A Real Romance of Love, War and Politics

Elizabeth (Elsie) Newcombe, née Chaki (1919)

This recently discovered photograph is of the remarkable Elizabeth (Elsie) Chaki, a Jewish girl of Spanish/French heritage, whose father worked for the Levantine Civil Service in Constantinople. Elsie was a spirited twenty-year-old who knew her own mind and had taken great personal risks to help Stewart Francis Newcombe escape from a Turkish prisoner-of-war camp during World War 1, as well as facilitating escape routes for other Allied escapees hiding under cover in the capital. The photo was taken in 1919 on the occasion of her marriage to the 40-year-old colonel, and was published by the media as part of the incredible story of Newcombe's capture, escape and romance that was syndicated around the world. 

Earlier that year, the Paris Peace Conference began on 12 January 1919 with the first of what would be well over a hundred meetings between the leaders of countries seeking a peace that was intended to end war for all time. Within days the town filled with an international contingent working towards a just and lasting settlement based on American President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points. Kings, Queens, Emirs, and Presidents answered an instinctive need to be present at the biggest diplomatic time of reckoning in history when the spoils of war would be shared by the victors and the defeated would be asked to pay the price of peace.

After T.E. Lawrence’s firm endorsement of Emir Feisal as the leader most suited to take forward the Arab Revolt on the battlefield, it came as no surprise that he believed that he was also the one who had the greatest chance of success in the negotiations over the future of the Middle East and had therefore sent a message to King Hussein suggesting that Hussein should send Feisal as the Arab representative at the Conference.

On the eve of his own departure, Lawrence appeared realistic about the possibility of the Arabs achieving their aims when he wrote to a friend, "We may find ourselves shut out, or let in, or on the same ground as the rest of the earth. And till the end of the conference I cannot tell you. At present everything is evenly balanced."

Faisal and his entourage arrived in the midst of this gathering circus and were immediately told the devastating news that as the Hejaz delegation had no official status it could not be given representation and therefore their case would not be heard. Lawrence made light of the impasse but thereafter all his time was spent in a frantic round of meetings with politicians and journalists to push the Arab agenda to the forefront.

The Arab delegation cut a colourful and intriguing impression on the other delegates. Faisal, whose voice it was even said, "seemed to breathe the perfume of frankincense", was accompanied everywhere by his large Nubian bodyguard, complete with dagger. A retinue of advisors, many in flowing robes, drifted regally through the meeting rooms of the conference, causing a stir wherever they went. Lawrence, especially, missed no opportunity to appear in his now familiar Arab head-dress over his colonel’s uniform, reinforcing his close association with Faisal and the Arab cause. When the occasion demanded, he would even don the full robes of an Arab Emir and was described as "gliding along the corridors" of the Hotel Majestic on his way to another meeting to press the case for Arab representation before the so-called 'Big Four' - Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the U.S.

Churchill was especially struck by the transformation that came over Lawrence during these times, describing how "the full magnificence of his countenance revealed itself." When Churchill wrote these words in 1935, Britain was soon to face its finest hour and in need of a mythical Arthurian figure waiting in the wings to answer the call to arms once again. Churchill’s words fitted the moment, and the need:

"From amid the flowing draperies his noble features, his perfectly chiselled lips, and flashing eyes loaded with fire and comprehension shone forth. He looked what he was, one of nature’s greatest princes."

Throughout his time in Paris, Lawrence remained optimistic, at least in front of Faisal, but was a little premature when he suggested that the conference had nearly run its course and would be wrapped up by mid February. "Another fortnight, perhaps," he had written hopefully to his mother. In fact, the conference was to grind on for six full months of debating, arguing and horse-trading before treaties were made, borders moved, countries created, and reparations imposed upon an adversary not yet thoroughly defeated; six months during which hopes and dreams were realised or dashed, old wounds were reopened, expectations rose and fell, and fresh injustices were heaped upon the misery of the previous four years. Clemenceau summed up the challenge in an aside to a colleague: "It is much easier to make war than peace." His assessment ultimately proved correct with the result that a lasting solution to the so called ‘Syrian Question’ - that vaguely defined region that included Palestine - has so far proved insurmountable.

