History Buffs: Lawrence of Arabia

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hello and welcome history buffs my name is Nick Hodges and in this episode I'll be reviewing a true classic Lawrence of Arabia I just want to say right off the cuff that I adore this movie in fact it is one of my absolute favorites in my opinion as a film it's perfect it's perfectly shot perfectly acted perfectly scored it has perfect writing editing directing and and I mean just look at it the imagery speaks for itself because it's absolutely breathtaking I genuinely feel like I've been transported to another world whenever I watch it it films all about escapism then Lawrence of Arabia achieves that perfectly there have been very few films since Lawrence of Arabia that captured that same sense of wonderment and spectacle with its cinematography and exotic landscapes and no poorly done CGI shite doesn't count them however as much as I love this movie this is a channel dedicated to informing you guys about historical inaccuracies and this film has loads so when I point them out please don't take them as examples of how I think they could have improved the movie but instead consider how close do they get it right this is Lawrence of Arabia the real TE Lawrence has to be one of the coolest guys in history if you look at his career you could accurately describe him as a spy a diplomat a historian a soldier and an archaeologist I would in fact consider him to be the real-life Indiana Jones since what started his career was simply his love of history particularly medieval history which he studied in Jesus College in Oxford in 1907 as the young man he was captivated by stories of knights in shining armor codes of chivalry and epic battles in 1909 Lawrence left England for a three-month walking tour in Syria to study Crusader castles this is for his thesis in college and at the age of 19 Lawrence would walk 1,100 miles across Syria by himself this was his first brush with the Arab world and he fell in love with its culture and its exotic landscape in 1910 Lawrence graduated first class honors and he was able to get a position as an archaeologist and he returned to the Middle East and stayed there for a few years it was at his dig in karkemish where he learned to read write and speak Arabic many of the local Arab workers at the dig site grew to respect this open-minded Englishman for his diligence and for his keen interest in Arabic society and customs Lawrence also began to sympathize with the Arabs and they wish for independence from the Ottoman Empire hearing about the injustice 'as they had suffered from turkish rule now right around this time Europe was beginning to see a military buildup and alliances were being made between the most powerful nations the ad the triple Pont which was an alliance between Great Britain France and Russia and opposed to them with the Central Powers which are made up of Germany and the austro-hungarian Empire so feeling a little bit outnumbered the Germans figured would be a good idea to cozy up to the ottoman empire and establish a trade network between them in hope that possibly further down a line an alliance could be made so whilst the Turks got modern military technology and training the Germans could get their hands on Middle Eastern oil a railway line was posed and constructed called the Baghdad railway which was to connect all the way from Berlin in Germany across 1,000 miles to the Ottoman Empire to Baghdad in Iraq and take a wild guess where that railway went past none other than karkemish where TE Lawrence was British intelligence approached Lawrence and recruited him as a spy figured that he could use his position archaeology as a cover to gain some valuable intel on the railway like how many trains were coming through a day what supplies were they bringing in and etc so Lawrence did do this and he did it exceptionally well this put him under the British intelligences radar for what would come later Lawrence returned briefly to Oxford when in August 1914 Great Britain declared war on Germany now he was unable to serve in the military because he was considered too short this is actually one inaccuracy in the film because Peter O'Toole was like 6 foot 2 whilst TE Lawrence was something around 5 foot 5 although this is an important detail this inaccuracy is pretty forgivable I mean just look at these two they really look alike as far as I'm concerned this film has perfect casting ok maybe not perfect I mean for example you have Emir Faisal one of the most important figures in Arab history and who do they give the role to yeah to give it to an English guy and they brown face him now I know this was made in the 60s and it was a great performance by Alec Guinness but I just feel that this important role should have been done by an Arab however I have to remind myself that this is Hollywood and it's not exactly like anything has changed today so anyway where was I oh yeah so since Lawrence was unable to serve the military he was frantically searching for a position that would make use of the skills he had picked up in the Middle East and it wouldn't be anywhere on the Western Front in fact you could say he was quite Restless during this time because it wasn't until November when the Ottoman Empire joined the war on Germany side did he finally become useful Lawrence got the chance he'd been waiting for and was stationed in Cairo as a military intelligence officer so although Lawrence got the wait but so I sorry guys one's calling me hello you got that from my video right I mean okay Indy yeah I did learn that from ute lawrence video I just figured since you had a whole YouTube channel about the First World War I could use it for my research