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Title: Lawrence and the Arabs
Author: Robert Graves
Contributor: Herry Perry
Editor: Eric Kennington
Release date: July 11, 2024 [eBook #74014]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Jonathan Cape, 1927
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAWRENCE AND THE ARABS ***
Transcriber’s Notes
Misspelled words have been corrected. These are identified by
♦ symbols in the text and are shown immediately below the
paragraph in which they appear.
Details and other notes may be found at the end of this eBook.
LAWRENCE AND THE ARABS
_Onager solitarius in desiderio animi
sui attraxit ventum amoris._ Jeremiah
[Illustration:
description: Photo portrait shot of Lawrence bust statue
caption: LAWRENCE
_from a bust by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
]
LAWRENCE AND THE
ARABS
_By_
ROBERT GRAVES
[Illustration:
description: publisher logo of urn enclosed in a circle
]
ILLUSTRATIONS EDITED BY
ERIC KENNINGTON
MAPS BY
HERRY PERRY
LONDON
JONATHAN CAPE 30 BEDFORD SQUARE
FIRST PUBLISHED IN MCMXXVII
MADE & PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY BUTLER & TANNER LTD
FROME AND
LONDON
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
LAWRENCE _Frontispiece_
_From a bust by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
‘AIRCRAFTMAN SHAW’ 48
MAP: THE ARAB AREA 60
THE EMIR FEISAL 72
THE EMIR ABDULLA 92
_From a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
THE VILLAGE OF DATE PALMS 118
FEISAL’S ARMY ENTERING WEJH 142
AUDA 156
_From a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
MAP: THE RIDE TO AKABA 164
AUDA AND HIS KINSMEN 178
_Copyright American Colony Stores, Jerusalem_
THE PILGRIM-RAILWAY 196
AKABA 212
MAP: LAWRENCE’S RIDES 226
DEMOLITIONS ON THE RAILWAY 254
ALI IBN EL HUSSEIN 260
_From a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
AZRAK 274
FAHAD OF THE BENI SAKHR 278
_From a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
ABDULLA EL ZAAGI 298
_From a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
MAHMAS 308
_From a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
MULE TRANSPORT NEAR ABA EL LISSAN 326
_Copyright French Army Photo. Dept._
MAP: THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NORTH 336
BUXTON’S MEN BLOWING UP MUDOWWARA STATION 342
AT GUWEIRA 346
_Copyright French Army Photo. Dept._
AN ARMOURED FORD IN THE DESERT 358
_Copyright Imperial War Museum_
LAWRENCE AND HIS BODYGUARD AT AKABA 370
FEISAL JUST AFTER HIS MEETING WITH ALLENBY 386
_Copyright Imperial War Museum_
LAWRENCE AT VERSAILLES 402
‘T.E.’ ON ‘BOANERGES,’ THE MOTOR-BICYCLE 428
INTRODUCTION
Early this June I was invited by the publishers to write a book about
Lawrence. I replied that I would do so with Lawrence’s consent. Shaw,
as I must call him, for he has now taken that name and definitely
discarded ‘Lawrence,’ cabled his permission from India, and followed
it up with a letter giving me a list of sources for my writing and
saying that since a book was intended about him anyway he would prefer
it done by me. He thought that I could write a book accurate enough in
its facts to discourage further unauthorized accounts and that he could
trust me not to spare his own feelings wherever I wished to draw any
critical conclusion. And he hoped that the book would have exhausted
all public interest by the time that he had finished with the Royal Air
Force and returned to civil life.
I have his most generous permission, with that of his trustees, to use
copyright material at my discretion—but certain limits were given—both
from _Revolt in the Desert_ and from _Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ (of
which that is an abridgment), a book that will not be issued for public
sale in Shaw’s lifetime. Unfortunately owing to pressure of time my
completed typescript could not be submitted to Shaw before publication
and I apologize to him for any passages where my discretion has been at
fault. I did, however, write and ask him specific questions and sent
him rough drafts of nearly all my material. I must, however, draw a
clear line between Shaw’s approval of my writing the book if it had to
be written, and my own responsibility for the facts and opinions given
here.
These chapters contain much that is of interest, I hope, even to
readers of the _Seven Pillars of Wisdom_; and readers of _Revolt
in the Desert_ may be glad of a narrative that is continuous. Critics
must remember that Shaw, when preparing the _Seven Pillars_ for
private circulation, had in mind an audience of not more than a couple
of hundred people and that he consequently had greater freedom in
his vocabulary than I have had; and could also assume a specialized
knowledge of Eastern history, geography and politics in his audience
that I am not permitted to assume.
I have tried to give a picture of an exasperatingly complex personality
in the easiest possible terms. I have tried also to make a difficult
story as clear as may be by a cutting-down of the characters that occur
in it; mentioning by name only the outstanding ones and explaining
the rest in such terms as ‘a member of the body-guard,’ ‘a British
Staff-officer with Feisal,’ ‘a major-general,’ ‘a French colonel,’
‘the chief of the Beni Sakhr,’ etc. (Geography has been similarly
simplified; the maps have been designed so that few places occur on
them that are not mentioned in that part of the story to which they
refer, and few or no places are mentioned in the story that are not to
be found on the maps.)
This is not the method of history, but history, which is the less
readable the more historical it is, will not eventually be hindered
by anything I have written. I have attempted a critical study of
‘Lawrence’—the popular verdict that he is the most remarkable
living Englishman, though I dislike such verdicts, I am inclined to
accept—rather than a general review of the Arab freedom movement and
the part played by England and France in regard to it. And there has
been a space-limit.
For information about Lawrence I am greatly indebted to Mrs. Fontana,
Mrs. Thomas Hardy, Mrs. Lawrence (his mother), Mrs. Kennington, Mrs.
Bernard Shaw, Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby, Colonel John Buchan,
Colonel R. V. Buxton, Colonel Alan Dawnay, Mr. E. M. Forster, Mr.
Philip Graves, Sir Robert Graves, Dr. D. G. Hogarth, Mr. Cecil Jane,
Mr. Eric Kennington, Mr. Arnold Lawrence (a younger brother), Sir Henry
McMahon, Private Palmer of the Royal Tank Corps, Serjeant Pugh of the
Royal Air Force, Mr. Vyvyan Richards, Lord Riddell, Mr. Siegfried
Sassoon, Lord Stamfordham, the Dean of Winchester, Mr. C. Leonard
Woolley, and others.
For permission to use copyright photographs, to _The Times_, the
Imperial War Museum, the French Army Photographic Department, Major
Goslett, Colonel R. V. Buxton, Dr. D. G. Hogarth, Serjeant Pugh, Mr.
Eric Kennington, and Aircraftman Shaw himself.
R. G.
_August_, 1927.
LAWRENCE AND THE ARABS
I
I write of him as Lawrence since I first knew him by that name,
though, with the rest of his friends, I now usually address him as
‘T. E.’: his initials at least seem fixed and certain. In 1923 when
he enlisted as a private soldier in the Royal Tank Corps he took the
name of ‘T. E. Shaw’: and has continued in that name in the Royal Air
Force, confirming the alteration by Deed Poll. His enlistment in 1922
was in the name of ‘Ross’ and these two are not, he admits, his only
efforts to ‘label himself suitably.’ He chose ‘Shaw’ and ‘Ross’ more or
less at random from an Army List, though their shortness recommended
them and probably also their late positions in the alphabet; troops
sometimes get lined up in alphabetical order of names and Lawrence
avoids the right of the line by instinct. He was tired of the name
Lawrence,—and found it too long—particularly of the name ‘Lawrence of
Arabia’ which had become a romantic catchword and a great nuisance to
him. Hero worship seems not only to annoy Lawrence but, because of a
genuine belief in his own fraudulence as its object, to make him feel
physically unclean; and few who have heard or read of _Lawrence of
Arabia_ now mention the name without a superstitious wonder or fail
to lose their heads if they happen to meet the man. A good enough
excuse for discarding the name Lawrence was that it never had any
proud family traditions for him. Mr. Lowell Thomas, who has written an
inaccurate and sentimental account of Lawrence, links him up with the
Northern Irish family of that name and with the famous Indian Mutiny
hero ‘who tried to do his duty’: this is an invention and not a good
one. ‘Lawrence’ began as a name of convenience like ‘Ross’ or ‘Shaw,’
and Lawrence was never of the tribe which does things because
public duty is public duty. He acts in all things for his own best
reasons, which though perhaps—I might say ‘certainly’—honourable are
never either public or obvious. The Arabs addressed him as ‘Aurans’ or
‘Lurens,’ but his nickname among them was _Emir Dinamit_, or _Prince
Dynamite_, for his explosive energy. Old Auda, the fighting chief of
the Howeitat, used to called him ‘The World’s Imp,’ which is better
still.
He was born at Tremadoc in North Wales in August 1888. This proved
useful because later at Oxford University he could enter Jesus College,
which financially favours Welsh students, as a Welshman. Actually he
is of very mixed blood, none of it Welsh; if I remember rightly it
is Irish, Hebridean, Spanish, and Norse. This again has always been
useful; mixed blood has meant for Lawrence a natural gift for learning
foreign languages, a respect for the manners and customs of strange
people and, more than this, the power of entering a foreign community
and being accepted after a time as a member of it. He has, also, no
sense of the superiority of the English over foreigners. This he puts
down merely to his general disrespect for humanity; but a strong
natural bias towards the English may be suspected if only as towards
the speakers of English, a language for which he cannot conceal his
affection.
His father, now dead, came from County Meath in Ireland, of
Leicestershire stock settled in the time of Sir Walter Raleigh. He
was a great sportsman. The mixed blood is chiefly from this side. His
mother who two years ago went off unconcernedly to end her days with a
mission in Central China—but has recently been sent back home much
against her will because of political troubles there—is a woman of
decision and quiet power: with features like Lawrence’s. She told
me once: ‘We could never be bothered with girls in our house’: and,
conveniently, she had five sons and no daughters. This home-atmosphere
possibly accounts for Lawrence’s world being so empty of women: he was
brought up to do without female society and the habit has remained with
him. That he has a fear or hatred of all women is untrue. He tries to
talk to a woman as he would talk to another man, or to himself. If
she does not return the compliment by talking to him as she would to
another woman, he leaves her. He has no false sense of chivalry. He is
not a courtier but neither is he a boor.
His childhood was spent in Scotland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, France
and Hampshire. In France he attended a Jesuit school, though neither
he nor his family were Catholics. From Hampshire the family came to
Oxford where Lawrence went to the City of Oxford School. Of his boyhood
at Oxford there are stories that show that he began being the person
Lawrence early. He took an interest in archæology which elder people
thought unwholesome in a boy, and when old buildings were pulled down
or excavations made was always on the spot. He had a secret arrangement
with the city workmen to give him any pieces of pottery or other finds
that they made and was soon an actual expert on the pottery of the
Middle Ages. He had a theory which he intended to prove in a book
that the dating of ancient pottery in England is all wrong, much of
what is called Roman pottery being really Saxon: but that book he has
never found time to write. At the age of thirteen he began a series
of bicycle tours round England by himself and in pursuit of a
study of mediæval armour made a large collection of brass-rubbings
from old monuments in country churches. He made a point at his home
of never saying when or where he was going or when he would be back.
He liked to return at night by an upper window and be found in bed
the next morning. To avoid surveillance later he refused to sleep in
the house at all, but used a summer-house in the garden (he built it
himself) as his bedroom. He explored the many streams about Oxford
in a canoe: (and in after years brought a canoe with him at great
expense to Mesopotamia, where it was the first canoe ever seen on the
River Euphrates). Not content with the streams above ground he began
exploring the underground streams of Oxford City. Probably he made a
map; maps were his speciality. He made eight tours of France in his
school vacations, studying the cathedrals and castles, and living on
practically nothing. When he was sixteen he broke a leg while he was
wrestling with another boy at the Oxford City School. He said nothing
until school ended for the day and then returned home, not able to
walk, on a borrowed bicycle. (He has never grown since that date.)
He took no interest in school games because they were organized,
because they had rules, because they had results. He will never compete
in anything. He was interested in machinery—(he is still an expert
on racing cars and such-like, and after the War occupied part of his
leisure with the help of the makers of the Brough Superior motor-cycle
in testing and reporting on their next year’s models). He read widely,
carefully and rapidly in several languages, his chief study being
mediæval art, particularly sculpture. What is more remarkable is that
while he was still at the High School he began thinking about that very
revolt of the Arabs against the Turks which is the main story of
this book.
At Jesus College in the University, where he won a scholarship, he
read for the History School; or was supposed to do so. As a matter of
fact the three years were spent chiefly in reading French Provençal
poetry and mediæval Chansons de Geste. Mr. Vyvyan Richards, a
fellow-undergraduate, has told me: ‘There was a mystery in the College
about a strange undergraduate who never appeared in the daytime but
spent hours of the night walking round the quadrangle by himself; I was
one of those appointed to investigate; that was how I first discovered
Lawrence. I patronized him at first as a second-year man does a
first-year man, but I soon stopped that. I remember once I was teasing
him for his theories about pottery; we were walking on the New College
mound which is supposed to have been thrown up in the Civil Wars. I
kicked up a bit of pottery and said to him, “You’ll tell me next that
this proves something.” “Thank you,” he said, “as it happens it does.
It goes to prove that this mound is considerably older than Cromwell’s
time.” That silenced me. He never took any part in College life and
never dined in Hall. Once in winter he arrived at my lodgings after
midnight and asked me to come bathing. He wanted me to try the sport
of diving through the ice: I thought it too dangerous, so he went off
alone. He had a wonderful library, and was much interested in printing.
It has been said that he printed books with me; but this is not true;
there was much planning about it, but it never came off.’
Lawrence only lived one term in the College itself: the remainder of
the time he was allowed to live at home. He read all night and
slept in the mornings. He was not only a non-smoker and total abstainer
but a vegetarian. In all his University life, as at school, he never
took part in or watched a single organized game, though I believe he
did a certain amount of roof-climbing, an unorganized night-sport which
is entirely against University regulations. He is said to have invented
the now classic climb from Balliol college to Keble college, a distance
of perhaps a third of a mile, with only a single drop in between. This
Lawrence neither confirms nor denies. He had a lively admiration for
his tutor R. L. Poole and only once ‘cut’ a tutorial, then wrote to
apologize. Poole replied: ‘Don’t worry yourself at having failed to
come to me last Tuesday. Your absence gave me the opportunity to do
an hour’s useful work.’ He apparently only attended three courses of
lectures in the whole of his three years and found these unprofitable.
Mr. Cecil Jane writes of this period:
‘I coached him in his last year at the Oxford City School and saw a
great deal of him all through his time at Oxford. He would never read
the obvious books. I found out in the first week or two that the thing
was to suggest rather out-of-the-way books. He could be relied upon
to get more out of a suggestive sentence in a book than any ordinary
man would get from a volume. His work was always on his own lines,
even to the hours when he came to me. Shortly after midnight to 4
a.m. was a favourite time (living at home he had not to bother about
College regulations: it was enough for his mother to report that he
was “home by twelve”). He had the most diverse interests historically,
though they were mainly mediæval. For a long time I could not get him
to take any interest in late European History—was very startled
to find that he was absorbed by R. M. Johnston’s _French Revolution_.
While he was at school still I used to be surprised by his fondness
for analysing character: it was a little habit of his to put questions
to me in order to watch my expression: he would make no comment on
my answer but I could see that he thought the more. In many ways
he resembled his father, quite one of the most charming men I have
known—very shy, very kind. Lawrence was not a bookworm though he
read very fast and a great deal. I should not call him a scholar by
temperament and the main characteristic of his work was always that
it was unusual without the effort to be unusual. He liked anything in
the nature of satire; that is why he appreciated Gibbon’s notes so
much. He was very diffident about his own work; he never published
his really admirable (but small) degree thesis. He was very robust, a
little difficult to know, and always unexpected.’
