- William Shakespear (explorer)
Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear (
1878 -24 January 1915 ), was an Englishcivil servant and explorer who mapped uncharted areas of Northern Arabia and made the first official British contact withIbn Sa'ud , future king ofSaudi Arabia . He was the military adviser toIbn Saud from 1910 to 1915, when he died in theBattle of Jarrab , againstIbn Rashid .Early life
He was born in Bombay, attended Sandhurst and from 1898 he served in India with the
Devonshire Regiment andBengal Lancers . He then joined the Indian Political Department. In 1904 he joined the BritishForeign Office and became the youngest vice-consul inBritish India . Later that year he was transferred toKuwait . Shakespear was a great linguist who spokeUrdu ,Pushtu , Persian andArabic fluently.Arabian expeditions
While in Kuwait, Shakespear made seven separate expeditions into the Arabian interior, during which he became a close friend of
Ibn Sa'ud , then theEmir of TheNejd . In March, 1914 Shakespear began a 1,800 mile journey from Kuwait toRiyadh and on toAqaba , via theNafud Desert, which he mapped and studied in great detail, the firstEurope an to do so. In November, 1914, the British government in India asked Shakespear to secure Ibn Sa'ud's support for the British-Indian Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, which had just takenBasra .Death
In January, 1915, at the
Battle of Jarrab , Shakespear's friend Ibn Sa'ud asked him to retreat to a place of safety before the fighting began. As an English gentleman, he naturally declined to do so. He was struck by a bullet and killed. The victorious Rashidis cut off his head. His solar helmet was handed over to the Ottoman authorities and hung on one of the main gates ofMedina as proof of the Al Sau'ds' collaboration with the British.Aftermath
It has been suggested by some authorities, notably
St. John Philby , that theArab Revolt against theOttoman Empire might have been very differently directed if Shakespear had survived, i.e. the British would have supported and armed Ibn Sa'ud rather thanSherif Hussein ibn Ali ."His death... was a great loss to his country, but it was a disaster to the Arab cause. It must certainly be reckoned in the small category of individual events which have changed the course of history. Had he survived to continue a work for which he was so eminently suited, it is extremely doubtful whether subsequent campaigns of Lawrence would ever have taken place in the west..."
"Arabia", H. St. John Philby, London (1930), pp 233 - 234.External links
* [http://www.oceannomad.com/Shakespear/shakespear.html Biography] , with a picture.
* [http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200205/the.captain.and.the.king.htm The Captain and the King] , from "Saudi Aramco World".
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