By the end of the month, Lawrence complained to his mother: "I have had, personally, one meal in my hotel since I got to Paris!" Happily, that meal was shared with a welcome ally. Newcombe had turned up unexpectedly.

The two friends had much to discuss, not least Newcombe’s first-hand account of his amazing Boy's Own adventures. Lawrence’s amusement at discovering that his friend was betrothed to marry can only be guessed at. Newcombe was anxiously awaiting news that Elsie had been given permission to leave the Turkish capital; Paris would be perfect for their long-awaited reunion. In the meantime, within just a few short weeks since leaving the arena of hostilities, the two men were thrown into the equally hostile and unpredictable world of high politics. When Elsie eventually arrived, it was a bright spot during a testing period for both men. Before she met Lawrence for the first time, Newcombe felt compelled to warn her, "If you meet a very rude young Englishman, pay no attention. It will be Lawrence."

In later years, Elsie gave a description to a Lawrence biographer, John E. Mack, of a warm and amusing picture of the time she met Lawrence in Paris. Newcombe and his fiancée were at a well-attended dinner with no opportunity to be introduced to Lawrence. However, at the end of the meal, a butler passed a message from Lawrence suggesting the three of them should meet. A dinner was duly arranged and when he arrived, Elsie asked him to sit next to her, to which Lawrence responded solemnly that he was not worthy of such an honour. After dinner, they went outside and Lawrence was standing on the pavement, with Elsie in the road. "Now I'm taller than you," he quipped. She promptly gave him a hard shove into the road and hopped onto the pavement. "Now I'm taller than you," she retorted. Newcombe interrupted this horseplay, saying, "Come with me. Soon you'll want to marry him instead of me." But Elsie, having the last word, replied, "Oh no, you're better looking and much nicer." Lawrence could only laugh, but Newcombe seemed a little embarrassed. 

With the question of his next posting still to be settled, Newcombe returned to London and took lodgings at the United Service Club in Pall Mall. Reserved for senior officers above the rank of Major, “The Senior” as it was known, was considered the most prestigious military club in London. Since his return he had been busy with all sorts of plans, but none more important than his own wedding. 

While Elsie settled into the Hans Crescent Hotel just behind the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, Newcombe began to make the necessary arrangements but soon found that it was not going to be as easy as he had thought. As Elsie was technically an “enemy alien subject” she was placed under certain restrictions and entering into marriage, especially with one of his Majesty’s serving officers, was going to take ingenuity to pull off. With arrangements for Newcombe to be posted overseas at an advanced stage there was no time to be lost. Elsie’s status as a citizen of Constantinople under French protection gave her some advantages but it was the recognition for her work in helping Newcombe and other Allied prisoners-of-war in their escape plans that would eventually decide the matter in her favour. Strings were pulled at senior level and with assistance from the Registrar-General, and even the Home Secretary, the matter was eventually resolved when Elsie was given permission to become a British subject.

 

With all legal difficulties overcome and arrangements having been settled, his marriage to Elsie took place on 15 April 1919, immediately upon the opening of the Registry Office at 15 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. The following day the couple, armed with the registrars’ certificate, drove across town to St. Margaret’s, the delightful church in the grounds of Westminster Abbey on Parliament Square, known as the Church of the House of Commons. Although the church was normally closed to wedding services during the Holy Week of Easter a further favour was asked of an old school chum from Christ’s Hospital, the Revd. Herbert Francis Westlake, a Minor Canon of Westminster. 

Westlake carefully read the documents brought from the Registry Office and once he was satisfied that all was correct he welcomed the couple at the altar and began the religious service. If Newcombe wanted to impress his young bride he could not have picked a more magnificent location, situated at the spiritual and political epicentre of the Empire he served as a loyal and dedicated agent.