When the time came for his final examinations for his degree Lawrence
was unprepared. He was advised to submit a special thesis to supplement
his other papers. He chose as his subject ‘The influence of the
Crusades on the mediæval military architecture of Europe.’ Even
before he went to the University, he had specialized in mediæval
fortifications and had visited every single twelfth-century castle in
England and France; it now remained for him to go to Palestine and
Syria and study the Crusaders’ castles there. He decided to go out in
the summer months of 1909, his last long vacation. He had learned a
smattering of Arabic from a half-Irish Arab, then lecturing at Oxford,
who advised him, if he went, to save expenses by living on the
hospitality of the Syrian tribes. It was to be his first visit to the
part of the world where he later became famous.
Before he left he visited Dr. D. G. Hogarth, the present Keeper of the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, whom he met on this occasion for the first
time but who has been his close friend ever since—‘the man to whom I am
indebted for every good job I have ever had except my enlistment in the
Royal Air Force.’ He told Hogarth that he was going to visit Syria to
study Crusaders’ castles but wished to know where he would be likely to
find remains of the ancient Hittite civilization, Hogarth told him what
he wanted but said, ‘This is the wrong season to visit Syria: it is too
hot there now.’ ‘I’m going,’ said Lawrence. ‘Well, have you the money?
You’ll want a guide and servants to carry your tent and baggage.’ ‘I’m
going to walk,’ Lawrence said. ‘Europeans don’t walk in Syria,’ said
Hogarth, ‘it isn’t safe or pleasant.’ ‘Well, I do,’ said Lawrence. He
went and was away for four months, returning to Oxford late for the
next term. He had been on foot, in European dress and brown boots,
carrying only a camera, from Haifa on the north coast of Palestine to
the Taurus mountains and across to Urfa by the Euphrates in Northern
Mesopotamia. He brought back sketch-plans and photographs of every
mediæval fortress in Syria and also a collection of Hittite seals
from the Aintab region for Hogarth. He had had two bouts of fever,
Dr. Hogarth tells me, and had once been nearly murdered. The fever is
perhaps hardly worth mentioning: Lawrence has had fever so often that
he is quite used to it. He got malaria in France when he was sixteen
and has had countless returns of it since. When he was eighteen he got
Malta fever and since then has had dysentery, typhoid, blackwater
fever, smallpox and other varieties.
The murder story has often been told, but incorrectly. What happened
was that Lawrence on his way to Syria had bought a copper watch at
Paris for ten francs. By constant use the case had been polished till
it shone. In a Turkman village near the banks of the Euphrates where he
was collecting Hittite antiquities he took out this watch one morning;
the villagers murmured ‘Gold.’ A villager stalked Lawrence all day
as he went on his journey and towards evening ran ahead and met him,
as if accidentally. Lawrence asked the way to a certain village. The
Turkman showed him a short cut across country; where he sprang upon
Lawrence, knocked him down, snatched his Colt revolver, put it to his
head and pulled the trigger. Though loaded it did not go off: the
villager did not understand the mechanism of the safety catch, which
was raised. He tried the trigger again and then in anger threw it away
and battered Lawrence about the head with stones. The appearance of
a shepherd fortunately frightened him off before he had succeeded in
cracking Lawrence’s skull. Lawrence got up, crossed the Euphrates to
the nearest town (Birejik) where he could find Turkish policemen. There
he presented the order that he had from the Turkish Ministry of the
Interior requiring all local governors to afford him every help, and
collected a hundred and ten men. With this force, whose ferry-fare he
had to pay across the river, he re-entered the village. Contrary to
the usual story of a desperate fight and the burning of the village,
there was no violence. Lawrence, with fever heavy on him, went to
sleep while the usual day-long argument went on between the police
and the villagers. At night the village elders gave up the stolen
property and the thief. The true version of the story is better if only
because it has this more satisfactory ending that the thief afterwards
worked in the diggings at Carchemish under Lawrence; not too well, but
Lawrence was easy with him.
During this walk he lodged every night, when off the beaten track, in
the nearest native village, taking advantage of the hospitality which
poor Syrians always show towards other poor; and began his familiarity
with Arab dialects. Lawrence is not an Arabic scholar. He has never
sat down to study it, nor even learned its letters—in any case twenty
years’ study are needed before anyone can call himself an Arabic
scholar and Lawrence has had a better use for his time. But he is
fluent in conversational Arabic, and can tell pretty accurately by a
man’s accent and the expressions he uses from what tribe or district
of Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia or Palestine he comes. On his return to
Oxford he was awarded a First Class Honours Degree in History on the
strength of his thesis, and the examiners were so impressed that they
celebrated the event by a special dinner at which Lawrence’s tutor,
Poole, was the host.
It is circumstantially related that the piece of archæological news
which most delighted Oxford concerned the burial of Crusaders in the
Holy Land; that it was known already that a knight who had been on
one Crusade and died at home had his legs and the legs of his effigy
crossed at the ankle, that a knight who had been on two Crusades had
his legs crossed at the knee, but that Lawrence found that Crusaders
who had died in the Holy Land itself were buried with their toes
turned inwards. The incrustations of the Lawrence legend are typified
in this completely false and widely current story. In the first
place, Lawrence made no such discovery. In the second, he does not
believe that the crossing of the legs of the effigies has anything to
do with the Crusades. Let me take the opportunity of contradicting a
further absurd story of Lawrence’s adventures about this time among
the head-hunters of Borneo. Somebody has confused him, I suppose, with
Rajah Charles Brooke of Sarawak; Mr. Lowell Thomas gives the story,
alleging a British Museum mission.
The desert took a strong hold on Lawrence. He went riding out on one
occasion (a year or two later) over a rolling plain in Northern Syria
to examine a ruin of the Roman period which the Arabs believed to have
been made by a prince of the border as a desert-palace for his queen.
The clay with which it was built was said to have been kneaded not with
water but with the precious essential oils of flowers. His guides,
sniffing the air, led him from one crumbling room to the next, saying,
This is jessamine, this is violet, this is rose.’ But at last an Arab
said, ‘Come and smell the sweetest scent of all,’ and they went to the
main hall, where they drank in the calm, empty, eddyless desert wind.
‘This,’ said the Arab, ‘is the best, it has no taste.’ The Bedouin,
Lawrence recognized, turns his back on perfumes and luxuries and the
petty business of towns because in the desert he is without doubt free:
he has lost material ties, houses, gardens, superfluous possessions and
all other such complications, and has won instead a personal liberty
in the shadow of starvation and death. This was an attitude that moved
Lawrence greatly, so that, I believe, his nature has ever since been
divided into two conflicting selves, the Bedouin self always longing
for the bareness, simplicity, harshness of the desert—that state of
mind of which the desert is a symbol—and the over-civilized European
self. The European self despises the Bedouin as one who loves to
torture himself needlessly and who sees the world as a hard pattern
of black and white (of luxury or poverty, saintliness or sin, honour
or disgrace), not as a moving changing landscape of countless subtle
colours and shades and varieties. Again, the conflict is between the
fanatic who is always either on the crest or in the trough of his
emotions, who loves and hates violently, and the over-civilized man
whose chief aim in life is to keep an equal mind even if he undoes
himself by the very wideness of his sympathies. These two selves are
mutually destructive, so Lawrence has finally fallen between them into
a nihilism which cannot find, in being, even a false god in which to
believe.
Magdalen College, on Hogarth’s prompting, gave him a travelling
scholarship for four years, and this enabled him to continue with
his archæology. In 1910 he first went with Dr. Hogarth and Mr.
Campbell-Thompson on the British Museum expedition to excavate
Carchemish, the ruined Hittite capital on the Syrian bank of the
Euphrates. Hogarth had engaged him on the strength of his Syrian
walking tour and his knowledge of pottery. He was not a trained
archæologist as yet, but an odd-job man at fifteen shillings a day
and made it his main business to look after the gangs and keep them
happy. For the rest, he had the photography, the pottery, the piecing
together of broken sculptures and, later, engineering work in laying
or lifting the light railway that carried earth from the diggings to
the dumps. But the gangs came first. While they were happy the work was
sure to go well. Lawrence knew them all by name and even the names of
their children for whom they would beg quinine when there was fever
about. Only he never knew any one of the men by sight; a peculiarity of
Lawrence’s which will be discussed later.
In the winter of 1910, in the off-season for digging, Hogarth arranged
for Lawrence to visit Sir Flinders Petrie’s camp in Egypt, to study
the most advanced technical methods in digging. The camp was in a
village near the Fayoum and the work was the uncovering of pre-dynastic
remains of about the year 4000 B.C. Sir Flinders Petrie was at first
not impressed with Lawrence’s appearance, and it is said reprimanded
him for appearing at the camp in football shorts and a blazer. ‘Young
man, we do not play cricket here.’ The absurdity of Lawrence as a
cricket enthusiast is not the least comic point in the tale. However,
Sir Flinders Petrie soon realized that he was a useful man to have
with him, and tried to get him to join the camp again another year.
But Lawrence thought that Egyptian excavations were dull compared with
Hittite excavations. The Hittite was still an unknown civilization;
with the Egyptians the main problems were solved and all that remained
was to fill in unimportant gaps. The only personal recollection I
heard from Lawrence about this digging in Egypt was that often in the
evening when the sun suddenly sank and it got very cold he and his
fellow-workers used to wrap themselves round and round for warmth in
the white linen cloth which had been buried with these pre-dynastic
Egyptians for their next-world wear (it was a period before
mummy-wrappings) and walk home that way smelling of spices.
As an archæologist Lawrence soon won reputation. His memory for details
is extraordinary, almost morbid. A friend once joked about him
‘there is something of the thin-lipped Oxford don about Lawrence’; but
that was no more than saying that Lawrence has a vast well-ordered
store of accurate technical knowledge on every conceivable subject and
does not like to hear amateurs talk inaccurately when he is about.
Half a dozen decisive words from Lawrence and superfluous talk ends. I
was present once when an American writer who only knew Lawrence as a
soldier began to teach him about Arabic art. Very soon finding himself
in deep water the writer shifted to ground where he thought he was
safe: he began to talk about Aztec stone carvings in Central America.
Lawrence listened politely and corrected him on a technicality. After
that the American stopped talking and listened. Field-Marshal Allenby,
who is interested in archæology (and during the War took away the
command of at least one officer because he pulled down an ancient
building), told me: ‘When Lawrence and I talked archæology it was
always Father Lawrence talking to a little schoolboy. I listened and
learned.’
Probably Lawrence’s knowledge is not so vast as it appears and the
impression of omniscience that he conveys is due rather to a faculty
of forgetting what he calls utterly useless knowledge such as higher
mathematics, class-room metaphysics and theories of æsthetics, and of
fitting together harmoniously what he does know. A small knowledge
which is in harmony with itself will seem uncanny to those with a much
greater store of facts that do not hold together. Still, Lawrence’s
knowledge must be pretty extensive. In six years he read every book
in the library of the Oxford Union—the best part of 50,000 volumes,
probably. His father used to get him the books while he was at school
and afterwards he always borrowed six volumes a day in his father’s
name and his own. For three years he read day and night on a hearthrug,
which was a mattress so that he could fall asleep as he read. Often
he spent eighteen hours a day reading, and at last got so good at it
that he could tear the heart out of the most formidable book in half
an hour. In reviewing Lawrence’s life, one has to accept casually such
immoderate feats; they are part of his nature and the large number of
them that can be verified excuses one’s credulity for others of the
same remarkable character that are pure fiction.
Lawrence has been known to give information, when provoked, even where
it could hardly be expected to be appreciated. ‘What are you grinning
at, you there?’ shouted a sergeant-instructor to him one day about
two years ago, when he was in the Tank Corps. ‘Do you really want to
know, Sergeant?’ said Lawrence. He did. So Lawrence explained a joke
in a late-Greek dialogue of Lucian’s that he had been turning over in
his mind during arms-drill. He quoted for a quarter of an hour and
the sergeant and squad listened without interruption in the greatest
interest. Again, in a hut in the Air Force a comrade once asked
him, ‘Excuse me, Shaw, but what does “iconoclast” mean?’—he acted
as a handy cross-word dictionary—and then Lawrence outlined a brief
history of the religious politics in fifth-century Constantinople
which first gave rise to the word. But this is merely a good-humoured
joke on himself: he despises mere knowledge, though he accumulates it
and stores it carefully from old habit. He despises it because it is
imperfect, because he sees _knowledge_ as the opposite of _wisdom_.
He never bluffs; and he dislikes bluffers. They say that in his first
days in the Royal Air Force three years ago he helped some of the
fellows who were taking German as an extra part of the education
course. This came to the notice of one of the officers, who heard that
Aircraftman Shaw had been seen reading a book called _Faust_. The next
day, finding Shaw with his book, the officer began to show off: ‘What a
wonderful writer Goethe was! _Faust_ is a masterpiece, don’t you agree?
Now, _this_ is a passage that has always appealed to me very much’
(pointing over Shaw’s shoulder). ‘Yes,’ said Shaw, ‘but this is not
Goethe’s _Faust_ but Jacobsen’s _Nills Lyhne_ in Danish.’ His knowledge
does not help him much in the Royal Air Force. The Education Officer
at Uxbridge asked him: ‘And you, what is the subject in which you feel
particularly weak?’ The other fellows had said ‘French’ and ‘Geography’
and ‘Mathematics.’ Lawrence replied simply and truthfully, ‘Polishing
greasy boots.’
This is getting too far ahead of the story, which is still about
Lawrence as an archæologist before the War. In 1911 he was again at
Carchemish with Hogarth. The report of the Carchemish excavations which
lasted from 1910 to 1914 is published by the Oxford University Press.
After 1911 Dr. Hogarth left the operations in charge of Mr. G. Leonard
Woolley, who re-engaged Lawrence. A visitor, Mr. Fowle, has given a
description of the life at the camp when he visited it in 1913. The
Turks had given permission to the excavators to build only a single
room; Lawrence and Woolley kept the letter and broke the spirit of the
order by building a large U-shaped building and then partitioning it
off into compartments each with a separate door into the courtyard that
this single room enclosed. The compartments to the right were used for
storing antiquities and for photographic work (Lawrence’s particular
care); the sleeping-rooms of the excavators and their guests were
on the left. The middle of the U was a living room with an open
fireplace, well-filled book-cases and a long table covered with current
British journals and the archæological journals of all the world.
According to Mrs. Fontana, wife of the former Italian Consul at Aleppo,
the house, which was of mud-brick, was paved with a Roman mosaic found
in the upper layers of the excavations. She relates how Lawrence would
cross the Euphrates in his canoe to get flowers from an island on the
far side to liven up the place; a dangerous voyage, it seemed to her,
for the Euphrates has a very powerful current. In its marvellously soft
water he used to bathe every day. He had also got the workmen to make
him a long clay water-chute and taught them the sport of tobogganing
down it into the river.
Woolley and Lawrence had soon come to be on the best possible terms
with their workmen, who were of mixed races: Kurds, Arabs, Turks, and
so on. Local brigands were working for them at the diggings, including
the leaders of the two most notorious brigand bands, the Kurdish and
the Arab, and the two Englishmen were so well known and respected that
they were made judges of various local disputes between villages or
persons. Mr. Fowle relates that Lawrence had recently been away to
settle a case where a man had kidnapped a girl from her father’s house
but had not been able to get the father’s consent to a marriage.
In Woolley’s bedroom was an ancient wooden chest containing thousands
of silver pieces for the payment of the workmen. It was unlocked and
unguarded; because if any man had come to steal from it the other
workmen would soon have found him out and taken matters into their
own hands and probably killed the thief. Lawrence and Woolley found
that the way to get the best results was to pay the workmen an
extra sum of money for any antiquity that they found, according to its
actual value. The workers accepted the sum offered without question,
whether they were given gold or small silver, and the more willingly
because the Englishmen accepted nothing that was not paid for. If the
object offered was valueless it was returned to them. They came to
take a real interest in the work and Mr. Fowle records the excitement
with which the uncovering of a Hittite stone carving was watched, and
the burst of applause and firing of two hundred revolvers when the
four-thousand-year-old figure of a superb stag was revealed.
