Greenmantle by John Buchan - The 1506th Greatest Fiction Book of All Time Sign In Greenmantle by John Buchan Greenmantle is the second of five novels by John Buchan featuring the character of Richard Hannay, first published in 1916 by Hodder & Stoughton, London. It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War, the other being Mr Standfast (1919); Hannay's first and best-known adventure, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), is set in the period immediately preceding the war. [Literary significance and criticism] The book was very popular when published, and was read and enjoyed by Robert Baden-Powell and by the Russian imperial family as they awaited the outcome of the Revolution in 1917. Just as the British and American characters are positive, slightly jingoistic clichés, many of the German characters are negative clichés; for example, Colonel von Stumm is an ox-necked, bull-like bully with secret effeminate (possibly homosexual) tastes. Buchan saw his novel-writing as part of the war effort.

Stumm, the bully, is intended as a symbol of Britain's war enemy of the time, Imperial Germany. However, when Buchan writes of a meeting between Hannay and the Kaiser, he portrays the German leader very positively, as a sensitive man who is greatly troubled by the war. This is one of the most unusual and unexpected episodes in the novel. He makes similarly sympathetic characters of a poor forester's wife who shelters Hannay when he has malaria, and of the captain of the Danube river steamer who takes Hannay on as engineer. Herr Gaudian, a renowned German engineer whom Hannay meets briefly during his time with von Stumm, and who later returns in The Three Hostages, is respected by Hannay, who describes him as "a capital good fellow". Critics have claimed that the weakest elements in this book are the clunky narrative crutches Buchan uses, particularly the many unlikely coincidences and sit-down narratives with which subsidiary characters are brought in at predictable moments and made to tell their adventures. The first chapter of Greenmantle, "A Mission is Proposed", was chosen by Graham Greene for his 1957 anthology The Spy's Bedside Book.

Article (PDF Available) in Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 10(2) · January 2009 with 206 Reads DOI: 10.1353/cch.0.0068 14.41 · Concordia University Montreal Abstract Many critical works were written in the last few decades tackling John Buchan's treatment of Africa, Africans, and his colonial attitudes. As part of the author's experience as secretary to the high commissioner for South Africa, Lord Milner, between 1901 and 1903, Buchan was acquainted with the African customs which did not only add to his experience as a writer but also made him a 'fanatical imperialist'.1 However, few critics pointed out the continuation of his imperialist conviction of the East that was mostly represented in Greenmantle (1916). Buchan changed his focus of attention during the First World War when he worked for the British Intelligence. During that period, he retained the dream of the ever expanding British Empire but shifted his idea toward Islam and the decaying Ottoman Empire so as to address wider problems that destabilized the status quo like the rise of radical Islamic movements.

This paper argues that Buchan's Greenmantle falls into Edward Said's hypothesis of Orientalism since it expresses elitist ideas about the East and Muslims; also, the study investigates Buchan's historical background of Greenmantle in order to understand his overwhelming preoccupation with propaganda, his use of contemporary political events, and the influence of the Dutch orientalist, C. Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936), on his view of Islamic movements. Buchan's novels are, in fact, twofold: they are used as tools to influence the beliefs of a whole generation, and they echo the prevalent cultural and political views of Britain at that time. Since the 'historical context' of Greenmantle is 'vividly portrayed,'2 the novel is analyzed as a historical document relative to the events that occurred before and during the First World War. Indeed, the historical details in the novel are consciously used to propagate positive ideas of the British Empire and present negative stereotypes of the German and Turkish powers. James Buchan, the writer's grandson, said that his grandfather started working on Greenmantle in France 'after the battle of Loos in October 1915'.

He resumed writing it 'between trips to view the fleet at Scapa Flow with Russian parliamentary delegates in February 1916, and came back to France in March and June'.3 In June 1916, Buchan officially joined the intelligence staff at the Foreign Office and in July the novel first appeared in Land and Water, a magazine installment, and was then published in a book in November of the same year.4 As a member of the British Intelligence Corps stationed in France, he greatly depended on the news he heard from colleagues who were in the East besides the information he gathered by researching for the Nelson History of the War project that started on February 1915. In his Greenmantle's 'Preface', Buchan mentioned that the events taking place were not far from happening: Let no man or woman call its events improbable. The war has driven that word from our vocabulary, and melodrama has become the prosiest realism. Things unimagined before happen daily to our friends by sea and land. The one chance in a thousand is habitually taken, and as often as not succeeds. The writer admitted that the incidents narrated in the novel were actually happening in real life or at least not far from happening.

In addition to the historical details, many characters in the novel were taken from real persons like Major Richard Hannay, Sandy Arbuthnot, and Enver Bey. Richard Hannay, a character first introduced in The Thirty-Nine Steps, was presented as a man whose 'father had brought…[him] out from Scotland at the age of six'.5 Hannay represented the Scottish officer, Edmund Ironside (1880–1959), whom Buchan met in France. Ironside actually 'protected British interests from German spies in the months preceding the outbreak of the war',6 but he used to believe in the Darwinian classification of human races that suggested the superiority of the British, for 'he professed special dislike of the Irish, Jews, Latins, and "lesser races", that is, most of mankind'.7 Being a Scottish chauvinist, Buchan was influenced by Ironside especially by his elitist ideas that were widely spread during the late Victorian era.8 In...

Discover the world's research Browse > History > Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History > Volume 10, Number 2, Fall 2009 Access provided by Erasmus Universiteit [Change] 1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 2/11 In Greenmantle, the author showed Major Hannay easily outwitting Turkish and German officials in order to facilitate his own affairs. Colonel Stumm, the Kaiser himself, and the acting governor of Erzerum in Turkey, Ahmed Fevzi, were all fooled by Hannay. The governor of Erzerum, for instance, had all the reasons to arrest Hannay and his fellows but nothing happened. In fact, Buchan unrealistically depicted characters that were closer to supermen, though he negated the existence of such people in the same novel.

