Verwandte Artikel zu Guerrilla Leader: T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt

Guerrilla Leader: T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt - Hardcover

Schneider, James

 
9780553807646: Guerrilla Leader: T. E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0553807641 ISBN 13: 9780553807646
Verlag: Bantam, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Reclaiming T. E. Lawrence from hype and legend, James J. Schneider offers a startling reexamination of this leader’s critical role in shaping the modern Middle East. Just how did this obscure British junior intelligence officer, unschooled in the art of war, become “Lawrence of Arabia” and inspire a loosely affiliated cluster of desert tribes to band together in an all-or-nothing insurgency against their Turkish overlords? The answers have profound implications for our time as well, as a new generation of revolutionaries pulls pages from Lawrence’s playbook of irregular warfare.

Blowing up trains and harassing supply lines with dynamite and audacity, Lawrence drove the mighty armies of the Ottoman Turks to distraction and brought the Arabs to the brink of self-determination. But his success hinged on more than just innovative tactics: As he immersed himself in Arab culture, Lawrence learned that a traditional Western-style hierarchical command structure could not work in a tribal system where warriors lead not only an army but an entire community. Weaving quotations from Lawrence’s own writings with the histories of his greatest campaigns, Schneider shows how this stranger in a strange land evolved over time into the model of the self-reflective, enabling leader who eschews glory for himself but instead seeks to empower his followers. Guerrilla Leader also offers a valuable analysis of Lawrence’s innovative theories of insurgency and their relevance to the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East.

This exhaustively researched book also provides a detailed account of the Arab revolt, from the stunning assault on the port city of Aqaba to the bloody, Pyrrhic victory at Tafileh, the only set-piece battle Lawrence fought during the Great Arab Revolt. Lawrence emerged from the latter experience physically and mentally drained, incapable of continuing as a military commander, and, Schneider asserts, in the early stages of the post-traumatic stress disorder that would bedevil him for the rest of his life.  The author then carries the narrative forward to the final slaughter of the Turks at Tafas and the Arabs’ ultimate victory at Damascus.

With insights into Lawrence’s views on discipline, his fear of failure, and his enduring influence on military leadership in the twenty-first century, Guerrilla Leader is a bracingly fresh take on one of the great subjects of the modern era.

Foreward by Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas E. Ricks

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James J. Schneider is Professor Emeritus of Military Theory at the School of Advanced Military Studies, USACGSC, Ft. Leavenworth. A recognized international expert in his field, Schneider has taught and written extensively on military theory, having helped develop some of the key theoretical and pedagogical underpinnings to contemporary operational art for a new generation of military officers. Schneider is currently a military consultant with a global think tank.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

Arrival

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible. This I did. --T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

In the fall of 1946, two men sat facing each other across a green, felt-clad library table.1 The location was Hanoi, in French Indochina. The first man was General Raoul Salan, sent as part of a diplomatic mission to negotiate the return of French authority to the land that would be known to history as Vietnam. The other man gazing across from Salan was the wily Vietnamese guerrilla leader Vo Nguyen Giap. The leaders conducted a wide-ranging discourse that lasted several hours into the waning afternoon. Toward the end of the meeting, discussion turned toward Giap’s success in resisting the Japanese occupation of Indochina since 1940. Salan wanted to know the source and inspiration of Giap’s success. Without hesitation, Giap reached behind his seat and withdrew from a shelf a heavy book and laid it before Salan, who recognized the author immediately. Giap gestured toward the book, saying, “My fighting gospel is T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I am never without it.”

Salan became intrigued and wondered aloud how a book about guerrilla warfare in the desert could possibly find expression in the jungles of Vietnam. “Ah,” Giap replied. “Is that your assessment of Lawrence?” Salan nodded a casual affirmation: “Of course.” “Then you have missed the whole point of Lawrence,” said Giap. “He is less about fighting a guerrilla war than leading one. And leadership,”Giap emphasized, “is applicable in any context: desert or jungle, military or civil.” Perhaps, thought Salan . . . but the hour was growing late and there was much work to be done. In parting, the two vowed to continue the dialogue about Lawrence and his leadership at the next opportune time, but that time would never arrive. In the end, Giap would continue his application of Lawrence’s methods against an even more implacable foe than the French; the United States would learn--and forget--many of the same lessons as the French, though the outcome would be the same.



