[Music] It is the 29th of March 1917, the desert sun rises over the railway junction of Abu-el Naam in the Hejaz region of Arabia,……. throwing its small collection of buildings and the surrounding hills into a golden light. The silence is then shattered by the bang and whistle of a 3.7-inch mountain Howitzer, which reigns shells down onto the huddle of stone huts and shelters, the locomotive housed there, judders into life, and speeds off down the track towards the city of Medina. The train passes over a landmine concealed under the rails, engulfing it in a fireball; its four front wheels being blown off in the explosion. Surveying the action, a man in billowing white robes, illuminated by the morning sun, steps forward, loads a clip into his .303 Lee Enfield and shouts to the tribesmen gathered around him to charge! His name T. E. Lawrence….. Lawrence of Arabia. The man known to history as Lawrence of Arabia, was born Thomas Edward Lawrence on Thursday the 16th of August 1888, in Tremadog, North West Wales. His father was Thomas Chapman, a junior member of the Irish nobility, who, having committed adultery with his family’s nursemaid, had run away from his wife and four daughters to Wales, in order to avoid a scandal. His mother was Sarah Junner, known to the Chapman family as ‘Mrs Lawrence’, she was a half-Norwegian maid, who had piqued Chapman’s interest with her intense blue eyes and attractive frame. Junner had been Chapman’s mistress for a number of months before she came to bear a son, Montague Robert in 1885, forcing Chapman to move from his family estate in Westmeath to Wales, in order to avoid a scandal, whilst also changing their names formally to ‘Lawrence’, a name which had been assumed by Junner, whilst working for the Chapmans, and having left many of his estates and much of his wealth with his wife and daughters, Chapman moved into a small cottage in Tremadog, Wales, with Sarah and their first son, Robert, and it was here in the year of 1888, that Thomas Edward was born. Fear of scandal was a consistent feature of the Lawrence’s existence, and they continued to move far and wide, to prevent this, moving to Kirkcudbright in Scotland in 1889, and then to Normandy in 1891, but the family eventually settled at number 2, Polestead Road, in north Oxford, a quiet and decidedly middle-class community, in which Sarah was keen for her children to become involved, enrolling them in the Sunday School at St. Aldate’s Church in the centre of town. Thomas and Robert were enrolled in the Oxford Boys’ High School, where Thomas remained for eleven years, following which he won a scholarship to study at Jesus College, Oxford, he performed relatively well academically, although showed little love for his education whilst a teenager, later writing that he found school ‘a time-wasting nuisance’, an attitude which led him to incur corporal punishment from his teachers on a number of occasions. Thomas developed into a small teenager, with a nervous smile, a soft voice, blonde hair and light blue eyes, like his mother’s, even being described by some as ‘pretty’, although his short stature was a concern for him and remained a source of insecurity for him throughout his life, he also encountered punishment for his antics both at school and home, the consequence of his mother’s overbearing and sometimes puritanical disposition. Some persistent personality traits became clear in Thomas as a teenager, such as a masochistic tendency, which manifested itself in his desire to endure epic fasts, as well as a distance and secrecy from both his mother and father, another key feature of his personality also became apparent at this time, which was his fascination with the past, that he would satisfy by cycling for miles around Oxford, in order to investigate castles and churches, he often made brass rubbings, and sometimes trespassed in order to access the crypts and courtyards of castles, which were supposed to be off limits to the general public. Thomas had a dislike of the natural sciences, and gravitated towards the Arts and history in particular, and through his wide reading, he gained a love of the Crusades, and counted Richard I as one of his personal heroes, he also emerged as a leader in his friendship group and encouraged them to join him on his historical expeditions, and to go swimming with him in the River Cherwell. When he professed a wish to gain a scholarship to Oxford, his father helped him in his studies, by allowing him to use a building at the end of their garden as a writing space and his birthplace being in Wales, allowed him to apply for a Welsh scholarship to the university, but the process also required him to produce a birth certificate, which had the unintended consequence of revealing to him, that he was an illegitimate child, this caused Thomas, at 17, to experience a crisis, running away from home to join the army in Cornwall. Shortly after, Thomas realised that life in the army was gruelling, and so he returned home, sitting an exam for the scholarship in June 1906, which he initially failed, he was granted another year’s enrolment at his school, and was aided further in his study of history by a private tutor hired by his father, he re-took the exam in 1907 and passed. Thomas matriculated at Oxford on the 12th October 1907, although he passed up the opportunity of taking university rooms, in order to remain at home for the duration of his studies, which was technically a violation of University statutes, by this point, Thomas had moved into a bungalow which had been constructed at the end of his family’s garden, and he remained here during his time at university. Rarely engaging in college social life Thomas preferred to entertain guests at his house, which he had bedecked with black coverings in order to insulate it from noise and light, creating a silence which was noted by many of his visitors, his career at university was marked by his detached, eccentric nature, and his undergraduate supervisor noted that his essays were designed to be controversial, and often included material which strayed far from the reading lists with which he was supplied, and into the territory of the Romantic movement. It was noted by his lecturers, that Lawrence loved history, but had no appreciation of the study of the writing of history, preferring to shock and excite his readers, rather than engage in methodological debates, as well as this, Lawrence’s inclination to shock was not limited to his writing, as his friends recalled how he would load a .45 revolver with blanks, punt under a bridge in the centre of town and fire them under the street in order to scare pedestrians. It was during his time at university that Lawrence came into contact with David Hogarth, a celebrated archaeologist, historian and writer, whose work in the Levant and the Balkans had won him many friends and contacts in the Foreign Office and it was under the influence of Hogarth, that Lawrence became fascinated with the Levant, engrossing himself in works such as Charles Doughty’s Deserta Arabia, which recalled the region in dramatic and romantic detail. For Lawrence, this remained a world of castles, crusaders and heroes, the same fantasy which had enraptured him when he was fifteen, and his considerable interest in the Levant was demonstrated when he formulated plans to embark on a walking tour of Northern Syria in 1909, in order to conduct research for his dissertation on crusader castles, this