LAWRENCE, PRINCE OF MECCA

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 52, 25 November 1919, Page 2

LAWRENCE, PRINCE OF MECCA

A KiIAKI MIRACLE

ECHO OF THE WAR IN PALESTINE

A recent article iii the "Nation' gives some idea of what you do see there.

"Somehow, overdone with soldiering,' popular fancy has all but missed its two romantic figures, Allcnby and Lawrence. Allen by's capture of Jerusalem, his git 4 of organisation, his wonderful strategy in Northern Palestine, and Ibis way with Orientals, exhibit him as perhaps the one soldier-statesman of the war. Bull LnWrenceJ save for his masterly squiring of the Emir Ffeisul at Paiis. has-remain-ed almoit uriknowii. Yet if Air. Thomas's picture of him is correct, wciinust look on this'small obetif figure as on- a Clivo . of tiho twentieth century. ' With' one' v . qualification.- Give kept tho. Empire ho won; Lawrence will have to surrender a good part, of his to France. It was all very •thrilling,' a feat of moral conquest no less than of arms, a proud witness of • the living genius of Britain. . •; . The Milk and Honey Express.. "In uiiy 'eass'tiiie scenes of 'Palestine and Arabia now being shown by , Mr.' Lowell Thomas at Coveut Garden would be of extraordinary interest," 6ays the' "Nation."'' "Of quite peculiar interest, inde;<l, to English and Scottish people, whose knowledge of ancient history and 'foreign parts'.is still founded on the Bible, and usually limited to.it. People like to' see and be told about w;hat they know already, 'and hero one. 6ees and hears about: Egypt and Uhe. pyramids which the children of Israel saw; and the Desert of .Sinai through which they wandered; <yd Gaza of the Philistines, where, .'we wene told, Samson strolled in the moonlight, along the shore with Delilah; and Bethlehem, and Joppn, and Damascus, and Jerusalem itself with its Mount of Olives—all names familiar ' from childhood to every man and woman present. '

"So familiar that no one is puzzled for a, moment at hearing that the train running along tho' new railway from Egypt through the de<-->rt to Palestine is called by our soldiers the 'milk and honey express.' Long and embittered have been tlie contests over lc-ligious education in our- schools, bill the feducation has its results. • , What the Soldiers Saw."And we are shown, besides, myriads of locusts conbunnng every green thing ('tho years that the locusts have'eaten'), and, great Hocks of utorks winging up from Egypt to devour them—one of old Nature's ways of correcting an erratum \ in her text. And then there is petra—"a rose-red city' een.aii\ly, but by no means 'half as old as'time'; not anything liko half as old,, for liia style of architecture seems to be-'very debased Hellenic. And in and out' of all tlie.se scenes! amid Arabs and Greeks and Sudanese and nameless mixtures; move the British soldiers, inquisitive, glad to lenrn, but unperturbed, unimpressed as usual.

"It was a remarkable campaign, and this week of September should always be remembered as the anniversary of the most brilliant and decisive victory in the war—the victory which ended the war with Turkey, and shut the back door of Central Europe's fortress, as the Dardanelles campaign might.liave shut if, if the' Cabinet at Homo hail only realised its value. Those who, fifteen' year? ago, observed AUenby's command of the cavalry (he was then colonel of the sth Lancers) when French made his dash upon' Colchester from the sea, thought they divined the touch of soldierly genius in the man, and he has not disappointed them.

Colonel Lawrence the Modest. "Bui- everyone has been hearing the praise of Field-Marshal Lord Allenby this week, and praise not for his military genius alone. To-day we would rather speak of one whose' name was -before' the' war, except perhaps in" a'small aoademic circle' of archaeological/students. -' Untjl we listened ,to Mr. Lowell Thomas in Covent .Garden we knew very little of Colonel Thomas Lawrence—'Shereef Lawrence'— beyond tho name. - And that is not wonderful, since he is endowed with an unusual grace of modesty, and wo are ttfld-that, when|he discovered he was to receive decorations in Egypt, he jumped into an aeroplane and followed the course of the' Israelites across tlie deserts of Sinai, 110 doubt singing . to himself, 1 'Oh, for the wings of a dove!' Some tell us that modesty is the mark of geiiius. In Colonel Lawrence we seem' to find the combination,. and the quality of' his genius .is of peculiar interest to English people. A Remarkable Man. "We are told-' that he was a young Oxford man, whom the beginning of the war found pottering about the Euphrates studying archaeology and Arabic, ofwhich, indeed, lie was already a master. A small man (sft. 3in. in height), beardless, easily passing for a woman in Arab dress, but so careless of appearances that, even when he got into British uuifonn, ha neither knew nor cared how many stars he had on his shoulder straps, nor i whether he had three on one strap and none on tlie other. Entirely ignorant of military art, yet possessing such, knowledge'of the Arabs and their country that some General, who mu6t ( havo been gifted with an almost inconceivable genius for disregarding. War Office etiquette, resolved to put him to in the service, and apparently 6ent him down ,to Arabia proper. Prince of Mecca. "Thero the Arabs made him a 'Prince of Mecca,' which we are told is as high a title as it sounds. He was attached to tho staff of Emir Feisul., and gutliercd a random army of 200,000 men, Bedouins and other Arabs. ■ A random army, indeed. it must have been, if we may judge from tho pictures of the whiterobetl hosts wandering in haphazard crowds, without any attempt at formalion. ■ over the rooky hills. But somehow or other he led them up through Petra to join Allenby in the north of Palestine, occupied Damascus under his command, ■and ruled it as Governor. In any case, it was a remarkable exploit for a youn£, Oxford student "But the most remarkable part of too story is the young man's personal influence over ail untamed;' halfjbarbarous, and exclusive people.- It has lately been •the fashion to extol the Arabs as a noble race longing for freedom and selt. determination, capable, of uiiity and respectable self-government. Those who havo known the Arabs at first hand do not sneak of them so smoothly. Readers of-Major Sandps's book 'In Kut and Captivity,' for instance, will remember tlmt, however much the British soldier hated the Turk,: he lrntea' the Arab (even as an. ally) twenty times' more—hated iiini- for his treachery, his meanness, his cruelly. "Yet it was among these, Arabs tlmt Colonel Lawrence exerted so peculiar an influence that they served him as their king, regarded him as a- prophet, and endowed him with something of supernutural power. - His modesty, his indifference to dress and wrsonal state, even .his.ignorance .of military science (from the appearance of his army we must assume that he was incapable of saying 'Form Fours' !)—all.such things do not seem to have mattered in the least. There appears to have hung a_ magic 'aura' about the man, a 'doemonie' oual'ity, something of that 'authority' which even mad Lear retained."