TE Lawrence: a merged thread

[Erich G. Simmers]

Hello, folks.

I was doing some research for my dissertation when a came across a 1933 letter from T. E. Lawrence to B. H. Liddell Hart. Lawrence is commenting on Liddel Hart's book The Ghost of Napoleon when he writes something I hadn't seen quoted anywhere else, which intrigued me:

So far as I can see strategy is eternal, & the same and true: but tactics is the ever-changing language through which it speaks. A general can learn as much from Belisarius as from Haig--but not a soldier. Soldiers have to know their means.*

First, I started wondering, "Do I agree with those characterizations of strategy and tactics? What about this comment 'soldiers have to know their means?'" Secondly, the contrast of Belisarius and Haig struck me. As the editor of the collection, Malcolm Brown, points out, Belisarius used "hit-and-run tactics" with minimal losses and Haig used "massed forces at high cost."** I have never been high on Haig, so I can't tell if Lawrence intends this as an ironic comment or not.

At any rate, I wanted to throw the quote out and see what members of the council thought about it. Anything strike you? Agree? Disagree? What say you, SWC?

* - T. E. Lawrence, T. E. Lawrence: The Selected Letters, edited by Malcolm Brown (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), 473.

** - Ibid, 473n.