of Britain's Special Operations Executive, and their task was to find and arm bands of local guerillas and harass the Axis as best they could. None had been to Albania before, or knew what awaited them.

Trying to survive in extreme conditions and formidable terrain, these young Britons lived in constant danger of capture and death, and were plagued by illness, lice and frostbite. Casualties were appalling and most guerillas keener to kill each other than fight Italians and Germans. In his extraordinary new book, Roderick Bailey draws on interviews with survivors, long-hidden diaries and recently declassified files to tell the full story of this remarkable corner of SOE history and finally settle the question of whether or not British communists in SOE, perhaps even colleagues of the Cambridge spies, had conspired to betray British interests.

Reviews

What makes Bailey's book so readable is not only his grasp of strategy but his hold on tactics and personalities.... The Wildest Province...establishes him as a modern historian of great skill... Anyone interested in human nature under stress, or problems of counter-insurgency, or sheer adventure, will read it with profit

—— Literary Review

This is a gripping account of two wars...a rich and rounded account...he has mastered a mass of complex material, and analysed it with great clarity and fairness...it is hard to imagine the task being done better than this... History more breathtaking than any thriller

—— Sunday Telegraph

Reminiscent of John Buchan and The Thirty-Nine Steps... Extreme stuff

—— Daily Mail

Beautifully written and impeccably researched... a compelling work and by far the most comprehensive yet undertaken on the subject...The Wildest Province is a must-have acquisition for anyone remotely interested in the region, the war, its politics or the experiences of the men who fought there. I devoured the book quickly

—— The Times

A tribute to average men with the guts to be extraordinary... The author's research is monumental

—— Sunday Express

An admirable work of erudition

—— Scotland on Sunday

A tremendous work of scholarship

—— Daily Telegraph

Thanks to the excellent investigative work of Roderick Bailey we now have this gripping account of the British soldiers who fought with the partisans in occupied Albania... tells in pacy details the considerable hardships in their struggle to survive... this is an unknown but important chapter in war history, which has now found a fine chronicler'

—— Denis MacShane (Minister for the Balkans 2001-2005) , Financial Times

Authoritative... More than a decade's study and an impressive range of archival and oral sources has allowed him to weave a complex but engrossing story

—— Times Literary Supplement

[Bailey's] accomplished account makes grim reading

—— Max Hastings , Sunday Times

For any biographer this would be a dream of a life, but Snyder is exceptional in bringing not only a vast expertise to the subject, but also an elegant style and gift for narrative.

—— Christopher Hart , The Sunday Times

An engaging portrait of a little-known and puzzling character

—— Ian Pinder , Guardian

The talented historian Timothy Snyder recounts an intriguing life-history against the turbulent backdrop of east-central Europe in the first half of the 20th century

—— History Magazine

Timothy Snyder is not only one of the leading authorities on Central European history writing today, he is also an elegant stylist, with a talent for storytelling - a wonderful combination

—— Anne Applebaum

It reads like Sovietology rendered by John le Carré

—— Timothy Snyder

The book is well written with flashes of mordant humour and sufficient records of personal foibles and institutional stupidity to keep the reader going through some dreadful moments of human history

—— Political Studies Review

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