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.

T. E. Lawrence Blog

I wish to thank the blogger Groggy Dundee for linking this site to his own blog which gives "Reviews, commentaries and analysis of biographies of T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935) by an amateur Lawrence enthusiast." The reviews are surprisingly lucid and coherent given the image conjured up by his nom de blog! (Sorry Groggy, couldn't resist that). I particularly enjoyed his interview with Professor Stephen E. Tabachnick, who has written, co-written or edited several books on Lawrence: The T.E. Lawrence Puzzle (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1984), T.E. Lawrence (New York: Twayne, 1997) and Lawrence of Arabia: An Encyclopedia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004). He co-authored (with Christopher Matheson) Images of Lawrence (London: Jonathan Cape, 1998), whose overview of Lawrence biographies largely inspired Groggy's own blog. 

Despite planning a break from further postings due to other priorities, Groggy's blogsite is well worth visiting at www.telawrence.blogspot.com

A young man's near miss!

Herbert Garland's "providential escape” 

Workers arriving at the Woolwich Arsenal

The grandson of Major Herbert Garland, Chris Mitchell of New Zealand, sent in this interesting footnote to the life of Stewart Newcombe's colleague in the Hejaz (see my blog on Garland's fascinating life story dated Saturday, September 17, 2011). It seems that Garland very nearly didn't make it to the desert as many years earlier, under very different circumstances, he found himself less than half an hour away from almost certain death. On Thursday 19 June 1903, when aged 20 years old and a student of munitions, he was due to attend a class to learn how to handle lyddite explosive as part of his army training at the Royal Woolwich Arsenal ammunitions factory in South London. Since 1888, Britain had been manufacturing picric acid as a chemical compound for use in Army and Navy shells under the name lyddite, a highly unstable compound when allowed to over-dry. The shell packers at Woolwich had started work that morning at 7am checking the shells in the “danger buildings”, known as the “islands”, situated on Plumstead marshes about 1.5 miles from the main gate of the arsenal and far removed from the main town. These shells had been filled two days previously with liquid lyddite and left to gradually solidify. The men wore special clothing and felt-soled shoes against contaminating the compound which became highly volatile if salt picrates formed near exposed shell casings. At 8:11am Garland’s classroom hut and outlying buildings were completely destroyed by an enormous explosion that killed sixteen men and injured twice as many more. Windows were shattered up to a mile away and the noise could be heard three miles distant. Garland had been due to arrive at 8:30am to witness the manufacturing process and storage requirements. For him it was a very lucky escape.

A contemporary newspaper reported the gruesome details of the disaster and was quick to highlight the dangerous conditions experienced by the Arsenal workers on a daily basis: “The British Government pays from £1 to £1 10/ a week to work in the shell-filling sheds at Woolwich Arsenal. The pay is less than that of London County Council road-sweepers, and to earn it men must face death every minute of their working day.” To further illustrate the point, the newspaper stated, “The real cause of the latest disaster at the arsenal will probably always remain a mystery, for not one of the men implicated lives to tell the tale.” 

The following day a Sheffield newspaper reported that a local man, Herbert Garland, had “a providential escape” and a telegram had been received containing assurances of his safety. 

Lyddite Memorial

The incident was discussed in parliament and reported as far afield as the New York Times. Months later, a pink granite obelisk was erected over the mass grave of the victims in nearby Plumstead Cemetery.

But for those twenty minutes, Garland's future contribution to the war in the east would certainly have been sorely missed. The assault of Gallipoli, the defence of the Suez Canal and his contribution to the British Military Mission to the Hejaz in support of the Arab Revolt would each have been denied Garland's unique talents, as well as the undeniable bravery of a man who knew only too well the devastating effects of the tools of his trade. A further consequence of those missing minutes was pointed out by Garland's grandson who wrote, “If he had been a few minutes early on this particular day our Garland family branch would have ended there!”

My thanks once again go to Chris Mitchell for drawing the news item to my attention.

Newcombe's Colt .455 Revolver

Throughout the desert campaign as head of the British Military Mission to the Hejaz, Stewart Newcombe carried a Colt revolver as his sidearm of choice. It was a hefty gun to carry but before the introduction of lighter metals, power meant size and the Colt New Service .455 Eley was a large, heavy, double-action, swing-out 6 cylinder revolver with real stopping potential. 