In many cases, Buchan's British heroes were baselessly and 'effortlessly superior and self-assured', 9 Oxford contemporary, and according to Herbert's granddaughter, Margaret FitzHerbert, Buchan wrote a letter in September 1923 to a friend after hearing about Herbert's death, saying: I am greatly saddened this w eek…. The most delightful and brilliant survivors from the days of chivalry… he w as the most extraordinary combination of tenderness and gentleness, w ith the most insane gallantry that I have ever know n – a sort of survivor from crusading times. I drew Sandy in Greenmantle from him. 15 Unlike T. E. Lawrence, Herbert was not directly involved in the Arab Revolt of 1916, that was hinted at in Greenmantle, and he did not play a role in agitating Arab Muslims against the Turks. Instead, he worked hard to support the Albanians against the Ottomans and was actually offered the throne of Albania after the end of the First World War. 16 So, Sandy was originally meant to 'commemorate' Herbert, but was 'soon altered to fit Lawrence while Lawrence, perversely, was altered to fit Sandy'.

This change happened in the novel after the capture of Erzurum when Lawrence started to take 'over the person of Sandy and the romantic ideals he represented for John Buchan'. 17 In reality, Lawrence played a major role in the capture of Erzerum by the Russians; therefore, Sandy appeared at the end of the novel as a liberator of the same city. Nevertheless, there were common views shared between Herbert and Buchan. Herbert, for instance, was appointed in March 1904 as honorary attaché in the British Embassy in Constantinople; the new post greatly increased his enthusiasm for the East. Herbert mentioned once that he was sent to the 'never logical' East because he got the experience out of 'travell[ing] widely' together with a 'fairly fluent smattering of several Eastern languages' 18 that included Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Albanian. After being released as a prisoner in Mons in 1914, Herbert received a letter from Mark Sykes in which he was urged to join the intelligence work, so he got involved in December 1914 with the Arab bureau of intelligence in Cairo together with T. E. Lawrence.

Sykes said that 'the Turks will not be able to keep the field and the people will welcome our arrival on the coast say in June or July when Germany should be on her last legs'. 19 During the Battle of Mons in 1914, Herbert wrote the following: '[o]ur feelings were more violently moved against Germany as the disturber of Europe'. Readers could find numerous references in Greenmantle showing Germany as a vile enemy that was ready to destroy its friends and enemies alike, and its might expanded due to its manipulation of the greenmantle figure. Also, Buchan clearly accused the Germans of being merciless and treacherous people who were used to back stabbing, as Blenkiron said: 'Germany's like a scorpion: her sting's in her tail, and that tail stretches way down into Asia' (160). During his stay in Egypt, Herbert visited other Muslim countries like Yemen, Syria, and Mesopotamia as part of his work.

1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 3/11 Buchan described in the beginning of Greenmantle the character of Sandy who seemed to be typically applied to Herbert as a man who: rode through Yemen, w hich no w hite man ever did before. The Arabs let him pass, for they thought him stark mad and argued that the hand of Allah w as heavy enough on him w ithout their efforts. He's blood–brother to every kind of Albanian bandit. Also he used to take a hand in Turkish politics, and got a huge reputation . (12) Indeed, some of the ideas in Buchan's Greenmantle were influenced by Herbert's views. For instance, the latter mentioned that he saw the Egyptian Sultan at his palace in Cairo on 8 March 1916. The Sultan said that the British 'did not understand the Moslems or what was their fraternity', and Herbert commented by saying that 'We English were bons enfants, but did not understand the East'.

In Greenmantle, Buchan echoed Herbert's comments when Sandy stated: 'The West knows nothing of the true Oriental. It pictures him as lapped in colour and idleness and luxury and gorgeous dreams. But it is all wrong' (205). On the other hand, some critics believed that Sandy's description closely matched Lawrence of Arabia for his active participation in the Arab Revolt as well as for other historical details. Other scholars believed that Lawrence took over the character of Sandy only after the spread of Lawrence's reputation as a champion of Arab rights. David Stafford, for instance, mentioned that Buchan used to receive Lawrence in the 1920s as a 'frequent visitor' to his house at Elsfield near Oxford, 'where Buchan was drawn to him by the sense of adventure and youthful possibility which he symbolized'. 20 Buchan himself admitted in a radio interview broadcast in 1936 that he met Lawrence in 1915 and 1918. 21 Also, in A Prince of the Captivity (1933), Buchan clearly referred to Sandy as T. E. Lawrence.

Falconet informed Adam that he had done a 'hundred men's jobs in the war', but most people were not aware of these achievements. Otherwise, 'you'd have been as famous as Lawrence—the Arabian fellow'. 22 In fact, this reference caused Lawrence to write an angry letter to Edward Garnett on 1 August 1933 in which he criticized Buchan who used to take 'figures of today and projects their shadows on to clouds, till they grow surhuman and grotesque: then describes them…. It sounds a filthy technique…'. 23 Lawrence was against the 'filthy technique' followed by Buchan because it meant creating unbelievable supermen. Finally, Buchan used Lawrence as Sandy in The Island of Sheep (1936), observing that he was a man who knew 'the Near and Middle East like a book'. 24 Back in 1915, Lawrence wrote a confidential report in the Arab Bulletin entitled 'Syria, The Raw Material', in which he pointed to the British plans of establishing a state in Syria with 'really prepared groundwork or large body of adherents' as long as it was 'a Sunni one, speaking Arabic, and pretending to revive the Abbasides or Ayubides'.

25 Thus, Buchan was aware of the existence of Sherif Hussein, and he used him to embellish the portrayal of the greenmantle figure. But what literary critics ignored was that Buchan had someone else in his mind when he portrayed the character of the first greenmantle. This prophet, who was made by 'that damned German propaganda' (206) and run by Hilda von Einem, died because 1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 4/11 of cancer and could not achieve his goals. 'Greenmantle is dying – has been dying for months' (204). The first greenmantle figure was actually Wilhelm Wassmuss (1880-1931) who was also known as the 'German Lawrence of Arabia'. In 1909, Wassmuss was made the German Consul to the Persian Gulf in Bushire and later Shiraz.