yeah yeah that well that'd be great cuz look I well we love what you're doing here and I'll tell you what I had no idea about that Waterloo movie you recently reviewed and I think I speak for all of us that we hate Mel Gibson type historical movies about as much as you do anyway I will make sure to send our fans over for you to learn more about the TE Lawrence movie yep thanks man guys you should also check out the Great War Channel they have some fantastic content there alright India I really need to continue with reviewing this monster of a movie yeah well I I imagine so okay cool take care and we'll see you run okay that was pretty cool glad you didn't mind me watching his stuff so where was I again oh yeah so although Lawrence got the opportunity he wanted as an arab expert he would spend the next two years mostly sitting behind a desk during this time Great Britain was failing miserably in its war against the Ottoman Empire especially with the Gallipoli campaign there was great concern that the victorious Turks would be free to deploy more of its troops to attack British interests in Egypt and especially the Suez Canal as luck would have it an Arab uprising had already begun and in 1916 to delay any Turkish advance the British government approached Prince Emir Faisal the primary Arab leader at the time and offered support to their revolution the Arabs function would be to sabotage railways and harass Turkish fortifications throughout the Arabian Peninsula the Arabs agreed under one condition that after the war they would be given self-rule and create a single United Arab nation free from European imperial intervention the British agreed mostly because they didn't think the Arab uprising had any real chance of succeeding but at least in might distract the Turks for a little while you want my own opinion this holds get of operations aside sure the real Wars being fought against the Germans not the Turks and not here but on the Western Front in the trenches your bed whatever he calls itself would be a sideshow oversight initially the Arab revolt began rather successfully and had one a few victories but eventually it grounded to a halt when they were faced with Turkish artillery and aircraft something that the Arabs were too ill-equipped to handle the British government figured that it was only a matter of time before the Arab uprising would be crushed it was then that Lawrence was sent to Wadi Safra to meet Emir Faisal and appraised the situation I remember difficult The Situation's bloody awful the morale giver they had in him which I doubt the Turks knocked out of him in front of Medina with howitzers they're fading away by dozens every night they were also low on weapons and supplies the Lawrence's role as a liaison between the British and Arab rebels would help provide them with many of the necessities that they desperately needed with British aid the revolt can now continue and began to grow successful once again after some time the Arabs grew rather fond of this Englishman who had demonstrated to them a keen interest in their ways bit by bit they began to accept him as one of their own and Faisal even went as far as suggests the idea to Lawrence but he should dress like them according to Arab custom such a gesture would go a long way in Lawrence truly being recognized as one of them however despite the Arabs being successful with their raids against the Turks the British were already beginning to break their promise in giving the Arabs independence after the war a secret deal was begin to take shape in London called the sykes-picot agreement in it the British and the French would carve up Arab lands between them with the French taking Lebanon and Syria and the Brits taking Palestine and most of Mesopotamia after many months of guerrilla fighting the consensus was beginning to form amongst the Arabs that they needed a victory an undeniable decisive military victory against the Turks the ultimate prize for them of course will be the capture of Damascus the political heart of the Arab world but how to get there Emir Faisal and Lawrence began to hatch a plan the first step towards achieving that goal would be the capture of Aqaba now acabar was support in the Red Sea that was occupied by the Turks and if successfully taken its strategic position would allow an allied offensive to push north to Damascus now there had been attempt by the Royal Navy to take a kebab before but they had failed and another attack by sea seemed unlikely but to Lawrence there was another way you are mad to become to a kebab island who should have to cross the nephew desert that's right the food cannot be crossed I'll cross it if you will you it takes more than a compass Englishman then if food is the worst place God created I can't answer for the place only for myself in hindsight we could look at this idea as a great tactical decision which it is since the Turks would never expect an attack from the land but I completely understand why we are talking about a vast barren desert made up of roughly 40,000 square miles the idea of crossing it was ludicrous and that's exactly what Lawrence the Arabs were counting on for 200 miles they withstood intense heat and extreme dehydration before finally on July 6th they were within sight of Aqaba now I apologize for breaking up the flow of this review but I had to mention quickly the battle we see in the movie is heavily dramatis eyes in reality the actual fighting took place 40 miles away and acaba himself was taken to that much resistance there's also another thing I had to point out after the capture of acaba we see Lawrence go to Cairo to inform HQ of their success and yet the British are shown to be completely oblivious of Lawrence's