Historian David Olusoga explains how the First World War spread far beyond the trenches of France and Belgium. Germany enrolled the Muslim peoples of North Africa and the Middle East to join a Jihad against the allies. In East Africa, German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck led an army of African troops in a bitter insurgency war against the enemy forces, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Historian David Olusoga explores how, when the European powers went to war, they immediately drew on the military resources of their respective empires. Sikhs, Gurkhas, Garhwalis and Pathans from the British Raj and Spahis, Zouaves and Senegalese from French North and West Africa were thrown into the front lines of World War I and were among the first to experience the hell of trench warfare.