Lawrence himself, as Dr. Hogarth tells me, preferred sleeping outside
the hut on a knoll, the ancient citadel of the city, close to the
river. Here would gather the diggers and amuse him with stories, many
of them scandalous, about the old Sheik of Jerablus (the modern village
on the site of Carchemish) and his young wife, and about the Germans
in their camp a quarter of a mile away. A railway was being made from
Constantinople to Bagdad and at the site of Carchemish the railway had
to cross the Euphrates. German engineers were building a bridge. The
Germans could not be bothered to get to know their workmen by name, but
used numbers painted on their coats as the quickest way of recognizing
them. They even allowed members of tribes who were blood enemies to
work side by side and many deaths happened this way. The Germans envied
Lawrence and Woolley because they could always get as many workmen
as they wanted. On one occasion when the Englishmen had to turn away
fifty men for lack of money to pay them with, the men refused to go but
stayed on without pay until money might come again.
With the Germans there was good feeling. Woolley and Lawrence gave
them permission among other things to cart off for their new buildings
such stones from the diggings as were of no archæological interest. But
the chief engineer, Contzen, was a difficult man to remain friendly
with. He was a rough drinking fellow, the son of a Cologne chemist. The
back of his neck was too thick for Lawrence’s taste: it lapped over his
collar. He came once to ask permission to dig away some mounds of earth
which, though inside the excavation area, were close to the bridge
where he wanted earth for an embankment. This was refused because the
mounds of earth were the old mud-brick city walls of Carchemish and
of great archæological importance. He grew angry at that and breaking
off all friendly relations decided to wait until the digging season
ended and the Englishmen went away. So when Woolley had gone to England
and Lawrence to the Lebanon mountains, Contzen recruited local labour
for digging away the walls. There was an Aleppo Arab called Wahid
the Pilgrim left in charge of the diggings in the absence of the
Englishmen, who, hearing what Contzen was about to do, went over to the
German camp and told him that without orders from Woolley or Lawrence
he could not allow the work to begin. Contzen answered that he would
start the next day and ordered Wahid to leave the camp. Wahid sent a
wire to Lawrence in the Lebanon, saying that he would hold up the work
until further orders. He went the next morning with a rifle and two
revolvers and sat on top of the threatened wall. A hundred workmen
began laying a light-railway from the embankment to the foot of the
wall, and Wahid addressed them, promising that he would shoot the first
man who drove a pick into the wall, and then would shoot any German
within range. The workmen, many of whom were of the English camp
but doing temporary work in the off-season, stopped work and sat down
at a safe distance. Contzen came up and threatened, but Wahid levelled
his rifle and told him to keep his distance: Contzen did not dare to do
more. All that day the two parties sat and watched each other, and all
the next day. That night the Germans began a little revolver practice
in their courtyard, shooting at a lighted candle: Wahid climbed up on
the wall and fired half a dozen shots over their heads, shouting to
them to stop their noise and go to bed: and they obeyed.
Lawrence wired to Wahid to hold on; he was now in Aleppo seeing to
things. Wahid wired back that the Germans were becoming dangerous,
and that the next morning he was going to the camp to kill Contzen.
Then he made his will, got drunk and prepared for the morning.
Lawrence in Aleppo found he could do nothing with the local Turkish
Officials in whose care the diggings were supposed to be, so he wired
to Constantinople, and got an unexpectedly quick reply: the Turkish
Education Minister was ordered to go up to Carchemish in person and
stop the work. Lawrence wired an order to Wahid to offer no further
resistance to the Germans. He sent the wire by the railway telegraph,
and the railway people, who naturally were on Contzen’s side in his
embankment-making, knew nothing of the orders from Constantinople to
stop the work and thought that the opposition was at an end. Lawrence
and the Minister were given a motor trolley, on which they travelled at
once. Wahid, getting the wire, was deeply disappointed and went off to
drown his sorrows in drink. Contzen set his gang to work on the wall.
They had hardly moved two or three feet of earth and mud-brick when up
came the Minister in a fury, with Lawrence behind him, and made
Contzen tear up the rails and dismiss his extra workmen, abusing him
for his dishonesty. Wahid was publicly congratulated.
After this there was further trouble with Contzen. (Though not with
the German camp as a whole as has been said: Woolley and Lawrence kept
open house and the better Germans used to visit them regularly and dine
with them.) One day, Ahmed, one of the house-servants of Woolley and
Lawrence, on his way home from shopping at the village, met the foreman
of a gang of railway workers. The foreman owed him money and a dispute
started. A German engineer came up and flogged Ahmed without inquiring
into the cause of the dispute: it was enough that the railway work had
been delayed. Lawrence went to Contzen, and told him that one of the
engineers had assaulted his house-servant and must apologize. Contzen
consented to make inquiries, called up the engineer, and asked him for
his account of the affair. He then told Lawrence angrily, ‘It is all
a lie. This gentleman never assaulted your servant; he merely had him
flogged.’
‘Well, isn’t that an assault?’
‘Certainly not. You can’t use these natives without flogging them. We
flog every day.’
‘We have been here longer than you and have not flogged a man yet, and
don’t intend to let you start on them. Your engineer must come to the
village and apologize to Ahmed in public.’
‘Nonsense. The incident is closed,’ and Contzen turned his back.
‘On the contrary,’ said Lawrence (one can hear his small deadly voice),
‘if you don’t do as I ask I shall take the matter into my own hands.’
Contzen turned round again. ‘Which means—?’
‘That I shall take your engineer to the village and compel him to
apologize.’
‘You will do nothing of the sort,’ said Contzen, scandalized; but then
he looked at Lawrence again. In the end the engineer came to make his
public apology, to the vast satisfaction of the village.
Later the Germans found themselves in great trouble. They had
established a local bakery to prevent their men sending parties for
bread to their home-villages every ten days. This bread-getting meant
that thirty or forty men missed a day’s work. The Germans let the
bakery to a town-bred Syrian (one of a most dishonest race), who
decided to make his fortune. He used bad corn and so the bread was too
sour to eat. The Germans had arranged that the money for the bread
supplied should be deducted from the men’s pay. When the workmen
refused to eat the bread and again sent home to the villages for
their own, the price of the week’s bread that they had refused was
deducted from their pay. Not only the bread contract but the contract
for getting men to work on the railway had been given to adventurers;
as Contzen’s successor Hoffmann discovered to his disgust. Complaints
of the men not getting the money due to them were so numerous that he
decided to pay them himself. Unfortunately he accepted the figures
given him by the contractors, and there was trouble at once.
The first man who came to the pay-table had been offered fifteen
piastres a day, which was a good wage, and had been working six weeks:
he was down in the books as entitled to only six piastres a day.
After deductions for bread which he had not had, water which he had
got from the river himself, and so on, he was found to be owed
only twenty-seven and a half piastres for six weeks’ work. The man
protested. Hoffmann’s Circassian guard slashed him across the face
with a whip. The man stooped to pick up a stone; his friends, who were
Kurds, did the same, and the guard fired. A brisk battle started,
stones and a few guns on one side, revolvers on the other. Lawrence
and Woolley hearing the noise came up to persuade the men, about seven
hundred of them, to cease fire. Lawrence has a gesture which he uses
in emergencies of this kind. He lazily raises both hands, clasps them
behind his head and remains silent and apparently wrapped in thought.
It attracts attention more readily than any noise or violent motion,
and when he has his audience quiet all about him he says what is to be
said with the gentle, humorous wisdom of an old nurse subduing a noisy
schoolroom. The Kurds ceased fire: but the seven Germans did not. They
continued to use their revolvers from the hut where they had taken
refuge, and the Circassian raised his gun towards Woolley and Lawrence
as they came up begging the Germans to stop. The Germans had quite lost
their heads and went on firing, though the Kurds were not firing back:
it was only with the help of Wahid and a former brigand chief called
Hamoudi, that Lawrence and Woolley prevented the whole mass of workmen
from rushing down to do massacre. It was more than two hours before the
Kurds could be drawn off: then it was found that the Germans only had
cuts and bruises to show while the Kurds had eighteen men wounded and
one killed.[1]
[1] This account appears in Woolley’s _Dead Downs and Living Men_: the
slight differences in the story are due to emendations by Lawrence.
The Germans had wired for help to Aleppo at the first alarm, saying
that their camp was being fired on: the telegram was mistranslated and
a special train arrived with the Aleppo Volunteer Fire Brigade, brass
helmets and all. After they had been sent back, a detachment of two
hundred Turkish soldiers came and was stationed in the German camp.
But all railway work ceased for a week because the dead man belonged
to a Kurdish clan across the river, and his friends refused to allow
the bridge-building to be carried on in their territory. The German
Consul at Aleppo finally had to ask the Englishmen to settle the
matter between the railway people and the Kurds. Woolley agreed and
blood-money was fixed at £120. The German Consul refused, saying that
the Germans had acted in self-defence, but he was soon made to see that
a tribal matter must be settled by tribal custom. The Kurdish chief
agreed to accept the money but only out of favour to the English, and
things were patched up: in future the money for the workmen was to be
paid to the Kurdish head-men direct from the Company for the payment of
the workers, and the chief was to be himself responsible that the work
was properly carried on. For these services Lawrence and Woolley were
offered Turkish decorations, but refused them.
This ex-brigand chief Hamoudi and a younger man called Dahoum, who was
trained by Lawrence as a photographer, came on a visit with him to
England. They enjoyed Oxford, particularly the sport of bicycle riding,
which was new to them. They had women’s bicycles because of their long
robes, and got into trouble for the delight that they took in bicycling
round and round the policeman who stands in the centre of ‘Carfax,’ the
principal cross-roads of the city. They slept out in the garden.
Their one regret was that they could not take the hot-water-taps back
with them: Lawrence could not make them understand that these would not
work in a Syrian mud-brick village as they did at No. 2 Polstead Road,
Oxford. And they would stand in the public lavatories and stroke the
white glazed ‘beautiful beautiful bricks.’
Among the women for whom Lawrence has had the greatest respect was
the late Miss Gertrude Bell, one of the great English travellers in
Arabia before Lawrence’s day. (Among these, by the way, who include
Palgrave, Doughty and the Blunts, he does not reckon Sir Richard
Burton who, he says, did not travel single-mindedly as the others did,
wrote so difficult an English style as to be unreadable, and was both
pretentious and vulgar. Among non-English travellers, he speaks highly
of Burckhardt and Niebuhr.) Gertrude Bell visited the Carchemish camp
one morning in 1911 and since news of her coming had arrived before
her, the village was in a great state of excitement. At the time there
were only three Englishmen in the camp: Dr. Hogarth who was married,
Mr. Campbell-Thompson who was widely known to be engaged, and Lawrence
who wore the red tasselled belt to his white flannel shorts which
marked the bachelor in those parts. It was decided by the diggers
that Gertrude Bell was coming to marry Lawrence and all preparations
were made for a festival. When, therefore, she said good-bye the same
evening and prepared to go off there was a great clamour. It was
thought that she had refused Lawrence and so insulted the village.
Lawrence managed to quiet them down by an ungallant but successful lie
before stones were thrown and Gertrude Bell, who had been puzzled by
the demonstration, never learned the truth until Hogarth told her
some years later: it amused her greatly.
There were two digging seasons at Carchemish: between June and
September the local harvest claimed the workmen, and between November
and March the rains rained and the snow snowed and the Euphrates
flooded the lowlands into a marsh. In the off-seasons Lawrence did not
usually return to England but wandered instead all over Syria and the
Near East studying antiquities, learning Arabic and getting in touch
with the members of the various Arab Freedom societies of which an
account will be given in the next chapter. He had already begun to take
steps for the fulfilment of his schoolboy ambition to help in the Arab
Revolt. But his immediate object was to collect information for writing
a history of the Crusades. This is another book that he has never found
time to write. He did, however, complete a travel-book called ‘Seven
Pillars of Wisdom,’ later destroyed in manuscript, about seven typical
Near-Eastern cities: Cairo, Smyrna, Constantinople, Beyrout, Aleppo,
Damascus, Medina.
He was, among other things, a student of world-politics and saw that
the alliance between the Turks and the Germans would have dangerous
results. The Constantinople-Bagdad railway was part of a German scheme
for establishing an Eastern Empire with the Turks as allies. He had
already paid a visit to Lord Kitchener pointing out the danger of
letting the Germans get control of the port of Alexandretta which is
in the crook between Asia Minor and Syria, but Kitchener told him that
he knew all about it. He had repeatedly warned the British Foreign
Office of the complications that would follow—the French had ambitions
for the control of Syria too—but Sir Edward Greys pacific policy
allowed no alternative. Kitchener’s final words to Lawrence were that
within three years there would be a world-war which would settle this
lesser question with a greater. ‘So run along, young man, and dig
before it rains.’ It has been said that Lawrence’s way of calling
public attention in Europe to the concealed threat to world-peace in
the building of the railway that linked Berlin with Bagdad was this:
that he loaded sections of drainage pipes on mules and transported them
by night to the hills which commanded the bridge; that he mounted them
on piles of sand to resemble guns; that, as he expected, the Germans
observed them through field-glasses, got excited and wired to Berlin
and Constantinople that the British were fortifying the hills; that the
European press was excited for days. There is no word of truth in all
this comic-paper stuff. To begin with, Lawrence had no drainage pipes
at his disposal.
The following are extracts from letters of Lawrence from Carchemish.
The first is dated September 1912:
‘To-day is the end of Ramadan, and they are surging in and out of the
courtyard firing revolvers, and bringing me portions from the feast
going on in the village. I have twelve sheets of bread, wrapping
up twelve packets of parched corn, with grapes and cucumbers in
abundance. But I can’t yet talk Arabic!
‘There is a splendid dress called “of the seven kings”:—long parallel
stripes of the most fiery colours from neck to ankle: it looks
glorious: and over that they wear a short blue coat, turned up at the
cuffs to show a dull red lining, and they gird themselves with a belt
of thirteen vari-coloured tassels, and put a black silk and silver
weave of Hamath work over their heads under a black goat-hair
head-rope. You have then only to add a vest of gold-embroidered silk,
and white under-tunics to get the idea of one man’s dress (I have
forgotten Kurd knitted socks in nine primary colours, and red shoes),
and there are ninety and nine, all different, eating a sheep before
the door!
‘All is well here (after bad waves of cholera and smallpox) and I
expect to get back at Christmas.’
The second letter is dated December 1913:
‘I have gradually slipped down, until a few months ago when I found
myself an ordinary archæologist. I fought very hard, at Oxford and
after going down, to avoid being labelled: but the insurance people
have nailed me down, now.... I have got to like this place very much:
and the people here—five or six of them—and the whole manner of living
pleases me. We have 200 men to play with, anyhow we like so long as
the excavations go on, and they are very splendid fellows many of
them—I had two of them, head-men, in England with me this summer-and
it is great fun with them. Then there are the digs, with dozens
of wonderful things to find; and hosts of beautiful things in the
villages and towns to fill one’s house with. Not to mention Hittite
seal-hunting in the country round about, and the Euphrates to rest in
when one is over-hot. It is a place where one eats lotus nearly every
day.’
In the winter of 1913 Dr. Hogarth was asked to suggest an archæologist
who might join the surveying party in the peninsula of Sinai—the
desert between Palestine and Egypt in which Moses kept the Jews
wandering until he had made a fighting people of them. He recommended
Woolley, but Woolley could not spare the three months that he
was wanted for, so he and Lawrence went together for six weeks and
divided the work between them. They got on well with the surveyor,
Captain Newcombe, an Engineer officer who afterwards was in Arabia
with Lawrence, and made important discoveries of ancient remains.
