Saying “No” to King George

Evening Star, Issue 19764, 14 January 1928, Page 3

Saying “No” to King George

More Light on Lawrence of Arabia Repudiation of Distinctions Felt He had been Dishonored

“Lawrence of Arabia, ’’ stern ami sad beneath his head-chess of an Arab chieftain—picture him face to face with George V. in Buckingham Palace. Hear him. in a voice low and deferential but inflexible a.s death, refusing new honors and craving permission to surrender those dread,y bestowed upon him for bis priceless service in enlisting the Arabs under the banner of the Allies. Most startling of all, almost to the point of incredibility, give car to this most mysterious and most romantic of Englishmen, with his rank of colonel in the British Army, intimating in plain language to his astonished Sovereign that the wrongs suffered by his devoted Arabs in the peace settlement engineered by the Allies have so dishonored and disheartened him, Lawrence, that they might yet result in his taking up arms against his King and country! Picture all this, and yon will have grasped the central hub of the latest sensation in English life and letters (says an American paper). For the unparalleled situation here summarised have been revealed in a bonk, with Colonel Lawrence’s sanction. And the King docs not dispute the essential accuracy of the tale Nay, lie inferontially confirms it, and “for the first time during King George is a personal participant in a controversy.” writes John L Baldcrslon from London to the Now York ‘ World.’ “ For an antagonist be has the most colorful figure in the British Empire, Colonel T. E. Lawrence, once tbo ‘ uncrowned King of Arabia,’ now Private T. E. Shaw, of tlm Royal Air Force.” In a book, ‘Lawrence and tbo Arabs,’ by Robert Graves, an English poet,' the King is quoted as admitting that Lawrence —“the man who saved the East for England ” appeared at Buckingham Palace in Arabian costume, “accused the British Government of breaking promises, and told King George to Ids face that he, the speaker, might soon be lighting with the Arabs against England,” records Mr Balderston. And further:—

“Graves’s book has been authorised by Lawrence and based on the adventurer's own story. It supplements ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom,’ Lawrence’s history of his adventure, which George Barnard Shaw called the greatest story of heroism by a hero since Ctesar’s ‘ Commentaries.’ “ Lawrence is already a myth, the most romantic figure of the war, and his monumental, practically unobtainable, narrative only deepens the shadows which Graves is now permitted to lighten, though not altogether remove. “ For years the story has been told in hushed tones, though never printed, of how Lawrence vent to Buckingham Palace and refused the high decora tions offered by King George. The colonel believed that British honor was tarnished by repudiation of-the which he had made on the Government’s behalf to the Arabs. Graves for the first time gives Lawrence’s account ol this incident, and then follows the King’s version as supplied in reply to Lawrence by Lord Stamfordham.’ the King’s private secretary. When the Arabs, whose revolt against Turkey Lawrence was leading, discovered in 1918 that the British Foreign Office had promised them independence, but repudiated the promise in secret pledges to the Allies, Lawrence, upon whoso promises the revolt was being carried on, felt, says Graves, “a long ing for death to end his shame.” “Yet from actual suicide he shrank,” the new narrative continues. “That would be to take death far too seriously. It would not be cowardice, but flippancy unworthy of a serious person like himself. The most he could allow himself was constant exposure to danger, leaving himself only the narrowest margin of safety, and always hoping for an accident. “Accidents, however, though numerous. wore never fatal. He was too scrupulous about'keeping the honorable margin. If lie had not been so much m love with the idea of death, lie would have been killed hundreds of times over.”

SPEECH WITH THE KING

The scene then shills to Buckingham .Pal am after the war, relates the •World’ correspondent, reminding us that “ Lawrence had given Damascus and Syria to the Arabs; the Allies were engaged in putting them out, partitioning Arab territory between England nnd France, and promising Palestine os a Jewish national home.” And, meanwhile :

“ ‘ According to this acount, to which Lawrence had nothing to add when 1 submitted my version of it to him recently for verification, His Majesty, though unwilling to believe that Ministers of the Crown were capable of double dealing, respected Lawrence’s scruples, permitting him to forgo his decorations.

“‘So Lawrence expressed his gratitude and thereupon also returned his foreign decorations to their donors with an account of the circumstances.’ ”

“Lawrence had already protested vainly at the Peace Conference. At a meeting of the British Cabinet he had made even the imperturbable, haughty Marquis Curzon, the Foreign_ Secretary, weep. As Graves puts it;

