LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

Hokitika Guardian, 3 April 1929, Page 5

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

BUT NOT OF AFGHANISTAN.

LONDON, Feb. 7,

“Aircraftsman Shaw,” who has just returned to England, disguises the identity of Colonel T. E. Lawrence, of Arabia, the man about whom, legends have grown thick as autumn leaves. No man lias been more a victim of liis own achievements than this elusive figure of the Near East. He escaped from fame and joined the Army as a private. His reputation followed him. Prying eyes sought him out. Lawrence himself broke out -of'the rules of life. xi.e asked an influential friend to transfer him, to the Royal Air Force, where he lmd a chance of going to distant parts, learning new languages, picking up some of the ethics of another civilsation, and at the same time avoiding the attentions of newspapers. He soon found himself tuning up aeroplanes in the Punjaub. His very presence there was quite sufficient to set all the busybodies of India/ and half those of Europe, talking about the dire and nefarious schemes which his brain was working out for the subversion o? this or the frustration of that. And when the Afghans rose in revolt against the pre. cipitate actions of their Amanullah Khan, instantly the name of Aircraftsman Shaw was connected with the debacle. Colonel Hawrence has had nothing to do with the revolt in Afghanistan. But he was far too near Peshawar for rumour to keep its tongue still. Therefore—he left India.

Since the publication of the “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” and “The Revolt in the Desert,” much has been learned about Colonel Lawrence. Most people know the salient facts about his career his studies as an undergraduate at Oxford, his fondness for the military architecture of the Levant, his three weeks’ Cooks’ tour to the desert that lasted for three years, his rejection from the Army as an unfit, his appointment to the map-making department in Cairo, his escape to Arabia, his uncanny influence over the Bedouins, the wrecking of 79 Turkish trains, the welding of tlie Arabian Army which one day found itself the unofficial right wing of Lord Allenby’s force, and at the head of which, when the young Colonel was about 'twenty-nine, he rode into Damascus in triumph.