was the same region where Hogarth was engaged, and a place of great interest for British intelligence services, who wished to track the progress of the new Berlin to Baghdad railway, which was being constructed by the Germans and the Ottomans. The railway was expected to run very close to British regional assets, and Hogarth was almost certainly employed as an intelligence agent, working under the cover story of an academic, performing a dig in the region, 60 miles north of Aleppo in Carchemish which was conveniently where the Germans planned that the railway should cross the Euphrates river, and Hogarth reconvened a dig on the site, which had last been in operation in the 1880s. Lawrence, in the meantime, planned his trip to the area, attending lectures on the region at the university, and writing to Doughty for his advice on travel, ignoring his reply when it came back encouraging him to drop the whole venture, indeed the region was, under Ottoman control, and Lord Curzon, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, was required to gain a government permit in order to allow Lawrence access. At the end of Easter Term, in June of 1909, Lawrence sailed for Port Said, and from there he headed to Beirut, which he described as a beautiful city, arriving on the 9th July, and in addition to his clothes, which were specially fitted with extra pockets, Lawrence carried with him a camera, tripod, and a new pattern semi-automatic Mauser broom-handle, with an adjustable sight. Lawrence went with an Arab guide south toward the Sea of Galilee, and then on to Nazareth and Haifa, before returning to Beirut, from where, Lawrence toured the crusader sites at Homs, Antioch as well as the site at Tripoli which was in Lebanon, he reached Aleppo by September, and was eager to explore the bustling markets and narrow streets, which characterised the busy metropolis, after which he continued to travel north towards the Carchemish site, although he did not enter the site proper. He finished his tour of the Levant by riding to Damascus, and then back to Beirut, where he boarded a boat home and arrived back in England on the 14th of October, he now had enough material to complete his dissertation and worked hard in his final year to progress toward a first-class degree, which he was able to attain, although more on account of his photographs, rather than the written content of his essay, which provided a lacklustre substantiation of his thesis. During the summer after his final year at university, Lawrence was contacted by Hogarth, who asked him to be a protégé alongside him, on his next expedition to Carchemish, after the site was reopened in 1910 with the permission of the Ottomans, and so Lawrence left for Syria in December 1910, travelling again to Beirut and meeting R. Campbell-Thompson, a fellow eccentric and member of the digging party, who amused Lawrence when he disappeared into the city one afternoon, with the intention of buying a piano, which he planned to drag with him to Syria. Hogarth arrived in early Spring, and arranged for the group to travel to the digging site, which they did via Haifa and Damascus, Hogarth left soon after the dig had been started, and was replaced by his colleague, Gertrude Bell, an expert in Mesopotamian history and a graduate of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, she criticised the methods used by Lawrence and Thompson, which she stated were ‘unscientific’, and the two were affronted and proceeded to show off their knowledge in a bid to impress her, which seemed to work, Bell coming to refer to Lawrence as a ‘dear boy’. Lawrence was noted for his friendliness toward the body of Arab workers on the site, for his ability to speak Arabic, which he had learned in order to communicate with workers and for his criticisms of approaches such as his friend Woolley’s ‘ruling race’ theory, he also liked to shock his colleagues, and did so, both through his friendship with an Arab boy named Dahoum, and through his manner of dress, which was a grey blazer trimmed in pink, white football shorts held up with an Arab belt, and Arab slippers. When not on site, Lawrence made a habit of dressing in Arab robes, which he did to hide the fact that he was European, to prevent any trouble, either with locals or with Ottoman authorities, he also served King and Country, by monitoring progress on the railway, which had been significant, although had temporarily halted, thus giving him time to return home in July 1913, taking Dahoum and another worker, Mahoudi, with him. Tensions had existed between the British and the Ottomans for quite some time, and Lord Kitchener, the Consul-General in Egypt, had ordered maps to be made of the region in 1911, which he did through an academic group, the Palestine Exploration Fund, or PEF, who acted as a front, with a team under the command of Captain S.F. Newcombe, and in late 1913, Lawrence and his friend Leonard Woolley, were asked to join the team, which Lawrence remarked in a letter home, was an obvious disguise for a quote ‘political job’. The team ran into difficulty when Newcombe was arrested by Ottoman authorities and escorted to the Egyptian border, although despite this the PEF operation had been a success, and maps and photographic materials were produced as a result, but the Ottomans, having removed Newcombe, were still concerned about the remainder of his team, which had, up until then, operated under shady academic pretences. Kitchener was desperate to remove his team before the Ottomans grew overly suspicious, and ordered Lawrence and Woolley home, where they were instructed to write an academic report on their activities, to complete the ruse, and when Britain entered the First World War in July 1914, Lawrence was working on this archaeological report, which would eventually be published as The Wilderness of Zin. Lawrence did reportedly apply to join the army, although was rejected on account of his height, following which, he contacted Newcombe and asked if he might have a job in military intelligence, he managed to secure an interview with Colonel Coote Headley, the head of Military Operations Unit 4, known as MO4, following which, he was immediately taken up, and assumed a position on Headley’s staff in September 1914. Initially acting as a civilian, Lawrence was admitted to the army, without actually being formally commissioned, at the request of General Sir Henry Rawlinson, who was disgruntled at having to work alongside non-military staff. On the 30th October 1914, the British declared war against the Ottoman Empire, after their attack on Russian ports on the 29th, the Empire was waning in its power, and had been weakened in the years immediately prior to the outbreak of World War One, as a consequence of insurrections launched by Arab tribes and kingdoms, some of which had already been partially coordinated with the aid of the British. One such kingdom lay under the control of Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, who, in the first half of 1914, had made contact with Lord Kitchener in Cairo via his son, Abdullah, and effectively asked whether or not the British would back a rebellion, if he launched it, to which Kitchener remained non-committal, encouraging Hussein instead, to remain in contact with Henry MacMahon, the High Commissioner of Egypt. Hussein remained in communication with the British via MacMahon, and the Colonial Secretary, Ronald Storrs, with whom Abdullah