Second Supplement to The London Gazette. Of Tuesday, the 5th of November, 1918. No. 30994 (T.E. Lawrence, Wartime Dispatch)
London: H. M. S. O, 1918. First Edition, First Printing. Paperback. This wartime dispatch was originally sent from General H.Q. of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force by Allenby to the Secretary of State for War in London, prior to it's first publication here by The London Gazette. It was then republished in Pirie-Gordon's "A Brief Record of the Advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force" (Cairo, 1919) along with his other wartime dispatches and with "Sherifian Co-operation in September" and "The Story of the Arab Movement", which were also compiled from Lawrence's uncredited notes originally made for the Arab Bureau. Staple bound self wraps, small folio, (12 inches tall), pp. 13099-13109, [13110 - blank]. Gazette is slightly toned with fold line and small creases from original mailing, very minor spotting and toning to terminal leaf verso and some oxidation to staples, else clean and unmarked throughout. An original wartime document, still in excellent condition and scarce thus. Near Fine. Item #2887
The London Gazette published the latest updates from the front (this number covers activity from Dec. 11, 1917 to Sept. 18, 1918) including some of Lawrence's bridge, station and railway-blowing guerrilla tactics. One of these, in April 1918, garnished him a resonant souvenir "T. E. went on to Guweira, and joined Colonel Dawnay in a successful attack on the station at Tell el Shahm. Lawrence took the station bell as a souvenir ; and, while the Arabs looted, he joined the armoured cars for further demolition work along the railway. Within three days the eighty miles of line from Maan to Mudowwara, with its seven stations, was wholly in Arab hands. 'All is very well', Lawrence wrote on his return to Cairo, 'and while we have not done all we want, we have done all we could do by ourselves, and it is not at all bad." Graves, R.P. [Scribners, 1976] p. 71.
Price: $350.00 CAD other currencies