SOLDIER, TRAVELLER, POLITICIAN.

Shannon News, 4 December 1923, Page 3

SOLDIER, TRAVELLER, POLITICIAN.

"THINKING IN TURKISH/' The Hon. Aubrey Herbert, whose death occurred recently in: London, was born in 1880, and was the second son of the fourth Earl of Carnarvon, and half-brother to the late peeivqjf Tut-ankh-amen fame. He was educate/! at Eton and Balliol, and on .leaving Oxford entered the diplomatic service, Tokio, Constantinople, and Rome all knew him as an,honorary attache before he took to politics, and his love of travel, particularly in/the Near and Middle East, proved; an abiding passion. He was. an authority on the Near East. In 1911 he created a political sensation by; capturing the Liberal stronghold of South for which.he sat till 1918. After that he was member, for the Yeovil division. *

When the war broke out he joined the Irish Guards as interpreter, and was the first M.P. to be wounded in the war. That was during the retreat from Mons/and after being found by the Germans he was taken.to a hospital which the enemy, soon afterwards evacuated, so, that he came once more into British hands.

His war service was singularly varied; and included not only France, Egypt, and Italy, but the first landing at Gallipoli and Suvla Bay. A GREAT.LINGUIST. He was for a time a captive of the Turks, for whom he always had a strong liking, declaring that they were far cleaner fighters and,. better gentlemen than the Germans. He also served in Mesopotamia and, Salonica.

He' was a remarkably fine linguist, and it was said of him that he often thought in Turkish and,even Japanese, while his knowledge of Albanian and Macedonian dialects was extensive. . - ,

Albania was, indeed, his < particular hobby. He rode through the Balkans in 1912, and was just as popular with the Albanians as he was with the Turks. Indeed, it is said that some of the most notorious brigands of that country looked upon him almost as a brother.

He was a confident and earnest speaker, with a gift for biting, epigram, and had the air rather of a scholar, than of a man of affairs. : He always wore an eye-glass, and last year the weakness of vision which had handicapped, him through life developed to an alarming extent. He offered to resign his seat in Parliament, but his constituents refused to allow him to do so.