attack we've taken acaba who told you to take a kebab nobody so then why did you a covers important why is he involved this doesn't make any sense because in reality not only with a British aware of Lawrence's plan not only does they approve it but they were directly involved as well the Royal Navy was actually bombarding acaba from the sea whilst the Arabs attacked by land making it a two-pronged attack oh I don't get why general Allenby is giving him the third degree when he bloody well knew why Lawrence did it then why did you because you told me to exactly thanks Arnie no problemo so anyway now that acaba had been secured the big push to Damascus could finally begin whilst the British took a more direct approach with the Turks Lawrence and the Arabs were given the task of hitting the vital Hejaz railway disrupting Turkish reinforcements and supplies to the front this tactic worked well and after winning further battles the British led allies continued to push north even taking the city of Jerusalem which the Turks had completely abandoned the next stop will be the ultimate prize one that all the Arabs have been fighting for since the beginning they'll be coming for Damascus which I'm going to give them that's all I want all you want is someone holding down the Turkish right but I'm going to give him Damascus you'll get there before you do when we've got it we'll keep it yeah way to go Laurence it's just a pity didn't get there first mate though isn't it yes that's right the Arabs getting to Damascus first is a common misconception forever immortalized by this movie the honour actually go to the Australian Light Horse Brigade who arrived on October 1st 1918 at 5:00 a.m. there they chased the fleeing Turks out of the city and cleared the way for the Arabs to arrive at 7:00 a.m. although I can't exactly blame the movie too much for this since the real Lawrence also made this bullshit claim however you must understand that even though the Allies got there first they were instructed to allow the Arabs to quote on quote enter Damascus first for obvious political reasons and Lawrence obviously had his own agenda to push for Arab self-determination which I will get to a little bit later in this review and finally this is where the movie pretty much wraps up the Arabs are victorious they set up the Faisal government but are unable to hold the city due to petty tribal bickering and leave which is also wrong because they actually remained in power until 1920 but I digress Lawrence has promoted the colonel and leaves the Middle East since his part in this campaign has now come to an but the inaccuracies I'll point out in this review have not so now that I've covered the history behind the relaunch of Arabia I am now going to go over some of the inaccuracies this film has many of them don't exactly bother me since they were clearly made as a creative decision and in my opinion are justified within its context however there are a few that kind of push my buttons as a history buff so here are the ones that struck me the most starting off with the smallest inaccuracy that I can think of which are the machine guns used by the Turks now I'm not exactly a weapons expert and I could very well be wrong but that seems to me to be a Browning m1919 30 caliber machine gun used by the u.s. in the Second World War that was just the conclusion I'm aging my extensive research anyway there are many others like that but for the sake of time I'm going to focus on the more serious ones like how Lawrence seems to relish violence of the course the film for example there's a scene where Lawrence recounts his experience of shooting a scene I had to execute him with my pistol there was something about it I didn't like well naturally know something else as she oh that's all right it'll be a warning no something else but then I enjoyed it I'm sorry to say this because this is a really good scene but this is really inaccurate the real Lawrence was shaken by this experience he didn't enjoy it in the slightest this would haunt him for the rest of his life but the movie shows him later enjoying the violence with the Arabs attacked the Turkish convoy so to prove my point here's an interview with Peter O'Toole talking about what the real Lawrence went through when he was forced to kill the man guest scene is based on I'm at a man who was with him and he did it and um said that indeed he did do it very cold and very methodically and it's another terrible because then I was down a well and he kept on missing and then he went out for Drive in a desert afterwards went for a walk and this man but they were worried about I went to look for him and found him behind a rock crouched like a two-year-old baby in the most terrible state of emotion now that could color my killing this man in the film because I could imply what would happen afterwards mmm about stating it what he means by his implication is that the audience could see the beginning stages of Lawrence suffering from PTSD or battle fatigue which he most certainly did but rather than Lawrence killing for pleasure in reality he was a lot colder methodical about it for example the scene where Lawrence and the Arabs visit too fast where the retreating Turks had Massacre the entire town is true the order he gives where he says is also true and the ensuing carnage of the Turks being cut down mercilessly even whilst trying to surrender is true again but when we start seeing Lawrence smiling and enjoying the violence that's when things become inaccurate the real Lawrence was furious by what the Turks had done we should see rage on his face or a smile in the book Seven Pillars of wisdom TE Lawrence himself wrote the Arabs were fighting like Devils