A LOST LEADER

Evening Star, Issue 21724, 19 May 1934, Page 10

A LOST LEADER

ROMANCE OF T. E. LAWRENCE SOLDIER-SCHOLAR WHO TUHES-UP AEROPLANE ENGINES [By A. C. ' Macdonej/l, in ‘John o’ London’s Weekly.’] Of all the ten thousand and one general officers who served in the British Army during the war of 1914-18 (at one time there were 117 generals in Cairo alone), only one amateur was given the opportunities and responsibilities of an independent command. All the rest were professional soldiers, some already generals, some promoted colonels and majors, some “ dug-out ” veterans. But the one solitary amateur showed ■ a far greater text-book knowledge of the soldier’s trade, a far greater capacity to understand a situation, and above all, an incomparably wider sweep of imagination than any of the others.

This amateur was T. E. Lawrence, a young archaeologist and Many books have been written about him; many portraits of him painted; and more legends have gathered round his personality than round the figures of Coeur de Lion or Haroun of Bagdad. But now the real authoritative life of him has been written, and happily it has been written by one of the few men in the country who really understand the theory and practice of warfare, Mr B. H. Liddell Hart (a civilian, one need hardly add). In- ‘T. E. Lawrence in Arabia and After ’ (Cape, 15s), Mr Liddell Hart the extraordinary character of the man and the extraordinary character of the warfare which he waged in the desert, in such a way that the two strange freaks of psychology and strategy are woven into one homogeneous pattern. DREAM OF A REVOLT.

It was in February, 1916, that the eyes of the British staff turned southwards to the Red Sea, and Lawrence’s eyes turned eastwards into the desert. The young subaltern began to dream of a revolt of the Arabs which would spread northwards through tho Hejaz , to" Damascus and right up to Aleppo, the crucial junction of the railways. But this revolt would be hampering the Turks with irregular warfare, and in consequence it was severely frowned ■upon by the British regular soldiers, who detest anything irregular. Besides, the British regular soldiers, in addition, detested Lawrence, partly because he was a civilian, and partly because he knew much more than they did, and mainly because he did not hesitate to criticise incompetence whenever he saw it:—

He criticised the quality of the stones used for _ lithographing, the system of berthing barges alongside the quays, the inefficiency of the cranes handling stores, the lack of system in shunting and entraining on the railways, the want of adequate medical the blindness of the medical authorities and their want of imagination as to their probable requirements. And, horror of horrors, he criticised the Higher Command and the conduct of the campaign in general! Nor was this all: He was" often curt with seniors, and free in correcting their ignorance. He offended their eyes, as well as their ears, by the colour of his collar, the pattern ! of his tie, and his habit of going about without a, Sam Browne belt. A* FORTUNATE ILLNESS. Pressure, , however, was _ brought to hear from London and Paris, and Lawrence went onwards with a mission to Feisal and the war in the East took a new turn from that moment. There was something uncanny about the way in which this small scholar understood the art of handling Arabs. He saw at once that they were a race of individualists, who would fight far better in twos and threes than in thousands, and he _ set to work to organise therrr-on these lines for raiding railways, destroying bridges, and attacking isolated posts. He himself used his tough and wiry physique in the most astonishing camel rides on missions of conciliation, encouragement, ‘or destruction. Then one day he fell ill of a fever, and was compelled to spend ten whole days in bed with nothing to do except to think. The result of his thinking was the evolution of a new strategy, the essence of which was to destroy the Turks, not by defeating them in battle, but by harassing them into destroying themselves. The Arabs were to he everywhere and at the same time nowhere. They were to he a perpetual invisible menace:

