Book summary “The Confidence Men”: summary

Introduction

You often assume that survival in extreme captivity requires brute force or physical endurance. When you face total isolation and brutal psychological pressure, standard resistance plans usually fail. You need an entirely different kind of leverage to overcome insurmountable odds.

Margalit Fox demonstrates that two captive British officers used fraudulent spiritualism and stage magic to escape a remote Ottoman prison camp during World War I. Elias Henry Jones and Cedric Waters Hill engineered a complex psychological manipulation called the Spook Con to control their captors.

The book traces this incredible journey through several distinct stages. You will see how soldiers plunged into despair at Yozgad and built an elaborate deception. You will learn how they mastered clandestine codes and feigned mental illness to secure their freedom.

• How do you construct a believable supernatural con under constant surveillance?
• What psychological vulnerabilities allow you to manipulate hostile guards?
• When your primary escape plan collapses, how do you improvise a successful fallback strategy?

1. Catastrophe in Mesopotamia

Britain's disastrous military campaign in Mesopotamia led to the siege of Kut-al-Amara and a brutal forced march that landed thousands of officers and men in isolated Ottoman prison camps.

Force D was sent with imprecise maps, insufficient shallow-draft ships, and inadequate supplies. You faced blistering summer heat up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade alongside a relentless plague of biting insects. The average summer temperature in London reached only 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Soldiers remarked that if Mesopotamia was the Garden of Eden, it would not have needed an angel with a flaming sword to keep them out.

The Siege and Surrender of Kut

The five-month siege of Kut-al-Amara resulted in a catastrophic British surrender after relief attempts failed and starvation decimated the garrison. Trapped by Ottoman forces in a river loop, 12,000 British and Indian troops exhausted their rations. You resorted to eating horses, mules, weeds, and stray animals while disease ran rampant during the 147 days duration of the siege.

A wag in the officers' mess set out an empty dessert dish with an awl and a sign reading Not to Be Denied, May Be Used for Making Another Hole in Your Belt.

The campaign accumulated 33,000 total British casualties against 9,000 Ottoman casualties. Major General Charles Townshend offered a ₤2 million ransom to Enver Pasha before surrendering 12,000 men at Kut.

The March into Captivity

Following the surrender at Kut, surviving British prisoners endured a horrific forced march across deserts and mountains to interior camps. While officers received slightly better treatment such as riding horses or carts part of the way, other ranks walked nearly the entire distance under brutal conditions. This journey generated a staggering 48 percent mortality rate by October 1918 for British other ranks captured at Kut.

Major Edward Sandes recorded that guards forced donkeys to foul clean water ponds before thirsty captives were permitted to sample stagnant water during the 370 miles desert trek distance from Samarra to Raas-al-Ain.

You were sent to Yozgad as a high-security prison camp for incorrigibles because its extreme geographic isolation made escape virtually impossible without internal cooperation. Situated over 4,000 feet above sea level in Anatolia, the camp had no barbed wire. The surrounding jagged mountains, desert, and hostile brigands guaranteed death for escapees, compounded by harsh retaliatory strafing policies against remaining prisoners.

The camp sat 150 miles south of the Black Sea and 300 miles north of the Mediterranean, requiring a 5 days journey by cart to reach the Angora railway station. Major Edward Sandes and other British officers noted that solitary travelers stood no chance against the hundreds of thousands of brigands roaming the countryside.

2. The Spook Con and Spiritualism

Captive British officers at the isolated Yozgad prison camp resorted to a homemade Ouija board to combat profound psychological deterioration and hopelessness. Confined in harsh conditions after surviving a forced march and battle, officers tried various games before building a makeshift planchette and board using disused packing crates, an iron sheet, and an inverted meat jar.

Elias Henry Jones initiated a fraudulent talking board séance at Yozgad to combat psychological deterioration, gradually converting hardened skeptics into believers.

The History of Talking Boards

Talking boards were commercially invented in the late nineteenth century as a faster alternative to traditional spiritualist rappings and were marketed as both serious spiritual tools and parlor games. Capitalizing on Victorian spiritualist fervor, Elijah Bond patented the Ouija or Egyptian luck-board in 1891 after commercial production began under Charles Kennard. The board utilized a planchette with a pointer and letters of the alphabet to allow users to ask questions, bridging serious inquiry with lighthearted parlor amusement.

Charles Kennard established the Kennard Novelty Company in Baltimore in 1890, operating six factories in the United States and one in London by 1892. During this era, approximately 8 million spiritualists lived in the United States and Europe.

Executing the Spook Con

Apparent supernatural movements of divination objects are scientifically explained by motor automatism or ideomotor action, where unconscious muscle movements occur independently of conscious will. First defined by English physiologist William Benjamin Carpenter in 1852, motor automatism arises during altered states of consciousness like reverie. The individual acts as a thinking automaton while hands move objects like planchette boards without the person realizing they are directing the motion.