maintained a secret communication, until the outbreak of the war, the Hussein dynasty were part of the wider Hashemite clan, who remain the ruling power in the present-day state of Jordan, and who claim a direct line of descent from Mohammed, via his daughter, Fatimah, which enables them to use the title ‘Sharif’, meaning ‘noble’. Hussein, as the Sharif of Mecca, held important duties relating to the management of the Hajj, or the pilgrimage to the city of Mecca, and in this capacity, dealt with the threat posed by the Turks, and their extension of railways, towards Mecca itself, however, despite his grand position, Hussein remained unstable in this position of power, having gained the office as a consequence of his shrewd lobbying in 1908. To make matters worse, the Young Turk revolt of 1908, had instituted a government formed of Turkish politicians, who had long remained opponents of Hussein, and who were keen to infringe upon his power base. Hussein worked to forge a constructive relationship with the administration in Constantinople, and even put down a rebellion on their behalf in 1911, for which he was roundly denounced by the nationalist population amongst his subjects, and following the declaration of war against the Ottomans, Lord Kitchener contacted Abdullah in November 1914, and stated that the British would provide aid and backing to any revolt against the Ottomans, which Hussein was willing to launch. With the war in the East getting hotter, Egyptian High Command requested a greater number of intelligence officers be deployed to work on their staff, as an aid to operations against the Ottoman Empire throughout the Middle East, and Lawrence, an Arabic speaker with experience of working in areas under Ottoman control, was an obvious candidate, and wrote to WJ Crace, the head of the Palestine Exploration Fund, on the 3rd of December 1914, to inform him of his new address, which was General Headquarters, British Army Occupations, Cairo. Upon arrival in Cairo, Lawrence went to work under Colonel Gilbert Clayton, the director of military intelligence in Egypt and the Sudan, and by 1915, Lawrence was working in General Headquarters as an intelligence officer, tasked with producing maps, a job which afforded him access to swathes of military information, including the knowledge that Hussein was getting ever closer to launching a rebellion against the Ottomans. Lawrence maintained a close correspondence with Hogarth, writing to him with hair-brained plans for the occupation of Alexandretta, as well as various tirades against the French, and in one letter he wrote “I want to pull the tribes all together”, this was in order to claim victory in the War against the Ottomans, before gleefully remarking, quote: “won’t the French be mad if we win though?”. The British government remained divided, as to whether or not they should back an Arab revolt against the Turks, the India Office putting up a fight, by claiming that this would upset the power balance between tribal political operators in the Levant, whilst the Foreign and War Offices, alongside Lawrence and Hogarth, claimed that there were no plans from Hussein to form a post-colonial united empire. In April 1915, the Egyptian Military Intelligence office received greater jurisdiction over the Mediterranean, forcing many staff members to move their spatial areas of focus, which left Lawrence and Newcombe to preside over Arab affairs, and by now, Lawrence had a position of limited authority, and even ran his own small-scale intelligence operations. By late 1915, Lawrence had been informed that not one, but two, of his brothers had been killed in action, Frank in May and Will in October, news which devastated him, and convinced him, that the risks associated with his desk job in Cairo, were incomparable to the sacrifices being made by many, on the lines of the Western Front. The position at the beginning of 1916 was that, Hussein and his sons were making their preparations for an attack upon the Ottoman Empire, this was backed by the British, who had assured them that they would support an independent Arab Kingdom, as well as territories gained in Syria and Lebanon, this assurance to Hussein stood in stark opposition to that which the British had made with the French in the Sykes-Picot Agreement, in which the British would gain control of Mesopotamia and Jordan, with the French assuming control of western Syria and Lebanon, and Palestine remaining an international zone. These two agreements were formed between the British government and both of these parties simultaneously and ensured that a conflict between the two positions was inevitable, Lawrence, probably unaware of the British position at this stage, continued to make plans for the Revolt, and wrote a draft which would see the Hejaz railway totally destroyed above Mecca and below Medina, a task which he vowed to personally undertake. Lawrence did not wish for total independence for the Hashemites at this stage, indeed he had written in a briefing document, that if Hussein was allowed to develop his own caliphate, then he would be easier to control, within the context of a wider British land settlement, and had argued that it was best for the British to break their word to Hussein, than lose land to the French. In May 1916 Lawrence began to work on his new plan, to increase his involvement in the Arab Revolt in the Hejaz, which was well under way, having been launched in June 1915, after Hussein himself, had fired the opening shots of the rebellion from his balcony, in the direction of a nearby Turkish barracks , but by the 13th of June 1916, all Ottoman troops in Mecca had surrendered, and by the 16th, the city of Jeddah had fallen to the Revolt. The movement had been aided by the British to a limited extent: a gift of £70,000 in gold, as well as the bestowment of firearms had sealed the deal between Britain and the Revolt in May, and the British deployed HMS Fox to the Red Sea, in order to run fire-support missions alongside Hussein’s ground troops The Revolt had advanced north during the remainder of 1915, and had placed the city of Medina under siege, although in this instance the Ottomans were far less inclined to capitulate, and the city remained steadfast under Turkish control, Lawrence was not displeased at this fact, and wrote in a telegram that the failure to capture Medina, had instilled a sense of reliance, amongst members of the Revolt, upon the British. In October 1916, Lawrence was co-opted to the Arab Bureau, a sub-division of the Cairo Intelligence Department, and asked to accompany Storrs on a mission to communicate with Hussein in Jeddah, the two arrived in the city on the 13th of October and met with Abdullah, Hussein’s son, whereupon they informed him that British High Command, under General Archibald Murray, had no intention of sending British troops to the Hejaz region. Abdullah was disappointed at the news, although was rallied by Lawrence’s suggestion that a small detachment of military advisors, should be attached to the Revolt, in order to improve its military proficiency, Lawrence evidently impressed Abdullah, who remarked quote: “is this man God, to know everything?”, whereupon Lawrence proceeded to ask whether he was able to meet with Abdullah’s brother, Feisal. Lawrence wished to assess the strength of the Revolt, and travelled to meet Feisal, writing later that these were quote: ‘the men he sought”, Feisal and Lawrence established