Newcombe's personalised Colt revolver

Even before Kitchener created his New Army, it became obvious that the Webley and Scott factory in Birmingham would not be able to single-handedly fulfil military requirements for supplies of the standard British service revolver, the Webley .455 Mark V and its 1915 variant the Mark VI. Traditionally, British Officers were required to purchase their own sidearm from a gunsmith, a military outfitter, or from the Government with the former two methods classed as ‘private purchase’; in fact, a number of corps were also issued with pistols as self-defence weapons especially when separated from their main weapon, including the Machine Gun Corps, The Royal Flying Corps, and the Tank Corps. Pistols were successfully used in areas where a rifle would be an unnecessary encumbrance, such as the close confines of trench raiding, patrols or tunnelling. Finding the weapons and ordnance with which to equip the swelling ranks of Kitchener’s Army required the War Office to look beyond domestic and imperial facilities. To meet the demand for pistols – the British military services purchased approximately half a million pistols during the Great War - the War Office turned to the two foremost manufacturers of handguns in the world, Colt and Smith & Wesson of America. Both manufacturers immediately responded with variants of their large frame revolvers chambered to match the British .455 cartridges in general use at that time. 

By 1917, Colt had manufactured upwards of 55,000 .455 New Service revolvers for British and Commonwealth armed forces which upon receipt were then stamped with arrow government acceptance and inspection markings. Between 1914 and 1917, the Army and Navy Cooperative Society sold 1000 Colt revolvers, a quarter of all private purchases.  

 

Newcombe’s Colt was personalised with his name, rank and regiment engraved on the butt end on either side of the lanyard ring and was carried in a non-Military issue purpose-made leather holster with belt attachments to his own design for use with desert garb.

Recently discovered oil painting of Colonel S.F. Newcombe

By John Mansfield CREALOCK, R.H.A., 1871-1959

S.F.N by John Crealock, 1938

This fabulous oil on canvas portrait of Stewart Newcombe was painted in 1938 by John Mansfield Crealock and is held by the Tank Museum at Bovington, Wareham. It was gifted to the museum in 1988 by Dr G. E. Moloney of the Radcliffe Infirmary where Newcombe was treated prior to his death. Unfortunately, it is not on public display and has languished unseen for many years in the Museum's reserve collection until an image of the painting was recently posted on the BBC's Your Paintings website. Viewing can be arranged by prior application to the curator (see contact details below). The museum is well worth a visit as it holds the finest and most historically significant collection of tanks in the world. From the first tank, Little Willie, to the modern Challenger 2, the Tank Museum’s definitive collection comprises over 250 vehicles and thousands of supporting artefacts from across the globe.

The portrait of Colonel Newcombe is beautifully executed and Crealock has captured the stature of the sitter at the age of sixty years old as he actively worked on the Palestine issue, tackling his own government as it moved towards partition in the region. His hair is grey but there is still a hint of red to his familiar moustache, as well as a touch of humour shown in his eyes.

The artist John Mansfield Crealock was born in Manchester, went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and served in the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) in the Boer War. He attained the rank of Captain before resigning at the age of 26 in May 1897 to become an artist. He later studied at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1901-04 and exhibited at the Royal Academy, Goupil Gallery, and New English Arts Club.  

He was living at 24 Beaufort Mansions, Beaufort Street, Chelsea, prior to rejoining his old regiment the Foresters for service in the First World War.  He inherited several journals and sketchbooks from his father and his uncle, both soldier artists, which he donated to their regimental museums. He died in Hove in 1959, 'fortified by the rites of the Holy Church'. 

His father was John North Crealock, Military Assistant to Lord Chelmsford and a war artist at the time of the Battle of Isandlwana ( 22 January 1879), the first major encounter between the British Empire and the Kingdom of Zululand in the Anglo-Zulu War. He is celebrated for his pen-and-ink drawings that were scribbled hastily into a sketch-book propped on the pommel of his saddle. His images depicting the carnage at Isandlwana were the first to reach London and the pages of the daily press, shocking an incredulous Victorian public. Many of these drawings appeared in the Illustrated London News of the time.  He later appeared at the Public Enquiry on Isandhlwana. 

John North's elder brother, Henry Hope Crealock, was also an artist, and had, for a spell, left the army in an abortive and futile effort to earn a living as a painter in Rome.

A visit to the Tank Museum can be easily combined with one to the home of T.E. Lawrence at Clouds Hill. It was on the road between Bovington and Clouds Hill that Lawrence was fatally injured on 13th May 1935 in a motorcycle accident. He died in the Bovington camp hospital six days later. Stewart Newcombe attended the inquest into Lawrence's death at the camp and was a pall bearer at the funeral.