Major Percy Cox, the British Consul General at Bushire, expressed in 1910 serious concerns regarding Wassmuss' arguments about the German rights in the Persian Gulf. 33 During the First World War, Wassmuss was instrumental as consular official in agitating the Muslim Persian tribes against British forces. Then, the Government of India felt 'uneasy about the internal situation' because the overall conditions were increasingly deteriorating, and 'Persia, worked upon the intrigues of the enterprising German emissary Wassmuss', 34 was about to enter the war. In Greenmantle, Buchan wrote the following: 'Persian Moslems are threatening trouble. There is a dry wind blowing through the East, and the parched grasses wait the spark. And that wind is blowing towards the Indian border' (6). The revolt against the British was feared to start in Persia, crossing through Afghanistan to reach India. For Earl Kitchener (1850-1916) and his fellows, the possibility of an Islamic jihad against the British in India was 'a recurring nightmare'.

35 As Sir Walter exclaimed in Greenmantle, most of the British interests would be at stake if a Muslim revolt occurred: 'Hell… may spread. Beyond Persia, remember, lies India' (7). As a matter of fact, the German plan to wage a propaganda war in India through Afghanistan against the British dated back to 1914. It was firstly suggested by a Swedish explorer called Sven Hedin (1865-1952) who 'claimed that the east was ripe for revolt and the Afghans "burning with desire" to free India from the British'. Such a plan would only be achieved by agitating the Emir of Afghanistan against British rule. 36 However, when Wassmuss lost his German Diplomatic Code Book, that included all his encoded secrets, the British forces were able to decipher his plans and Wassmuss was forced to flee.

In an article published in February 1916, Wassmuss was reported fleeing without his box that contained 'thousands of violently inflammatory pamphlets printed in English, Urdu, Hindu, Punjabi, and Sikh, and addressed to the Indian Army, calling on it to take the opportunity presented by the war of throwing off the hated yoke of England'. There was also 'a special appeal to the Mohammedans in that army, urging them to join in a Holy War against the infidel English'. 37 In Greenmantle, one of the first agents to report a strange occurrence in the East was Harry Bullivant, Sir Walter's son, who worked as a muleteer between Mosul and the Persian border. Bullivant reached some findings as he handed over a small paper on which three words were written: 'Kasredin', 'cancer', and 'v. I.'. These codes were later deciphered by the British. After the death of the first greenmantle, a new prophet appeared and the 'prophecy had been true, and that their prophet had not failed them. The long–looked for revelation had come. Greenmantle had appeared at last to an awaiting people' (307).

In brief, Greenmantle followed the same historical events, and Buchan wanted to prove that the German prophet failed the Muslims unlike the British one. There were other minor characters mentioned in the novel which had real representation in history including Harry Bullivant, Colonel von Stumm, and Enver Bey. Harry Bullivant was introduced at the beginning of the novel to emphasize the superiority and heroism of the British just like Hannay and Sandy. Harry's description resembled that of Aubrey Herbert and T. E. Lawrence since he was able to carefully hide his identity. In fact, all of Buchan's heroes 'have the capacity to disguise themselves as people of any race, regardless of colour, language or any other features'. 38 The plot of Greenmantle revolved around Harry's discovery of the prophet's riddle. 'He found out something, but his enemies knew that he knew and he was pursued. Three months ago, just before Kut, he staggered into Delamain's camp with ten bullet holes in him and a knife slash on his forehead' (11).

In relation to Kut city (Southern Iraq), Herbert and Lawrence themselves were sent to Mesopotamia in April 1916 in order to negotiate a truce with the Turkish general to release the British soldiers besieged there. They attempted to bribe the Turkish officer but in vain. In order to conceal this historical fact, Buchan showed instead a Young Turk officer trying to bribe Hannay to release the Krupp munitions. James Buchan believed that this reversal of events was meant to emphasize 'stereotyped Oriental corruption', and Buchan was intentionally 'trying to erase the shame and disaster of the episode'. 39 Like Colonel von Stumm, the Ottoman officer, Enver Bey, was presented as a villain because he worked with the Germans against the British. He actually served as a military attaché in Berlin in order to coordinate the war efforts between the two nations. Aubrey Herbert noted that Enver had a profound vanity and could not pass a mirror without looking at himself. 'He certainly strikes me as one of the most statemanlike of the Turks. He has no desire whatsoever to put himself forward'.

40 As a historian of the First World War, Buchan clearly stated that the true 'rulers of Turkey were Enver Pasha, Djemal Pasha, and Talaat Bey, who were doing whatsoever they pleased'. 41 In Nelson's History of the War, he revealed that Enver played a major role in stirring up Muslims against the Allies even before the First World War with German coordination. For instance, during the last quarter of 1912: Turkish officers, specially trained by Enver, continued to drift back to Tripoli and Cyrenaica, and encourage the recalcitrant Arab bands. When the great w ar broke out, the jehad w as preached as much against the Italians in Libya as against the French in Morocco and the British in Egypt. 42 Accordingly, Buchan gave Enver a great deal of authority in Greenmantle. Enver was presented as an old fashioned person who was completely engaged in saving 'the old Turk' instead of reviving Turkey and joining the New Turk movement (175).

He was also 1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 5/11 shown as a highly pragmatic person who did not care at all 'for the faith of Islam' (253); however, he used the religious sentiments to achieve further aims. In fact, Turks were mostly seen as secular chauvinists, like the Germans, whose keen interest was to manipulate the religion of Islam for the sake of political survival. In short, Enver was described in terms of fanatic chauvinism and stupidity because he was the enemy of Britain, and Buchan vilified him and degraded his nationalistic motives so that the reader would not feel any attachment to him. This was part of the writer's technique to show that Germany and Turkey had no chance to win the war since all their tactics and schemes failed and broke down by Britain's talented men. In the following section, a discussion is made about Buchan's involvement in government propaganda because being aware of Buchan the propagandist is essential in understanding Greenmantle.