an immediate connection with one another, Lawrence remarking that Feisal bore a striking resemblance to the statue of his beloved Richard I at Fontevraud. Despite his impressive demeanour, Feisal remained in a relatively weak position, the Ottomans had 12,000 men in the Hejaz to his 7,000, and the presence of Turkish aircraft had alarmed many of his troops, Lawrence made an inspection of the camp and concluded that the men assembled there were ‘hard’, although lacked coordination, predicting that any serious defeat to the movement, would be enough to persuade the assembled force to return home. Lawrence departed from the camp a short time later, on very good terms with Feisal, travelling on to Cairo, and relaying his findings to the other members of the Arab Bureau, as well as to members of the senior staff at General Headquarters, however worrying news soon came from Ragbeh, now known as “Rabigh”, that the Ottomans had manoeuvred their troops in order to attack the city, which was a key point on the route to Mecca, and a potential defeat here, could stymie the Revolt. In order to mount the defence, Lawrence was formally transferred from Cairo to the port of Yenbo, in order to work alongside Feisal and his army as an observer and aide, and it is quite evident from Lawrence’s writings, that he chose to liaise with Feisal as a consequence of personal preference, recording that Abdullah was ‘too clever’, and Hussein’s other sons, Zeid and Ali, ‘too cool’ and ‘too clean’ respectively. Lawrence met Feisal again in December 1916, but found that the Revolt was not going well, the Ottomans had broken through the line, and had formed a defensive barrier in order to prevent Hussein from reaching Medina, Ali was stuck south in Rabigh, and Abdullah was presiding over a limited blockade of Medina, Feisal’s other brother, Zeid, had cost the Revolt a major defeat when he was threatened by an Ottoman advance and retreated, allowing the Turks to take Manra and Bir Said with no opposition. Lawrence rode out to meet Feisal in the field and described how his camp had ‘hundreds of fires burning’, recalling that he and Feisal had sat up until 4:30am, talking and planning, until quote: ‘it got very cold, and the damp of the Wadi river, rose up through the carpet and soaked our clothes’. Feisal had worked hard to ensure that his men held good morale; if they faltered then the Revolt could be over and Lawrence recalled that despite the situation, Feisal’s spirits could not be dampened, and it was during this period that Feisal enquired as to whether Lawrence wished to don Arab clothes, in order that he not attract attention, when moving around the camp, and he and Feisal left the camp at Yenbo to investigate the state of the line, Lawrence dressed in his new robes. Soon after Lawrence had left the camp, the Ottomans attacked Feisal’s line, whereupon he realised that his left flank, held by members of the Juheina tribe, had gone, causing him to retreat back to the city limits of Yenbo. It was obvious that an Ottoman attack on Yenbo could be imminent, and the British navy stationed several warships in the harbour, the Ottomans did indeed launch a night-time attack on the city a few days later, arriving to see deserted, dark streets and an eerie silence, suddenly, without warning, searchlights from the British ships illuminated the harbour, and the Ottomans were engaged by Arab snipers and machine guns, causing such a shock, that they performed a hasty retreat. The trump card for the Revolt at this stage, was of course British naval supremacy, whereas the corresponding advantage for the Ottomans, was their control of the Hejaz railway, Lawrence and Feisal planned to use the momentum of the victory at Yenbo to press another attack, this time 188 miles to the north at Wejh, which, if taken, would provide the Revolt with an invaluable strategic position, from which they could attack the railway. This was a massive and risky operation, an advance of 200 miles north would have to be made, whilst leaving some of the army back in Yenbo, to give the impression that it was still being defended, but regardless, the operation went ahead in January 1917, with Lawrence attacking Turkish outposts as a distraction, before joining Feisal and his column on the advance north. Despite their grandeur, the column was relatively weak, consisting of 1,200 men of Feisal’s bodyguard, Abdullah, receiving news of the advance north, attacked Ottoman positions from his base at the Medina blockade, throwing the Turks into confusion, the column reached Wejh in January, 1917, and was angered to learn that the Royal Navy had already captured it at a cost of 20 men, which Lawrence claimed could have been wholly avoided, if he had been the one to attack. Feisal established his new base at Wejh, and received supplies from the British, including two Rolls Royce armoured cars, specialist crews and guns, as well as funds which he used to unite other tribes in the local area with the cause, in March 1917, Lawrence received intelligence that the city of Medina was being evacuated, whereupon he rode to Abdullah’s position near the city to advise him to make an immediate advance. Lawrence and his party arrived the same month at Abdullah’s camp, whereupon he succumbed to an illness, which rendered him bedridden for a number of days, during which time, he had a change of heart, deciding that an attack on Medina would be foolish, and once he had recovered, Lawrence went to Abdullah and argued against an attack on the city, which kept 12,000 Ottoman soldiers tied up and unable to attack the wider Revolt, suggesting instead, that they should launch a series of attacks on the Hejaz railway, as part of a long-term depletion strategy. Lawrence was not the first to attack the Hejaz railway, although it was this series of attacks which defined his time in Arabia, the first attack was made on the 26th March 1917, with the raiding party setting out from their camp at 8pm the day before, one section heading north to the railway in order to cut telegraph lines and rails, as well as setting up an artillery position, the second section, headed by Lawrence, advancing to a part of the railway between Abu-el Naam and Istabl Antar. Reaching the railway line at 11:15pm, Lawrence’s party set up a machine gun position, and covered the railway, whilst Lawrence himself knelt down by the track and laid a mine, as well as cutting through some of the tracks, Lawrence finished work at 1am, and went with his party to re-group with the northern section, reaching them at 6:30am, whereupon they opened fire on a railway station at Abu-el Naam, with a mountain Howitzer, shelling the position until 10am. A train in the station left when the shelling started, and headed toward Medina, passing over the mine laid by Lawrence, causing it to derail on four wheels, able only to liste on at a walking pace, the station was captured, and prisoners were taken, alongside their camels and water supplies, following which, the group returned to Abdullah. Lawrence returned to Wejh in April 1917, beginning to plot a new scheme which was, an attack on the port city of Aqaba, he decided that an audacious attack on the rear of Aqaba would be the campaign that would put the Revolt in a position of greater strength, and he managed to convince Feisal, that this should be his next step. On the 9th of May, Lawrence, Arab leader Auda Abu Tayi, and the exiled Sharif of Medina, set out to