Contact the museum at:

The Tank Museum
Bovington, Dorset, BH20 6JG

Tel: 01929 405096 - Fax: 01929 405360

Website: www.tankmuseum.org Email: info@tankmuseum.org

The Tank Museum is open daily 10.00 - 17.00

Christmas closure dates: The Tank Museum will be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day.

ON THIS DAY - 2 NOVEMBER 1917

CAPTURED!

2 November 1917

On this day, Colonel Newcombe and a small detachment of camel-mounted raiders were captured during a daring operation behind enemy lines just two days after a successful cavalry charge by 800 men of the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade had overrun the unwired Turkish trenches of Beersheba in what was the opening move of the 3rd Battle of Gaza.

Newcombe's plan was simple: to take seventy heavily armed camel-mounted men through the desert in a wide sweeping arc behind enemy lines and to take and hold the Beersheba to Hebron road, cutting communication lines and holding up the retreating army until relieved. If possible, it was also hoped that an accompanying Arab Sheikh would be able to convince friendly Arabs in the hills to join the band of desert warriors. As in all operations, flexibility would be the key. This audacious plan, bearing many of the hallmarks that would later be adopted by the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS during the Second World War, was eventually approved towards the end of October 1917 by General Allenby. The operation immediately swung into action with final preparations being coordinated under the strictest secrecy. At the El Arish Machine Gunnery School, sixteen men of a mixed British and Commonwealth background were called to parade before the Officer Commanding who said that GHQ had requested sixteen men of stout heart to be chosen for a hush-hush mission. He continued, ‘If any man has no wish to go he could step forward and be replaced’. As one soldier attending an N.C.O course at El Arish later wrote: ‘None of us was that stout hearted, so we all kept our places.’ 

After successfully securing the strategically located garrison town of Beersheba, severe water shortages proved to be a major concern to the British as they attempted to consolidate their gains in and around the town. The Official History of the War explains that, ’a Khamsin which began to blow on the second added greatly to the demands for water and to the suffering when they could not be met.’ Even washing and shaving had to be forbidden. Work to reorganise the water transport was a priority, and although engineers were soon improving the wells in Beersheba, ‘the whole machine was strained to the uttermost to keep the troops at a distance from the town supplied.’

On the evening of the 31 October, unaware of the ensuing problems faced by the bulk of the mounted units who should at that moment be harassing the retreating Turkish forces towards his position, Newcombe led his group north up gentle slopes beyond the village of Ad-Dhahiriya which sat on its high plateau some 1200 feet above Beersheba. The road to Hebron which cut through the hills to the north of the village was protected by a strong Turkish garrison and patrolled by reconnaissance flights from a nearby airfield. After a long and hazardous march Newcombe and his men reached the Beersheba to Hebron road, now deep behind enemy lines, and set up camp in the nearby hills while a small party went off to cut communication wires. News reached him via local Bedouin of the capture of Beersheba and he determined at all costs to hold the Hebron road, so as to cut off the enemy's retreat to the north, while also hoping for a speedy advance by the British cavalry to secure his relief. Newcombe and his men slept till dawn on 1 November before moving off to new positions that straddled the road. Soon after setting up their guns they captured several prisoners, officers who had jauntily cantered down the road from Beersheba until fired upon and ordered to surrender. ‘Their unbelieving astonishment at the sight of British troops as they halted and obeyed was trance-like.’ When the chill of evening began to descend, Newcombe’s men spotted a column of Ottoman infantry marching down the road towards them. One member of the group remembered: ‘We opened fire. This was no battle. They had no chance, no time to think.’ But with the approaching darkness a few Turkish survivors had managed to slip away. ‘We had stirred up such a hornet’s nest,’ he recalled, ‘that it was time to vacate our known position.’ 

With the enemy now actively searching for the group, Newcombe’s difficulties continued to mount throughout the next day and it was obvious that the hoped for relief was neither near nor likely to come. A fierce fire-fight ensued after an enemy plane located their position. Within minutes the hills were spitting fire from two hastily assembled Turkish companies commanded by a German officer. With ten of his men dead, twenty wounded and most of his machine guns disabled, Newcombe had no alternative but to surrender. As T.E. Lawrence later wrote: ‘He was brave for six hours too long.’

