Fierce, restless and with a rich portfolio of interests, Francis Rodd was always looking for a new project to feed an insatiable curiosity for life. Different worlds intersected in a career packed with activity, sometimes combining easily and at other times jostling with each other for attention. The two world wars in a variety of ways gave shape and purpose to his life, with military intelligence and military government being important areas of focus. In between the conflicts, and after the Second World War, much of his time was devoted to geography and banking. Along the way, he made friends with Lawrence of Arabia, talked with Benito Mussolini, spent time with Charles de Gaulle and fell out with Anthony Eden. He inhabited that privileged echelon of British society satirised by novelist Nancy Mitford – his sister-in-law. The high point of his career came in 1943 when he was given the task of heading the first military government in Allied-occupied Europe – he was chief civil affairs officer in the organisation known as AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories). He proved a controversial figure. He had obvious leadership skills and a good knowledge of Italy, but some thought him difficult or eccentric, and there were those on the left who feared that his pre-war business activities had brought him too close to the Italian regime. Nowadays he is little known. This book is a study of his life, with particular reference to his involvement in geography, banking, intelligence and military government, and his political convictions and religious beliefs.

Rodd first came to public attention for his travels to the south-central Sahara in the 1920s. He had been at Eton and Oxford before the outbreak of the First World War, after which he spent a year on the Western Front. Wartime duties in Italy, North Africa and the Middle East followed. An interest in the desert was awakened in these years, which then found expression in expeditions he made to the Aïr mountains in the French colony of Niger in 1922 and 1927. An outcome of the first of these was a study of the culture and history of the Tuareg, People of the Veil (1926), his most influential work. For his journeys and publications, he was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in 1929.