attack the city of Aqaba, accompanied by an army of 40 Ageyli cavalry, Lawrence had no formal orders from the British to attack the city, and wrote to Clayton just beforehand to inform him of his intention. Lawrence, Auda and the Sharif travelled with their army toward Aqaba, over the course of the month, the latter two performing raids on the Hejaz railway between Amman and Deraa, whilst Lawrence performed reconnaissance missions in Damascus, finally, on the 6th of July 1917, having travelled hundreds of miles over the desert, Lawrence and his group reached the port city of Aqaba. The attack itself was relatively underwhelming, with the vast majority of Turks surrendering to the Revolt, allowing Lawrence, Auda and the Sharif to enter the city triumphant, indeed, the problems that came about, were an immediate consequence of the attack, food was scarce, and without payment, members of the army were at risk of revolting, and so, Lawrence volunteered to travel by camel to Cairo, in order to get the British to supply food and gold for members of the Revolt who had occupied the city of Aqaba. He managed to traverse the Sinai desert in two days, until he reached the Suez Canal, where he was met by a British motor launch and taken round to Cairo, Lawrence had food and supplies sent to Aqaba, and was asked to speak with the new Commanding Officer in the Middle East, Edmund Allenby, known as, “The Bull”, who, although not knowing what to make of Lawrence, agreed to help him secure funds in order to maintain the Revolt, and so, Aqaba became the new centre for Feisal’s Revolt, and a position from which he was able to launch attacks on the upper reaches of the Hejaz railway. Throughout September and October of 1917, Lawrence wrote home from Aqaba of his train-wrecking expeditions and lamented the fact that he had been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the aftermath of the capture of Aqaba, stating quote: “all these letters and things are such nuisances…I’ll never wear any of my medals”. In November 1917, Lawrence launched an attack on the Hejaz railway at Yarmouk Bridge, which failed, after the Ottomans detected his bombing crew, and prevented their ambush from being successful, following this, Lawrence was ordered by Allenby to perform a covert reconnaissance operation to the city of Deraa, the site of a supposed sexual attack and rape upon Lawrence, by Ottoman officers but regardless of whether this incident was true, Lawrence returned to the town of Azraq on the 22nd of November in a state of physical and mental exhaustion. November marked a time of great unease for the Revolt, after sensitive details of the Sykes-Picot agreement, were published in the Soviet newspaper, Izvestiya, leading Hussein to question British representatives for their assurance that the report was not true, Hussein was told that the documents published by the Bolsheviks were only a draft, never ratified, and drawn up, with no intention of being enacted, an unashamedly dishonest diplomatic display from the British. The Balfour Declaration, a statement of intent from the British government to back Jewish immigration to the Levant, added another complication, although Lawrence did back the declaration and wrote to Clayton assuring him, that he would bring Feisal round to the same view. After his return to Aqaba, Lawrence was asked to join Allenby in Palestine, where his army was about to enter the city of Jerusalem, the general had made a rapid advance toward the Holy City, and entered it on the 11th of December 1917, Allenby made a point of dismounting his horse at the Jaffa Gate, and walking into the city proper, a jibe at the Kaiser, who had entered the city on horse-back. A few weeks later, Lawrence was introduced to Lowell Thomas, an American journalist, and his photographer, Harry Chase, both of whom were to play a significant role in his post-war career, however, the Spring of 1918, saw Allenby announce a new offensive against the northern Hejaz, it becoming ever clearer, that the Ottomans were losing control of their territory in the Levant. Hussein and his associates were becoming more concerned, over the post-war settlement between the French and the British, and kept communication channels open with the Turks, a fact which Lawrence stated he was fully aware of at the time, and on the 16th of June 1918, the British government made a policy statement, which claimed that all land liberated “by the Arabs themselves” would be given “complete and sovereign independence”. This led Feisal and Hussein to conclude, that the Sykes-Picot agreement was indeed dead, a misconception which Lawrence and the British Government readily endorsed, Lawrence knew that he was deceiving his friends in the Revolt, his army journal in the British Museum contains the striking statement “we are calling them to fight for a lie, and I can’t stand it”. Allenby’s advance on the upper Levant began on the 19th September 1918, during this advance north, Lawrence led his army in an attack on a small town called Tafas, soon to become infamous as a consequence of their victory, Lawrence and his men were able to take the town with little difficulty, although when they entered the centre of the settlement, they realised that the Turkish commander had ordered the massacre of twenty small children and around forty women, with lances and firearms. The Sheik of the town, Talal, had ridden with Lawrence to liberate his people, and upon finding his citizens killed, uttered a terrible cry and charged at the retreating Ottoman column, whereupon he was mowed down by a machine gun, Lawrence claimed that the death of Talal had caused members of the Revolt such anger, that they could not stop their rage taking over, leading them to attack and slaughter the Ottoman prisoners whom they had captured. Lawrence himself had implicitly ordered the attack, stating quote: “the best of you brings me Turkish dead”, he also recorded these events in gruesome detail in his autobiographical account, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, noting that prisoners had been shot where they stood, and that by nightfall, quote: “the rich plain was scattered all over with dead men and animals”. The British advance on Damascus was reaching its climax, although it remains somewhat unclear as to what Lawrence’s role in this was, as official reports merely stated that he had performed operations, designed to prevent the Turkish force from reaching Damascus from the south, indeed, the final attack on Damascus had very little involvement from the Revolt, and was mainly the work of the Australian Mounted Division, commanded by Harry Chauvel, as well as the 4th and 5th Indian Cavalry Divisions. Politically, the city of Damascus was highly important: the British had pledged it to the French in the Sykes-Picot agreement, although they realised that if the Revolt occupied it, then the British authorities could block the French from taking the city, Lawrence was quietly informed of this, and raced to get into the city before Chauvel and his men, speeding after them in a Rolls Royce tender, meeting the Sharif of Medina just outside the city on the 30th of September, and breathlessly asking him to send some men in, under the flag of the Hejaz, in order to claim the city before the British. He need not have worried, and he was informed that two brothers, Mohamed Said and Abdel Kadir had already raised the standard over the city, and that Mohamed