Within days newspapers reported the marriage in a story that was syndicated around the Empire under the title ‘Real Romance of Love and War’. They claimed, rightly, that it was a tale "which seems to belong to the pages of a novel rather than to a record of actual events." The ceremony, the report concluded, was "the culminating act of a chain of happenings which included adventures among the enemy disguised as an Arab, capture, a love episode, escape, recapture, and finally a happy reunion in England, and wedding bells." The happy couple, who had met under such remarkable circumstances and had already gone through so many adventures together, had overcome the last difficulty and were finally united in marriage. The verdict from the London newspapers was heart-warming, describing Elsie as "handsome and singularly charming."

The marriage is not recorded in the register book in the usual way, but is listed on an inserted Certificate of Marriage slip, in the April section for that year. An accompanying letter indicates that there were two ceremonies of marriage, one in the Church of England and another one elsewhere according to other religious rites. The letter goes on to explains what happens in this sort of case: “...When it is desired that two marriages of the same parties should be solemnized on the same day by different religious rites separate Notice must be given for each marriage...and each marriage is then celebrated in precisely the same manner as if it were the only marriage. No reference to the ceremony in the other church being made in the marriage register...” 

With Newcombe's future still undecided, their different religious backgrounds would cause some consternation in government and military circles later in the year.

Kennington's Lawrence effigy at Wareham

Lawrence effigy in repose

 

"The shock of T.E.'s death. Yes, when we were getting over it I had a letter from Buxton asking me to attend a committee which would plan a National Memorial."

The artist and sculptor Eric Kennington was among a select group of people brought together to discuss a fitting memorial following the death of T.E. Lawrence in 1935. "As far as I can remember," Kennington recalled many years later, "the other members were Buxton 'in the chair', Lady Astor, who soon elbowed him out of it and was in it herself, Newcombe, Storrs, Bernard Shaw, Lionel Curtis, Sir Herbert Baker."

Robin Buxton was Lawrence's banker and former colleague in the desert war. Lionel Curtis was an old friend and advocate of Imperial Federalism, which after its rejection in 1937 gave way to the idea of a Commonwealth of Nations. Sir Herbert Baker was an influential architect who with Edwin Lutyens had created New Delhi which became the capital of the British Raj in India. Baker had given Lawrence sanctuary in an upstairs attic room above his studios in Barton Street, Westminster, allowing Lawrence to work undisturbed on his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

The committee was slow to come up with suitable ideas. "Then Baker said he had asked T.E. once what his idea was for a monument to himself," Kennington recalled, "and his reply - "The largest mountain in Arabia carved into a likeness of himself!" This amused Sir Ronald Storrs who interjected, "What a fine target for the Arabs - they'd get his nose first shot." Storrs, formerly assistant to the High Commissioner in Egypt followed by spells as Governor of Jerusalem and Cyprus, was an old friend of Lawrence and was instrumental in inviting him to assess the situation in the Hejaz at the start of the Arab Revolt. He knew that no grand ideas were ever formed by committees, but a lot of foolish ideas died there. Then Baker said, "What about an effigy? We have a distinguished sculptor here." Kennington had been lying low throughout the proceedings but quickly produced some sketches which were generally accepted. Then the matter went very quiet for several months. Kennington turned to the one man he could trust to give him a straight answer. He wrote to Stewart Newcombe who replied, "Nothing doing - it's all off. They aren't going on with a National Memorial." This was a blow especially as leaflets had gone out requesting donations and had been signed by the committee members which now included Churchill, Allenby and Augustus John. The idea was quietly dropped.

Hand on Arabian khanjar dagger

Two years passed when a chance encounter at Oxford railway station between Kennington and Curtis reinvigorated the idea of an effigy. Curtis remembered their previous association and said it was a pity that the scheme for an effigy had fallen through, adding, "I wonder what it would have looked like?" "You'd better come and see it," Kennington replied. "It's almost finished."

Legs crossed at the ankles

Lawrence's brother, Arnold, came to see it and immediately offered to buy it from Kennington. "What's this worth to you?" he asked bluntly. Kennington gave a price of two thousand pounds and a cheque was drawn up there and then. But where to place it? It is not clear who first suggested the tiny parish church of St. Martin's-on-the-walls, Wareham in Dorset, but when seen today Kennington's effigy rests in the most wonderful example of a 1000 years old Anglo-Saxon church, accessible to all and in perfect harmony with its surroundings.



