Completes a trilogy of books by Edward J. Erickson on the conventional wars of the Ottoman and Turkish armies in the early 20th century, the first two of which are Defeat in Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–1913 (2003) and Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War (2001).

With no comprehensive English-language military history available, fills a massive gap in our understanding of this important war and Turkey's founding on the centenary of Turkey's birth

Contains the first reconciliation of combatant estimates of military and civilian casualties in the Turkish War of Independence

Analyzes the Turkish War of Independence as an early example of modern "hybrid-war" (combination of differing types of wars—in this case, simultaneously conventional, unconventional, counterinsurgency, and political-economic-information warfare)