LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 152, 29 June 1935, Page 31

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

IX WAE AND IN PEACE

COLLEAGUES' TRIBUTES

Tributes to "Lawrence of Arabia," who died on May 19 following injuries received in a motor-cycle accident, were paid on the day of his death ill 8.8.C. broadcasts by Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby, who conducted the Palestine campaign towards the close of the Great War, and Sir Herbert Baker, the eminent London architect, a close friend of Lawrence. "In E. T. Shaw, better known to the public as Colonel T. E. Lawrence, I have lost a good friend and a valued comrade," said Viscount Allenby. "When first I met him—in the summer of 1917—he had just returned from a venturesome raid behind the Turkish front: thenceforward, until the Armistice, we were closely associated in the conduct of the campaigns of 1917 and 1918 in Palestine and Syria—closely, that is, in mind and purpose, though distance often separted us widely. "Lawrence was under my command, but, after acquainting him with my strategical plan, I gave him a free hand. His co-operation was marked by the utmost loyalty, and I never had anything but praise for his work which, indeed, was invaluable throughout the campaign. He was the mainspring of the Arab movement. He knew their language, their manners, their mentally; he understood and shared their merry, sly humour; in daring, he led them; in endurance, he equalled, if not surpassed, their strongest. Though in complete sympathy with his companions, and sharing to the full with them hardship and clanger, he was careful to maintain the dignity of his position as Confidential Adviser to the Emir Feisal. Himself an Emir, he wore the robes' of that rank, and kept up a suitable degree of state. WOULD HAVE DIED FOR HIM. "His own bodyguard—men of wild and adventurous spirit—were all picked by Lawrence personally. Mounted on thoroughbred camels, they followed him in all his daring rides; and among those reckless desert rangers' there was none who would not willingly have died for their chief. In fact, not a few lost their lives through devotion to him and in defence of his person. The shy and retiring scholar, archaeologist, philosopher, was swept by the tide of war into a position undreamt of. "His well-balanced brain and disciplined imagination facilitated adaptation to the new ■ environment; and there shone forth a brilliant tactician; with a genius lor leadership. Such men win friends—such also find critics and detractors. But the highest reward for success is the inward knowledge that it has been rightly won. Praise or blame was regarded with indift'erence by Lawrence. He did his duty as he saw it before him. He has left, to us who knew and admired him, a beloved memory; and-to all his countrymen, the example of a life well spent in service." A MAGNETIC INFLUENCE. "I first met Colonel Lawrence shortly after the war, at Oxford, in a New College Common Boom," said Sir Herbert Baker. "I was at once fascinated by his laughing, roving, blue eyes, and his high, domed forehead—giving such an assurance of high character and intellect. He seemed to radiate a magnetic influence, such as, Ipng ago, I felt in the presence of Cecil .Rhodes: if I had been younger, I thought, I would have allowed Lawrence in any. adventure. I questioned him about the war—he answered with questions on art. We made friends then • and there. "When seeking' a peaceful hiding place from the hounds of publicity, he found refuge in the attic of my office to a quiet secluded street ,in Westminster. He refused all comforts—fire, hot water, or food: He usually slept by day and worked by night on his book "The Seven Pillars ;of Wisdom"— in airman's clothes in , winter cold — and went out for his occasional meals. We seldom heard a sound: I would look up from my drawing-board to see him, gnome-like, watching with a smile. On summer evenings we would tramp over London, where traffic-free —criticising the architecture; returning to a late supper and long talks. He could not be drawn on his war adventures, except in-his kindness to the young. J . "His knowledge of medieval architecture was wide, Inj studying the history of the Crusades he had visited every Early Gothic building in England and in France—on two franct a day—on a bicycle, feeding ,'Ori bread and blackberries. He had a profound insight into all the arts, and in literature I was soon out of my depths with him. I could not agree with him in all his views on art;: standards, tastes, and. emotion changed with the war. " ' ' ■ ■ y "THE WAE WAS MAD." ; "His mind can best be explained,; perhaps, by his comments on the illus-. trations in his "Seven Pillars"; as we turned over its pages hie would explain their meanings, but of some of/ the strange woodcuts at the ends of the chapters he would say: 'I don't know what they mean—they are mad; the war was mad.' Were they to relieve the tension of the tragedy, like the fool: scenes in Shakespeare? ,' "His somewhat paradoxical and warbred views on art and: other things softened with the years and renewed vigour, and I came to at his insight. In his book h# says that he always had a desire for self-expression: in Some imaginative form; but was too' diffuse to acquire, a technique. If he could have, concentrated on some form of artistic or scientific, creation, he) would have been a master. ; "It is not for me to speck of his self-: denying life and humble work in the Air Force; his refusal, to profit in any way from the war or the history ofhis achievements in it; his desire to share the life of the men;' and to under-' stand them, as he understood the; Arabs with whom he fought; and his' wisdom in seeking a health-cure in simple service and-living, But when* he last stayed with me about a month ago, he pleased us by eating two human meals a day, and by expressing an; ardour to do some big national work. These I had not known him do before* and I rejoiced at these signs of renewed health of mind and body. If now> love of an ideal controlled his over-, powerful reason, such as sustained him through the long drama of the Arabian War, what might he not yet have achieved!" . '