Undergraduate Gertrude Stein and Leon Solomons demonstrated this divided consciousness in 1896 by reading aloud consciously while their hands automatically wrote prose on a planchette.

Elias Henry Jones and William O’Farrell sat across from the board every evening until Jones successfully manipulated it to spell out messages from a fictitious spirit named Sally. Lieutenant Jones successfully manufactured a fraudulent spiritualist group at Yozgad to alleviate the crushing monotony of captivity, eventually converting hardened skeptics through careful memorization and tactile navigation of the board.

Beginning with a polished iron plate and pasted-around alphabet letters, Jones manually guided the glass to spell out messages from a fictitious spirit named Sally. To survive rigorous testing by skeptical officers, he memorized letter locations, utilized hidden nicks on the board's wooden ring to orient himself with his thumb in the dark, and deflected suspicion onto his innocent partner, Doc O'Farrell.

Major Sandes, initially a total skeptic who inspected the board during a dark evening séance, was fully converted to a believer after the glass moved seemingly untouched beneath his fingers.

3. Stagecraft and Secret Communications

The conspirators mastered clandestine communication codes, parcel smuggling, and magical stagecraft techniques to build a long con that ensnared the camp commandant.

Ciphers and Contraband

Prisoners communicated war news and requested forbidden items past censors by embedding secret codes into everyday letters and postcards. Captives took advantage of relaxed letter restrictions by writing seemingly mundane messages where key elements, such as the initial letters of words or the choice of a specific keyword, formed hidden texts, while unorthodox addresses served as biblical references or warning signals.

Jones sent a postcard to his wife starting with the Welsh word Darllenwch meaning Read!, where the initial letters of the succeeding words spelled out State unsatisfactory. Demand enquiry.

To utilize ciphers successfully in your own correspondence, follow these steps:

• Write a letter or postcard containing seemingly ordinary domestic requests or news.
• Insert a foreign language imperative keyword to alert the recipient that a code is active.
• Construct the message so that the initial letters of the subsequent words spell out the secret communication.

Captives devised ingenious physical methods to smuggle forbidden items and money past Ottoman inspectors during parcel distribution. By masking requests as innocent product preferences in letters, prisoners could receive valuable items like gold coins hidden inside everyday goods and manage the handover right in front of inspecting officers.

Sandes asked his family to add yellow tabloids made in two sizes only, meaning sovereigns and half-sovereigns, to a tin of carbolic tooth-powder, allowing him to successfully retrieve gold coins while Kiazim Bey was distracted by fancy biscuits.

The Mechanics of the Con

To draw targets into a grand scheme, confidence tricksters employ a convincer, a preliminary demonstration that provides a small, manipulated success to prove the validity of the operation. Jones mirrored traditional confidence games by engineering a minor success with a fake treasure hunt, designed to convince his captors of the Spook's reliability and draw out the Commandant.

Jones reburied a rusted Smith & Wesson revolver found on the grounds and orchestrated a theatrical ritual involving ink pools and wood shavings so the Pimple and the Cook would unearth it.

You can execute a convincer by applying these actions:

• Identify a small, obtainable item that can be secretly planted or procured.
• Stage a ritual or guided search procedure to build theatrical tension.
• Allow the target to discover the planted item so they believe in the authenticity of the process.

When targets became overly demanding or skeptical, tricksters weaponized fabricated spiritual threats alongside physical substances to reinforce the illusion of supernatural power. By dosing an overly persistent inquisitor with a potent medical laxative following a spiritual threat of divine punishment, Jones convinced him that the supernatural wrath was entirely real.

Jones dissolved 6 grains of calomel into a cup of cocoa given to the Pimple after the spirit threatened him, causing severe digestive distress that the Pimple attributed entirely to the supernatural.

4. The Partnership with Cedric Hill

Cedric Waters Hill brought exceptional mechanical skills and stage magic expertise to the plot, merging his aviation background with Jones's psychological operation.

Theatrical magic relies heavily on psychological engineering, misdirection, and manipulating human perception rather than mere mechanical tricks. Magicians control how spectators think by establishing authority, using pseudo-explanations, and creating false causation where viewers falsely link an effect to a suggested cause, much like a con man manipulates a mark.

In the 1840s, magician Robert-Houdin suspended his son in the air, attributing the feat to mysterious ether properties to distract the audience from hidden wires.

Magic and Psychology

Cedric Waters Hill cultivated manual dexterity, patience, and precise mechanical skills through engineering and the study of stage magic under Nate Leipzig. Hill grew up on a 20,000-acre Maryvale cattle station and supervised eighty shearing machines on a 220,000-head sheep station.

