Captain William Shakespear

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Captain William Shakespear (1878 - 1915), was an English civil servant and explorer who mapped uncharted areas of Northern Arabia and made the first official British contact with Ibn Sa'ud, future king of Saudi Arabia.

He was born in India and educated in England. In 1899 he joined the Bengal Lancers. In 1904 he joined the British Foreign Office and became the youngest vice-consul in India. Later that year he was transferred to Kuwait.

Shakespear was a great linguist who spoke Urdu, Pushtu, Farsi and Arabic fluently.

While in Kuwait, Shakespear made seven separate expeditions into the Arabian interior, during which he became a close friend of Ibn Sa'ud, then the Emir of The Nejd.

In March, 1914 Shakespear began a 1,800 mile journey from Kuwait to Riyadh and from there to Aqaba, via the Nafud Desert, which he mapped and studied in great detail, the first European 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 taken Basra.

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 of Medina as proof of the Al Sau'ds' collaboration with the British.

It has been suggested by some authorities, notably St. John Philby, that the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire might have been very differently directed if Shakespear had survived, i.e. the British would have supported and armed Ibn Sa'ud rather than Sherif 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.