St. Martin's-on-the-walls, Wareham

Kennington sculpted the effigy in the style of a recumbent figure with one hand resting on the hilt of a curved Arabian khanjar dagger and one resting loosely at his side and with legs crossed at the ankles in the style of a thirteenth-century knight. Cross-legs and sword handling were features of effigies during this period, created to depict an image of repose and peace which complemented further characteristics which represented military vigour and alertness. This style persisted until the middle of the fourteenth-century when it fell out of favour to be replaced by the praying, straight-legged effigy. The meaning of the cross-legged feature was generally thought to have originated from Knights Templars or Crusaders who had died in the Holy Land, had died during the journey home, or had simply travelled east as a pilgrim or soldier. The romance of the pilgrim soldier persisted and was especially strong in the sixteenth-century, long after the period of the Crusades, reinforcing the theory. However, this crossed-legged Crusader connection has since been refuted by historians. Kennington, in reproducing the image of a 13th-century knight, was tapping into the popular beliefs held at the time.

  

Lawrence's crossed feet rest upon a piece of Hittite sculpture

Kennington was aided in his work by photos of the progress of the sculpture made by Wing Commander Reginald Simms, an amateur photographer and a former colleague of Lawrence at Bridlington during his RAF service. These undoubtedly helped Kennington during the development of the effigy, highlighting any errors. This ultimately resulted in a fine piece of work with an exquisite likeness of Lawrence in repose but also with an alertness and readiness for further action as depicted by his resting hand ready to un-sheath the curved blade. This feature was particularly pertinent when the effigy was finally placed in St. Martin's in September 1939.

Two years earlier, Churchill had contributed a piece to T.E. Lawrence By His Friends, a collection of reminiscences or impressions of Lawrence by those who knew him or had worked with him - a 'gallery of partial portraits', as Arnold Lawrence, the editor, put it. Churchill submitted a revision of an earlier obituary article published on 26 May 1935 in the News of the World newspaper, only seven days after Lawrence's death. He wrote, 'I fear whatever our need we shall never see his like again'. Churchill used much of this article at the unveiling of a memorial plaque by Kennington at the Oxford High School for Boys on 3 October 1936, an event at which Colonel and Mrs Newcombe attended and where Elsie Newcombe confessed to a bemused E.M. Forster that "Mrs Lawrence [T.E.'s mother] lovs me so much that I may kiss her here here with my rouged lips and leave spots on her face and still she doesn't mind."

Churchill included the Oxford text with further amendments in his 1937 opus Great Contemporaries where he made significant changes in both words and tone at a time when he was languishing in a political wilderness. With ominous world events pointing to another world war - in March 1936 Germany had reoccupied the Rhineland and four months later saw the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War - he used the occasion to highlight a pressing need for political effect. "All feel the poorer that he has gone from us. In these days dangers and difficulties gather upon Britain and her Empire, and we are also conscious of a lack of outstanding figures with which to overcome them."  This was not just about Lawrence. If Churchill had been side-lined at least he was able to remind his audience he was still available.

Even Lawrence's role in the RAF was utilised for Churchill's own political aims. In Friends, Churchill wrote simply that Lawrence experienced twelve years of "honourable service" in the RAF as an air-mechanic, concerned with the "mechanism of aeroplane engines, the design of flying boats." Two years later this employment was set aside in favour of a more far-reaching role that was used to bolster Churchill's own arguments for the strengthening of the aerial defence of Britain in line with the growth of the Luftwaffe.  "Those who knew him best miss him most; but our country misses him most of all. For this is a time when the great problems upon which his thought and work had so long centred, problems of aerial defence, problems of our relations with the Arab peoples, fill an even larger space in our affairs." 

With the spectre of war with Germany looming on the horizon, the tone of Churchill's revised portrait of Lawrence in Great Contemporaries became elegiac and inspirational to stir the emotions of the British public about to face their finest hour and in need of an Arthurian figure who was merely waiting for the call to arms once again. Kennington's effigy fitted the bill exactly. It would also not be long before Churchill was recalled from exile. 