An Oriental Assembly – Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert (1880-1923)

Highclere Castle

The recent success and popularity of the ITV television period drama Downton Abbey reminded me that the country house that ‘plays’ the title role has a significant Middle Eastern association, linked forever with Egypt in particular, and by familial connection, with Newcombe and Lawrence. The master servant, upstairs downstairs drama uses the magnificent Highclere Castle in Berkshire for most of its external and internal scenes, with the servants' living areas constructed and filmed at Ealing Studios. Since 1679, Highclere has been the country seat of the Earls of Carnarvon, a branch of the Anglo-Welsh Herbert family. It is currently the home of the 8^th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. 

Set in 1,000 acres of spectacular Berkshire countryside and boasting a park by Capability Brown, Highclere Castle is in the Jacobean style and was redesigned in 1838 by Sir Charles Barry, the architect responsible for rebuilding the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. Barry himself classified the style as Anglo-Italian.

Lord Carnarvon

‘Everywhere the glint of gold’

Highclere’s connection with ancient Egypt began through the patronage of the archaeologist Howard Carter by George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert (1866-1923), who as Lord Porchester was known as Porchy Carnarvon. When Porchy, who enjoyed a bit of a gamble, became the 5^th Earl of Carnarvon after his father’s death he put some of his money into funding 16 years of excavations near Luxor in the Valley of the Queen’s, the Valley of the Nobles, the Valley of the Kings, and in the Nile Delta near Alexandria. Having decided that it would be the last year of funding excavations in Egypt, Porchy knew he had quite literally struck gold with the gamble of a lifetime when on 22 November 1922, after Carter had broken through to an inner tomb chamber, he asked the anxious question: ‘Can you see anything?’ What Carter had seen had literally struck him dumb with amazement - a room full of “strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold.” After a pause to compose himself, Carter replied, ‘Yes, wonderful things.’ 

The discovery of Tutankhamun's nearly intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt. The Boy King captured the public imagination and exhibits of artefacts from his tomb continue to tour the world. His gold burial mask is not only a key attraction but remains a potent symbol of his status and power.

Highclere now houses a permanent exhibition commemorating this historic event.

Aubrey Herbert

The man who would be King? 

Porchy’s half-brother was the Right Honourable Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert, the second son of Henry Herbert, the 4^th Earl of Carnarvon, a British cabinet minister and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his second wife, Elizabeth Howard of Greystoke Castle, Cumberland.

Aubrey Herbert was elected to the House in 1911 as the Conservative Member of Parliament for South Somerset at a time of great changes within British domestic politics but his pre-election travels made foreign affairs a more natural area of interest. He was forever drawn to the Balkans and took up the Albanian cause with vigour while keeping a watchful eye on Turkey where he had been an honorary attaché in Constantinople. His commitment to Albania led to an extraordinary hypothetical proposal when a delegation attending the Balkan Conference in London in May 1913 put to him the question of whether he would accept their throne. Lack of funds and not conviction prevented him for accepting. Seven years later the Albanians would not forget their friend and offered him the throne once more under different circumstances, and yet again he had to refuse for very different reasons. But his legacy to Albania still stands. “No one understood better the internal and external problems of the Albanians,” wrote the writer and editor Desmond MacCarthy. “And if it is asked what Aubrey Herbert most notably achieved during his public career, the first answer is that he contributed more than anyone to bringing into existence the modern independent state of Albania.”

Aubrey goes to war

On 1^st September 1914, Aubrey Herbert was shot and wounded as he rode his horse Moonshine at breakneck speed along the edge of a beech tree wood delivering orders to a division of the Coldstream Guards that was holed up in a copse near the village of Rond de la Reine, 25 kilometres south-west of Compiegne, France. Moonshine, a thoroughbred mare racehorse with an impeccable pedigree, had been purchased by Herbert only a few days before in a nearby village for forty pounds. She held up surprisingly well under the fusillade of fire that was sweeping the open field towards the trees and after Herbert was hit her racing spirit carried him onto his regiment where he was treated for a single bullet wound to his stomach. Later that afternoon Herbert became a prisoner of the Germans when they overran the woods where he lay injured on a stretcher.  He was moved to a makeshift hospital which was in turn retaken ten days later by the French, a scene replicated many times in the area during the confusion surrounding the ebb and flow of the retreat. 

Herbert underwent a second operation to extract the fragmented bullet that was still causing him considerable pain. Two days later he left France to transfer to hospital in England. On the way he passed the woods and witnessed the fresh communal grave of one hundred and twenty men. It was the 13^th September, exactly a month to the day since Herbert had landed in France. 