Said, had already declared himself governor, much to the annoyance of Lawrence, who duly had him replaced by Shukri Pasha. By now, the city had descended into anarchy, with Ottoman prisoners being execucted in the streets, and homes and shops looted, Allenby and Feisal entered the city on the 3rd of October, although by this stage it had become rather apparent that their plan to block out the French would fail. Feisal and Lawrence were then called to a meeting with Allenby, at which the general informed Feisal, that the French were to be the commanding power in Syria, and that the Lebanon would be totally under French control, this news deeply upset Feisal, who left seething with anger, refusing the offer of a French liaison officer. Lawrence swore that he had no knowledge of this arrangement, and was ordered home by Allenby, who blunty informed him that he was due for leave, Lawrence had failed to win Syria for Feisal, and it would become French territory after all. And so, Lawrence left Damascus in early October, with the end of the conflict very much in sight, an armistice was eventually signed between the two sides on the 31st of October 1918, but before he left for home, Allenby had promoted Lawrence to the rank of Colonel, in order that he be permitted to travel home in greater comfort, and without so many checks. Lawrence later wrote that he arrived back in England dramatically on the 11th of November 1918, the day the Armistice was signed with Germany, when in reality, he had returned on the 24th of October, and within a few days, he had been called before the Eastern Committee of the War Office, who appointed him as an expert in Middle Eastern matters, alongside committee members such as Lord Curzon, Mark Sykes and Robert Cecil. Later that year Lawrence was called for an audience with King George V, who was planning to formally institute him as a Companion of the Bath, which Lawrence refused, telling the King that his government had broken their pledges to the Arab people, despite this, the King was intrigued by Lawrence, and met privately with him again, Lawrence later sending the King his engraved .303 Lee Enfield, which he had been given by Feisal in 1916. On the 11th of November, Lawrence was given permission to contact Hussein via telegram, and asked him to send Feisal over to Paris, in order that his son could act as a representative for him, at the upcoming Paris Peace Conference, Feisal was given a tour of France, and met with President Poincare, remaining in the country until the 9th of December, where-upon, the Arab delegation left and went to Boulogne, where a British ship waited to take them over the channel. Lawrence intended to use his time with Feisal for business, as opposed to sightseeing, and had met with Chaim Weizmann, later to become the first president of Israel, the day before Feisal’s arrival, to discuss the Balfour Declaration, and after his arrival, Lawrence prompted Feisal to make a statement to Reuters, in which he proclaimed that the aspirations of the Arabs and the Zionists were compatible, and that he hoped that ‘each nation’ could work together to streamline their appeals at the upcoming Paris Peace Conference. The British government was not wholly convinced, with one Foreign Office official writing a memo in which he denounced the agreement as ‘worthless’, arguing that Feisal would never be able to tolerate this in reality, due to the opposition which he would receive from his people, the Paris conference was called, and convened on the 18th January 1919, it included representatives from 32 states, all of whom intended to work together to find a suitable post-war settlement. Despite the fact that their plight remained near the bottom of the agenda, the arrival of Feisal and his men caused a stir, such was their exotic appearance, Feisal had to face the task of securing himself on a throne, that was to be in an independent Syria, which had remained under Ottoman rule for 369 years. Lawrence realised that Woodrow Wilson, the US President, would be a key player in this, the president had developed a new fourteen-point policy plan for the post-war world order, point twelve of which stated, that the peoples of the Ottoman empire who had been liberated, had a right for unmolested autonomous development, and on the 6th of February Lawrence and Feisal presented their case for an independent Syria before the “Council of Ten”, the innermost sanctum of the conference. Woodrow Wilson asked Lawrence if he could also provide translations of his documents for the benefit of those assembled, whereupon Lawrence repeated his speech in flawless French, taking his seat again to applause, the speech outlined the plans for Arab independence which he had developed alongside Feisal, he also backed the sending of a commission to Syria in order to ascertain the stance of the natives, which caused an outcry in the French press. Those at the conference remarked on the closeness between Feisal and Lawrence and also reported that they had seldom seen relationships as good between grown men, indeed, Feisal and Lawrence were a successful double-act, who would attend dinners together, claiming the limelight with their stories and costumes. Three weeks after Feisal spoke to the Council of Ten, Weizmann presented his view for a new Jewish homeland to Allied leaders, however, conflict arose between the two sides when Feisal gave an interview to a French newspaper, in which he thoroughly rejected the proposal of a Jewish state, damaging the work of their previous meeting, and causing Lawrence to rush to arrange another meeting, Feisal again agreed to the same terms as had been previously decided, and stated this renewed commitment to the settlement in an interview to the New York Times. On the 7th of April 1919, Lawrence was informed via telegram that his father was seriously ill, following which he flew to England, but when he found that his father was already dead, he returned to Paris without any further delay, such was his devotion to the cause. A few days later, on the 13th of April, Feisal was given an audience with French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau, who stated that if Feisal cooperated with them, then their presence in Syria would remain limited, Feisal was on the verge of accepting, although was stopped by Lawrence who advised him to await the response of the commission, a foolish diplomatic move. Feisal left France three days later, having achieved nothing over the whole period during which he attended the conference, and after Feisal had departed, little remained to keep Lawrence in Paris, so he went to Cairo in order to collect papers and other materials, which he had left in the Arab Bureau office in the city, returning to the French capital a short while later. When he was in Paris, Lawrence stayed in the hotel room above Richard Meinertzhagen, a fellow intelligence officer, to whom Lawrence appears to have broken down, Lawrence confided in Meinertzhagen that he was, quote: ‘trapped in a lie’, caught between the British and the revolt. Lawrence returned to England in August 1919, to be greeted by a new reputation, which had been forged by the media in his absense, Lowell Thomas, the journalist Lawrence had met in Jerusalem during the War, had turned his wartime notes into a show, which had caught the eye of the general public, in both the US and the UK, turning Lawrence into an overnight media sensation, and a national