They mapped out, not too seriously perhaps, the probable route of the
Israelites’ marches and found the place which may have been Kadesh
Barnea where Moses struck the rock and water gushed out. They went as
far as Petra and Maan in Arabia, places that figured importantly in
Lawrence’s campaign four years later. Their report appears in a book
called _The Wilderness of Sin_, published in 1914 by the Palestine
Exploration Fund. The survey could not be complete without certain
bearings taken at the Red Sea port of Akaba, but the Turks had refused
permission, for military reasons. Lawrence told Newcombe that he would
go and look at Akaba. He got there without opposition and took what
notes he wanted. Then he had a sudden desire to explore the ancient
ruins on a little island called Faroun Island which lies a quarter of
a mile from the coast. He asked permission to use the one boat that
was on the beach. The Turks refused and a large party drew the boat up
on the beach so that he could not possibly move it. That did not stop
Lawrence. In the middle of the day when all Turkish soldiers go to
sleep he made a raft out of three of his large camel water-tanks. These
copper tanks hold eighteen gallons apiece and measure about three feet
six inches by one foot three inches, and are nine inches deep; they
make excellent rafts. The wind took him safely across and he inspected
the ruins, but he had difficulty on the return journey. The water was
full of sharks, too.
The survey, it should be explained, was ordered by Kitchener for
military purposes. But it was disguised as archæology. The Palestine
Exploration Fund got permission from the Turks for it and the task
of Lawrence and Woolley was, they found on arrival, to provide the
archæological excuse for Newcombe’s map-making activities.
II
A brief description of Lawrence:—He is short (five feet, five and a
half inches), with his body long, I should judge, in proportion to his
legs, for he is more impressive seated than standing. He has a big
head of a Norse type, rising steeply at the back. His hair is fair
(not blond) and rather fine: his complexion is fair and he could go
unshaved longer than most men without showing it. The upper part of
his face is kindly, almost maternal; the lower part is severe, almost
cruel. His eyes are blue grey and constantly in motion. His hands and
feet are small. He is, or was, of great physical strength: he has been
seen to raise up a rifle at arm’s length, holding it by the barrel-end,
until it was parallel with the ground—yet no one would suspect him
of being more than tough. In Arabia he won the respect of the desert
fighters by his feats of strength and agility as much as by his other
qualities. The pass-test of the highest order of fighters was the feat
of springing off a trotting camel and leaping on again with one hand on
the saddle and a rifle in the other. It is said that Lawrence passed
the test. Of his powers of physical endurance the story will tell.
Here are a few first impressions of Lawrence; difficult to
reconcile:—‘_That_ commonplace looking little man!’ (a poet). ‘Face and
figure of a Circassian dancing-girl’ (an American journalist-lecturer).
‘A little man with a red face like a butcher’ (Royal Tank Corps).
‘Face like a cheap writing-pad; a proper swede-looking (i.e. bumpkin)
chap’ (Royal Air Force). ‘A comical little x—’ (Royal Tank Corps). ‘A
young man of considerable physical beauty: it is the sober truth that
I have not seen such burnished gold hair before or since, nor such
intensely blue eyes’ (a visitor at Carchemish). ‘A very quiet, sedate
manner, a fine head but insignificant body’ (a major of the Camel
Corps).
He has a trick of holding his hands loosely folded below his breast,
the elbows to his sides, and carries his head a little tilted, the
eyes on the ground. He can sit or stand for hours at a stretch without
moving a muscle. He talks in short sentences, deliberately and quietly
without accenting his words strongly. He grins a lot and laughs seldom.
He is a dead shot with a pistol and a good rifle-shot. His greatest
natural gift is being able to switch off the current of his personality
whenever he wishes to be unnoticed in company. He can look heavy and
stupid, even vulgar; and uses this power constantly in self-protection.
When he first joined the Royal Air Force he was sent one day to nail
down carpets under the direction of an Air-Marshal’s wife. She had
known him well, but Lawrence to avoid general embarrassment did not
wish to be recognized, and so she did not know him. As a matter of
fact he is hardly ever recognized in uniform by people who used to
know him. The tight collar and peaked cap are a disguise and there is
nothing immediately remarkable about his appearance, no irregularity
of feature or gesture or carriage. When the current is not switched
off there is a curious feeling of force whenever he is in the room,
a steady force, not an aimless disturbing one, and the more powerful
because it is so well controlled; so that those who do not accept him
as a friendly being are apt to fear him. I have even heard it said
‘Lawrence must have direct dealings with the Supernatural.’ This is,
however, nonsense. The power is from within and not from without. I
have noticed that he dislikes being touched; a hand laid on his
shoulder or knee is an offence; he can understand the Oriental notion
that ‘virtue’ (he would, I think, call it ‘integrity’) goes out of a
man when so touched. He will never shake hands if he can avoid doing
so nor will he ever fight hand to hand. He does not drink or smoke.
This is not due to deliberate teetotal conviction or because he regards
these things as poison, but principally because he has no occasion to
drink or smoke. Most people begin drinking and smoking out of mere
sociability: Lawrence always avoids sociability of any sort. He is
uncomfortable with strangers: this is what is called his shyness.
He regards drinking, gluttony, gambling, sport and the passions of
love—the whole universe for the average man—as unnecessary; as, at the
best, stimulants for the years when life goes flat.
He avoids eating with other people. Regular mealtimes are not to his
liking. He hates waiting more than two minutes for a meal or spending
more than five minutes on a meal. That is why he lives mainly on bread
and butter. And he likes water better than any other drink. It is
his opinion that feeding is a very intimate performance and should
be done in a small room behind locked doors. He eats, when he does
eat, which is seldom, in a casual abstracted way. He came to visit
me one breakfast-time on his racing motor-bicycle: he had come about
two hundred miles in five hours. He would eat no breakfast. I asked
him later what the food was like in the camp. ‘I seldom eat it: it’s
good enough. I am now a storeman in the Quartermaster’s stores, so
I don’t need much.’ ‘When did you last have a meal?’ I asked. ‘On
Wednesday.’ Since when apparently he had some chocolate, an orange and
a cup of tea. This was Saturday. Then I think I put some apples
near him, and after a while he reached for one. Fruit is his only
self-indulgence. (Shelley, by the way, had this casual habit of eating,
though he did not thrive on it like Lawrence: and he had Lawrence’s
gift of entering and leaving a room unnoticed if he wished.) It is his
occasional habit to knock off proper feeding for three days—rarely
five—just to make sure that he can do it without feeling worried or
strained. One’s sense of things gets very keen by this fasting, he
finds, and it is good practice for hard times. His life has been full
of hard times.
Lawrence also, when his own master, avoids regular hours of sleep. He
has found that his brain works better if he sleeps as irregularly as
he eats. In the Royal Air Force he is always in bed at ‘Lights Out’
and sleeps until after midnight. Then he dozes, thinking more or less
until reveille. At night, he finds, the minds of others are switched
off and that gives his mind longer range, free of their vibrations. He
avoids as far as possible all social relationships, all public events.
He joins no clubs, societies, groups. He answers few letters but the
immediately pressing ones and not always those. On visiting Oxford in
1922 after two months prolonged to six in the East, he found his table
stacked with correspondence; perhaps two or three hundred letters.
He had given orders to have nothing forwarded. He read them all
carefully and sent off a single answer—a telegram: the rest went into
the waste-paper basket. Usually he will answer a pre-paid telegram.
Or, it would be more true to say, he will use the reply-form, though
not necessarily to the sender. He _never_ answers a letter addressed
to him as ‘Lawrence’: this warning may save some of my readers money
in stamps. When he does write a letter it is not of the sort that
finds its way into the waste-paper basket. A Lawrence letter is
always practical, considered, full, helpful, informative. This sort of
thing ... ‘When you go to Rheims, go alone. Sit down at the base of the
sixth pilaster from the west on the south side of the nave aisle and
look up between the fourth and fifth pillars at the third window of the
clerestory on the north side of the nave....’ (1910).
He is one of the rare people who have a sensible attitude towards
money. He neither loves it nor fears it, for he has found it useless to
help on the two or three occasions when he has greatly desired things
worth while. He can be a financier if and when it pleases him: for the
most part he is not bothered about his bank-balance. At the moment he
has no bank-balance at all, and has taken great care not to make a
penny out of any of his writings on the Arab Revolt. Apart from this
he has done his best to earn money with his pen, and has made £35 in
four years’ anonymous effort. He calls these earnings the jam on his
Royal Air Force bread and butter. He writes with great difficulty and
corrects much; and takes no pride or pleasure in anything that he has
written. Most of these earnings are from translation-work and none
of them from creative or original writing. He never intends to write
another real book. He usually writes, by the way, in indian ink because
it makes a good mark on the page. His handwriting is unpretentious and
at first sight almost schoolboyish; but always legible. It varies very
much with his mood, from large and square to small and narrow, from
upright to a slight backward slant. I believe that the one thing that
he likes is to find some one who knows more than himself or can do
something better than himself. To such a person he will attach himself
and learn all that is to be learned. And if he meets someone who
can actually think faster or more accurately than himself and can
even anticipate him in his apparently erratic but most carefully
considered behaviour, so much the better. At the same time he has a
savage conviction of his own general insufficiency which he will not
allow to be contradicted by particular occasions on which he has been
proved to excel others. It is not modesty but a sincere faith in his
own unworthiness suggesting the cries in the Church Litany and will not
stand contradiction.
Perhaps his most unexpected personal characteristic is that he never
looks at a man’s face and never recognizes a face. This is inherited;
his father one day stepped on his toe in the street and passed on with
an apology, not knowing him. He would not recognize his mother or his
brothers, even, if he met them without warning. Long practice has made
Lawrence able to talk for twenty minutes at a time to whoever accosts
him without betraying that he hasn’t a notion who the person is. Yet he
can remember names and details of taste and character, and words and
opinions and places vividly and at great length. He does his best to
see people; but is constantly getting into trouble for not recognizing
and saluting officers when they are out of uniform; for nobody is
willing to believe his excuses.
He has never been dogmatic about any creed or political conviction: he
has no belief in a philosophic Absolute. He has no use for crowds or
any person whose only strength is that he is a member of some society
or creed. He clearly also expects people to find themselves and be true
to themselves, and to leave their neighbours to do the same: he would
wish every man to be an everlasting question-mark. He can be relentless
to the point of cruelty: the shock of his anger, which is a cold
quiet laughing anger, is violent. To hear him, say, dismissing an
impostor who claims to have served during the War in the East in such
and such a unit, or reminding a bully of men deliberately sent to their
death by him in such and such a province, is a terrifying experience.
But when the offender is gone, the anger goes too and leaves no trace.
Lawrence does not like children (or dogs or camels) in mass, in the
usual sentimental way. He likes a few children (as also a few dogs, a
few camels). From the rest he shrinks. He is afraid of them, and he is
sorry for them, as for creatures forced, without having their wishes
consulted, into an existence in which, if they are good creatures,
they will necessarily find disappointment. This will not prevent him
at times from talking really to a child, treating it as an independent
person and not merely as a clever echo of its parents.
He has, it seems, no use for the human race as such or interest in its
continuance. He has no sentimentality about universal brotherhood, like
Swift; he has no use for the works of men. And has come to this view, I
think, by the same road as Swift, by an overwhelming sense of personal
liberty, a largeness of heart, and an intense desire for perfection so
obviously unattainable as hardly to be worth starting for.
We may conclude that when, in 1922, his dislike of the crowd became
too strong and he saw that it was becoming a definite limitation
for him, when he found in fact after the apparent triumph of the
Arabian adventure that in avoiding the mask of a popular hero he was
withdrawing more and more and becoming unwholesomely interested in
just being himself, he took a violent course-he enlisted and bound
himself to a life in which he was forced perpetually to be a member
of the crowd. The Army and Air Force are the modern equivalent of the
monastery, and after five years he does not regret his choice of a
life as nearly physical as an animal’s, in which food is provided, and
drink, and a round of work in harness and a stable afterwards until the
new day brings a repetition of the work of yesterday.
[Illustration:
description: Photo full shot 3⁄4 view of Lawrence in shorts
standing against a wall
caption: ‘AIRCRAFTMAN SHAW’
in ‘Scruff order’
_Copyright_
]
What is called Lawrence’s ‘love of publicity’ can best be explained as
a burning desire to know himself, for no one can be himself except by
first knowing himself. To publicity in the sense of what is published
about him he is indifferent; he is never more than amused at what
he has read about himself. But it ceases to be amusing to him when
he meets people who believe all they read about him and act as if
legend was truth. He denies the legend, and they say ‘how modest these
heroes are’: and he is nearly sick. He does not believe that heroes
exist or ever have existed; he suspects them all of being frauds. If
he is interested at times in what people may think of him this is
only because their opinion may show him what sort of a man he is more
clearly than any amount of self-examination can. He has been often
accused of vanity because he has sat for his portrait to so many
artists and sculptors—he has only four times refused to sit—but it is
the opposite of vanity. A vain man has a very clear view of himself
which he tries to force on his neighbours. Lawrence sits for his
portrait because he wants to discover what he is, by the effect which
he produces on the artist: so far from being vain he clearly has no
picture of himself at all except a contemptuous one. He accepts the
view that he is a complete humbug and play actor; chiefly, perhaps,
because people who are themselves humbugs and actors see him so in
their own likeness.
He has another reason for ‘sitting’ and that is because artists (in the
wider sense) are the only class of human beings to which he would like
to belong. He can salve the regret that, rightly or wrongly, he feels
at not being a true artist, by watching artists work and providing
them with a model. He has done a good deal of experimental sculpture;
he told me once that somewhere, I think in Syria, there are twelve
life-size statues left by him on the roof of a house. Certainly some of
the decorations outside a nonconformist chapel in the Iffley Road at
Oxford are his work, but unsigned and indistinguishable from the rest.
I have seen silversmith work by him. He has written poems, but they
fall short of his intentions more seriously even than his handicrafts,
because poetry has more freedom possible to it than these. Lawrence’s
chief curse is that he cannot stop thinking, and by thinking I mean a
working of the mind that is not mere calculation from any given set of
facts, but a much more intense and difficult process which makes its
own facts and tests them as it goes and destroys them when it is over.
In all my acquaintance I know no more than three people who really
_think_, and these three include Lawrence. He seems to be perpetually
stretching his mind in every direction and finding little or nothing;
‘lunging about,’ as an Arab poet said, ‘like a blind camel in the
dark.’ At least the effort seems to make the mind harder and fitter.
But this account is getting too philosophical, and the simplest
conclusion about Lawrence is the best. It is not that ‘He is a great
man.’ The greatness of his achievement is in any case historical.
He, a foreigner and an unbeliever, inspired and led the broadest
national movement of the Arabs that had taken place since the great
times of Mohammed and his early successors, and brought it to a
triumphant conclusion. It is not that he is a genius. This has come
to be a vulgar almost meaningless word, attached to any competent
scientist or fiddler or verse-maker or military leader. It is not even
that he is an ‘erratic genius,’ unless ‘erratic’ means that Lawrence
does not do the usual things that men of successful talents do; the
ordinary vulgar things that are expected by the crowd. If Napoleon,
for instance, who was a vulgar rather than an ‘erratic’ genius, had
been in Lawrence’s position at the close of the 1918 campaign he would
have proclaimed himself a Mohammedan and consolidated the new Arabian
Empire. Lawrence did nothing of the sort, though he had popularity and
power enough perhaps to make himself Emperor even without an official
change of faith. But it would have been foolish to expect a man who
has qualities that shine in difficult weather to subdue them in calm
weather. He came away and left the Arabs to employ the freedom that
he had given them, a freedom unencumbered by his rule which, however
just and wise, would always have been an alien rule. He would have
contradicted himself had he suffered all those pains to free the Arabs
and then enslaved them under himself. The trouble with him often is
that he is too sane. He is impish at times but never erratic; he does
nothing without good reason, though his decisions may disappoint the
crowd. There was nothing erratic about Lawrence when he enlisted as an
airman in 1922. When I heard of it first it did not surprise me: one
learns not to be surprised at anything Lawrence does. My only comment
was ‘He knows his own needs,’ and now I can see clearly that it was
the most honourable thing to himself that he could have done. It was,
moreover, a course that he had decided on in 1919 and had suggested to
Air-Marshal Sir Geoffrey Salmond before the Armistice. But not till Mr.
Winston Churchill had given the Arabs what Lawrence considered a fair
deal was he free to please himself. Politics accounted for the three
years’ delay.
The least and most that can be said about Lawrence is that he is a good
man. This ‘good’ is something that can be understood by a child or a
savage or any simple-minded person. It is just a feeling that you get
from him, the feeling ‘here is a man with great powers, a man who could
make most men do for him exactly whatever he desired, but yet one who
would never use his powers, from respect for the other man’s personal
freedom.’