After sailing to England, Hill lost £4 in the street to a three-card monte confidence game. A young woman Hill frequently met near his boardinghouse handed him a white feather in his buttonhole as a symbol of cowardice for failing to join the war effort, prompting him to report aggressively to the War Office.

Hill copied a 20 lb bomb in shape, size, and weight using a bag made of aeroplane fabric filled with sand. You can replicate this preparation method through specific steps:

• Copy a 20 lb bomb in shape, size, and weight using a bag made of aeroplane fabric filled with sand.
• Make the bomb tail out of tin sheet.
• Cut out and mark fabric pieces to form the bag with minimal sewing effort.
• Set up a bombing range by placing an aiming mark on a shallow flooded area near the Canal to observe the water splash clearly.

From the Cockpit to Captivity

Hill achieved 10-pound distance accuracy during practice drops from 3,000 feet. On February 27, 1916, Hill flew 150 miles east of the Suez Canal to Hassana, dropping a 100-pounder and 20-pound bombs on the Ottoman reservoir from 3,000 feet while under fire.

On May 3, 1916, Hill's engine failed near El Arish, forcing him to burn his aircraft and hold off armed villagers from a dug-out hole with a Lewis gun. After running out of ammunition, Hill offered £50 to Arab villagers to escort him to Romani. He traveled 120 miles on a camel over five days following his capture.

Hill endured grueling journeys to Yozgad, where he trained secretly in the 7-foot walled Hospital House garden by carrying 40 pounds of loose tiles in the basement. On January 30, 1918, Jones approached Hill to gauge his willingness to take risks, leading to a handshake and the initiation of the con game.

5. Engineering the Ultimate Escape

The mediums deployed verbal telepathy codes, staged arrests, and covert photography to force their captors into compliance and set up a treasure hunt escape strategy.

Every confidence game relies on a foundational narrative that shifts authorship of answers to an unquestioned authority. Jones devised a detailed legend about a rich Armenian who buried three gold-filled clues in Yozgad before dying during the war.

The Telepathy Act and Arrest

Stage telepathy can be executed through a highly organized, comprehensive verbal code based on a matrix of objects and interrogatory phrases. Jones and Hill spent three months developing a two-person code where question phrasing indicated rows and columns corresponding to a master list of common objects.

• Compile a list of eighty objects apt to be carried by the audience.
• Arrange the words into a table of sixteen rows and five columns.
• Designate rows by common interrogatory phrases and columns by simple nouns and pronouns.
• Use table-specific prefaces like "Now" or "Now then" to signal expanded object lists.

Hill would ask Jones "Quickly, what have I here?" to indicate a specific row and column in their eighty-object table. On February 17, 1918, Hill used sleight of hand to switch a blank sheet of paper for a forged letter detailing fake military troop movements, which the Pimple then reported to Commandant Kiazim. The Pimple and Kiazim were manipulated into staging a sham espionage trial so Jones and Hill could be sequestered in Colonels' House.

The Treasure Hunt Clues

To maintain absolute control over the guards and enable secret photography, the mediums imposed rigid behavioral conditions disguised as spiritual commands from the ghost KKK. Hill stole a collapsible vest-pocket Kodak from a prisoner's parcel, along with smuggled film and chemicals, practicing drawing and framing the lens daily while Jones talked loudly to mask the shutter click.

• Practice taking out, opening, sighting, and closing the camera in front of a partner daily.
• Talk loudly like a machine gun during the photograph to drown out the click of the shutter.
• Ensure clue hunts are held on sunny days to avoid long exposures that require posing subjects.

During the hunt for Clue 1, Jones and Hill collapsed on a hillside, causing Kiazim, the Cook, and the Pimple to turn their backs and sit down without looking back while Hill snapped photographs. The mediums planned to photograph Commandant Kiazim at close range while he dug for the buried clues to ensure they had independent evidence of his involvement.

6. Certifiable Madness and Repatriation

When the seaside escape plan collapsed, the mediums executed a dangerous fallback plan by feigning severe mental illness to secure medical certificates and freedom.

You must understand how quickly an escape plan can unravel when a well-meaning warning reaches a superstitious commandant. Major X warned Kiazim of a fake escape attempt out of fear that the mediums were marked for execution by OOO, causing the terrified commandant to cancel the trip and forbid escorts from leaving the camp.

Simulating Insanity

Prisoners aiming for a sick-prisoner exchange must establish a secondary con of feigned madness to convince expert medical examiners. You can study medical symptoms of targeted mental disorders from borrowed textbooks and plant forged evidence to support the diagnosis.

To secure official medical leave for travel to Constantinople, Jones and Hill systematically simulated severe mental illness through fasting, exhaustion, and grotesque appearance. You must follow these steps to achieve the same result:

• Fast on dry bread and tea to achieve a starved look.
• Refuse to bathe, shave, or cut hair for two months.
• Leave hair unbrushed so it stands on end.
• Post a hostile notice on the door stating "GO AWAY! WE DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU!"
• Be deliberately and insufferably rude to any visitors.