Buchan and Propaganda When Kaieser Wilhelm II paid a visit to the East in 1898 specifically to Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Damascus, he announced that '300 million Muslims around the world have a friend in the German Emperor'. Buchan called Kaieser's visit in his Episodes of the Great War (1936) 'a foolish pilgrimage'; 43 however, it achieved great gains in agitating the public opinion against the British. The German propaganda worked hard to spread rumors everywhere, claiming that the Kaiser converted to Islam after a pilgrimage and changed his name to 'Haji Wilhelm Mohammed'. In addition, 'passages in the Koran were found that showed the Kaiser had been ordained by God to free Muslims from infidel rule'. 44 Indeed, Buchan made use of this printing house too in publishing some of his novels especially those dealing with current British affairs. Later, Buchan was commissioned by Masterman to write the pamphlet of History of the Great War and Nelson's History of the War in 24 volumes (1915-1919).

He considered the job a 'duty', 56 and General Haig asked in September 1916 the Foreign Office to release Buchan 'until the end of the year, so that he could rejoin the staff at GHQ and carry on summarizing the battle'. 57 But Buchan presented his own side of the war story; for instance, many historians attacked him for his narratives because they were 'so manifestly 'unreal' [and they] must be a distortion of fact or faked, perhaps even a knowing charade, specifically designed for prevailing wartime conditions'. 58 As one example of his biased view, Buchan described in the pamphlet 'The Battle of the Somme' the attack as 'successful' marking 'the end of trench fighting and the beginning of the campaign in the open'.

However, in reality, 'the first day of fighting had seen more than 57,000 British casualties and has been described elsewhere as "the blackest day in 1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 6/11 and in Greenmantle he stated that it was only a game: The ordinary man w ill tell you that it w as German organization backed up w ith German money and German arms…[and] the Kaiser proclaims a Holy War and calls himself Hadji Mohammed Guilliamo, and says the Hohenzollerns are descended from the Prophet.

(6) 73 What Buchan said above was borne out to some extent in Hurgronje who quoted the speech of the German Emperor during his 1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 7/11 visit to Jerusalem, saying: 'The three hundred million Mohammedans that are scattered through the world may rest assured that the German Emperor will eternally be their friend'. 74 In Mohammedanism, Hurgronje mentioned the old European fallacy that pictured the Muslim in a fearful manner: 'The Moslim of yore, going through the world with the Qoran in one hand, the sword in the other, giving unbelievers the choice between conversion or death, is a creation of legendary fancy'. 75 Buchan borrowed the same image but presenting it as a reality. 'Islam is a fighting creed, and the mullah still stands in the pulpit with the Koran in one hand and a drawn sword in the other' (7).

Though this image was a false one, as Hurgronje claimed, Buchan used it to heighten the fear of fanatical Muslims because they were dangerous after being fooled by the Turkish and German plan. The writer also emphasized in his The Last Secrets of Final Mysteries of Explorations (1924) that Muslims were 'fanatical and devout people'. 76 Many critics accused Buchan of being a weak fiction writer 85 because most of his novels did not enjoy a high literary merit due to having propagandistic and political aims as his goal, consequently sacrificing the aesthetic quality of his works. Nevertheless, his novels were pivotal in 'shaping and expressing cultural attitudes' 86 since they had a wide appeal. In view of the propagandistic aims in his novels, Buchan attempted to present current historical events embellished in some cases with few fantasies. Georgia Mann rightly claimed that Buchan's fictional works 'cannot be trusted to give the reader an accurate picture of historical events'; however, 'they provide insight into a wide variety of developments, from Africa to the battlefields of World War I, events that hallmark the era'.

87 In the same respect, Prester John (1910) contained some details that 1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 8/11 resembled real historical events such as the 'Bambata Rebellion of 1906' as being 'probably the historical precedent for the uprising' in the novel, whereas the story of Laputa was 'possibly based on the trial of the Reverenced D. F. Wilberforce in Freetown on a charge of cannibalism in 1906'. 88 13. Anthony Master, Literary Agents: The Novelist as a Spy (Oxford, Basil Blackw ell, 1987), 22. 14. John Buchan, Pilgrim's Way: An Essay in Recollection (Chicago, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940), 195. 15. Margaret FitzHerbert, The Man Who Was Greeenmantle: A Biography of Aubrey Herbert (London: John Murray, 1983), 1.

1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 9/11 16. Auberon Waugh, "Herbert, Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux (1880–1923)," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004). [Online], Available: [12 August 2007]; FitzHerbert, 44. There w ere three plays w ritten in the eighteenth century dealing w ith a real person called Giorgio Castriota (1403-1467) w ho w as 'trained to arms by the Turks themselves [and] revolted against them and set up an independent kingdom in Albania'. The plays included: William Havard's Scanderbeg (1733), George Lillo's The Christian Hero (1735), and Thomas Whincop's Scanderbeg (1747). Thus, the theme of a hero revolting against the Turks and aiming at establishing an independent state w as very old.

Buchan might have had Aubrey Herbert in his mind to replace Castriota as such a hero. See Byron Porter Smith, Islam in English Literature (New York: Caravan Books, 1977), 97. 17. Buchan, "Romancers," 1 and 2. 18. Aubrey Herbert, Mons, Anzac & Kut (London, Hutchinson & Co., LTD., 1919). [Online], Available: #TC [05 July 2007]. I have depended on this online edition throughout the paper. Henceforth, all quotations are taken from this edition w ithout mentioning the page number. 19. FitzHerbert, 144. 20. David Stafford, "John Buchan's Tales of Espionage: A Popular Archive of British History", Canadian Journal of History/ Annales Canadiennes d'Histoire, 18: 1 (1983-4), 2-3. 21. Smith, 207. 41. Buchan, Nelson's History of the War, Vol. xv, 120. 42.