Popular suggestions made lately for employing Lawrence’s talents or
genius have been as numerous and varied as they have been ridiculous.
The public has taken an interest in him that almost amounts to a claim
for ownership: but nobody owns Lawrence or will ever own him. He is not
a public Niagara that can be harnessed for any political or commercial
purpose. A Colonial Governor-Generalship? What sort of appointment is
that for a man who might have been an Emperor? And imagine Lawrence,
who has long come to the point of disbelieving in his existence and
every one else’s, laying foundation stones and attending ceremonial
parades and banquets! Lawrence, shortly after the War ended, was
invited to attend the reception after a society wedding. He went (a
man he liked was being married) in company with a young diplomatic
attaché who was much impressed by the occasion. ‘What name, gentlemen?’
asked the flunkey at the door. Lawrence saw his companion pulling
himself-together for an impressive entrance and the spirit of mischief
overcame him. ‘Messrs. Lenin and Trotsky,’ he said quickly. And ‘Mr.
Lenin, Mr. Trotsky!’ the flunkey bawled out mechanically to the
scandalized assembly: which, indeed, included Royalty.
Another suggestion has been that Lawrence should be entrusted with
a mission to settle affairs in China. If Lawrence had any desire to
settle affairs in China, even supposing that he felt himself capable of
doing so, which is doubtful (it is quite possible that he is ignorant
of Chinese), he would certainly demand an absolutely free hand. And it
is then possible, indeed probable, that the solution he would provide
would be one not at all favourable to European control of Chinese
affairs. In any case, he had done this sort of thing once already: one
does not repeat unpleasant experiences, for hire, without conviction,
unless one has that sense of patriotic duty of which Lawrence is
completely free. Other silly suggestions have been that he should edit
a modern literary review, that he should be given an appointment in
connexion with the Mesopotamian oil-fields, that he should be made
director-general of British Army training or given a high post at
the British Museum. All these suggestions remind one of the various
methods detailed in mediæval books under the heading ‘how to catch and
tame a Unicorn.’ People do not seem to realize that he knows himself
pretty well and that he has chosen to serve in the Royal Air Force,
which is not a life that comes easily or naturally to him, for a full
engagement. He finds its difficulty worth coping with and is content.
If he wants to do anything else he will do so without prompting.
It is remarkable that the most popular suggestion has been
that Lawrence should head a great religious revival. In view of my
conclusion about Lawrence that he can best be described simply as a
‘good man’ there may seem to be something in that suggestion. But it is
as foolish as the rest. In the first place Lawrence has read too much
theology to be a simple, successful revivalist and does not believe
that religions can be ‘revived’, but only invented. In the second, he
would not think of using his personality for any new popular campaign,
military or religious, ever again. His nihilism is a chilly creed,
the first article of which is ‘thou shalt not convert!’ In the third
place....
But enough. Mr. George Bernard Shaw perhaps made the most practical
suggestion, that Lawrence should be given a government pension and
chambers in some public building (he mentioned Blenheim Palace) and be
allowed to spend his time exactly as it suited him. But I think that
Lawrence would be unwilling to accept even a gift like this; such an
arrangement would put him under a shadowy obligation to the public and,
anyhow, he does not believe that he is worth anyone’s paying. Also he
might have æsthetic objections to Blenheim Palace. Also someone else
already lives there. The only suggestion that I can make for the future
treatment of Lawrence is simply this: that he should be left alone
to maintain that rare personal liberty which so very few people are
capable of maintaining.
Most of what I have written is more or less in Lawrence’s favour.
What is the worst that can be said against him? A great many things,
perhaps, but they have mostly been said by Lawrence himself at one
time or another. In the first place, he is an incurable romantic and
that means that he is on doubtful terms with all institutions which
claim to preserve public stability. He has loved adventure for its
own sake, and the weaker side because it is the weaker side, and the
lost cause, and unhappiness. Now, the incurable romantic is approved
by society only if he is incompetent and fails, gloriously perhaps,
but conspicuously, and so proves that the stupid ordinary people
who control public security are always right after all. Lawrence’s
romanticism is not incompetent, it is not unsuccessful. When a European
monarch one day in 1919 greeted him with the remark, ‘It is a bad time
for us kings. Five new republics were proclaimed yesterday,’ Lawrence
was able to answer, ‘Courage, sir! We have just made three kingdoms in
the East.’
For the real success of his romanticism—a romanticism which, as in the
‘Winston’ settlement of the Middle East, the big achievement of his
life for which the War was a mere preparation, comes uncomfortably near
realism—he is naturally very much hated by most government officials,
regular soldiers, old-fashioned political experts and such-like; he is
a disturbing element in their ordered scheme of things, a mystery and
a nuisance. Even now, as a mechanic in the Air Force, he is a worry.
They suspect some diabolic trick for raising mutiny or revolt. They
refuse to believe that he is simply there because he is there. That he
wants to be quit of affairs and become politically and intellectually
unemployable.
Again, he is not even a single-minded romantic: he clearly despises
his romanticism and fights it in himself so sternly that he only makes
it more incurable. People like Lawrence are in fact an obvious menace
to civilization; they are too strong and important to be dismissed
as nothing at all, too capricious to be burdened with a position of
responsibility, too sure of themselves to be browbeaten, but then
too doubtful of themselves to be made heroes of.
The only original thing—if it is original—that I can say against
Lawrence—if it is against him—is this: he keeps his enormously wide
circle of friends, who range from tramps to reigning sovereigns and
Air-Marshals, as much as possible in watertight compartments, each
away from the other. Towards each friend he turns a certain character
which he keeps for that relationship and which is consistent with it.
To each friend he reveals in fact some part of himself, but only a
part: these characters he never confuses. So there are many thousands
of Lawrences, each one a facet of the Lawrence crystal: and whether
or not the crystal is colourless and the facets merely reflect the
characters of the friends whom they face, Lawrence himself has no
notion. He has no intimates to whom the whole might be shown. The
result of this dispersion—his friends are not casually made but chosen
out, representing various departments of art, life, science, study (and
he has an especial tenderness for ruffians)—is that such of his friends
as are of a possessive nature try to corner him, each believing that
he alone knows the real Lawrence, so that there is a comical jealousy
when they meet. This may be also partly due to Lawrence being a person
about whom it is easier to feel than to speak. One cannot put him into
words—I cheerfully own to failure—because he is so various, because he
has no single characteristic or humour that one could swear to. So his
friends resent every description of him that they hear and cannot give
one of their own to justify their resentment. Hence, probably, their
possessive secrecy.
In getting together material for this book I have had more than one
rebuff from friends who have carefully treasured some personal
relation with which they thought themselves uniquely favoured. In
spite of rebuffs I have tried to get bearings on Lawrence from as many
angles, friendly and hostile, as possible: and if the only Lawrence
that I still can see is the facet that he has consistently presented to
me in the seven years that I have known him—well, let it be so: if it
is only _a_ Lawrence and not _the_ Lawrence, it is nevertheless more
plausible than most supposedly complete individuals that I know.
I would not offer Lawrence, nor most certainly would he offer himself,
or consider himself, as a model of conduct, or as a philosophic system.
Circumstances and his own lifelong efforts have made him more free of
human ties than other men. He can therefore dispose of himself in any
market at any given time. Others cannot; they have careers, ambitions,
families, wants, hopes, fears, traditions, duties—all binding them to
that organized human society in which Lawrence seems to play only an
accidental and perfunctory part. It is this extraordinary detachment,
this final insulation of himself, which makes him the object of so
much curiosity, suspicion, exasperation, admiration, love, hatred,
jealousy, legends, lies. He has resolutely and painfully adopted the
attitude towards organized society, ‘you go your way and I’ll go mine,’
‘leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone,’ but organized society
cannot control itself in its hue-and-cry after a lost lamb that is
perversely in need of no crook or fold. It is perhaps the triumph of
his detachment that one can write of him in this way, as if he were a
character in ancient history, confident that whatever one writes will
not affect the man himself in the least, that his check will be only on
infringements of copyrights that are no longer entirely his own.
For all that, he has not been able to keep himself to himself in
one rather serious respect. Wherever he goes and makes his presence
felt he seems to leave behind, probably unconsciously and certainly
unwillingly, a number of fictitious Lawrences, people who seek to get
something of the man’s power by a mere imitation of what happen to be
at the time his outward peculiarities. An affected lack of ease in
society, an affected self-withdrawal, an inclined carriage of the head,
a deliberate economy of gesture and vocabulary, a peculiar dragging of
the words _yes_ and _no_, a lack of emphasis at the moments of arrival
and departure—whenever I meet these, I know that the Lawrence legend
is stalking about, a ghost as persuasive, as destructive, as false as
the Byron legends of a hundred years ago. Lawrence has a right to be
Lawrence; he is his own peculiar invention. But at second and third
hand he is occasionally comic, as when some ambitious, conventional,
sporting, self-indulgent lion tries on his unicorn skin. But more often
it goes beyond the comic stage: strong silent little men are even more
insufferable than strong silent big ones. And by a cosmic joke in the
worst taste the legend of ‘The Uncrowned King of Arabia’ has become
popularly entangled with a novelist’s myth of ‘The Sheik of Araby.’
Booksellers have wasted a good deal of time in explaining that ‘Revolt
in the Desert’ is not a sequel to ‘The Son of the Sheik.’
Now, the difficulty of writing a definite summary of what Lawrence
is or was at any given time is that he makes a point of keeping his
opinions and desires as far as possible in a state of solution; he
prevents them, that is, from crystallizing into a motive that will
affect the opinions, desires and actions of other men. When, in spite
of all precautions, a motive does appear, a force is generated that
is nearly irresistible, and while this lasts he stands out with
glaring distinctness as a figure in history. But his greatness or
power or whatever one may call it, though popularly revealed on such
occasions, results apparently from his negative policy of being sure
of nothing, believing nothing, caring for nothing, all the rest of the
time. And with this paradox my study must end.
III
Lawrence once attended on the Emir Feisal, the chief Arab leader of
the Revolt, when he was privately received at Buckingham Palace.
Lawrence was wearing Arabian dress; the white robe, the belt, the
dagger, the silk and gold head-dress, and was rebuked by a person of
importance: ‘Is it right, Colonel Lawrence, that a subject of the Crown
and an officer too, should appear here clothed in foreign uniform?’
He answered respectfully but firmly, ‘When a man serves two masters
and has to offend one of these, it is better for him to offend the
more powerful. I am here as official interpreter of the Emir Feisal,
whose uniform this is.’ Lawrence’s problem, whether his loyalty lay
towards the Arabs or towards England when England and the Arabs were
in conflict, was the most difficult problem of his life. England could
claim earlier rights of allegiance—he was for two years a British
army officer before he began the Arabian adventure—while his natural
instinct to side with the weaker cause inclined him to press the Arab
claim even against the interests of British Imperial expansion. When
further it seemed that the right lay on the side of the Arabs rather
than on that of his own country he was even more divided in mind.
How he came to be in this position cannot be shown without a short
chapter of history and geography. The first thing to be explained is
what is meant by ‘The Arabs.’ The Arabs are not merely the inhabitants
of the country called Arabia: the word includes all those Eastern
races which speak the language called Arabic. The Arabic language is
spoken over an area as big as India, lying between a line formed by the
extreme eastern coast of the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Red
Sea, and a second line farther east parallel with it formed by the
River Tigris and the Persian Gulf as far as Muscat on the Indian Ocean.
This rough parallelogram of land, which is much longer than it is wide,
includes Syria, Palestine, Transjordania, Mesopotamia and the whole of
the Arabian Peninsula. The people who live in it are called Semites,
the children of Shem. The Semites were cousins by blood even before
they were given a common religious language, Arabic, by Mohammed’s
conquests and his _Koran_. Arabic, Assyrian, Babylonian, Phoenician,
Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac, the principal Semitic languages, are all
related to each other rather than to the languages of African Ham or
Indo-European Japhet. Into this Semite country many foreign peoples
have from time to time forced a way, but none have kept a footing for
long. Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Franks (the Crusaders)
have in turn tried, but their colonies have gradually been destroyed
or swallowed up by the Semites. The Semites have themselves sometimes
ventured out of their area and in turn been drowned in the outer world.
France, Spain and Morocco to the west, India to the east, were reached
in the great days of the Mohammedan conquests. But with few scattered
exceptions the Semites have never been able to live outside their old
area without changing their natures and customs.
[Illustration:
description: Map of Arabian peninsula
title caption: THE ARAB AREA
]
This Semite country has many different climates and soils. On the west
is a long range of mountains running all the way from Alexandretta
in Northern Syria, through Palestine and the land of Midian till it
reaches Aden in Southern Arabia. It has an average height of two or
three thousand feet, is well watered and well populated. On the east
is Mesopotamia, a plain lying between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris,
its soil one of the most fertile in the world, and below Mesopotamia
another but infertile plain stretching from Kuweit along the
Arabian side of the Persian Gulf. On the south there is a long range
of hills facing the Indian Ocean, which supports a fair population.
But these outer fringes of watered country frame an enormous waste of
thirsty desert, much of it still unexplored. In the heart of the desert
in Central Arabia there is a large group of well-watered and populous
oases. To the south of these oases is a great sand desert stretching
to the inhabited hills which line the Indian Ocean: it is impassable
to caravans for lack of water and cuts off these Southern hills from
true Arabian history. East of the oases, between them and Kuweit, the
eastern limit, is a desert of gravel with some stretches of sand which
make travelling difficult. To the west of the oases, between them
and the populated western hills which line the Red Sea, is a desert
of gravel and lava with not much sand in it. To the north, a belt of
sand and then an immense gravel and lava plain filling up everything
between the eastern edge of Syria and the banks of the Euphrates where
Mesopotamia begins. It is over the western and northern deserts that
Lawrence did most of his fighting.
The hills of the west and the plains of the east are the most active
parts of the Arabic area, though being more exposed to foreign
influence and trade, whether European or Asiatic, the Arabs there
are not so typically Semitic in character as the inhabitants of the
deserts and of the central oases protected by the desert. It was on
the desert tribes that Lawrence depended most for military help in the
Arab Revolt, and it was the Arabs of the northern Syrian desert to whom
for personal reasons he was most anxious to give freedom. Lawrence
has described the process by which the desert tribes come into being.
The south-western corner of Arabia, south of the holy city of Mecca,
is called Yemen. It is a fertile agricultural district famed for
coffee but much overpopulated: and for the surplus population there
is no easy outlet. To the north is Mecca, where a strong foreign
population drawn from all the Mohammedan world jealously bars the
way. To the west is the sea and across the sea lies only the Sudanese
desert. South is the Indian Ocean. The only way out is east. So the
weaker tribes on the Yemen border are constantly pushed out into the
bad lands, where farming becomes less and less easy, and farther out
still until they become pastoral and finally are forced into the actual
desert. There they work about from oasis to oasis perhaps for several
generations until they may be strong enough to establish themselves
again as agricultural Arabs in Syria or Mesopotamia. This, writes
Lawrence, is the natural circulation that keeps Arabia healthy.
The great deserts are not, as might be supposed, the common property
of all the Arab tribes to wander about in according to their pleasure.
