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Ctesiphon Books
THE
GOLDEN CARPET
By:
SOMERSET
DE CHAIR
LONDON:
First Trade Edition
1944
Publisher/Year: LONDON: Faber and Faber, First Trade Edition, 1944. Binding: Original Cloth hardcover, 22.5x14.5cm. Pages: 224 Illustrations: 31Photo Illustrations, 1 fold-out map, end-papers map.
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Somerset Struben De Chair (1911-1995)Politician and Writer
Born in England in 1911, he entered Parliament at the early age of twenty-four. Having joined the Supplementary Reserve of the Royal Horse Guards in 1938, he was called up on the outbreak of war and served in the Middle East as Intelligence Officer to the 4th Cavalry Brigade, and to the Column which rescued the British Embassy at Baghdad in 1941. He was one of the two officers who received the surrender of the city on 31st May 1941. He was subsequently wounded in the attack on the desert fortress of Palmyra held by Vichy French Foreign Legion. For two and a half years he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to a member of the War Cabinet Oliver Lyttelton. de Chair published his first book The Impending Storm in 1930, while his last book, an autobiography appeared in 1988, he died on 1995.
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EXCELLENT WORK
BRITISH INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
ACCOUNT of
IRAQ
in World War II
This Book ...
THIS book was originally written at the request of the Golden Cockerel Press and was published by them uniformly with their Crusader Castles and Secret Despatches from 4rabia by T. E. Lawrence. The limited edition of 500 copies on hand-made paper, bound in leather, was primarily designed to meet the demand of those who had shared in the taking of Baghdad or the capture of Palmyra; and the extent to which the critics and the general public would interest themselves in it was not foreseen.
This edition is designed to meet the wider demand; and combines in one volume the two parts of the original narrative. I have struck out a few lines in some parts but have added others in different places, so that on balance the reader has not been defrauded. The R.A.F. photographs are published here for the first time, by permission of the Air Ministry. An index has been added.From Preface ...
T. E. LAWRENCE says in one of his letters that a year in the Middle East counts for ten anywhere else. I know what he meant. When I try to recall my time there it seems crowded with so much incident and colour that it is difficult to select what is really significant. `I have camped amid the timeless scenery of the Bible; floundered in mud in the Jordan valley during that season of the year when even kings cannot go forth to battle; found myself in deserts and floods; and, if I may say so, it is not an everyday experience for a Parliamentarian to find himself being carried blindfold at dawn into the city of the Caliphs, there to have the bandages stripped from his eyes and to see, across the fast waters of the Tigris, the domes and minarets of this fabled city which is associated with the memory of Haroun Al Raschid.'
That is why I have begun this book with the story of our fabled march from the Mediterranean to the Tigris to capture Baghdad; but even a soldier can visit the Levant as a pilgrim; whether it be to the ruins of the Decapolis, the Holy Places or the Crusader Castles. He who goes with an air of expectation will not be disappointed.
I was partly hoping to resurrect Lawrence against his proper background and I picked up some unexpected threads of his story. Lawrence says in a letter to Robert Graves that one of the only three people he really cared for was an Armenian called Altounyan. Altounyan certainly cared for Lawrence and was on the point of departure from Aleppo to meet Lawrence in England when he heard of his death and was shocked into writing around the memory of his friend 119 of the greatest sonnets in the English language since the time of Shakespeare. I saw much of Altounyan when I was convalescing in Jerusalem after the events chronicled in these pages. He told me about Lawrence, whom he had first met at the Carcemish dig in 1911. At that time he had thought Lawrence an insufferable young prig, and it was not until after the war that they became friends.
Contents ...
Chapters
Preface
'KingCol'
The Silver Crescent
Appendix
Indix
Illustrations ...
Author: Bronze by Lanyi
Brigadier John Joseph Kingstone
Major John Bagot Glubb Pasha
First page of message from Glubb Pasha concerning the Fall of Rutbah
Second page of message signed by Glubb Pasha with additions by author, initialed at Rutbah, 13 May 1941
The London-Baghdad Signpost, Habbaniya
Royal Air Force Reconnaissance photographs of the Khan Nuqta-Baghdad road [ 10 Photos]
The blown-up bridge over the Abu Guraib canal
Limestone bas-relief (8th century B.C.) on the Sargon Gate of Khorsabad, Baghdad
Instructions to author from Brigadier Kingstone
Sheik Hassan Suhail, M.P. for Baghdad
H.M. King Feisal II
English nurse; H.M. King Feisal II; author; H.H. The Regent Abdul Illah, at the Palace of Roses, Baghdad
Author with Sheik Hussein Suhail and Reading (interpreter) in camp, Baghdad
In the tents of Ali Suhail at Aqqa Quf
Abu Guraib Canal: Swimmers of the Beni Tmimm tribe diving for ammunition
The gold-roofed mosque of Holy Kadhimain
At Aqqa Quf. Sheik Ali Suhail; author; Sheik Hussein Suhail (with Gen. Wavell's presentation binoculars); Reading (with the Cleaning Rod)
The Ruins of Palmyra
Four of Glubb's girls with Flying Officer Sector and Pilot Officer Mosley
Before Palmyra, 21 June 1941
Condition ...
Sun-faded spine, soiled cover, otherwise book internally in very good condition.
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