IRISHMAN WHO BECAME PRINCE OF MECCA.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 March 1920, Page 12

IRISHMAN WHO BECAME PRINCE OF MECCA.

THE ROMANTIC STORY OF COLONEL LAWRENCE, WHO RAISED A GREAT ARAB ARMY AND SMASHED THE TURKS. London, Jan. 9. Mr. Lowell Thomas is telling in tho pages of the Strand Magazine the romantic story of Colonel Lawrence, the young Oxford graduate and Irishman, who raised a great army of Arabs and drove the Turks from Arabia. It is a fascinating story, which has been told j in brief to nearly half a million people j in the Albert Hall and the. Covent Garden Opera House, illustrated by a remarkable series of film pictures. HIS SPECTACULAR ACHIEVEMENTS. "The spectacular achievements of Thomas Edward Lawrence, the young Oxford graduate, are still unknown except to a handful of his associates," says Mr. Lowell Thomas. "Yet quietly, without any theatrical headlines or fanfare of trumpets, he brought the disunited nomadic tribes of Arabia into a unified campaign against their Turkish oppressors—a difficult and splendid stroke' of policy," which caliphs, statesmen, and sultans had been unable to accomplish in centuries of effort. "Lawrence placed himself at the head of the Bedouin army of tlie King of the Hejaz, drove the Turks from Arabia, and restored the caliphate to the descendants of the Prophet. Allenby liberated Palestine, the holy land of Jews and Christians; Lawrence freed Arabia, the holy land of millions of' Mohammedans. TWO REMARKABLE FIGURES. "During the last five years of epic events, among others, two remarkable figures have appeared. The dashing adventures and aneedotes of their careers will furnish golden themes to the writers of the future, as the lives of Ulysses, King Arthur, and Richard the Lion-Hearted to the poets, troubadours, and chroniclers of other daysOne is a massive, towering, square-jaw-ed six-footer—thsrt smashing British cavalry leader, Field-Marshal Lord Allenby, Commander of the Twentieth Century Crusaders, who has gained world-fame because of liis exploit Jn driving the Turks from the Holy Land, downing the Crescent, and raising the Cross over Jerusalem The other is the under-sized, beartlless: youth whom I first saw absorbed in a technical treatise on the cuneiform inscriptions discovered on the bricks of ancient Babylon. "Colonel T. E. Lawrence was born tn Carnarvon. As a boy hp lived for five years in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. When ten years of age his family moved to Northern Scotland, where they remained for three years. Then they moved to France, where Lawrence attended a Jesuit College for several years. From the Continent the Lawrences came to Oxford, where Thomas attended a day school for a short time, although nearly all his preparatory work was done with tutors. Then he attended Oxford University, or, at any rate, took the examinations which enabled him to receive his degree. i AT OXFORD. "He has • unusual ability when it comes to mastering'languages, among them being English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Greek, Latin, Dutch, Norwegian, and Arabic. Unquestionably he is one of the greatest living Arabic scholars and one of the few Europeans who has ever mastered the pure Arabic of Central Arabia. Among the other Arabic dialects which he speaks are Syrian, Palestinian, Aleppian, and Mesopotamian. HIS EASTERN WANDERINGS. "In IGOB, before he finished his University work, he urged his parents to allow him to go to the Near East- At the time lie was engaged in writing a book on the military architecture of the Crusades, and he wanted to go over the actual ground covered by the Crusaders His family finally gave him permission and one hundred pounds, fully expecting that he would spend it in making a flying Cook's tour of Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, and return home quite ready to settle, down and forget the Orient. But he scorned tourists' comforts and the beaten track. "As soon as he arrived in Syria he adopted native costume and tramped barefoot over thousands of miles of unknown desert country, living with the various Bedouin tribes, and studying the manners and customs of all that complicated mosaic of peoples who dwell in the ancient corridor between Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley. When he finally returned to England to complete his studies, he still had fifty pounds left of the original sum which his family had given him, and he merely remained at home Irfng enough to finish his studies that he might return to the Near East better equipped in his speciality. "Several years before the war, in 1908, the/Oxford expedition headed by Lawrence's friend, Commander Hogarth, began excavations in the Euphrates Valley for the purpose of discovering new information regarding the ancient Hittites. Because of Lawrence's Intimate knowledge of the native population of the Near East, Hogarth invited him to take cfiarge of the Kurds, Turkomen, Armenians, and Arabs who were employed in digging. Lawrence was engaged in archaeological work at Carehemish ofF and on for four years, from 1910 to 1014, and was in eommuncr of the digging gans, although lie had never studied archaeology at Oxford. "The outbreak of the Great War found him eveavating Hittite ruins in the valley of the Euphrates. Lawrence had been for some time aware of the seriousness of the situation in the Near East, and realised that a crash was imminent. "At that time he Was twenty-six years old. He had already spent seven years wandering through Turkey, Syria. Palestine, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Persia, and had acquired a more intimate knowledge of the peoples of Aleppo. Beifut, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Bagdad than almost any other European. HE JOINS THE ARMY. "Because the military authorities knew that Lawrence had lived among Arabs, Kurds, and Turks, and that from his exploration expeditions he might be expected to have a fairly good know- I ledge of the unfamiliar regions of the j Near East, he was given a commission as a second lieutenant in the Map Department. "The way in which Lawrence came to j be associated with the Arab uprising is