The territories are strictly divided up between the various tribes
and clans, who may graze their camels and flocks only in their own
pastures. Thus any clan new to the desert must either fight or pay
tribute to maintain itself in any fixed territory. It may pass through
and be given free hospitality, but after three days the journey must be
renewed. As if the natural hardships of desert life were not enough,
the old-established desert tribes are at constant feud with each other,
and until the Arab Revolt began had no common thought or motive. (There
are moreover outlaws, men with no tribe, who rob and kill any man they
meet.) The Bedouin’s curse has always been the curse of Ishmael, to
have his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him. Yet
on the whole he keeps to a very strict code of honour in his tribal
warfare. The two most important cities in Arabia are the holy
cities of Mecca and Medina. Mecca is about fifty miles inland, about
half-way down the Red Sea: Jiddah is its port. Medina, two hundred
and fifty miles to the north of Mecca, is about one hundred and fifty
miles inland behind the range of hills. Every year for more than a
thousand years there has been a great pilgrimage to these cities from
all over the Mohammedan world. The most famous route is from Damascus
in Syria, twelve hundred miles south across the Arabian deserts. Until
recently this was a painful journey on foot or camel back, from which
thousands of pilgrims, mostly old men who made this pilgrimage as the
final religious act of their life, used never to return. One of the
chief sources of wealth for the desert tribes was then this yearly
pilgrimage. They sold food and animals to the pilgrims and were paid
for the caravan’s safe passage through each tribe’s territory. If the
money, however, was not paid they would raid the caravan and cut off
and rob the stragglers. The Bedouin Arab had a great contempt for the
pilgrims, mostly townsmen from Syria and Turkey, and regarded them as
his natural prey. A railway was at last built from Damascus to Medina,
and the pilgrims were able, just before the outbreak of the War, to
set out in reasonable hope of a safe return. There only remained the
stretch between Medina and Mecca not yet linked by a railway. The
Damascus-Medina railway was built for the Turks by German engineers.
The pretext for building it was a pious one; the real reason was to
give Abdul Hamid, the Sultan, access for his troops to the Holy Cities,
other than by the Suez Canal.
The Turks, like the Arabs, need some explanation. They are not of the
race of Shem but visitors from Central Asia; they were late converts
to Mohammedanism as the Prussians to Christianity, and made their
home in Anatolia, in Asia Minor. They are, like the Prussians, before
anything else a fighting people. They are dull, brutal and enduring:
their chief virtue is the soldierly one of united action against their
neighbours, whom they divide and conquer like the Romans. After the
first exciting days of Mohammedan conquest, when the Arabs overran
half the known world, the huge new empire had to be knit together. The
Arabs had no ruling power themselves and had to rely on the non-Semitic
peoples whom they had conquered to provide a system of government.
This was the opportunity of the Turks. They were first the servants,
then the helpers, then the rulers of the Arab races. Finally they
became tyrants and burned and destroyed everything that annoyed their
soldier-minds by its beauty or superiority. They robbed the Arabs of
their richest possessions and gave them nothing in return. They were
not even great road-makers and bridge-builders and marsh-drainers like
the Romans. They neglected public works and were the enemies of art,
literature and ideas.
The Arabs by their early conquests in Spain and Sicily had been really
helpful to European civilization in the Dark Ages: the Arabic origin
of many early scientific terms is a reminder of the refreshment that
Arab thought provided. True, they were imitative rather than creative,
and the ideas that they brought were merely the remnants of Classical
learning caught from the Greek city of Alexandria in Egypt before it
died. But compared with the Turks they have always seemed cultured,
prosperous, even progressive. Turkish rule was a parasite growth,
strangling the Empire as ivy strangles a tree. It was cunning at
setting subject communities at each other’s throats, and teaching them
that the local politics of a province were more important than
nationality. The Turks gradually banished the Arabic language from
courts, offices, the Government service and superior schools. Arabs
might only serve the State, now a mere Turkish Empire, by becoming
imitation Turks.
There was of course great resistance to this tyranny. Many revolts took
place in Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia; but the Turks were too strong.
The Arabs lost their racial pride and all their proud traditions. But
of one thing they could not be robbed, the Koran, the sacred book of
all Mohammedans, to study which was every man’s first religious duty,
whether Arab or Turk. Not only was the Koran the foundation of the
legal system used throughout the Arabic-speaking world, except where
the Turks had lately imposed their more Western code, but it was the
finest example of Arabic literature. In reading the Koran every Arab
had a standard by which to judge the dull minds of his Turkish masters.
And the Arabs did succeed in keeping their rich and flexible language,
and actually in filling the crude Turkish with Arabic words.
The last Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid, who reigned during the first
few years of this century, went even further than those before him. He
was jealous of the power of the Arab Grand Sherif of Mecca, who was
the head of the priestly family of sherifs (or men descended from the
prophet Mohammed) and ruled with great honour in the Holy City.[2]
Previous Turkish Sultans finding the Sherif of Mecca too strong to be
destroyed had saved their own dignity by solemnly confirming in
power whatever Sherif was elected by his family, which numbered about
two thousand persons. But Abdul Hamid, who, for autocratic reasons,
laid new stress on his inherited title of Caliph or Ruler of the
Faithful (the orthodox Mohammedans), wanted the Holy Cities to be under
his direct rule; until now he had been safely able to garrison them
with soldiers only by means of the Suez Canal. He decided to build the
pilgrims’ railway and to increase Turkish influence among the tribes of
Arabia by money, intrigue, and armed expeditions. Finally, not content
with interfering with the Sherif’s rule even in Mecca itself, he even
took away important members of the Prophet’s family to Constantinople,
as hostages for the good behaviour of the rest.
[2] Mr. Lowell Thomas has described Lawrence as a Sherif of Mecca. This
is plainly ridiculous. Whatever mixed blood Lawrence has in him he
certainly is not a pedigreed descendant of the Prophet. He has never
been to Mecca and would not offend the Arabs by so doing.
Among these captives were Hussein, the future Sherif, and his four
sons, Ali, Abdulla, Feisal and Zeid, who are important in this story.
Hussein gave his sons a modern education at Constantinople and the
experience which afterwards helped them as leaders of the Arab revolt
against the Turks. But he also kept them good Mohammedans and when he
returned to Mecca took good care to cure them of any Western softness.
He sent them out into the desert in command of the Sherifian troops
that guarded the pilgrim road between Medina and Mecca, and kept them
there for months at a time.
IV
Four years before the War, Abdul Hamid was deposed by a political party
known as the Young Turks. The Young Turks believed in Western political
ideas learned from the American schools founded in Turkey, and in
military methods learned from their advisers, the Germans; but French
culture and government gave them their clearest model to imitate. They
objected to Abdul Hamid’s idea of a religious empire ruled by a Sultan
who was both head of the State and spiritual ruler. They favoured
the Western idea of a military state—Turkey—ruling its subject races
merely by the sword, with religion a matter of less importance. As
part of this policy they sent Hussein and his family back to Mecca.
This nationalist movement in Turkey was really one of self-protection.
Already Western ideas about the rights of subject races to govern
themselves had begun to crumble up the Turkish Empire. The Greeks,
Serbs, Bulgars, Persians and others had broken away and set up their
own governments. It was time for the Turks to protect what was left by
adopting the same nationalist policy.
After their first success against the Sultan the Young Turks began to
behave foolishly. They preached ‘Turkish brotherhood’; meaning no more
than to rally together all men of Turkish blood. Turkey should be the
absolute mistress of a subject empire in the modern French style; not
merely the chief state of a religious Empire only bound together by
the Arabic language and the Koran. They also hoped to get back into
their state the Turkish population which was at the time under Russian
rule in Central Asia. But the subject races, who far outnumbered the
Turks, did not understand this. Seeing that the Turks even in their
own country were dependent on Greeks, Albanians, Bulgarians,
Persians and others for the running of all their government offices
and doing all their business except the simple military part, they
thought that the Young Turks meant to have an Empire something like the
white part of the British Empire, one in which Turkey was to be the
head of a number of free states, self-governed but contributing to the
general expenses of the Empire. The Young Turks saw their mistake and
immediately made their intentions quite plain. Led by Enver, the son
of the late Sultan’s chief furniture-maker, and a soldier-politician
who had worked his way up, it was said, by murdering in turn every
superior officer who stood in his way, they stopped at nothing. The
Armenians began to take up arms for freedom. The Turks crushed them—the
Armenian leaders failed their followers—and massacred men, women and
children in hundreds of thousands. They massacred them not because
they were Christians but because they were Armenians and wanted to be
independent. Such wholesale barbarity was made possible for Enver and
his friends by the nature of the Turkish private soldier, who has been
described as the best natural soldier in the world. This means that he
is brave, enduring and so obedient that he allows himself to have no
feelings except those that he is ordered to have. He will butcher and
burn even in his own country if so ordered, and will be merciful and
affectionate if so ordered. He merely tries to do his duty.
The Arabs, who had also begun to talk of freedom, were more difficult
to deal with because more numerous and because being (unlike the
Armenians) Semites they were more powerfully affected by the idea.
For Semites can be swung on an idea as on a cord (the phrase is
Lawrence’s). The Syrian Arabs, since they were nearest to Europe, first
caught fire, and the Young Turks took what measures they dared
to take short of massacre. The Arab members of the Turkish Congress
were scattered, Arab political societies were suppressed. The public
use of the Arabic language except for strictly religious purposes was
forbidden all over the Empire. Any talk of Arab self-government was a
punishable offence. As a result of this oppression, secret societies
sprang up of a more violently revolutionary kind. One of these, the
Syrian society, was numerous, well organized, and kept its secret so
well that the Turks, though they had suspicions, could not find any
clear evidence of its leaders or membership, and without evidence dared
not begin another reign of terror of the Armenian kind for fear of
European opinion. Another society was composed almost entirely of Arab
officers serving in the Turkish army, who were sworn to turn against
their masters as soon as a chance offered. This society was founded in
Mesopotamia and was so fanatically pro-Arab that its leaders would not
even have dealings with the English, French and Russians, who might
otherwise have been their allies, because they did not believe that if
they accepted European help they would be allowed to keep any freedom
that they might win. They preferred a single bad tyranny which they
knew well to a possible new tyranny of several nations whom they did
not know so well; and at the end of the War members of the society were
still commanding Turkish divisions against the English. The Syrian
society, however, looked for help to England, to Egypt, to the Sherif
of Mecca, to anyone in fact who would do the Arabs’ work for them.
These freedom societies grew until in 1914 the War broke out: then
European opinion did not matter much and the Turks, with the power
given them by the general mobilization of the Army, could act.
Nearly one-third of the original Turkish Army was Arabic-speaking, and
after the first few months of the War when they had recognized the
danger the Turks took good care to send Arab regiments as far away as
possible from their homes, to the northern battle fronts, and there put
them into the firing line as quickly as possible. But before this, a
few Syrian revolutionaries were found to have been appealing to France
for help in their campaign for freedom, and here was an excuse for a
reign of terror. Arab Mohammedans and Arab Christians were crowded into
the same prisons, and by the end of 1915 the whole of Syria was united
by a cause that suppression only made stronger.
Early in the same year the Young Turks were convinced by arguments and
pressure from the part of their German Allies that in order to win
their war, which was pressing them very hard, they must work up some
religious enthusiasm, proclaim a Holy War. In spite of their former
decision to give religion an unimportant position in the empire, Holy
War was necessary for more than one reason; they wanted the support
of the religious party in Turkey; they wanted their soldiers, now
badly fed and badly equipped, to fight bravely in the confidence of
going straight to Paradise if they were killed; and they also wanted
to encourage Mohammedan soldiers in the French and British armies to
throw down their arms. In India particularly, such a proclamation
was expected to have an immense effect. The Holy War was therefore
proclaimed at Constantinople and the Sherif of Mecca was invited, or
rather ordered, to confirm the proclamation.
If Hussein had done so the course of the War might have been very
different. But he did not wish to take the step. He hated the
Turks, whom he knew for bad Mohammedans without honour or good
feelings, and he believed that a true Holy War could only be a
defensive one, and this was clearly aggressive. Besides, Germany, a
Christian ally, made a Holy War look absurd. He refused.
Hussein was shrewd, honourable and deeply pious. His position, however,
was difficult. The yearly pilgrimage ended with the outbreak of war and
with it went a great part of his revenues. As he was for the Allies an
enemy subject, there was danger of their stopping the usual food-ships
from India. And if he angered the Turks they might stop food from
coming to him by the desert railway; and his own province could not
grow food enough for its population. So having refused to proclaim
the Holy War he begged the Allies not to starve his people out for
what was not their fault. The Turks, in reply to his refusal, began a
partial blockade of Hussein’s province by controlling the traffic on
the railway. The British, on the other hand, allowed the food vessels
to come as usual. This decided Hussein. He decided to revolt (as his
neighbour Ibn Saud of the central oases had successfully done four
or five years previously) and had a secret meeting with a party of
British officers on a deserted reef on the Red Sea coast near Mecca.
He was given assurance that England would give him what help he needed
in guns and stores for his war. He had also just been secretly asked
for his support by leaders of both secret societies, the Syrian and
the Mesopotamian. A military mutiny was proposed in Syria. Hussein
undertook to do his best for them. He therefore sent Feisal, his third
son, to report to him from Syria what were the chances of a successful
revolt.
Feisal, who had been a member of the Turkish Government and was
therefore able to travel about freely, went and reported that
prospects were good in Syria, but that the war in general was going
against the Allies; the time was not yet. If, however, the Australian
divisions then in Egypt were landed, as was expected, at Alexandretta
in Syria, a military mutiny of the Arab divisions then stationed in
Syria would certainly be successful. The Arabs could make a quick peace
with the Turks, securing their freedom, and after this even if Germany
won the world-war they might hold what they had won.
But he was not in touch with Allied politics. The French were afraid
that if British forces were once landed in Syria, they would never
leave it; and Syria was a country in which they were themselves
interested. A joint French and British expedition would not have
been so bad, but the French had no troops to spare. So, as it has
been responsibly stated, the French Government put pressure on the
British to cancel their arrangements for the Alexandretta landing.
After much delay the Australians were landed with numerous other
British and Indian troops and a small French detachment to give an
Allied colouring, not in Syria, but the other side of Asia Minor, at
the Dardanelles. It was an attempt, nearly successful, to capture
Constantinople and so end the eastern war at a blow. After the landing
the English asked Hussein to begin his revolt; on Feisal’s advice he
replied that the Allies must first put a screen of troops between him
and Constantinople; the English, however, were no longer able to find
troops for a landing in Syria even with French consent.
[Illustration:
description: Photo 3⁄4 shot of standing Emir Feisal facing the
camera with other people behind him
caption: THE EMIR FEISAL
and his Negro Freedmen
_Copyright_
]
Feisal went up to the Dardanelles to watch how things went. After
several months the Turkish army, though successful in holding its
position, had been crippled by enormous losses. Feisal, seeing this,
returned to Syria, thinking that the time was at last come for the
mutiny, even without Allied help. But there he found that the Turks had
broken up all the Arab divisions, sending them to the various distant
war-fronts; and his Syrian revolutionary friends were all either under
arrest or in hiding, and numbers had already been hanged on various
political charges. He had lost his opportunity.
He wrote to his father to wait until England grew stronger and Turkey
still weaker. Unfortunately England, quite apart from the difficulties
of the _Entente_, was in a very bad position in the Near East, forced
to withdraw from the Dardanelles after losses as heavy as the Turks
had suffered. The English politicians were content to take the blame
for not having landed troops at Alexandretta, the one really sensible
place, rather than give away their French colleagues; and the rumour
went round England ‘The Greeks let us down.’ Bulgaria, too, had lately
joined with the Turks and Germans, so that the French insisted on
the Dardanelles troops being landed not at Alexandretta, even this
time, as had been intended, but at Salonica. To make matters worse, a
British Army was surrounded and starving in the town of Kut, on the
Mesopotamian front. Feisal’s own position grew very dangerous. He had
to live at Damascus as the guest of Jemal Pasha, the Turkish general
in command of the forces in Syria, and being himself an officer in the
Turkish army had to swallow whatever insults the bullying Jemal threw
at the Arabs in his drunken fits. Feisal had, moreover, been president
of the secret freedom society in Syria before the War and was at the
mercy of its members; if he was denounced by any of these—perhaps a
condemned man might try to buy his life with the information—he was
lost. So Feisal had to stay anxiously with Jemal at Damascus, and
spent his time rubbing up his military knowledge. His elder brother Ali
was now raising troops down in Arabia, giving as the excuse that he
and Feisal intended to lead them in an attack against the English in
Egypt. But the troops were really intended for use against the Turks
as soon as Feisal gave the word. Jemal with his brutal Turkish humour
would send for Feisal and take him to see the hanging of his Syrian
revolutionary friends. The doomed men dared not show that they knew
what Feisal’s real intentions were, for fear that he and his family
would share their fate—Feisal was the one leader in whom Syria had
confidence. Nor could Feisal show them what his feelings were by word
or look; he was under the watchful eye of Jemal. Only once did his
agony make him lose self-possession; he burst out that these executions
would cost Jemal all that he was trying to avoid. Then it took the
strongest efforts of his friends at Constantinople, the leading men of
Turkey, to save him from paying the price of these rash words.
