In December 1916, in the midst of a global war, an army of Tuareg, Toubou and Arab warriors launched a bold attack on the French position in Niger as part of a broader, region-wide Senussi bid for independence and autonomy. The men were skilled and experienced in the tools and tactics of modern warfare, and came armed with modern repeating rifles, a machinegun and modern, rapid-fire artillery. The story of this army, and its leader Kaocen ben Mohammed, is a lesson in the vast interconnectivities that brought together a range of Sahelian people fuelled by economic, political and religious ties that stretched across the entire region and even as far as Berlin and Constantinople. Using surviving correspondence between Senussi leaders this paper examines the reach and implications of the networks which sustained the fighting not only in Niger but also in Libya, Algeria, Chad, Sudan, Egypt and Tunisia that erupted in 1914 and lasted until the early 1920s.