Buchan, Nelson's History of the War, Vol. ix, 31. 43. John Buchan, Episodes of the Great War (London, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1936), 316. 44. Hughes, 449-50; Gottfried Hagen, "German Heralds of Holy War: Orientalist and Applied Oriental Studies," Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24, 2 (2004), 149. 45. Stephen Casew it, "Background to the Holy War: Tow ard an Understanding," Islamic Quarterly 29, 4 (1985), 228. 46. Kris K. Manjapra, "The Illusions of Encounter: Muslim 'Minds' and Hindu Revolutionaries in First World War Germany and After," Journal of Global 1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 10/11 71. Ibid., 36. 72.

Buchan, Nelson's History of the War, Vol. xv, 119. 73. Buchan follow ed the same w ording he used in Nelson's History of the War (1915-19) in w hich he said that the Germans: 'contented themselves w ith vapouring about a jehad, w ith christening the Kaiser Hadji Mohammed Guilliamo, and proclaiming the descent of the Hohenzollerns from the Prophet'. See Ibid., 116. 74. Hurgronje, The Holy War, 71. 75. C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mohammedanism: Lectures on its Origin, its Religious and Political Growth, and its Present State (New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1916), 123. 76. Buchan, The Last Secrets of Final Mysteries, 238. 77. Philip E.

Ray, "The Villain in the Spy Novels of John Buchan," English Literature in Transition: 1880-1920 24, 2 (1981), 86-7. 78. C. Snouck Hurgronje, The Revolt in Arabia (New York: G, P. Putnam & Sons, 1917), 32. 79. Ibid., 95. 80. John Voll, "The Sudanese Mahdi: Frontier Fundamentalist," International Journal of Middle East Studies 10, 2 (May 1979), 145. 81. John Buchan, "Gordon at Khartoum," in Men and Deeds (London, Peter Davies, 1935), 181 and 191. 1/22/2014 Project MUSE - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History - Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East 11/11 82.

Buchan said the follow ing: 'I tell lost tales of savage w ars;/ And you have know n the desert sands,/ The camp beneath the silver stars,/ The rush at daw n of Arab bands,/ The fruitless toil, the hopeless dream,/ The fainting feet, the faltering breath,/ While Gordon by the ancient stream/ Waited at ease on death'. See John Buchan, Salute to Adventurers (Boston: Houghton and Mifflin Company, 1917), v. 83. Edmund Burke, "Pan-Islam and Moroccan Resistance to French Colonial Penetration, 1900-1912," The Journal of African History 13, 1 (1972), 98; Casew it, 228. 84. Burke, 115. Contrary to w hat w as said before, Buchan, the historian, mentioned a different story, saying that the founder of this movement w as 'a firm friend of Britain, and had resisted all overtures from the Mahdi'.

In addition, the follow ers of the Senussi w ere 'untainted w ith Pan-Islamism, and had held themselves aloof from politics'. See Buchan, Nelson's History of the War, Vol. xii, 50. 85. Buchan's characters w ere not 'alw ays w ell draw n and often too little is know n about them except how they react in time of crisis. At times the minor characters are more interesting than the major ones'. See J. Randolph Cox, "The Genie and His Pen: The Fiction of John Buchan," English Literature in Transition 9 (1966), 239. 86. Yumna Siddiqi, "Anxieties of Empire and the Fiction of Intrigue," Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 1999, 6. 87. Georgia Allene Mann, "John Buchan (1875-1940) and the First World War: A Scot's Career in Imperial Britain," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of North Texas, 1999, 9. 88.

Olivia Coyle, "Images of Africa and Africans in the Fiction of John Buchan," The John Buchan Journal 29 (2003), 23. Buchan could have another aim in Prester John, namely making South Africa interesting enough for the British new comers. In other w ords, he indirectly encouraged thousands of British citizens to stay in the Transvaal and the Orange River colonies in order to outnumber the Boers. See Andrew Low nie, John Buchan: The Presbyterian Cavalier (London, Constable, 1995), 73. 89. Leland Schubert, "Almost Real Reality: John Buchan's Visible World," Serif 2, 3 (1965), 7. 90. In this context, it is important to note that Greenmantle is not popular in the Arab w orld despite its significance and most Arab intellectuals are ignorant of its existence. There is only one study that refers to it in passing w ithout analyzing its motives and characters. For more details, see Abu Bakir Ahmed Baqadar, 'Surat AlĀkhar Fi Riw ayat Al-Mahdi Li A. J.

Quinnel" (The Image of the Other in A. J. Quinnel's Al-Mahdi), in Surat AlĀkhar: Al-Arabi Nadhiran Wa Mandhuran'Alieh, (The Image of the Other: The Arab as a Looker and Looked at) Editor Al-Tahir Al-Labib, (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat Al-Wihdah Al-Arabia, 1999). 91. Smith, 295-6. 92. Daniel Gorman, "Race and the Late-Victorian Imperial World-view : A Lodge in the Wilderness and Prester John," The John Buchan Journal 23 (2005), 41. 93. John Buchan, "Preface," in A Lodge in the Wilderness (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1922), x. 94. Siddiqi, 6. 95. Stafford, 7 and 2. Stafford further elaborated on Mr.

Standfast (1918), saying that Buchan 'never became seriously concerned about the state of civilian morale, [but] he w as acutely conscious of its significance for the w ar effort' (8). This fact applies on other novels like The Power House (1916). 96. A British officer at the Front w rote a letter home, saying: 'The story is greatly appreciated in the midst of mud and rain and shells, and all that could make trench life depressing'. See the back cover of John Buchan, The Power House (Edinburgh, William Blackw ood and Sons, 1916). 97. Smith, 207. » A Review by Mary Reed: JOHN BUCHAN – Greenmantle. A Review by Mary Reed: JOHN BUCHAN – Greenmantle. A REVIEW BY MARY REED: JOHN BUCHAN – Greenmantle. Hodder & Stougton, UK, hardcover, 1916. George H. Doran, US, hc, 1917.

Reprinted many times in both hardcover and paperback, including: Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1947; Penguin, UK, pb, 1956; Pocket #94, US, pb, 1941. I’ve debated whether or not Greenmantle could be classified as a mystery. Set during World War I, it certainly revolves around one: who is Greenmantle and can he be found in time to interfere with German plans to use him in their bid to grab the Middle East? Richard Hannay, last seen just before the war in The 39 Steps and now a major in the Lennox Highlanders, is recuperating from shrapnel wounds suffered at Loos, as is his friend Sandy Arbuthnot. Anxious to return to the front line, they are instead asked to undertake a secret mission. Hannay, Arbuthnot, and “sedentary dyspeptic” American John S. Blenkiron, joined later by an old friend from Hannay’s South African days, must find the mysterious Greenmantle and assess the situation so the British can take countermeasures. It is a matter of great urgency and no time can be lost.

However, they must begin the task with no clues except three words scribbled on a piece of paper — Kasredin, cancer, and v.I. In different disguises the men take separate roads to Constantinople where they will meet and begin their search, if they all arrive safely — and it’s a big if. Along the way they encounter dangerous enemies and life-threatening situations and must use fast thinking and physical daring to even get to Turkey to begin their quest in the first place. My verdict: This novel mirrors a time and society where fair play, decency, and honour were important and practiced as far as possible even in wartime. Military and intelligence gathering methods have changed since WWI and for the modern reader this gives Greenmantle a poignant air at times. Even so, it’s a rattling good yarn, with plenty of action, excitement, and suspense, along with a dash of wit.

Although I’d read the novel before, I still laughed out loud at the mental picture of Hannay in jammies and dressing gown when, due to circumstances, he is “left to receive my guest in a room littered with broken glass and a senseless man in the cupboard.” 6 Responses to “A Review by Mary Reed: JOHN BUCHAN – Greenmantle.” David Vineyard December 7th, 2009 at 10:26 pm Since Buchan invented the modern spy novel, according to Graham Greene, with his 1910 novel The Power House it isn’t surprising he is still so readable today. One aspect of Buchan that may amuse some of his readers is the cult he made of success. Hannay starts as a civilian and by the end of the war is a Brigadier General and has a knighthood. He was based on South African Tiny Ironsides, a real life adventurer who rose to the rank of general and probably is best remembered today for commanding the British Expeditionary forces at Archangel during the Russian Revolution.

Although Hannay only features as the protagonist in five of Buchan’s novels and one short story the characters in his books function in a shared universe so characters from the Hannay books show up in both the Edward Leithen and Dicksun McCunn books and a few of the non series novels such as A Prince of the Captivity. Buchan was a canny observer of his world and times and in 1910’s The Power House, the first Leithen novel (the character that most resembled Buchan physically and careerwise), predicted the rise of nationalism and fanatacism that would lead first to the rise of Mussolini’s Italy and later to Nazi Germany. Buchan served as Governor General of Canada and was invaluable in mending relations with the United States and Canada and helping to ensure the full support of both Canada and the US for Britain’s early war effort. He wore himself out doing the job in poor health, but is still honored today in that Canada’s major literary award is named for him. He was knighted and became the first Baron of Tweedsmuir.

Not bad for a poor and sickly Scottish scholar, who rose to become one of the most popular writers of all time (Greene, Ambler, Household, Fleming, Hammond Innes, Alistair Maclean, Le Carre all admit their debt to him), a noted historian, and one of the key political figures of his era. No wonder he had a thing about success. Randy Cox December 9th, 2009 at 11:45 am This remains one of my favorite Buchan thrillers. I was trying to find a copy of The 39 Steps at the time, but settled for this and was not disappointed. The first time I read it, winter was just turning to spring and that made me reread it every year at about the same time for several years. I went on to read nearly everything Buchan ever wrote and at one time planned to write a biography of him. Other people provided better biographies than I would have been capable of writing. Steve December 10th, 2009 at 5:44 pm As to doing an annotated bibliography, I pass.

I put together an annotated bibliography of books and articles ABOUT Buchan for a journal called _English Literature in Transition_ back in the 1960s, but I was a lot younger then. It still shows up in the bibliographies of most of the biographies of Buchan published since then. David Vineyard December 14th, 2009 at 1:00 am The American edition of Sick Heart River, here as Mountain Meadow (1940-41), has an excellent essay covering Buchan’s shockers by Howard Swiggett. While not annotated, it runs fifty pages and covers them in depth. Most of the books on the spy novel give Buchan his due as the father of the modern version, and Richard Usborne’s The Clubland Heroes, a study of Buchan, Sapper, and Dornford Yates, has separate chapters on Buchan and his main characters Richard Hannay and Edward Leithen. Also the collected essays of Graham Greene include the essay where he credits Buchan as the creator of the modern spy novel. Randy Much as I would love to see an annotated bibliography of Buchan’s work it would have to be a daunting job.

That work ethic of his meant a pretty long list of books, especially if you include the histories. And for anyone looking for a biography of Buchan the standard is the Janet Adam Smith biography, and Buchan’s own Memory Holds the Door (aka Pilgrim’s Way) is a fascinating read that was one of the books on that famous list of JFK’s ten favorite books. John Buchan - The Greatest Literature of All Time The Thirty-Nine Steps [SHOW] [HIDE] There is not a lot to say about the narrative structure or the characters or the writing in this famous novel. The Thirty-Nine Steps is a seminal tale of intrigue, a classic early.... more Of spies in an age of innocence It's unfair maybe, but it's the way it goes. Writers who blaze trails that many other writers follow are often later neglected. John Buchan was that sort of writer. Along with Erskine Childers (The Riddle of the Sands, 1903), he was among the creators of the espionage novel. Before them, agents had existed as characters in literary novels as characters (see Conrad's works, for example).