That he was in France at all was nothing short of an impertinent deception that could only have been carried out by someone with Herbert’s nerve. His shockingly poor eyesight, a defect since birth and put down to a congenital imperfection blamed on the consanguinity of his parents, would certainly have ruled him out for active service. So how did he come to be there? In a stunt resembling a university prank, Aubrey had brazenly walked into a military tailor and asked to be fitted out in a uniform of an officer of the Irish Guards. Then appropriately kitted out he later simply sidled up to the departing regiment as it marched out of Wellington Barracks at seven in the morning and joined their ranks as they crossed Vauxhall Bridge on their way to Nine Elms train station. Reaching Southampton he lost himself amongst the melee of soldiers as they embarked on a troop ship bound for France. Once on board he was somehow able to bluff his way into the regiment with the rank of Lieutenant as it steamed out of harbour.  In this most extraordinary manner, Herbert was on his way as perhaps the most incongruous member of the British Expeditionary Force. 

By mid September 1914, Herbert had returned to England to convalesce after his adventures in France. Before the end of the year he was to join Newcombe, Woolley and Lawrence in Cairo. In the meantime, he had three months to recuperate at his country estate at Pixton Park and bask in the love and good wishes of family and friends. As one friend wrote, ‘It was thoroughly characteristic of you to be shot and lost but equally characteristic to be found and healed. I would always put my last shilling on your luck in these little things...’ 

Before Herbert’s name was put forward for a role in the new Cairo set-up, he had thoughts of returning to the front, but his poor eyesight was finally exposed and he waited like Lawrence for Turkey to show her hand. 

The Turkish decision to side with Germany was a blow to Aubrey Herbert who had hoped for neutrality. He was eventually ordered to the east because, as he put it, ‘it had been my fortune to have travelled widely, and I had a fairly fluent smattering of several Eastern languages.’ This experience and knowledge would be put to good use in the new Intelligence department that would soon be formed in Cairo. 

Savoy Hotel, Cairo

Herbert travelled out by the slow route via Gibraltar. With him on the ship were Leonard Woolley and George Lloyd. Lloyd was an old friend who had shared the role of honorary attaché in Constantinople. They ran into heavy seas out from England and the ship pitched violently, although not enough to interrupt the chess games the men played to pass the time. While Herbert was studying Arabic his place was taken either by the architect Edwin Lutyens or the painter William Nicholson who had joined their group for the duration of the voyage. At Gibraltar the news that an enemy submarine had passed through into the Mediterranean kept everyone alert. Once they safely reached Cairo on Friday 18 December the men went to their appointed quarters. Herbert chose to take up residence at Shepheards Hotel where he was soon joined by his wife Mary and a few weeks later by his mother, Elizabeth, the Countess of Carnarvon, who left the comfort of Highclere Castle to be with both her sons after the Foreign Office transferred Aubrey’s younger brother, Mervyn, to Cairo. The Countess would arrive just in time to see them depart for Gallipoli. 

In the meantime, Herbert was assigned to the offices of Military Intelligence housed in the Savoy Hotel, positioned on a prominent corner of Midan Soliman Pasha and identified by its distinctive rotunda tower. Even before being taken over by the British Military, the Savoy was decidedly English in character, although Aubrey Herbert likened it to an oriental railway station, with its bustle and jangling bells and running to and fro. 

Herbert and Newcombe
Before long, Herbert became deeply discontented with his position within the office and began manoeuvring for a more fulfilling role. His frustrations arose principally from a clash with Newcombe, rather than from any real discontent with the duties assigned to him. In any case, most of the more mundane tasks, such as amending a large map to show current Turkish troop movements, were in fact undertaken by his batman, Johnny Allen, who went everywhere with him. Herbert’s dislike of Newcombe was class based and he made no attempt to disguise his disdain for the senior officer. He noted down his thoughts in his diary and even shared his views with George Lloyd, who tended to agree. Even Lawrence did not come out of this first round of character assessments too well, although Herbert’s description of him as ‘an odd gnome, half cad – with a touch of genius’, afforded Lawrence with at the very least a blended compliment, as well as providing future biographers with an eminently quotable phrase. Most first impressions in the office were apt to change over time. Not so with those formed of Newcombe by Herbert. 