a typical illustration of the irregular way in which he does everything. Chafing under the red-tape of army regulations, quite a number of differences had come up between General Sir Archibald Murray, Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the East, the members of his staff, and the independent young Lawrence. "About that time Ronald Storrs, Oriental Secretary of the High Commissioner of Egypt, and a friend of Lieutenant Lawrence, was about to start on a trip down the Red Sea to Jeddah as the representative of the British Foreign Office to pay his respects to th# aged Sherif of Mecca, who ljad 'touched off' the Arabian revolution. Lawrence had long realised the possibility of the Arabs playing an important ppt in the war against Germany and Turkey in the East, and as his work at/J.H.Q. at Cairo had become none too pleasant, he asked Sir Archibald Murray to grant him a fortnight's leave in order that he might accompany Storrs on his trip down the Red Sea. General Headquarters in Cairo evidently was delighted to have the opportunity of getting rid of the altogether too independent subordinate, and granted his request with evident pleasure. A PRINCE OF MECCA. ' "Little did Lawrev.ce dream when he was studying Hittite ruins that it* was his destiny to build a new empire instead of piecing together, for a scholar's thesis, the fragments of a dead-and-buried kingdom. Yet he gained the confidence of the Sherif of Mecca (King Hussion of the Hejaz) to such art extent that he was permitted to sign the King's name to State papers. Out of gratitude for his services to their country, the Arab leaders made him ail Emir Jtqd a Prinze of Mecca, an honor unparalleled in Arabian history. King Hussien himself presented his British commander with the curved gold sword, Worn only by direct descendants of Mohammed. "Tho Germans and Turks were not long in discovering that there was a mysterious power giving inspiration to the Arabs. Through their Spies they learned that Lawrence was the guiding spirit of the whole Arabian revolution. They offered a reward of £IOO,OOO for him, dead or alive." COL. LAWRENCE'S LOST MS. "The theft of a 'national treasure' in the shape of an almost complete manuscript written by-Colonel T. E. Lawrence, of Palestine fame, is engaging the attention of the London police. "'The Colonel had written some 200,000 words of a wonderful narrative,' said Mr. Lowell Thomas to a' Daily Express representative. "'I regard the loss as a catastrophe, for I really do not see how suc!i voluminous matter can be rewritten—even if Colonel Lawrence was disposed to attempt it. As it is, he smiles —and shrugs his shoulders.' " 'The circumstances of the theft, are somewhat remarkable. Colonel Lawrence was travelling to Oxford, where he has been lecturing, and had selected a carriage. He left the parcel containing the manuscript while he went away for a few seconds to buy a newspaper. It was missing when he returned.'"