hero by the end of the summer of 1919. Lawrence’s popularity only increased, when Thomas began to publish a plethora of articles, all of which hailed, with breathless and largely false grandeur, the exploits of Lawrence in the Hejaz, proclaiming him the ‘Prince of Mecca’ and the ‘Uncrowned King of Arabia’, Lawrence helped with Thomas’ articles, and even suggested that he should write some himself, having realised that the attention could aid his political position and influence. Despite this initial enthusiasm, Lawrence soon demonstrated that he, in fact, hated this stardom, and apparently ‘dropped Thomas as soon as he had no use of him’ and continued to shy away from the limelight as much as he could. Between 1919 and 1922, Lawrence divided his time between writing his autobiography, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and attending to political crises in the Middle East, he indicated to his friends that he wished to be over and done with Arabia, although knew that his fame had given him a platform and realised that this was an opportunity not to be missed. His focus on Arabia did not decline after he returned to Oxford, in order to take up a fellowship at All Souls, Oxford, as he had to pursue research concerned with the Levant, in order to keep this position. Aided by the British and the French, politics in the Arab region stumbled into crisis after very little time, since his return home, Feisal had attempted to hold together a provisional government in Damascus, but, as much as he tried, he was unable to gain independence from France and the UK, and although Feisal worked on compromises, he knew that nothing short of total independence, could placate nationalists in his own population. The US had rejected reports from numerous commissions, which encouraged them to participate more fully in Middle Eastern politics, whilst the British government had become far more docile on the question of governance in Syria, for fear of upsetting the French, as well as this, legal irregularities emerged in the post-war settlement, as the French had a claim over the Mosul oil fields, despite the fact that Britain had a claim over the rest of Mesopotamia. The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, attempted to broker a new agreement with Clemenceau, breaking the agreement which he had made with Feisal and leaving the King on his own, this was a massive personal failure for Lawrence, who was thrown into a deep depression, and took to spending hours sitting motionless and distressed, withdrawn from life at the university, and suffering significant mood swings, he took to writing angry letters in the Times Newspaper, criticising the British Government and their new plan, and gaining great attention due to his popularity. The British and French governments concluded a new agreement in September 1919, which handed Syria to the French and the Mosul oil fields to the British, backed by the Supreme Allied Council in Paris, and shortly after the agreement had been reached, Feisal arrived in London to protest against the new plan to Lloyd George, arguing that this left him worse off than the Sykes-Picot agreement would have done. On the 25th of September, Lawrence sent a memo to Lord Curzon, containing detailed proposals for a new plan in Mesopotamia and Syria, with the assurance that if his suggestions were met, then he would convince Feisal to back the new agreement. Lawrence’s plan argued that Percy Cox, the British Ambassador in Tehran, should return to Mesopotamia as a civil commissioner, to sort out the problems caused by the lack of authority exercised by the Foreign Office, War Office and the India Office, all of whom held joint responsibility for administration, and crucially, that a new government with a ‘visibly Arab character’ should be formed. The suggestion was, that Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo should be placed under Arab control, and would form a single state, with oversight from British and French government advisors, the plan received interest from British government officials, although it was ultimately rejected, British troops leaving Syria in November of 1919, in order to hand it over to French control. In a February 1920 letter, Lawrence informed SF Newcombe, that he intended to quietly change his name to John Hume Ross, the rest of the year was a rocky one for politics in the Middle East, Feisal had been elected King of Syria at the Syrian national congress, on the 8th of March, although the congress was formed mostly of his own staff, and the election actually meant very little. Meanwhile, the French had called a conference at San Remo, where it had declared power over the newly reformed states of Lebanon and Syria, giving Palestine and Iraq to Britain, and throughout the entire period, Lawrence continued to tirade against the British government in the press, leading Gertrude Bell to write to him, saying quote: ‘beloved boy, I’ve been reading with amusement your articles in the papers’…’, adding ‘it’s hard to remain calm when I reflect on the number of blunders we’ve made’. Lawrence maintained this press campaign, and argued that the Arab people had quote: ‘not risked their lives in battle to change master, to become British subjects or French citizens’, proposing that forces of Arab police officers should control the country, which was not well received by the government. In December Feisal made another visit to Britain, as part of an official trip, on behalf of his father, and was secretly asked by the Foreign Office how he would react if offered the throne of Iraq, a proposal which they had rejected six months previously, however the cost and risks associated with a rebellion in the region had worried them, but now they were prepared to consider this. Feisal accepted the offer of the throne on two conditions, that he be allowed total rule and that his brother, Abdullah, renounce his claim to the same title, both of which, the British government were willing to tolerate, as long as they had access to the Persian gulf, and the Mesopotamian oil fields. Churchill announced in February 1921, that an imperial conference would be held in Cairo, to determine policy in the Middle East, to which he travelled with Lawrence, Gertrude Bell had formed a massive intelligence network in Iraq, and suggested that the plan should be to get Feisal elected through popular endorsement, a plan which Lloyd George backed. Lawrence telegraphed Feisal with the good news, and the two were even able to briefly meet in Port Said, the only other obstacle, aside from the people of Iraq and the French, was Abdullah, who still had a claim to the throne of Iraq, Churchill suggested that he could be bought off with a new kingdom in Transjordan, he suggested this to Abdullah, when the two met in Jerusalem, in the spring of 1920, which he agreed to. During the second week of May, Lawrence sailed back to England, and on the 14th of June 1921, Churchill announced in the House of Commons, that the British government backed Feisal as the next King of Syria, he won a massive majority of 96% in the August elections, partly because Sayid Talib, the most prominent opposition to Feisal, had been kidnapped by the British, in order to prevent him from standing, following this, Lawrence was dispatched with the Great Seal of England and a royal order, to negotiate with Hussein, in order to get him to agree to this new settlement, a task which proved