And here Mr Balderston informs us that this account, submitted to King George, “drew from the monarch the statement that Lawrence, now Aircraftsman T. E. Shaw, occupying tho lowest rank in the service, had threatened George V. that he might take up arms against the Crown.” Furthermore, wo are told, Graves continues: “Lord Stamfordham, His Majesty’s private secretary, to whom I wrote for permission to print this paragraph, lias been good enough to get His Majesty’s own recollections ot the interview, “‘His Majesty docs not remember that Colonel Lawrence’s statement was what you have recorded, but that in asking permission to decline the proffered decorlions Colonel Lawrence explained in a lew words that he had made certain promises to King Fcisal, that these promises had not been fulfilled, and consequently it was quite possible that he might find himself fighting against the British forces, in which case it would be obviously impossible and wrong to be wearing British decortions. “ 1 Tho King lias no recollection of Coldncl Lawrence’s saying that the part lie had played in the Arab revolt was dishonorable to himself and to his country and Government.’ “In his famous privately-printed hook and in the expurgated version, 1 'The .Revolt in the Desert,’ flung at the public to pay debts incurred in the private printing, Lawrence tells nothing about himself before or after the war. This is rectified in Graves s book, which reveals that tho popular edition of Lawrence’s work was made by Lawrence and two fellow-privates in two days. “The motive for authorisation of Graves’s book is indicated yb the author's statement that Lawrence wrote an article to make money and save Graves from bankruptcy when Graves’s grocery store was in difficulties.

“‘Curzon burst into tears, groat drops running down his checks to an accompaniment of slow sobs. It was horribly like a medieval miracle, the weeping of a church image.’ “ Lawrence had previously been on good terms with King George. Mheu ' a European monarch,’ as Graves says tactfully, jokingly complained that ‘ live new republics were proclaimed yesterday,’ Lawrence replied: ‘ Courage, sir. I have just made three kingdoms in the East.’

“ 15ut now 1m was coming again to Buckingham Palace, still a. colonel in the British Army, hut clad in the while robes of an Arab chieftain and accompanied by Xing Fcisal. " ‘ Is it right, Colonel Lawrence, that a subject of tiro Crown mid an officer should appear hero clothed in a foreign uniform! J ’ demanded ‘a person of importance.’

“ ‘ When a man .serves two masters,' replied Lawrence, referring to liis association with King I’eisal, ‘ and lias to oilcncl one nl these, it is better fur him to olVend the more powerful.’ " Then Graves gives the following account, the first authorised on Lawrence's helm If, of the interview with .King George:— “ 1 ilc explained personally to his sovereign that the part ho had played in the Arab revolt was dishonorable to himself and to his country and tho Government. Ilc had, by order, fed the Arabs with false hopes, and would now he obliged if lie might be quietly relieved of tho obligation to aeecpt honors for succeeding in Ids fraud. "‘Ho stud respectfully sis a subject, but firmly as an individual, that he intended to fight by straight moans or crooked until His Majesty's Ministers had conceded to the Arabs a fair settlement of their claims.

PRIVATE WITH AIR FORCE

“ Lawrence all along has refused to make a penny out of his work, and now has nothing except Ills private’s pay of 2s a day. It is understood his motive in supplying data for this new book was to help Graves.

rcnce of Arabia,’ is constantly being enriched with new legends as time passes. A strange figure, this Lawrence, not really of our own modern world.”

“ Graves tells tho full story of how Lawrence under an assumed name mined tho Air Force, and was dismissed for fear of trouble when his identity leaked out. Then ho joined the Tank Corps as a private, and has won iiis way back to tho Air Force. Ho is at present serving on the Indian frontier.

To the misty figures of tho Roman Republic, thinks the New York ‘Times,’ one must look for a possible counterpart of Lawrence of Arabia. And even then; “One must accept tho prevalent accounts of the integrity of the elder Brutus, the courage of Mucins Scaevola, the frankness of Coriolanus to make up this strange anachronism in the modern world. Now that his authorised biography by Robert Graves is published in England, official imprimatur is given to the tales of moody rectitude which have been told for the last ten years. Ho did refuse Royal honors, and from the King himself, because he felt that his Government had led him into cheating the Arabs, and lie told the King so. He did forgo the possibility of a French translation of the Graves hook by insisting that its cover bear the legend: ‘ The profits will be devoted to the victims of French cruelty in Syria.’ Out of the whole tale comes a sense that Lawrence has at any rate found his own soul, nnd is at peace with his inner promptings. It is heartening to know that tho rushing, careless century can have produced him from the mould of man.”

“Tho hook gives letters from Lawrence expressing contentment with his life. His name has been legally changed to Shaw, and ho has attempted to disappear from life, leaving word that he wishes to ‘ he forgotten by liis friends.

" ‘ Tho Army and the Air Force,’ says Graves, ‘are the modern equivalent of tho monastery, and after five years he does not regret his choice of life, as nearly physical as an animal’s, in which food is provided, and drink, and a round af work in harness, and a stable afterward, until next day brings a. repetition of the work of yesterday.’ ”

All of winch inspires the ‘World’ to exclaime editorially: “The life of that astonishing scholar and soldier, ‘ Law-