NOTE

Photographs of Eric Kennington's effigy of T.E. Lawrence by Kerry Webber (December 2015), courtesy of the Rector and Churchwardens of St. Martin's-on-the-walls, Wareham.

30 Brechin Place

Newcombe's place of residence after retirement

Newcombe and retirement

On his retirement from the army in 1932 Stewart Newcombe and his wife, Elsie, moved to London and took up residence at 30 Brechin Place, South Kensington, an imposing four-storied terraced townhouse with additional attic rooms and basement. He soon settled into his new life away from the regiment and found time to renew his connections with old friends and colleagues at society meetings and clubs. At 53-years old he took on a civilian job, perhaps the first and only in his life, with Turner and Newall, a company specialising in asbestos products. His continuing interest in developing sustainable heat and energy for domestic housing made T&N a perfect vehicle for expanding his theories and would help in formulating some of his untried ideas on the subject of heat retention within the home.  The asbestos industry would later became mired in litigation and controversy but at the time was thought of as no more dangerous than many other industries such as coalmining or in the manufacture of steel. Lawrence took advantage of Newcombe’s connection to order some of their products to modernise his Dorset cottage, Clouds Hill,  but even he was aware of the inherent dangers of asbestos and referred to it as that ‘beastly stuff’.    

Lawrence – Final RAF duties

As Lawrence’s time in the RAF wound down he was worked hard – or more likely worked himself hard – right up until the end. For a couple of weeks he had been overseeing the assembly of a new batch of 100 h.p. power engines destined for RAF target boats at Henry Meadows Ltd, in Wolverhampton, but could be found at any number of locations that needed his presence. After residing briefly as Henry Meadows’ guest at Windermere House, he informed Newcombe that he had been forced to take up a bug infested accommodation as Wolverhampton seemed pretty full.

Windermere House

Lawrence was deeply unimpressed by Wolverhampton calling it ‘squalid’ and a ‘cess-pit’, adding that it had ‘the worse mannered local press of my experience!’ Coming from a press-hounded man like Lawrence it must have been particularly bad, so much so that he claims to have punched an editor in the mouth. He said that it had been the first time he had done so in his life; it would not be the last.

A lull in the manufacture at Meadows’ Fallings Park factory meant more meetings with the Air Council in London or back to Southampton for further fine-tuning at Scott-Paine’s power boat yard. “Since Wolverhampton,” he wrote, “I have been to London, Nottingham and Oxford; London; Plymouth; and London again.” At some point during this time, perhaps on 16 February when Lawrence’s meeting with the Secretary of the Air Ministry, Sir Christopher Bullock, was cancelled, he spent a day with the Newcombes at Brechin Place in London. A few weeks later Liddell Hart sent Newcombe an inscribed copy of his biography ‘T.E. Lawrence’ In Arabia and After and received the following letter describing the meeting:

2 March 1934

Dear Liddell Hart, It was extraordinarily kind of you to send me the book and also to insert a very flattering inscription. Naturally it has given my wife and me very great pleasure and very many thanks. T.E. was here about three weeks ago from 10 am till 6: as bright as ever.

Yours very sincerely
Stewart F. Newcombe

A rare moment of quietude

It must have been a rare treat for Lawrence to spend a whole day with Newcombe and Elsie instead of his usual nomadic existence in lodgings with snatched meals and working day and night on double shifts, ‘oiled up to the teeth,’ as he put it, ‘fed up to the teeth: and very unpopular.’ 

30 Brechin Place, now painted red

Today the Brechin Place house is painted in a cardinal red finish - too jarring for my tastes - one of only two in a typical street of London brick facades. When I last visited Kensington the house still seemed to reverberate with conversations both serious and jocular that took place within its walls eighty years ago between two old desert warriors and a brave woman that helped one of them escape under the very noses of his Turkish captors!

I would like to thank John Meadows for placing the history of his grandfather's factory online at Henry Meadows Ltd.

 

Turkish Delights

During a recent trip to Turkey I was able to identify and visit four locations where Stewart Newcombe was imprisoned as a captive officer in 1917. These were the POW camps at Afyon-Karahisar, Bursa and two in the centre of Istanbul (Constantinople). 

