ABSTRACT
Resemblances between Arnold Wilson and Lawrence have been claimed.1
A better-rounded pairing is Wilson and Lloyd, who both believed strongly in the Empire and Christianity (Lloyd was a Quaker), sympathised little with nationalism, devoted much effort to fighting Whitehall (Allenby did his share of this), maintained an inner circle of disciples (in Lloyd’s case, his ADCs, who called him ‘God’ but were not always treated well), had a house in the Hitchin area and – in response to Hitler – took up military flying at an advanced age. Lloyd, though ‘more sophisticated’ than Wilson, possessing ‘an incisive intelligence and an un-British logicality’,2
had ‘much the same habits of physical and mental energy, much the same inclination to autocracy and intolerance, much the same views on imperialism, and much the same contempt for liberalism’. When they met, in 1907, Lloyd, Wilson said, made ‘an indelible impression of firmness and energy on my mind’.3 Wilson, however, was much the more human of the two and had no love affair with the Arabs, preferring Persians; Lloyd had early fallen under the spell of the East (at levels which were no threat to his self-importance) and shared Cromer’s sympathy for the Egyptian fallah. Assessments of his Arabic attainments vary.4
