LAWRENCE’S SECRET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23081, 6 January 1937, Page 12

LAWRENCE’S SECRET

WHY HE GAVE UP ALL POWER Why all power was renounced by Lawrence of Arabia was revealed by Mr Winston Churchill when he unveiled a memorial to the mystery man of the East at the High School, Oxford, which Lawrence attended for 11 years. Lawrence, whose war-time successes in the East made him almost a legendary figure, suddenly lost his identity in that of plain Aircraftsman Shaw. “ I am sure,” said Mr Churchill, “ that the ordeal of watching the helplessness of his Arab friends in the grand confusions of the Peace Conference was the main cause of Lawrence losing interest in great public affairs. “He was distressed at what he deemed the ill-usage of his allies, to whom he had pledged the word of Britain —and the word of Lawrence. He was capable of suffering mental pain in an exceptional degree.” Mr Churchill declared that If the Great War had lasted a few years longer Lawrence might have realised Napoleon’s young dream of conquering the East. “His fame was spreading fast and with the momentum of the fabulous throughout Asia,” said Mr Churchill. “No one could say what was impossible. Lawrence might have arrived at Constantinople in 1919 or 1920 with most of the tribes and races of Asia Minor and Arabia at his back. “ Our country misses him most and misses him most of all now.”