When British comrades visited Colonels' House, Jones and Hill acted with deliberate rudeness, displaying wild, thin appearances with unbrushed hair that stood up like porcupine quills. To hedge their bets, they wrote paranoid letters to high Ottoman officials accusing Major Edward Baylay of trying to poison them.

Both mediums were officially certified for exchange, separated initially due to bureaucratic caution, and experienced immediate recoveries upon clearing Turkish waters.

Physical exhaustion and chemical manipulation are necessary to pass initial medical examinations for insanity. You can execute this medical deception using specific preparation steps:

• Stay awake all night before the examination to ensure dull eyes.
• Take heavy doses of phenacetin at frequent intervals to slow down the pulse.
• Keep windows shut and stove hot to create an asphyxiating climate.
• Overturn a bucket of dirty water near the door.
• Smoke plug tobacco to induce a sickly yellow hue.
• Splash Elliman's Embrocation liberally over the scene.

Major Osman and Captain Suhbi Fahri examined Jones and Hill in their stifling, foul-smelling room at Colonels' House in mid-April 1918, where Jones ranted about abolishing England and Hill sat motionless.

The Haidar Pasha Asylum

Extreme and agonizing physical stunts are sometimes required to fabricate indisputable proof of insanity for medical examiners. You can execute this phase by following strict physical setup steps:

• Find a room with strong metal rings fixed firmly in the high ceiling.
• Move a table slightly to one side of the rings so you swing clear when stepping off.
• Slip nooses round the neck and take the weight partly with one hand.
• Blow out the candle and step off the table into the air.
• Let go of the ropes completely when the interpreter calls out.

In an inn at Mardeen on April 29, 1918, Jones and Hill tied nooses to metal rings in the ceiling, stepped off a table into the dark, and hung by their necks for approximately 90 seconds until the Pimple discovered them.

Simulating madness successfully is extremely difficult and dangerous, requiring absolute commitment while balancing between detection as a malingerer and being permanently committed to an asylum. Emil Kraepelin's psychiatric taxonomy served as an accidental instruction manual for malingerers, providing precise symptom scripts to fake mental illnesses. Mazhar Osman Bey, the founding father of modern Turkish neuropsychiatry and a student of Kraepelin, posed the greatest threat of detection to the mediums.

The mediums established a robust signaling code with the Pimple to track whether Turkish doctors suspected their malingering or believed their madness. You can use these exact behavioral rules:

• Shake hands with the mediums on saying goodbye if doctors suspect malingering.
• Bow when saying goodbye if doctors are undecided.
• Salute when saying goodbye if doctors believe the pair insane.

Despite intense suspicion, the Turkish doctors ultimately gave the mediums the benefit of the doubt, and Osman likely risked his professional reputation. Hill boarded the British hospital ship Kanowna on November 1 after months of severe suffering, while Jones sailed shortly after following his release from Haidar Pasha.

10 Key Ideas

1. Elias Henry Jones and Cedric Waters Hill engineered a complex psychological manipulation called the Spook Con using fraudulent spiritualism and stage magic to escape a remote Ottoman prison camp during World War I.
2. The catastrophic five-month siege of Kut-al-Amara and subsequent brutal forced marches across deserts and mountains subjected British captives to extreme deprivation and exceptionally high mortality rates before they reached isolated camps like Yozgad.
3. Jones initiated a fraudulent talking board séance at Yozgad to combat psychological deterioration, gradually converting hardened skeptics into believers through careful memorization and tactile navigation of the board.
4. Unconscious muscle movements known as motor automatism or ideomotor action scientifically explain the apparent supernatural movements of divination objects during spiritualist exercises.
5. Captives mastered clandestine communication codes, parcel smuggling, and magical stagecraft techniques to build a long con that ensnared the camp commandant.
6. Confidence tricksters employ preliminary demonstrations called convincers, such as a fake treasure hunt, to provide a small, manipulated success that proves the validity of an operation to targeted marks.
7. Cedric Waters Hill brought exceptional mechanical skills and stage magic expertise to the plot, merging his aviation background and bomb-dropping experience with Jones's psychological operation.
8. The mediums deployed verbal telepathy codes, staged arrests, and covert photography to force their captors into compliance and set up an elaborate treasure hunt escape strategy.
9. When their seaside escape plan collapsed, the mediums executed a dangerous fallback plan by fasting, enduring extreme physical exhaustion, and systematically simulating severe mental illness to secure medical certificates.
10. Despite intense scrutiny from Turkish neuropsychiatrists, the mediums successfully feigned insanity through agonizing physical stunts and deceptive behaviors, ultimately earning medical certification for exchange and repatriation.