to be impossible. He also took time to visit and reform Abdullah’s government in Transjordan, which had encountered difficulties, spending £100,000 as part of restructuring efforts, Abdullah would remain in power for a long time after that, becoming the first king of Jordan after World War Two, until he was assassinated in 1951. Lawrence returned home in December, tired and depressed, whereupon he continued work on the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, he had by now decided to leave his job at the colonial office, although Churchill did persuade him to remain until July 1922. His mental health was in ruin, and in a bid to repair this somewhat, he embarked on a new career in the RAF, Lawrence wrote to Air Marshal Hugh Trenchard and asked to be commissioned in the ranks, and although both Churchill and Trenchard disapproved of this plan, they eventually sanctioned it, on the condition that Lawrence would remain with the Colonial Office until July 1922. He was also able to gain a demotion, from colonel to aircraftsman, and entered under the alias John Hume Ross; AC2; NO. 352087, his time in the RAF was short lived however as he was reprimanded for offences so often, that he was recommended for a discharge, and he soon learned to despise the callous and harsh mannerisms of barrack life, leaving the service after a few weeks in November 1922. Six weeks later, he enlisted as a private in the Royal Tank Corps, having changed his name to TE Shaw, after the poet George Bernard Shaw and his wife, Charlotte, both of whom were dear friends, and he entered the tank corps as Trooper Shaw, NO. 7875698, he was posted to the Tank Corps depot at Bovington Camp, Dorset, on the 12th of March, 1923, where his height, age and accent set him apart from other recruits, ensuring that he soon found it hard to remain comfortable with them. In order to finish the Seven Pillars, Lawrence had to get away from the camp, and went to a small disused cottage called Clouds Hill, owned by a distant relative of his fathers, he renovated the cottage with the aid of Sergeant Knowles, a friend, who lived opposite, redesigning the cottage, which contained little furniture, aside from a mass of books, a gramophone and a large collection of records, and whenever he had the chance, Lawrence would ride his motorcycle to Clouds Hill, Bernard Shaw and his wife often visiting and sharing tea with the troopers of Lawrence’s camp. Lawrence had managed to control his depression in the army to a greater extent than before, although not entirely, as he still had depressive periods, which led him to contemplate suicide, indeed in 1925, Lawrence tried to re-join the RAF, but he was rejected, following which, he threatened suicide and was readmitted forthwith, he arrived at RAF Cadet College, Cranwell, on the 24th of August 1925, befriended those around him and was quickly accepted by his fellows, he was certainly far happier at Cranwell, than at Bovington. By the summer of 1926, Lawrence had finished the Seven Pillars, having made an abridgement, “Revolt in the Desert” at the same time, by effectively deleting words from the Seven Pillars, the Deraa chapter notably removed, and Lawrence knew that the book would bring publicity, and so applied for a post abroad, in order to avoid it, leaving Southampton for Karachi on the 7th of December 1926, alongside 1,200 other passengers on board the Derbyshire. News that Lawrence had been posted to the region was soon seized upon by the press, The New York Sun ignoring an official denial of Lawrence’s deployment to Afghanistan, and publishing stories that Lawrence had been deployed to spy on the Indians, this news had very real implications, King Amanullah of Afghanistan began an uprising at this time, against westernising movements in the country, causing the RAF to evacuate British nationals from the region. The stories spiralled, with the French and Russian presses beginning to use them for their own gain and convincing the Afghan government that Lawrence was scheming against them, Trenchard had Lawrence evacuated in January 1928, and he returned to England aboard the SS Rajputana, Lawrence was met off the ship at Plymouth by Wing Commander Sydney Smith, who had arranged for him to disembark via a naval launch, in order to avoid the press, who had surrounded the gangplank of the vessel. The two travelled to meet with Trenchard, to whom Lawrence suggested that he be posted to Smith’s command at RAF Cattewater, which was warmly received, Lawrence remained in the RAF until 1935, finding fulfilment in mechanical work on RAF Type 200 and 201 boats, and riding his Borough Superior motorcycle, revelling in its immense speed. Smith and his wife Clare offered their home to Lawrence, which appears to have been a massive help to his mental health and wellbeing, whereupon he worked alongside Smith to develop machines for his entry to the 1929 Schneider Trophy Seaplane contest, working from RAF Mount Batten. He left the RAF in 1935, writing to Edward Ellington, the Chief of Air Staff, saying quote: “I’ve been at home in the ranks… so if you keep that old file about me, will you please close it with this note which says how sadly I’m going?”. Politics refused to leave Lawrence alone, and after leaving the RAF, he was approached by government officials who hinted that they were to offer him a position, reorganising the armed forces, which he declined, stating that nothing could take him away from Clouds Hill. On the 13th of May 1935, Lawrence went to see Knowle’s mother, after which, he left with his motorcycle and rode one mile north of Bovington camp, where he sent a telegraph to his friend Williamson, inviting him for lunch the next day, he began to ride back to the cottage, coming across two boys on bicycles a few hundred yards away from the house, a dip in the road meant, that he did not see them until the last minute, causing him to swerve suddenly, throwing him over the handlebars of the motorcycle, and fracturing his skull. Lawrence clung to life for six days, although his heart soon became faint, and he died just after 8am on the 19th of May 1935, his funeral was held at Moreton Church, Dorset, and was attended by many figures from his life, such as Ronald Storrs, Newcombe and Knowles, as well as Winston Churchill, Wilfred Sassoon and Lord Winterton. Lawrence remains one of the most intriguing and fascinating figures of the 20th century, his lack of regard for convention, his audacity and undeniable bravery, earn him high regard from many, although his role as part of an imperialist settlement, is an undeniable point of controversy, as was his involvement in the massacre at Taflas. His legacy remains one of heroism and mystery, myriad interpretations of his life and personality have been developed since his death, and his appeal remains potent to many today, Lawrence was at various points an academic, military commander, revolutionary, terrorist, diplomat, politician and mechanic, he led an extraordinary, if not tragic life, which deserves to be remembered today. What do you think of Lawrence of Arabia, was he a self-important imperialist who played with people’s lives for fame and fortune, or was he one of the most extraordinary historical figures of the First World War, who helped set both a region and people he loved, on a long road to political freedom? Let us know what you think in the comment section and in the meantime, thank you very much for watching.