See also: In the steps of Newcombe 

Beyazit Square

One of the prisons in Istanbul occupied what is today the Faculty of Political Sciences at the Istanbul University, the city’s oldest university founded in 1453. The Beyazit campus, with its imposing arched entrance facing Beyazit Square, is located in the heart of old Stamboul, close to all the major historical attractions such as the Hagia Sophia Basilica, the Blue Mosque and next to the Suleymaniye Mosque and the Grand Bazaar. In Newcombe’s time the faculty served as the guard quarters of the Daire-i Umur-ı Askeriye, the Ministry of War of the Ottoman Empire, in what is the main building of the University. The students attending the University today would have little idea of the conditions that prisoners were once kept in.

The second site, the Psamatia Prisoner-of-War Camp on the western outskirts of Stamboul, was formed around a requisitioned church and theological school, the Meryem Ana Ermeni Kilisesi - the Armenian Church of the Virgin Mary - in the Kumkapi district. This was the scene of an audacious escape attempt by Newcombe and fellow officer Francis Yeats-Brown that nearly ended in disaster.

Some 230 kms away, Bursa had been the first capital city of the Ottomans and had the nickname "Green Bursa" because of the surrounding greenery and forests. It was a well laid out city founded by Orhan Gazi in 1326 and still retains the first examples of typical Ottoman architectural style. 

Bursa Clock Tower

It was at the top of the famous Bursa Clock Tower in Tophane district that Newcombe and Elsie Chaki, his Franco-Turkish escape accomplice and bride-to-be, secretly met to plan his getaway. Bursa was famous then as it is now for its natural hot springs so it would have been entirely plausible for Elsie to visit the town to take the recuperative waters. The clock tower is conveniently situated on a high plateau overlooking the town from where Newcombe was able to see all the way to the coast through a wide valley between low lying hills to the north and the foothills of the Uludağ, "The Great Mountain", to the south of the historic centre of Bursa. It was a route he would come to know very well in the future. With the escape route agreed upon, their future together was sealed.

The highlight of my visit to the city arose from a misunderstanding with the owner of a restaurant on the edge of the gardens opposite the clock tower. My Turkish is minimal at best and my new-found friend’s English began and ended in mastering an equally minimal vocabulary necessary to his trade. Between the two of us we managed to contrive a calamitous misunderstanding that ultimately led to much hand-shaking and hugs all round from the proprietor and his many sons, to each of whom I was introduced with the term: “this is the Osmanli.” I was fortunate also in that 50% of the bill for my sumptuous feast was waived and I became the grateful recipient of gifts such as a fridge magnet, place mat and pens depicting the name and logo of the establishment. 

Entrance to Tower

It seems that in trying to explain my interest in the clock tower and gardens in my faltering Turkish it was somehow assumed that I was a relative of the colonel and the woman he later married, thus making me part Turkish. Not wishing to pass off as an imposter in a foreign country, especially of the man I’m writing a book about, but not having the necessary skills to pull back the ensuing disaster, I was grateful when they stopped taking photos of me standing by the tower and I was at last able to bid them a fond farewell, albeit with a promise to return, as one does. 

The owner and staff at the Haci Dayi Restaurant may not be able to read this, but if someone translates it for them, then I’m sorry - and I will return! You have a wonderful restaurant. As I look at the much-prized fridge magnet staring at me accusingly from where it is stuck on my angle-poise lamp, I ask myself: “Do I feel guilty?” But then I am reminded that Bursa was where Newcombe and Elsie hoodwinked their Turkish guards and where they planned his final and ultimately successful escape from captivity. As Elsie might have said: "Non, je ne regrette rien".

In the Steps of Newcombe

Plans are now complete for an ‘in the steps of Newcombe’ tour of Turkey commencing next week which will give me the opportunity to capture the landscape, atmosphere and spirit of place before publication of In the Shadow of the Crescent next year. This trip will all too briefly cover Stewart Newcombe’s onward journey from Carchemish in 1914 after he had visited T.E. Lawrence and Leonard Woolley at the end of the survey season that had included the Wilderness of Zin and Sinai intelligence-gathering missions. From the archaeologist’s house Newcombe and fellow Royal Engineer officer Lieutenant J.P.S. Greig travelled on horse-back to observe the progress of the Berlin to Baghdad railway through the Taurus Mountain passes, although as Newcombe complained, ‘horse is rather a misnomer for the animals obtained’.