the sweat blurring their eyes dusts parching their throats whilst the flame of cruelty and revenge which was burning in their body so twisted them that the hands could hardly shoot by my order we took no prisoners for the only time in our war now although I quoted Lawrence's own words from his book I feel that it would be irresponsible of me not to point out another scene in the movie based on what he wrote which has become the subject of much controversy it's when Lawrence's hatched in Dera by the Turks and is raped and tortured many historians seem to believe that he made up the story entirely I think that that I was an invention it never happened to my to my own research to my mind I want myself to Daraa later on and I met people and I spent two nights in the horan around Daraa and I am convinced he never wanted era it never happened it was an invention I don't think the rape of Dara happened in the way that Lawrence suggests it did I think that Lawrence probably had some sort of homosexual encounter whilst he was in Arabia it may have been a rape it may have been a situation that he led himself into almost deliberately which ended in some sort of rape or something like it but I'm convinced my own gut reaction and I studied him for a long time as it didn't happen the way he suggested it did and finally the biggest inaccuracy in the entire film which I feel is completely unnecessary is when Lawrence finds out about the sykes-picot agreement towards the end of the film I told you sir no such treaty exists yes general you have lied most bravely but not convincingly I know this treaty does exist treaties he doesn't better than you general but then of course he is almost an atom honestly guys I have no idea why the filmmakers decided to have Lawrence be ignorant to the whole thing because not only did he know about it months before a kebab but he didn't tell his Arab friends now before any of you think of him as a backstabber or a traitor whatever make sure to remember that he was a British officer his duty was the king and country and if yet hold Faisal or the Arabs then he really would have been a traitor but to Great Britain however that doesn't mean he took it lying down one of the reasons he pushed for acaba and tried to get the Arabs to Damascus first was the small hope that the British government would be forced to renegotiate the treaty and perhaps give the Arabs independence unfortunately it didn't work but he still went out of his way to make his voice heard about how disgusted he was with sykes-picot agreement for example after the war he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the order of bath from King George v however he politely refused accepting them in support of Arab independence this shocked British society as such a thing was unprecedented but it worked and got into the newspapers the next day he did many other things of course but I wanted to highlight that just because he knew about it doesn't make him guilty for what his government did so if there was any inaccuracy in the movie that should have been tweaked it was this one but after the war France and England would share the Turkish Empire so to sum everything up I really do believe that this is a great movie does it have many inaccuracies yeah but I think Lawrence of Arabia makes more of an effort to remain truthful to Lawrence's book Seven Pillars of wisdom than real history its Lawrence's films so it makes sense to adapt Lawrence's book but even though it may not seem like it a lot of these inaccuracy are mostly harmless I just simply focused on the biggest one to give you an idea of how far it strays from the truth but overall I said they got it pretty right inaccuracies and movies only really bother me when it's clear that the filmmakers don't give a shit about the history they're trying to tell that's what separates classics like Lawrence of Arabia from awful movies like 1492 conquest of paradise it celebrates the histories trying to tell isn't trying to change it sure takes some liberties but if the end result is something along the lines of this then I'm perfectly satisfied they hope to gain their freedom there's one born every minute they're going to get it mr. Bentley I'm going to give it to them well that about wraps it up my name is Nick Hodges and thanks for watching history buffs and remember if you like the show help the channel grow don't forget to hit that like a subscribe button and let me know in the comments section what you thought about Lawrence of Arabia and of course what historical movie should I review next in the meantime check out the history buffs Twitter and Facebook page the new updates until then I'll see you next time you

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Channel: History Buffs

Views: 1,366,862

Rating: 4.8839703 out of 5

Keywords: History Buffs, Lawrence of Arabia, Historically Innacurate, Historically Accurate, Innacuracies, review, Reviews, Film, Movie, T.E Lawrence, Sykes-Picot Agreement, Ottomon Empire, WW1, The Great War

Id: R9scZDbKxtY

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 17 2016

Reddit Comments

Watched this 2 days ago I think it was. I enjoyed the little interlude with you guys jumping in. Only really found history buffs about a month ago and have been going through all their videos. Keep up the fun collabs!

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/Kartofel_salad 📅︎︎ Apr 20 2016 🗫︎ replies

A little postscript for the end of the movie, Lawrence is killed due to head injuries in a motorcycle accident. Probably partly due to his fame, his death sparked the development of motorcycle helmets.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/jmact1 📅︎︎ Apr 20 2016 🗫︎ replies