Lawrence or Leachman?

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 211, 4 September 1934, Page 7

Lawrence or Leachman?

Who Was the Hero of Arabia ? ADMIRER’S TRIBUTE IN NEW BOOK United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, Sept. 2. Lawrence or Leachman, which was tho real hero of Arabia'? is a question raised by “Shifting Sands,” a book which is being published shortly, says the Graphic. The author is Major N. N. Bray, an Indian Army officer, who calls Colonel Leachman one of the greatest men England has produced. He controlled thousands of Bedouins between Bagdad and Iledjaz, while Lawrence was working a much smaller area. Yet Leachman lies unhonoured iu a forgotten grave at Bagdad. Major Bray was Governor of Iverbela during the war. He told tho Graphic that he decided to write Leachman’s story owing to the fantastic Arabian Nights atmosphero surrounding British ideas of what happened in Arabia. He says that Britain backed the wrong horse when she supported the Emir Feisal. The Arabs wanted Ibn Saud. It has taken much bloodshed and gold to rectify tho mistake. The Arabs planned a revolt against the Turks before the war and wanted no romantic white leaders like Lawrence to lead them where they had already planned to go. Leachman’s task was to lintc the nomad tribes to Britain and frustrate German gold and propaganda. His influence extended infinitely further than Lawrence’s, yet ho worked singlehanded and unaided by British money. Britain sent him to quell tlic Arab rising in 1922. A premonition that he would not return was fulfilled when he was assassinated by the son of a petty sheik, whose activities were exposed A German agent, named Preusser, cap Hired in 1918, asked permission, to shako the hand of the greatest man in the East and wrote, “Turkish gold and blandishments and all the German effoit cannot undermine the influence on tin Arabs of one man, Leachman.