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Review commentary by Jeremy Wilson on Lawrence,
the Uncrowned King of Arabia by Michael Asher (London, Viking, 1998)
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Chapter 3: Nothing Which Qualified Him to be an Ordinary
Member of Society
Last year at school and first years at university, 1906-8
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page/para/line
32/1/2-3 |
This brisk narrative is guesswork not substantiated fact. We
do not
know where or when Lawrence enlisted, nor how long the enlistment lasted. The posting was to the castle garrison at St. Mawes, not to
nearby St. Just as Asher states (what Lawrence recalled at St. Just was the church, set in a very pretty churchyard). The garrison, a detachment, would
have consisted very largely of older enlisted men, not boy-recruits as Asher
implies. |
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32/1/4 |
Note "girlish" - an Asher fiction: no-one who
knew Lawrence at that time has reported this alleged quality. It is
certainly not conveyed by contemporary photographs. |
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32/1/6 |
What evidence does Asher have for the claim that Lawrence "had
long fantasized about serving in the ranks"? I know of none. This is
very probably invention. |
| 32/1/13-end |
The story in these four lines is also fiction. We know
nothing about the circumstances in which Lawrence returned to
Oxford. The theory that he was bought out is a (reasonable) supposition; but
I know of no evidence. |
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32/2/1-2 |
It is correct that Lawrence gave differing accounts of the length
of time that this enlistment lasted. The variants may reflect his general
lack of numeracy; but in his statements to Liddell Hart and others he may
also have deliberately kept the details vague. He knew that publicity about
the episode would be deeply embarrassing to his mother, because children do
not usually run away from home without a reason. |
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32/2/3-4 |
I think that the enlistment probably lasted more than a few days,
but I agree that it may not have lasted very long. |
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32 end of page |
Asher's calculations seem to assume that Lawrence ran away
in the first months of 1906. The date is uncertain. Next
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