Tunnel through the Tuarus Mountains

Although the archaeologists’ hospitality would have been a welcome diversion after the rigours of the surveys, Newcombe and Greig were eager to be off to investigate the progress of the construction of the railway to the west. After they set off they soon picked up the railhead at Dorak and followed the line through the Taurus Mountains until Karapunar (mod. Karapinar) from where I’ll be able to pick up their journey. Identifying about 18 kilometres of tunnels, they made their way through the stunning but slightly terrifying gorges of the Taurus range, with its hair-raising zigzag paths and a cleverly graded carriage-road cut alongside the route of the line. At the village of Bedernadik (today’s Belemedik) they encountered a stone-built camp for engineers supported by a guard of Ottoman soldiers who stopped them and asked for papers. Newcombe was able to bluff his way out of a difficult situation. As he explained: ‘A few chosen words in French to an Austrian, who could only understand Italian, and the acceptance of a cigar, were sufficient to get us through.’ They continued in the direction of Bozanti (mod. Pozanti), and although it was getting dark the effect of the fading light on the rock-cut road was inspiring and moved Newcombe to describe it as a ‘narrow gorge of the most impressive and romantic description, seen as it was after dusk with a crescent moon, on either side the cliffs rising sheer to the snowline.’ It was an uncharacteristically lyrical description from a man more familiar with technical and factual details. 

Always the engineer, Newcombe was equally impressed by the extremely difficult work of surveying and construction, especially at the tunnel mouths, which continued through the night by the glow of electric arc lights – 12 tunnels were eventually built although the original idea was to pierce the Taurus mountain range by one long tunnel. Accordingly, he paid his respects to his fellow engineers, hoping also to elicit intelligence. But as he pointed out, ‘It was difficult, however, to get any other information than what could be seen on a hurried journey.’  

One of the highlights of my journey north will be a visit to Bursa, the ancient capital of the Ottoman State from 1326 to 1365. It was here that Newcombe was imprisoned and from where he and his brave accomplice and future wife, Elizabeth (Elsie) Chaki, hatched a daring plan for his escape back to Constantinople (Istanbul) and where he would later make contact with the escape organisation of an equally courageous woman who went under the nom de guerre of The White Lady.

‘A nice man whom I once met in Constantinople.’

Galata Bridge, Constantinople

Newcombe knew Constantinople well from before the war. Gertrude Bell, the ‘Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations’, as one recent biography describes this most extraordinary woman, was already a celebrated mountaineer, intrepid traveller, writer, political officer and spy when she crossed paths with Newcombe in the city. She first wrote of him to her mother in 1916 as “…a nice man whom I once met in Constantinople.” Years later she would bemoan the fact that he had been ensnared by marriage: ‘...Col. Newcomb [sic] is the kind of man who never ought to have married at all. He is an adventurer and really good at the job.’

Before Elsie and The White Lady came to his rescue, Istanbul was the scene of many failed escape attempts by Newcombe and his accomplices – some calamitous, some amusing but all with potentially serious consequences. A boat trip on the Bosphorus from the Galata Bridge which spans the Golden Horn will be essential in recreating one particular adventure that nearly ended in disaster and necessitated the need for the would-be escapees to return to their military prison undetected. My return journey will be to a suitably located restaurant to dine on locally caught fish and to watch the sun setting across the Sea of Marmara in the knowledge that within weeks of the war’s end, Newcombe and Elsie were reunited in London and married in a small church nestling in the shadow of Westminster Abbey, situated at the spiritual and political epicentre of the Empire he served as a loyal and dedicated agent. Elsie may not have met with Gertrude’s approval but their marriage flourished within the parameters of his military career which, given his rank, status and experience, gave them ample opportunities to share and enjoy fresh adventures together.