Buchan was one of the founders of the espionage thriller, with the spy chase at the centre of the narrative. But since then he has been surpassed by Eric Ambler (The Mask of Dimitrios, 1939), Graham Greene (The Third Man, 1939), Ian Fleming (the James Bond books), John Le Carrï¿½ (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, 1963) and dozens of more recent thriller writers. There's a progression in this genre that makes older works seem naï¿½ve, old-fashioned. A typical early story features an innocent civilian who gets caught up in international intrigue and uses his native smarts to outwit the villains, usually anarchists or nefarious agents in the pay of foreign powers. In later works, these plucky characters give way to more sophisticated fellows, and eventually to professionals in the official intelligence services. A cynicism about morality in espionage has come to dominate and a common plot now involves anti-hero agents questioning whom they can trust—and whether they are working for good at all.

So when we look back on John Buchan's novels, they seem somewhat corny (just as today's thrillers are bound to seem unreal to future readers.) Only one of the novels from his long list of publications is still regularly read these days—and not as much as several decades ago when it used to be on school reading lists. But if you can put aside your jaded modern attitudes, some of his works can still be quite diverting. They give you a picture of a simpler time—simpler from a certain class and national perspective—while revealing unintentionally the dark fears and prejudices below the blithe surface. They also show you the roots of the contemporary thriller: the galloping plot, the quickly sketched characters, the gradually complicated storyline, the unravelling from unawareness to shocking revelations to acceptance to doubts to new shocking revelations. And they can still grab and hold onto your attention. They're still page turners. Buchan was born in Perth, son of a Free Church of Scotland minister. He was raised and educated in Scotland until attending Oxford. As a stand-out student he published five books, mainly nonfiction but including the novel Sir Quixote of the Moors (1895).

He later became a barrister and a secretary to the High Commissioner of South Africa, out of which experience came his first popular novel, Prestor John (1910). He returned to England and while sick in bed during the first months of the First World War he composed his most enduring novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915). The story with its fast-moving plot and thrilling suspense was a hit and has been made into a film several times, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. It's also been a successful play, staged on both sides of the Atlantic repeatedly and most recently on Broadway about a century after the novel was first published. The books led to four more novels in the series, three of them with the same stalwart hero, Richard Hannay: Greenmantle (1916), Mr Standfast (1919), The Three Hostages (1924) and The Island of Sheep (also called Man from the Norlands, 1936).

Buchan was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1927 to 1935 at which time he was created the First Baron Tweedsmuir of Elsfield and named Governor General of Canada, a position in which he served until his death. Among his other writing—including history, biographies, stories and political essays—Buchan produced two other popular adventure series. Dickson McCunn is a retired Glasgow grocer caught up in intrigue in Huntingtower (1922), Castle Gay (1930) and The House of the Four Winds (1935). Lawyer Edward Leithen is featured in The Power-House (1916), John MacNab (1925), The Gap in the Curtain (1932) and Sick Heart River (also known as Mountain Meadow, 1941)—a series which has recently been republished in a single volume. — Eric Buchan the Orientalist: Greenmantle and Western Views of the East [Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Many critical works were written in the last few decades tackling John Buchan's treatment of Africa, Africans, and his colonial attitudes.

As part of the author's experience as secretary to the high commissioner for South Africa, Lord Milner, between 1901 and 1903, Buchan was acquainted with the African customs which did not only add to his experience as a writer but also made him a 'fanatical imperialist'.1 However, few critics pointed out the continuation of his imperialist conviction of the East that was mostly represented in Greenmantle (1916). Buchan changed his focus of attention during the First World War when he worked for the British Intelligence. During that period, he retained the dream of the ever expanding British Empire but shifted his idea toward Islam and the decaying Ottoman Empire so as to address wider problems that destabilized the status quo like the rise of radical Islamic movements. This paper argues that Buchan's Greenmantle falls into Edward Said's hypothesis of Orientalism since it expresses elitist ideas about the East and Muslims; also, the study investigates Buchan's historical background of Greenmantle in order to understand his overwhelming preoccupation with propaganda, his use of contemporary political events, and the influence of the Dutch orientalist, C.

Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936), on his view of Islamic movements. Buchan's novels are, in fact, twofold: they are used as tools to influence the beliefs of a whole generation, and they echo the prevalent cultural and political views of Britain at that time. Since the 'historical context' of Greenmantle is 'vividly portrayed,'2 the novel is analyzed as a historical document relative to the events that occurred before and during the First World War. Indeed, the historical details in the novel are consciously used to propagate positive ideas of the British Empire and present negative stereotypes of the German and Turkish powers. James Buchan, the writer's grandson, said that his grandfather started working on Greenmantle in France 'after the battle of Loos in October 1915'.

He resumed writing it 'between trips to view the fleet at Scapa Flow with Russian parliamentary delegates in February 1916, and came back to France in March and June'.3 In June 1916, Buchan officially joined the intelligence staff at the Foreign Office and in July the novel first appeared in Land and Water, a magazine installment, and was then published in a book in November of the same year.4 As a member of the British Intelligence Corps stationed in France, he greatly depended on the news he heard from colleagues who were in the East besides the information he gathered by researching for the Nelson History of the War project that started on February 1915. In his Greenmantle's 'Preface', Buchan mentioned that the events taking place were not far from happening: Let no man or woman call its events improbable. The war has driven that word from our vocabulary, and melodrama has become the prosiest realism. Things unimagined before happen daily to our friends by sea and land. The one chance in a thousand is habitually taken, and as often as not succeeds. The writer admitted that the incidents narrated in the novel were actually happening in real life or at least not far from happening.