Feisal’s correspondence with his father in Mecca was an extremely
dangerous one: old family retainers were used to take messages up and
down the pilgrims’ railway, messages hidden in sword hilts, in cakes,
sewn between the soles of sandals, or written in invisible ink on the
wrappers of harmless packages. In all his letters Feisal begged his
father to wait, to delay the revolt until a wiser time. But Hussein
trusted in God rather than in military common sense and decided that
the soldiers of his province were able to beat the Turks in fair fight.
He sent a message to Feisal with the news that all was now ready. Ali
had raised the troops and they were waiting for Feisal’s inspection
before starting for the front.
Feisal told Jemal of his father’s message (without, of course,
explaining its hostile significance) and asked permission to go down
to Medina. To his dismay Jemal replied that Enver Pasha, the Turkish
Commander-in-Chief, was now on his way to the province and that Enver,
Feisal and himself would attend the inspection together. Feisal had
planned to raise his father’s crimson banner of revolt as soon as
he arrived in Medina and so take the Turks unawares: but now he was
saddled with two uninvited guests, the two chief generals of his enemy,
to whom, by the Arab laws of hospitality, he could do no harm. They
would probably delay his action so long that the secret of the revolt
would be given away.
In the end, however, everything passed off well, though the irony of
the review was almost unbearable. Enver, Jemal and Feisal watched the
troops manœuvring in the dusty plain outside the city gate, rushing
up and down in sham camel-fights or playing the ancient Arab game of
javelin-throwing on horseback. At last Enver turned to Feisal and
asked, ‘Are these all volunteers for the Holy War?’ ‘Yes,’ said Feisal,
with another Holy War in mind. ‘Willing to fight to the death against
the enemies of the faithful?’ ‘Yes,’ said Feisal again, and then the
Arab chiefs came up to be presented, and one of the prophet’s family
drew Feisal aside privately, whispering, ‘My lord, shall we kill them
now?’ Feisal answered, ‘No, they are our guests.’
The chiefs protested that it must be done, for so the war could be
ended in two blows. They tried to force Feisal’s hand, and he had
actually to go among them, just out of hearing of Enver and Jemal, to
plead for the lives of these two uninvited guests of his, monsters
who had murdered his best friends. In the end he had to make excuses
and take the party quickly back into the town under his personal
protection and from there escort them all the way to Damascus
with a guard of his own slaves to save them from death on the way.
He explained this action as being merely great courtesy shown to
distinguished guests. But Enver and Jemal were most suspicious of what
they had seen and at once sent large Turkish forces by the railway
to garrison the holy cities. They wanted to keep Feisal captive at
Damascus; but telegrams came from the Turks at Medina asking for him to
return at once to prevent disorder, and Jemal reluctantly let him go.
Feisal was forced, however, to leave his suite behind as hostages.
Feisal found Medina full of Turks, an entire Army Corps of them, and
his hope of a surprise rush, winning success with hardly a shot fired,
had become impossible. His chivalry had ruined him. However, he had
been prudent too long now. On the same day that Feisal’s suite escaped
from Damascus, riding out into the desert to take refuge with a desert
chief, Feisal showed his hand: he raised the banner of revolt outside
Medina.
His first rush on Medina was a desperate business. The Arabs were
badly armed and short of ammunition, the Turks were in great force. In
the middle of the battle one of the principal Arab tribes broke and
ran, and the whole force was driven outside the walls into the open
plain. The Turks then opened fire on them with artillery and machine
guns. The Arabs, who only used muzzle-loading guns in their tribal
battles, were terrified: and thought that the noise of the bursting
shells was equalled by their killing powers. Feisal as a trained
soldier knew better, and with his kinsman, young Ali ibn el Hussein,
rode about on his mare among the shell-bursts to show that the danger
was not so great as the tribesmen feared. But not even Feisal could
draw the Arabs to the charge. Part of the tribe that had first
broken approached the Turkish commander and offered to surrender if its
villages were spared. There was a lull in the fighting and the Turkish
general invited the chiefs to talk over the matter; secretly at the
same time he sent troops to surround one of the suburbs of the city
which he singled out for his object lesson in Turkish terror. While the
conference was in progress these Turks were ordered to carry the suburb
by assault and massacre every living creature in it. It was done,
horribly. Those who were not butchered were burned alive—men, women
and children together. The Turkish general and these troops had served
together in Armenia and such methods were not new to them.
The massacre sent a shock of incredulous horror across Arabia. The
first rule of Arab war was that women and children too young to fight
must be spared and that property which could not be carried off in fair
raiding should be left undamaged. Feisal’s men realized what Feisal
knew already, that the Turks would stick at nothing, and they fell back
to consider what must now be done. They were in honour bound, because
of the massacre, to fight to the last man; and yet their arms were
plainly worth nothing against modern Turkish (and German) rifles and
machine-guns and artillery. The Turks in Medina realizing that they
were henceforward in a state of real or threatened siege, made their
situation better by driving out into the desert many hundreds of the
poorer Arab townsmen whom they would otherwise have had to feed.
* * * * *
Feisal’s attack on Medina had been timed to the day of his father’s
attempt on the Turks at Mecca. Hussein was more successful; he
succeeded in capturing the city itself at the first rush, but it
was some days before he could silence the Turkish forts that commanded
the city from the hills outside. The Turks were foolish enough to
shell the holy Mosque which was the goal of the yearly pilgrimage.
It contained the Kaaba, a cubical shrine into whose walls was built
the sacred black stone worshipped there as a rain-bringing charm long
before Mohammed’s time and the one exception that Mohammed was forced
to make in his orders against the worshipping of idols. The black
stone was said to have fallen from Heaven and what is more, probably
had; it is apparently a meteorite. In the bombardment a Turkish shell
killed several worshippers praying before the Kaaba itself and a second
shudder of horror ran through the Mohammedan world. Jiddah, the port
of Mecca, was also captured with the assistance of the British Navy;
and the whole province with the exception of Medina, was after a time
cleared of Turks.
From their camp to the west of Medina, Feisal and Ali sent messenger
after messenger to the Red Sea port, Rabegh, which was on the
roundabout road between Medina and Mecca. They knew that the British,
at their father’s request, were landing military stores there. Yet they
got nothing from Rabegh but a little food and a consignment of Japanese
rifles, rusty relics of the fighting at Port Arthur ten years before,
which burst as soon as fired. Their father remained in Mecca.
Ali went at last to see what was happening: he found that the local
chief at Rabegh had decided that the Turks were bound to win and
so had decided to join them. Ali made a demonstration and got help
from another brother, Zeid, and the chief fled as an outlaw to the
hills. Ali and Zeid took possession of his villages and found in them
great stores of arms and food landed from the British ships. The
temptation to settle down for a spell of ease and comfort was too much
for them. They stopped where they were.
Feisal was left to carry on the war alone a hundred and fifty miles
away inland. In August 1915 he visited another port on the Red Sea
farther north than Rabegh, called Yenbo, where the British Navy had
landed a force of marines and captured the Turkish garrison. Here
he met a British colonel who was acting under orders of the High
Commissioner in Egypt, and asked him for military help. After some
time he was sent a battery of mountain guns and some maxims which
were to be handled by Egyptian Army gunners. The Arabs with Feisal
rejoiced when the Egyptians arrived outside Medina, and thought that
they were now the equal of the Turks. They went forward in a mob and
drove in first the Turkish outposts and then the supports, so that
the commander in the city was alarmed. He reinforced the threatened
flank, bringing up heavy guns which opened long-range fire on the
Arabs. One shell burst close to Feisal’s tent where he was sitting
with his Staff. The Egyptian gunners were asked to return the fire
and knock out the Turkish guns: but they had to admit that they were
helpless. The Turkish guns were nine thousand yards away and their
own—twenty-year-old Krupp guns—only had a range of three thousand. The
Arabs laughed scornfully and retreated again to their defiles in the
hills.
Feisal was greatly discouraged. His men were tired; he had had heavy
losses. Money was running short and his army was gradually melting
away. He did not like having to carry on entirely by himself while his
brother Abdulla remained in Mecca and Ali and Zeid at Rabegh. He
fell back with his main body to a position nearer the coast, leaving
local tribes to carry on his policy of sudden raids on Turkish supply
columns and night attacks on the outposts. It was at this point in the
history of the Revolt that Lawrence appeared and turned the tide.
V
At the outbreak of the War Lawrence had of course to give up the idea
of continuing at Carchemish, which was in Turkish territory. He was,
at the time, in Oxford—it was the off-season for digging—and he much
resented this interruption of what had been to him a nearly perfect
life. He tried to join an Officers’ Training Corps at Oxford, but
without success. He tried again in London; but it was no good. It has
been incorrectly said that he was marked as ‘physically below fighting
standard’: this would, however, be quite believable. Perhaps the only
other man in England who was Lawrence’s equal in physical strength and
endurance was Jimmy Wilde, the fly-weight boxer, a World’s champion
who not only beat every other man of his own weight but for years
was unbeaten by boxers weighing a whole stone heavier than himself.
Wilde was rejected as being of ‘emaciated physique’ and not fit for
active service. But in Lawrence’s case it was only a temporary glut of
recruits that was responsible for his being turned away. Dr. Hogarth
heard that Lawrence was at a loose end and got him given a week’s
trial, as a favour, by Colonel Hedley, the head of the Geographic
Section of the General Staff at Whitehall. Three weeks later Hogarth
met Hedley and asked him, ‘Did you find young Lawrence any use?’
‘He’s running my entire department for me now,’ said Hedley shortly.
Lawrence’s task here was making maps of Sinai, Belgium and France.
Four months later, on Turkey’s entering the War, Lord Kitchener
ordered all members of the Sinai Survey expedition of 1913—14 to be
sent immediately to Egypt, where their knowledge would be useful in
view of a possible Turkish invasion of Egypt. General Maxwell
wired that they were not wanted. Kitchener wired back that they were
already on their way. In Cairo Lawrence naturally went to the Military
Map Department of the Intelligence Service, where again he made his
presence felt. About certain parts of Syria and Mesopotamia he knew
even more than the Turks themselves. At the same time he was engaged
in general intelligence as staff-captain at General Headquarters,
Egypt. He was charged with making out a periodic report to the General
Staff as to the position of the various divisions and smaller units of
the Turkish Army: this information came from spies or from prisoners
captured on the various fronts. Although a most valuable officer he was
not popular with the senior military officers about him, particularly
with those fresh from England who did not believe that a civilian like
Lawrence was competent to talk about military subjects. There was
annoyance, for instance, when he interrupted two generals discussing
a reported movement of Turkish troops from So-and-So to Such-and-Such
by saying: ‘Nonsense; they can’t make the distance in twice the time
you give them. The roads are bad and there’s no local transport.
Besides, their commanding officer is a very lazy fellow.’ Also he was
looked on with disfavour for going about without a military belt, in
patent-leather shoes, and not wearing the right-coloured socks or tie.
His reports, too, were not written in the style favoured. The War
Office handbook of information about the Turkish Army, of which he was
joint editor for fourteen editions, contained such comments as ‘General
Abd el Mahmoud commanding the —th Division is half-Albanian by birth
and a consumptive; an able officer and a gunnery expert; but a vicious
scoundrel, and will accept bribes.’ These personal comments were
thought unnecessary: the theory held by the British was that their
officer opponents were gallant fellows entitled to every courtesy. An
objection was also raised to such scholarly footnotes as a comparison
between the new Boy Scout movement in Turkey and the Corps of Pages
kept in Egypt in the time of the Janissaries. The General Staff
disliked history and suspected a joke. Among Lawrence’s other tasks was
questioning suspected persons; he had the gift of being able to tell at
once from small points in a man’s dress and from the dialect he spoke
more or less what he was and where he came from. Two recorded examples
will serve. An ugly-looking ruffian was caught on the Suez Canal,
suspected of being a spy. He said he was a Syrian. Lawrence, overcoming
his usual aversion to looking a man in the face, said ‘He’s lying; look
at his little pig eyes! The man’s an Egyptian of the pedlar class.’ He
spoke sharply in the pedlar’s dialect, and the man admitted who he was.
On another occasion, but later in the War, when Lawrence had greatly
improved his accuracy, a fine-looking Arab came in with information.
Lawrence’s colleague said: ‘Here’s one of the real Bedouin come to see
you.’ Lawrence said, ‘No! He’s not got the Bedouin walk or style. He’s
a Syrian Arab farmer living under the protection of the Beni Sakhr
tribe,’ and so it proved.
In 1915 Cairo got so full of generals and colonels with nothing to
do but send unnecessary messages about and get in the way of the few
people who were doing any work, that it was mere comic opera. No less
than three General Staffs fully officered were collected in Egypt,
and it was impossible for any one of them to define exactly where its
duties began and ended. There was current a wicked parody of an
old Egyptian-Christian creed, in which occurred the phrase, ‘And yet
there are not three Incompetents but one Incompetent.’ One of the most
intimate glimpses we get of Lawrence in 1915 is of a small grinning
second-lieutenant, with hair of unmilitary length and no belt, hiding
behind a screen in the Savoy Hotel with another equally unmilitary
colleague, softly counting ‘One, two, three, four!’ ... through a hole
in the screen. They were counting generals. An important conference
was going on in the room, for generals only. His colleague swears to
me that Lawrence counted up to sixty-five. He himself only made it
sixty-four, but one of the Brigadier-Generals may have moved.
Lawrence went on several journeys to the Suez Canal, where a weak
Turkish attack had been made and a strong one was always expected, and
one to the Senussi Desert in the West of Egypt (I believe to discover
the whereabouts of British prisoners captured by the hostile Arabs
there). He was also sent to Athens to get contact with the Levant
group of the British Secret Service, whose agent in Egypt he was for
a time until the work grew too important for an officer of his low
rank to perform. He also was engaged in getting information about
the anti-British revolutionary societies in Egypt and, because the
Egyptians are not as loyal in their secret societies as the Syrians and
Mesopotamians, was always having visitors; one party after another came
offering to betray the names of its fellow-members until he had seen
nearly the whole society. Lawrence’s chief difficulty was to prevent
the various parties meeting each other on the office-stairs. Social
life in Egypt bored him. ‘It’s a bad life this,’ he wrote at the end of
March 1915, ‘living at close quarters with a khaki crowd very intent
on “Banker” and parades and lunch. I am a total abstainer from all
of these and so a snob.’ In April 1916 he was sent to Mesopotamia. He
had an official task in which he was not much interested and a private
intention known only to a few colleagues whom he could trust.
In Mesopotamia an army composed of mixed Indian and British troops had
been marching up the Tigris from the Persian Gulf and had at first met
with success, but sickness, transport difficulties, bad strategy and
strong Turkish forces had held up the advance, which became a retreat:
and soon General Townshend with a large force was cut off and besieged
in the town of Kut. Provisions were failing and the fall was believed
to be a certainty because reinforcements could not arrive from India in
time. Lawrence’s official task given him direct from the War Office at
London was to go as member of a secret mission to the Turkish commander
who was besieging Kut: to persuade him not to press the siege. It was
thought possible that a large bribe might work because it was known
that the Turks were themselves in difficulties. They had few troops—the
Arabic-speaking regiments were openly mutinous—and a Russian army
to the North had just captured the town of Erzeroum, the capital of
Kurdistan, in the famous snow battle. The Russians were pressing on
towards Anatolia, the Turks’ home province; so that at any moment the
siege might collapse. As a matter of fact the capture of Erzeroum had
been ‘arranged’—Colonel Buchan’s novel _Greenmantle_ has more than a
flavour of truth—and the War Office hoped that the same success could
be repeated at Kut. Nevertheless bribes would be useless, Lawrence
had told those who sent him, and would only encourage the Turks. The
Turkish commander, being a nephew of Enver, the chief Young Turk, never
needed to worry about money.
