Ronald Victor Courtenay Bodley, (3 March 1892 – 26 May 1970) was a British Army officer, author and journalist. Born to English parents in Paris, he lived in France until he was nine, before attending Eton College and then the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned in the King's Royal Rifle Corps and served with them during the First World War. After the war he spent seven years in the Sahara desert, and then travelled through Asia. Bodley wrote several books about his travels. He was considered among the most distinguished British writers on the Sahara, as well as one of the main western sources of information on the South Seas Mandate.
Bodley moved to the United States in 1935, where he worked as a screenwriter. He rejoined the British Army at the outbreak of the Second World War and was sent to Paris to work for the Ministry of Information. He later immigrated to the United States, where he continued to work as a writer and also as an advisor to the United States Office of War Information.
Early life and First World War
Bodley was born in Paris on 3 March 1892 to civil servant and writer John Edward Courtenay Bodley and Evelyn Frances Bodley (née Bell). He was the oldest of three children; his brother Josselin and sister Ava were born in 1893 and 1896 respectively. His parents divorced in 1908. Bodley was a descendant of diplomat and scholar Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library, and was, through his mother, a cousin of Gertrude Bell, a writer and archaeologist who helped establish the Hashemite dynasties. He lived in France with his parents until he was nine. His grandfather owned a Turkish palace in Algiers, which Bodley often visited as a child.
Bodley was educated at a Lycée in Paris before he was sent to Eton College and then to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Bodley showed interest as a writer; he wrote poetry at Eton and for a cadet magazine at Sandhurst. From Sandhurst he was commissioned in the King's Royal Rifle Corps as a second lieutenant in September 1911. He spent three years serving in a regiment in British India where he began to write and stage plays. His commanding officer once remarked "The plays are amusing. You're a credit to the regiment and all that, but did you join the army to become a soldier or a comedian?" Shortly thereafter the First World War broke out, and Bodley was sent to the Western Front for four years. He was wounded several times, including by poison gas. At the age of 26 he was given the rank of lieutenant colonel and command of a battalion. He was appointed assistant military attaché to Paris on 15 August 1918, and attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. What he heard there reportedly made him feel that he and the millions of other soldiers had fought for nothing; he wrote later that "selfish politicians [were] laying the groundwork for the Second World War – each country grabbing all it could for itself, creating national antagonisms, and reviving the intrigues of secret." Disillusioned with the military, Bodley considered a career in politics on the advice of the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George.
Gertrude Bell introduced Bodley to T. E. Lawrence. Bodley met Lawrence one day outside the Paris Peace Conference and told him of his intent to move into politics. Lawrence responded furiously, calling him a moron and a traitor. When he replied that he had no other prospects now that the war was over and asked what he should do, Lawrence suggested "Go live with the Arabs." Bodley said his conversation with Lawrence, which lasted "less than 200 seconds", proved to be life-changing. He promptly sorted his affairs, and with a total of £300 and no prospects of further income, went to live in the Sahara. His bemused friends held him a farewell party. They all agreed he would be back in six weeks; he stayed in the Sahara for seven years.