In addition to the historical details, many characters in the novel were taken from real persons like Major Richard Hannay, Sandy Arbuthnot, and Enver Bey. Richard Hannay, a character first introduced in The Thirty-Nine Steps, was presented as a man whose 'father had brought…[him] out from Scotland at the age of six'.5 Hannay represented the Scottish officer, Edmund Ironside (1880–1959), whom Buchan met in France. Ironside actually 'protected British interests from German spies in the months preceding the outbreak of the war',6 but he used to believe in the Darwinian classification of human races that suggested the superiority of the British, for 'he professed special dislike of the Irish, Jews, Latins, and "lesser races", that is, most of mankind'.7 Being a Scottish chauvinist, Buchan was influenced by Ironside especially by his elitist ideas that were widely spread during the late Victorian era.8 In...

Full-text · Article · Jan 2009 BEACHCOMBING, GOING NATIVE AND FREETHINKING: REWRITING THE HISTORY OF EARLY WESTERN BUDDHIST MONASTICS [Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: This article provides an introduction to the special issue of Contemporary Buddhism entitled ‘U Dhammaloka, “The Irish Buddhist”: Rewriting the History of Early Western Buddhist Monastics’. Traditional accounts of pioneer western Buddhist monastics begin with the 1899 ordination of H. Gordon Douglas (Asoka), and highlight gentleman scholars writing for a European audience. They consign to obscurity a pre-existing world of western Buddhist monastics of all social classes. To open a window onto this hidden history, this issue presents new material relating to the extraordinary career of U Dhammaloka (?1856–?1914), widely known as ‘The Irish Buddhist’. A working-class autodidact, freethinker and temperance campaigner from Dublin, Dhammaloka became renowned throughout colonial Asia as an implacable critic of Christian missionaries and tireless transnational organiser of Asian Buddhists from Burma to Japan.

The research described in this issue is innovative not only in content but also in method and approach, having advanced through collaborative, international research employing web-based research tools and online resources. These offer new possibilities for other translocative and interdisciplinary research projects. Article · Nov 2010 AbeBooks: 39 Books for a John Buchan Collection Home > Rare Book Room > 39 Books for a John Buchan Collection 39 Books for a John Buchan Collection by Peter Thackeray by John Buchan UK pressbook edition for 1935 film starring Robert Donat John Buchan is best known for his iconic novel The Thirty-Nine Steps . Frequently appearing in lists of the top 100 books of the 20th century, it is widely regarded as the starting point for espionage fiction and yet the novel was written to pass the time while Buchan recovered from illness. The book’s hero, Richard Hannay, is on the run for most of the plot and this fast-moving adventure story has influenced countless thrillers since its publication in 1915.

Buchan, winner of some notable literary prizes as an undergraduate at Oxford University, managed to fill his life with a variety of work – barrister, colonial administrator, publisher, Director of Intelligence, director of Reuters news agency, Member of Parliament and, finally, Governor-General of Canada as Lord Tweedsmuir. Somehow he found time to write more than 25 novels, a number of short story collections, several major biographies, a 24-volume history of World War I and a host of other books, pamphlets, essays and magazine articles. For many people the novels and short stories are the starting point for a collection. Richard Hannay was the principal character in four other fast-paced adventures – Greenmantle (1916), Mr Standfast (1919), The Three Hostages (1924) and The Island of Sheep , titled The Man from the Norlands in the US (1936). Others may prefer the more thoughtful adventures in which Sir Edward Leithen, gentleman lawyer, appears.

The Dancing Floor (1926) reaches a powerful climax in a pagan festival on a Greek island whilst Sick Heart River , called Mountain Meadow in the US, (1941) takes us to the Canadian Arctic where Leithen battles his last illness in an epic journey to find a lost businessman. Buchan died shortly before this novel was published and there are many autobiographical references in it. In a lighter mood, Leithen also appears in the enduringly popular John Macnab (1925), a whimsical tale of the poaching exploits of three bored English gentlemen. In a similar light vein are the three Dickson McCunn novels – Huntingtower (1922), Castle Gay (1930) and The House of the Four Winds (1935) – which recount the unexpected adventures of a retired Glasgow provision merchant. Apart from these series he wrote over a dozen ‘one-off’ novels, many with a historical focus. First editions of many Buchan novels from 1920 onwards are readily available at reasonable prices generally in the $15 to $30 range with earlier works more expensive.

Pre-1900 novels and short stories such as Sir Quixote of the Moors (1895) and Grey Weather (1899) will generally sell for between $235 and $625 for sound, average copies. John Buchan (1938) With all titles, the inclusion of a dust jacket will substantially increase the price. A first edition of The Thirty-Nine Steps complete with a dust jacket will run well into five figures. Another popular route into collecting Buchan’s fiction is through the attractive pocket-sized Nelson Uniform edition . These were available in either a bright red cloth binding or a dark green soft leather binding and look attractive as a run of books on a shelf. Most, but not all, of his fiction was published in this edition by Thomas Nelson & Sons. A major influence on Buchan’s writing was World War I in which his brother Alastair and several of his close friends were killed. These for Remembrance (1919) is a poignant tribute to these men. The first edition is very rare as it was published privately in small numbers and given to the families of these men.

However, a public edition was printed in 1987 and is more readily available. As well as this book and his history of the Great War he wrote several other books relating to the conflict such as The History of the South African Forces in France (1920) and Francis and Riversdale Grenfell (1920). The final major strand in Buchan’s output was his biographical work. These dealt with ancient historical figures such as Augustus (1937), great Scottish military commanders like Montrose (1928) and literary figures like Sir Walter Scott (1932). In total the standard bibliography of his works lists 136 titles in his name, a truly remarkable output. This bibliography, by Robert Blanchard, is now very hard to find but a recent fully illustrated update by Kenneth Hillier and Michael Ross, The First Editions of John Buchan: A Collector’s Illustrated Bibliography is a useful guide for the serious collector. Buchan is a writer with something to offer almost every taste in literature. The John Buchan Society offers more information for those interested. Visit Peter runs sms books – an online bookshop in Loughborough, UK, that specializes in John Buchan.

39 Books for a John Buchan Collection (Fiction)

Question: Which character made his second appearance in the 1916 novel Greenmantle?
Answer: Richard Hannay