Saturday, November 7, 2009

The German Lawrence of Arabia had much to live up to – and failed

The victors write the history, so Frobenius's adventures are today virtually unknown

By Robert Fisk

"His name was Captain Leo Frobenius and he was the German Lawrence of Arabia, tasked to start an Arab Muslim insurgency against British rule in Sudan and Egypt. Colonel Lawrence's mission, of course, was to persuade the Arabs of the Gulf to rebel against the German-allied Turkish army of the Ottoman empire. There were a few differences. A colonel Lawrence may have been; a captain Frobenius was not. His military rank was a fraud. And unlike Lawrence, the secret Frobenius mission in 1915 was a hopeless failure....."

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