Like many notable leaders, T. E. Lawrence appears to have been a child prodigy. He could read before he was five. Recollections of family and friends describe an active boy who enjoyed running and climbing trees. He was also “frightfully bossy; he used to order us about, but in a very nice way.” There was also a sense of aloofness, another leadership quality: of being in a group, but also above it. Lawrence was never good at group games, not because he disdained their irrelevance, but because he had to be the leader in all things. The element of aloofness was perhaps reinforced by a pervasive aura that “there was always something he was not satisfied with, even as a child . . . a secret something of unhappiness.”

When the family relocated to Oxford, they moved into a redbrick, typically Victorian home at 2 Polstead Road in a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of town. In this new environment, Lawrence began to develop and demonstrate key qualities of a dynamic military leader: extraordinary energy, personal courage, profound curiosity, keen powers of observation, and an aptitude for novelty and innovation.

The powerful amalgam of energy, courage, and curiosity became the lifelong source of Lawrence’s leadership abilities. Since leadership is fundamentally a careful blend of character and competence, energy, courage, and curiosity as character attributes bear especially on a leader’s competence, because they generate the desire and need to learn in order to overcome incompetence. For Lawrence, an initial curiosity about the Middle Ages led him to delve deeply into the military art, architecture, and organization of the period. He also used the character and qualities of the medieval knight as a kind of role model that continued to evolve with his learning and practical understanding.

Psychologically, the energy and curiosity served his appetite for excitement in the discovery of new things. It also served his sense of humor, as his exploring curiosity directed him into corners of mischief. In Lawrence’s day, the chief outlet for the curious mind was found in books. From about the age of sixteen, Lawrence unharnessed his voracious reading appetite on the broader study of military history. Here he began a more formal and systematic study of not only the Middle Ages--castles, armor, uniforms, heraldry, religion, original manuscripts, artifacts, coins, and the languages of the period, Latin and Greek--but also the lives of the great generals, especially Belisarius, Maurice de Saxe, and Napoleon. Placed in a larger military context, the investigation led to his deeper understanding of the feudal, romantic, and chivalric traditions and outlook of the culture that would lead to his particular fascination with the Crusades and the heroic leader. Out of these early studies grew a self-motivating desire to “free a people.”

The great gear that drove Lawrence’s personal motivation began to turn during his formative adolescence. “I had dreamed at the City [High] School in Oxford, of hustling into form, while I lived, the new Asia which time was irreparably bringing upon us.” The “new Asia” was the emergence of what we now know as the Middle East. The development of such a yearning in most people would merely have remained a curious fantasy, but with Lawrence this fantasy became a motivational reality.

Lawrence’s progression as a military leader began with what we might term “the militarization” of his mind. By the time he completed studies at Oxford, he had written a highly original contribution to the history of medieval military architecture entitled “Crusading Castles.” Lawrence’s development during the period can be understood as two interrelated phases. The first concerned his three-year immersion into the literature and culture of the medieval period; the second phase embraced his periodic research travels that culminated with his journeys through the Middle East before the war. During these years, Lawrence developed the rarest of leadership skills: the ability to lead people from another culture. He developed a capability to use his knowledge and understanding of other peoples to move beyond his own cultural framework and biases and embrace an alien reality.

For Lawrence, medieval (mostly French) literature opened a whole new vista. As a form of interest it also became a means of escape, a kind of epic fantasy world that would be the wellspring for such post-World War I writers as J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and E. R. Eddison. His interest in the material was intense. From his study of the medieval knight culture, Lawrence developed a portrait of courtly society where romantic interests could flourish, refinements of life could emerge, and the embodied martial character could grow. After three years of extended study, Lawrence’s interests began to disrupt his university work in general. He confronted the reality of having to complete his degree, and since his field was history that meant a substantial research project. And the topic was obvious and simply a continuation of his chief military interests.

During his early adolescence, Lawrence began touring English castles and churches with his father by bicycle. Later he would often travel alone or with a friend or family member in tow. By the end of the year, Lawrence had seen all the...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Bantam
Erscheinungsdatum
2011
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553807641
ISBN 13 
9780553807646
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar