The Army Quarterly. Vol. II. No. 1.

LAWRENCE T.E. (1921.)

£450.00  [First Edition]

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Edited by Major General G.P. Dawnay. First edition, 8vo., with the initial fourteen pages of advertisements and the subscription form loosely tipped in, original red wrappers, lettered in black, spine a trifle chafed. London, William Clowes & Sons, Ltd. April,

Lawrence contributes: "A Set Piece, January, 1918". It relates the desperate battle with the Turks in and around Kerak: "In the end we had taken their two mountain howitzers, very useful to us, their twenty-seven machine guns, two hundred horses and mules, and about two hundred and fifty prisoners. Of the rest, above six hundred were killed, and they said only fifty got back, exhausted fugitives, to the railway. All the Arabs on their track rose against them and shot them as they ran. Our men had to give up the pursuit quickly, for they were tired and sore and hungry, and it was pitifully cold. Fighting a battle may be thrilling at the moment for the general, but terrible afterwards when the broken flesh that has been his own men is carried home past him. It began to snow as we turned back, and it was very late and after the greatest efforts that we got our our wounded down to the villages that night. The Turkish wounded had to lie out, and were all dead next day. It was indefensible, but the whole theory of war is indefensible, and there is no special reproach on us for it, since we risked our lives, looking for our own men and saving them, and if our rule in battle was not to lose an Arab to kill any number of Turks, still less might we lose men to save Turks".

Wrappers very slight worn and faded at the edges. Contemporary ownership inscription.

Stock Code: 225538

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