These reasonings shoved me that the idea of assaulting Medina, or even of starving, it quickly into surrender, was not in accord with our, hest strategy. We wanted the enemy to stay in Medina and in every other harmless place in the largest numbers. ’Again:— Our ideal was to keep his railway just working, but only just, with the maximum of loss and discomfort to him. And again: Napoleon had said it was rare to find generals willing to fight battles. The curse of this war was that so few could do anything else. APOSTLES OP MOBILITY. Mr Liddell Hart points out that in this desert strategy, which Lawrence evolved in his tent, he was reverting to and adopting the principles of Marshal Saxe rather than the _ disastrous principles of Clausewitz, which all the French staff, and especially Foch, adopted so blindly and with such appalling results. Saxe _ and Lawrence were apostles of mobility, whereas Foch preferred to mass as many men as possible into one small area and march them slowly and ponderously against the enemy. The proof of the pudding was soon to come. Sir Archibald Murray, acting on the Clausewitz theory, knocked out 1,700 Turks in his two attacks on Gaza at a cost to himself of 3,000 men. Lawrence, by speed and brilliant manoeuvring, captured Aquaba and knocked out 1,200 Turks at a total cost of two men; As an object-lesson in the abstract principle of economy of force, the Aquaba operation was remarkable. For all this had been achieved by the use of less than fifty men from the Arab forces in the Hejaz. As practical economy of British force it was more notable still. For it was attained by the detachment of merely one unwanted officer from the forces in Egypt. HELP FROM ALLENBY. But Lawrence was not to be thwarted by regular-soldier red-tape all the time, for a great change came over the Arab Bevolt when General Allenby came out from Franco to com-

maud in Palestine. Allenby at once appreciated the possibilities of Lawrence and his fantastic successes as a guerrilla leader, and ho encouraged him with money, camels, material of all sorts, and with moral support. With this powerful help Lawrence went further and further north until he was able to write; Wc knew, hotter than Allenby, the enemy hollowness and tho magnitude of tho British resources ’’ — that superior knowledge was the natural consequence of being behind tho Turkish front.

| And at last he was able to reach i and bomb tho railway junction at Dcraa. ! which resulted in General Liman Von . Sanders despatching his precious German detachments to protect the railway from what he thought must be a large army of Arabs. The largo army, however, was only one little amateur soldier on a camel, it was by strokes such as those that Lawrence paved the way for Allenby’s final assault upon the Turkish Army which was' so bril- | liantly successful. ' DISILLUSIONED ALT Ell THE WAR. Tho moment the war was over LawI rencu Hung himself into the real task

that he had kept before his eyes through all the desperate days;— Our aim was an Arab Government, with foundations large and native enough to employ tho enthusiasm and self-sacrifice of the rebellion, translated into the terms of peace. We bad to save some of the old prophetic personality, upon a substructure to carry that 90 per cent, of the population who bad been too solid to rebel, and mi whose solidity tho now State must rest. But at every turn there was disillusion and disappointment. Lawrence,

with his vision of independent Arab States always before him, had promised much to the Arabs, and the politicians refused to carry out the promises. Lawrence went to Versailles with Feisal, but all was in vain, and the French got their mandate over Syria and a short time later blew to pieces with the guns of “ progress ” the ancient street that is called Strait. A LOST LEADER. Lawrence had done his best, and he decided to give up responsibilities for ever and accept tho life of monastic irresponsibility which can be obtained in tho ranks of the Army. He will not

be a leader any more. He will not take up responsibility ever again. What a tragic waste! If Lawrence of Arabia came out with a trumpet call tomorrow, “ I will remake England. Who will follow me?” the youth of the country would swarm to his standard : I am told that the young men arc talking, the young poets writing (says Mr Liddell Hart) of him in a Messianic strain—as the man who could if he would be a light to lead stumbling humanity out of its troubles. I am not going to indulge in prophecy as to whether the spirit

might move him . . . but at least I can say that, so far as I know him, he seems to come nearer than any man to fitness for such power—in a State that I would care to live in. And again, “He is the Spirit of Freedom, come incarnate to a world in fetters.” A rare and splendid genius. Soldier, philosopher, organiser, scholar, diplomatist, statesman, administrator, strategist, and above all a leader. And spending his life m the tuning-up of aeroplane engines.