Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
I think you have to put that in context.

Across the British Empire there was literally thousands of multi-lingual British Officers, who worked extremely effectively within their area of operations. Guys like Lawrence were not common, but they were far from rare either.
Agreed - just reading a bit into Britain's experience in the Raj will find you a host of "unconventional" soldiers who insert themselves into the culture they were fighting in. I remember a passage from Slim where he talks about being tired and mistakenly giving a speech to his Indian soldiers in Gurkali as opposed to Hindi (or the opposite).

Lawrence just had a good publicist and serves as the "icon" for this type of soldier - I guess he is worthy of study in that regard as he does of some good things to say. For some reason, it has gone beyond that to the point where an Armoured CO who packs up his heavy vehicles and roams around the desert conducting disrupt operations is labelled the "Next Lawrence"....

So...do you think a movement should be to name Patreaus the next Allenby?