ENIGMATIC PERSONALITY

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 46, 18 November 1929, Page 10

ENIGMATIC PERSONALITY

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA Dominion Special Service. London, October 3. A suggestion that, as one “bitten” with the glamour and pageantry of mediaevalism, Lawrence of Arabia found in the Bedouin life, with its pennants and banners, its forts and warring chieftains, something of the atmosphere of the Middle Ages which had captured him during his days as a student of history at Oxford, was made by the Rev. V. Donald Siddons in a Rotary Club address this week. Mr. Siddons, who as a flight-comman-der in Arabia piloted Lawrence on at least one of his missions, was endeavouring to explain the reason for Lawrence’s success and of the enigmatic personality he has always remained. He emphasised the greatness of Lawrence’s achievement. Mr. Clement Shorter had said that anyone else with the same money at his disposal could have done what Lawrence did, but other people actually on the spot could not have “touched” Lawrence’s achievement at all. They would not have had the imagination to think of the things Lawrence not only thought of but frequently carried out. “Shortly after I met Lawrence,” Mr. Siddons added, “he disappeared into the blue—or perhaps I ought to say yellow—with a few Arabs, and two months later he turned up again after having travelled a thousand miles, raised a force from various Arab tribes, killed 300 Turks, captured another 300, and the fort of Akhabar, and put the Arab army within striking distance of Allenby’s right wing.” There were many ridiculous stories about Lawrence, but the facts about him were that he was a man of extraordinary courage and an endurance which made him able to outdo even the Bedouins themselves in forced marches across the desert on camels. He had been criticised for appearing at Versailles In the flowing Arab dress, but in thinking of him one had to remember he was an actor, acting a part the whole of the time in order to carry through the work he had to do. “As a matter of fact,” remarked Mr. Siddons, “with his small stature fie cut such a poor figure in Army uniform that if he had appeared in uniform at Versailles anyone seeing him and not noticing his decorations would have said: “Whoever is that scrubby-looking little second-lieutenant over there?”