Amongst this congenial coterie of university-educated amateurs, with their impeccable connections and impressive titles, Newcombe was clearly the odd man out. A professional soldier with years of loyal service, he was now in command of a group of what he might rightly have considered to be elitist dilettantes, albeit most of them holding perfect credentials and with highly relevant experience for the present undertaking. But it must have rankled, on both sides, and although Newcombe seems to have conducted himself in a thoroughly professional manner within the rigid and hierarchical military structure, his patience must have been sorely tested by men like Herbert who after all had donned his military uniform by deceit. With only a short period with the Territorial Army before the war, Herbert was likewise ill-equipped to deal with Newcombe. Unfortunately, these tensions were exposed most vividly during a testing time when the fledgling department was just getting off the ground and at the very moment the Turks were knocking on the door of the canal defences. Relationships were not improved when a memo written by George Lloyd listing Newcombe’s shortcomings landed on Newcombe’s desk by mistake. 

Herbert was moved soon after to field duties and tasked with an intelligence-gathering mission on board the battleship Bacchante that sailed the Eastern Mediterranean coastline watching for Turkish troop movements. After a few weeks, both he and Lloyd would be moved from Egypt to form the nucleus of a new intelligence department that was to serve the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force assembling at the Greek island of Lemnos in preparation for the invasion of Gallipoli. 

Throughout all this, Lawrence remained somehow detached from the squabbling within the office and managed to steer a neutral path between all the personalities. The letters he wrote at the time betray no hint of the problem and he remained loyal in his friendship with Newcombe and unwavering in his admiration for his abilities.

Herbert would go on to have many more adventures during the war, not least in undertaking a secret mission in 1916 with Lawrence to secure the release of the besieged British-Indian garrison at Kut-Al-Amara, 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of Baghdad, and commanded by General Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend.  Khalil Pasha, the military governor of the region, refused the bribe of two million pounds and therefore surrender became the only option for Townshend after about 1,750 of his men had died from wounds or disease during a siege that had lasted 147 days. Some 2,600 British and 9,300 Indian other ranks were rounded up and marched away, most to certain death. In fact, 70% of the British and 50% of the Indian troops died of disease or at the hands of the Ottoman guards during the death marches or in captivity. General Townshend sat out the war in some comfort on a small island in the Sea of Marmara, close to Istanbul, and was knighted whilst in captivity. Newcombe would later meet up with Townshend in Turkey when Newcombe, himself an escaped prisoner-of-war on the run, was secretly negotiating armistice terms with the Ottomans while under cover in Constantinople. 

In 1921, Aubrey and his wife Mary welcomed the Emir Feisal, accompanied by Lawrence, to their home at Pixton Park. In the evening, they all played bridge and chess while Feisal fretted about the future. Four months later he took the throne of Iraq. 

“At the dear journey's end”

Porchy, the Earl of Carnarvon, and his half-brother Aubrey died within a few months of one another in 1923, both from septicaemia. Porchy died in the Continental-Savoy Hotel in Cairo on the 5 April 1923 after shaving a mosquito bite, leading to wild stories about the ‘mummy’s curse’. Towards the end of his life, Aubrey had become totally blind and his right eye was removed to give his left a better chance. He was given bad advice to the effect that having all his teeth extracted would restore his sight. Some weeks later, perhaps remembering the advice or in answer to a twinge of toothache, he had several teeth extracted. The dental operation resulted in the blood poisoning from which he died on 23 September 1923 aged 43. He is buried in the Herbert memorial chapel at the Church of St. Nicholas in Brushford, Somerset, under a wooden canopy designed by Edwin Lutyens. His sword hangs over the tomb. 

Desmond MacCarthy wrote: “When to distract himself from the sensation of blindness he turned to memories of his early travels, the verses which he wrote are characteristic both of his muse and himself.” In this poem, Aubrey seems to take comfort in his memories and in the inevitable end to a life full of adventure and well spent:

Gold-dusted memories of the Past
Abide like friends, but falter,
Like morning mirages that last,
Yet lasting, later, alter.
Ah, was that mountain quite so high,
and had its flowers that scent?
Could winds be friendly and as shy,
That filled night's starlit tent.
And did it taste so good, that wine,
At the dear journey's end,
Beneath the whispering island pine,
Beside a singing friend?
God knows the answer to these things,
Man is a dreamer, age and youth,
And none forget the sound of wings,
No rainbow's traitor to the truth.
And if these colours were not fair,
As memory paints, still let them stand,
To be as perfect and as rare,
As all the ghosts of that dream land.

There is a fuller portrait of Aubrey Herbert in Desmond MacCarthy's introduction to Herbert's Mons, ANZAC and Kut.

The second series of Downton Abbey premiered in the UK on 18 September 2011, and is due to do so in the U.S. on 8 January 2012. A Christmas special is also planned.

This is the second of an occasional portrait on personalities from the desert campaigns of the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918