The British Generals in Mesopotamia were not pleased with the idea
of this conference. Two of them told Lawrence that his intentions
(which they did not know) were dishonourable, and unworthy of a soldier
(which he never acknowledged himself to be). Now, this Mesopotamian
Army was under the orders of the Government of India and though Lord
Kitchener, who was in general command of the Imperial British Forces,
had early in the War approached two leaders of the secret freedom
society of Mesopotamia to offer to help in a mutiny which might have
cleared Mesopotamia of the Turks at a single blow, his hand had been
held. The Indian Government was afraid that if the Arabs mutinied
it would be not able to grant Mesopotamia those benefits of British
protection which had been granted to Burma some years before; the Arabs
would want to remain free. So the help that Kitchener would have given
was withheld and the mutiny did not come about. Instead, an army was
sent from India to act without the Arabs: with disastrous results. The
British and Indians were looked upon as invaders as unwelcome as the
Turks and were not only given no help but were constantly being raided
and robbed by the local Arab tribes.
Lawrence’s private intention, which was the real reason of his coming,
had been to see whether the situation in Mesopotamia would allow of
local co-operation on Nationalist lines between the British and the
Euphrates tribes, whom he knew well from his Carchemish days. Some of
these were already in revolt—he hoped further to get in touch with
the great Ruwalla tribe of the Northern Syrian desert—and with his
assistance might soon have cut all Turkish communications by holding up
river traffic and raiding supply columns until the army before Kut
would be in a state of siege itself. Kut could hold out until he had
made his preparations; if only eight more aeroplanes could be found for
dropping provisions into the town. But he found that it was hopeless.
The policy of wresting Mesopotamia without Arab help and making it part
of the Empire was to be stubbornly maintained; sooner, almost, than
recognize the Arabs as a political force the English would leave the
country to the Turks. The result was that Lawrence did not do what he
intended.
The conference with the Turkish General to which he and two others
went across the Turkish lines with a white flag and with handkerchiefs
bound over their eyes, was merely an attempt to ransom, on grounds of
humanity or interest, those of the garrison of Kut whose health had
suffered by the siege and whom captivity would kill, and to persuade
the general not to punish the Arab civilians in Kut who had helped
the British. After these things had been not very satisfactorily
settled—they got nearly a thousand of the sick exchanged against
healthy Turks; they should have got three thousand—the conference
developed into a mere exchange of courtesies. In these, however,
Lawrence and Colonel Aubrey Herbert, who was with him, would not join.
When the Turk said, ‘After all, gentlemen, our interests as Empire
builders are much the same as yours. There is nothing that need stand
between us,’ Herbert replied shortly: ‘Only a million dead Armenians,’
and that ended the conference.
Lawrence had one more task; to explain to the British Staff in
Mesopotamia, on behalf of the High Commissioner of Egypt, that the help
promised to Sherif Hussein did not include a support of his claim to
the Caliphate, the spiritual headship of the Mohammedan world, as
was believed in India, with alarm. The official Caliph was still the
ex-sultan Abdul Hamid. Having done this, he came away. Kut surrendered
(half its garrison died in captivity and the Turks hanged a number
of the Arab civilians) and the remainder of the British Army, whose
advance the local Arabs continued to resent, lost enormous numbers of
men and spent another two years in reaching Bagdad.
Things were going from bad to worse. The British High Commissioner,
who had made the promises to Sherif Hussein on behalf of the British
Foreign Office, found himself in difficulties. The general commanding
the British forces in Egypt, who took his orders only from the War
Office, did not believe in the Revolt and was not going to waste men,
arms or money over it. His rule was ‘No side shows.’ It is possible
also that he did not like the High Commissioner, a civilian, to be
interfering in military matters. So, outside Medina, Feisal, waiting
every day anxiously for the artillery and other stores which had
been promised him, and with his own private treasure nearly spent in
paying his armies, was left in disappointment and inaction. After the
landing of a few native Egyptian troops and stores at Rabegh nothing
much more was done; and it seemed that the Revolt was already over.
Many of the staff officers at Cairo looked on all this as a great joke
at the expense of the High Commissioner. They laughed that Hussein
would soon find himself on a Turkish scaffold. As plain soldiers they
had a fellow-feeling for the Turk, and could not see the tragedy and
dishonour that they were intending. To make matters worse a French
military mission was arranging an intrigue against Hussein in his towns
of Jiddah and Mecca, and was also proposing to the harassed old man
military schemes that would have ruined his cause in the eyes of all
Mohammedans.
In Cairo Lawrence had come to be more plagued than ever by generals and
colonels, and he discovered that since his great interest in the Arab
Revolt was known he was about to be put in a position where he could
not do much more to help it. He decided to get away in time. He asked
for permission to go, but it was not given, so he began making himself
so obnoxious that the General Staff would be only too glad to be rid
of him. He was already known as a conceited young puppy and began a
campaign of pin-pricks, correcting the grammar of the most senior
officers and commenting on their ignorance of the geography and customs
of the East. The break came in this way. The chief of staff one day
rang him up on the telephone. ‘Is that Captain Lawrence? Where exactly
is the Turkish Forty-first Division now stationed?’ Lawrence said, ‘At
So-and-So near Aleppo. The 131st, 132nd, 133rd regiments compose it.
They are quartered in the villages So-and-So, So-and-So, and
So-and-So.’
‘Have you those villages marked on the map?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you noted them yet on the Dislocation files?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because they are better in my head until I can check the information.’
‘Yes, but you can’t send your head along to Ismailia every time.’
(Ismailia was a long way from Cairo.)
‘I wish to goodness I could,’ said Lawrence, and rang off.
This had the desired effect; it was decided to get rid of Lawrence
somehow. He took the opportunity to ask for ten days’ leave to go for
a holiday on the Red Sea in company with a Foreign Office official,
Storrs (afterwards the first Christian Governor of Jerusalem since the
Crusades), who was visiting the Sherif on important business. He got
his leave, and at the same time made arrangements to be transferred
from the Military Intelligence Service to the ‘Arab Bureau,’ which was
under the direct orders of the British Foreign Office. The Arab bureau
was a ♦department that had just been formed for helping the Arab Revolt
and was run by a small group of men, some of them, like Lloyd and
Hogarth, old friends of Lawrence’s, who really knew something about the
Arabs—and about the Turks. Lawrence’s transfer was arranged directly
between the War Office and the Foreign Office in London, so that gave
him time. He intended to do much in his ten days’ leave.
♦ “departmen” replaced with “department”
VI
Lawrence and Storrs arrived at Jiddah, the port of Mecca on the Red
Sea, in October 1916. (At this point Lawrence begins his public account
of his adventures, the book _Revolt in the Desert_.)
The Sherif’s second son Abdulla came to meet the two Englishmen, riding
on a white mare with a guard of richly armed slaves, on foot, about
him. Abdulla had just come home victorious from a battle at the town of
Taif, inland from Mecca, which he had won from the Turks in a sudden
rush; he was in great good humour. Abdulla was reported to be the real
leader of revolt, the brain behind Hussein, but Lawrence, summing him
up, decided that he might be a good statesman and useful later to the
Arabs if ever they succeeded in winning freedom (and his judgment of
the present King of Transjordania was correct), but he did not seem
somehow to be the prophet who was needed to make the revolt a success.
He was too affable, too shrewd, too cheerful: prophets are men of a
different stuff. Lawrence’s chief object in coming to Jiddah was to
find the real prophet, if there was one, whose enthusiasm would set the
desert on fire; so he decided at once to look elsewhere.
Meanwhile Abdulla talked to Lawrence about the campaign, and gave him
a report to be repeated to headquarters in Egypt. He said that the
English were largely responsible for the Arab lack of success. They had
neglected to cut the pilgrims’ railway, and the Turks had therefore
been able to collect transport and supplies to reinforce Medina. Feisal
had been driven from Medina and the enemy there was now preparing a
large force to advance on Rabegh, the Red Sea port. The Arabs with
Feisal who were barring their road through the hills were too weak
in supplies and arms to hold out long. Lawrence replied that Hussein
had asked the British not to cut the railway because he would soon need
it for his victorious advance into Syria, and that the dynamite which
had been sent to him had been returned as too dangerous to be used by
Arabs. Moreover, Feisal had not asked for more supplies or arms since
the time when Egyptian gunners had been sent.
Abdulla answered that, if the Turks advanced, the Arab tribe called The
Harb between them and Rabegh would join them and all would be lost.
His father would then put himself at the head of his few troops and
die fighting in defence of the city. At this point the telephone bell
rang and the Sherif himself from Mecca spoke to Abdulla. Abdulla told
him what was being said, and the Sherif answered, ‘Yes, that is so!
The Turks will only enter over my dead body,’ and rang off. Abdulla
smiled a little and asked whether in order to prevent such a disaster
a British brigade, if possible composed of Mohammedan troops, might
be sent to Suez, with ships waiting there to rush it to Rabegh as
soon as the Turks began their march from Medina. To reach Mecca the
Turks had to go through Rabegh because of the water supply, and if
Rabegh could be held for a little while, he would himself soon lead up
his victorious troops to Medina by the eastern road. When he was in
position his brothers Feisal from the west and Ali from the south would
close in and a grand attack would be made on Medina from three sides.
[Illustration:
description: Portrait drawing of Emir Abdulla from chest up
caption: THE EMIR ABDULLA
_from a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
]
Lawrence did not like the idea of sending troops to Rabegh, and replied
that there were difficulties about providing shipping for a whole
brigade. There were no wholly Mohammedan regiments in the British
Army, and a brigade was not large enough anyhow. Ships’ guns would
defend the beach, which was all that the brigade could defend, just
as well as men on the shore. Moreover, if Christian troops were sent
to the assistance of the Holy City against the Turks, it would cause
bad feeling in India, where the action would be misunderstood; already
there had been great excitement in India when a small British Fleet
had bombarded the Turks at Jiddah, the port of Mecca. Still, he would
do his best and tell the British in Egypt what Abdulla’s views were.
Meanwhile might he go to Rabegh, see what the country was like and also
talk with Feisal? He could find out from Feisal whether the hills could
be held against the Turks if more help in arms and stores were sent
from Egypt.
Abdulla consented but had to get permission from his father; which
after some difficulty (for Hussein was very suspicious) was given.
Abdulla wrote to his brother Ali telling him to mount Lawrence well
and convey him safely and speedily to Feisal’s camp. This was all that
Lawrence wanted. That night a sad-looking brass band, in tattered
Turkish uniforms, whom Abdulla had captured at Taif played them Turkish
and German tunes, and Abdulla told Lawrence of the plans he had made
some time before for winning freedom from the Turks by the simple
method of detaining important pilgrims to Mecca and holding them as
hostages: but Feisal had disagreed. Then Abdulla asked Lawrence how
many generations back King George could trace his ancestry: Lawrence
replied, ‘Twenty-six generations; to Cedric the Saxon.’ (Or however
many it was: I have forgotten, but of course Lawrence knew.) Abdulla
proudly remarked that this was not bad, but that he could go seventeen
better. Clearly Abdulla was not the prophet. Next day Lawrence took
boat to Rabegh and there gave the letter to Ali.
Lawrence took a fancy to Ali, who was the eldest of the four brothers,
a man of thirty-seven: he was pleasant-mannered, well read in Arabic
literature, pious, conscientious; but he was a consumptive and his
weakness made him nervous and moody. If Feisal was not what Lawrence
hoped him to be, Ali would perhaps lead the revolt very fairly well.
With Ali was another brother, Zeid, a boy of nineteen. He was calm and
flippant and not zealous for the Revolt. He had been brought up in the
harem and had not yet found himself as a man of action; but Lawrence
liked him and he was more pleasant than Ali who did not like the idea
of a Christian, even with the permission of the Sherif, travelling in
the Holy Province. Ali did not allow Lawrence to start until after
sunset lest any of his followers, whom he could not trust, should see
him leave the camp. He kept the journey a secret even from his slaves,
gave Lawrence an Arab cloak and headcloth to wrap round his uniform
and told the old guide who was to go with him to keep his charge from
all questioning and curiosity by the way, and to avoid all camps. The
Arabs in Rabegh and the district were of the Harb tribe whose chief was
pro-Turkish and had fled to the hills when Ali came to Rabegh with his
army. They owed this chief obedience, and if he heard of Lawrence’s
journey to Feisal, a band of them might be sent to stop him.
Lawrence could count on his guide: a guide had to answer with his life
for that of his charge. Some years before a Harb tribesman had promised
to take the traveller Huber to Medina by this very road (which was the
pilgrims’ road between Medina and Mecca), but finding that he was a
Christian had killed him. The murderer relied on public opinion
to excuse him, but it went against him in spite of Huber having been
a Christian. He had ever since lived alone in the hills without any
friends to visit him and had been refused permission to marry any woman
of the tribe. It was a warning to Lawrence’s guide and the guide’s son
who went with them.
Lawrence, out of training after two years of office work in Cairo,
found the journey trying, though the experience of riding a first-class
camel of the sort trained in its paces for Arab princes was new and
delightful. There were no good camels in Egypt, or in the Sinai desert
where the animals though hardy and strong had not been properly
trained. The party rode all night except for a short rest and sleep
between midnight and the grey dawn. The road was at first over soft
flat sand, along the coast between the beach and the hills. After some
hours they struck the bed of what in the short rainy season of Arabia
is a broad flood-river, but now was merely a wide field of stones, with
here and there clumps of thorn bushes and scrub. Here the going was
better for the camels and in the early sunlight they made a steady trot
towards Masturah, where was the next watering-place out from Rabegh on
the pilgrims’ road. Here the guide’s son watered the camels, climbing
twenty feet down the side of the stone well and drawing up water in a
goatskin, which he poured into a shallow trough. The camels drank about
five gallons each, while Lawrence rested in the shade of a ruined stone
wall, and the son smoked a cigarette.
Presently some Harb tribesmen came up and watered their she-camels.
The guide did not speak to them, for they belonged to a clan with whom
his own people, their neighbours, had until recently been at war
and even now had little friendship. As Lawrence watched the watering
two more Arabs arrived from the direction in which he was bound. Both
were young and well mounted; but one was dressed in rich silk robes
and embroidered headcloth, the other more plainly in white cotton with
a red cotton head-dress, evidently his servant. They halted beside
the well and the more splendid one slipped gracefully to the ground
without making his camel kneel and said to his companion: ‘Water the
camels while I go over there and rest.’ He strolled over to the wall
where Lawrence was sitting and pretended to be at his ease, offering
a cigarette just rolled and licked. ‘Your presence is from Syria?’ he
asked. Lawrence politely parried the question, not wishing to reveal
himself, and asked in turn: ‘Your presence is from Mecca?’ The Arab
also was unwilling to reveal himself.
Then there a comedy was played which Lawrence did not understand until
the guide explained it later. The servant stood holding the camels’
halters waiting for the Harb herdsmen to finish their watering. ‘What
is it, Mustafa?’ said his richly-dressed master, ‘Water them at once!’
‘They will not let me,’ said the servant dismally. The master grew
furious and struck his servant about the head and shoulders with his
riding stick. The servant looked hurt, astonished and angry, and was
about to hit back when he thought better of it and ran to the well.
The herdsmen were shocked and out of pity made way for him. As his
camels drank from their trough they whispered, ‘Who is he?’ The servant
answered, ‘The Sherif’s cousin, from Mecca.’ The herdsmen at once
untied bundles of green leaves and buds from the thorn trees and fed
the camels of this honourable visitor. He watched them contentedly
and called God’s blessing on them: soon he and his servant rode away
south along the road to Mecca, while Lawrence and his guides went off
in the opposite direction.
The old guide began to chuckle and explain the joke. The two men were
both of noble birth. The one who played the part of master was Ali ibn
el Hussein, a sherif, the other was his cousin. They were nobles of the
Harith tribe and blood enemies of the Harb clan to which these herdsmen
belonged. Fearing that they would be delayed or driven off the water
if they were recognized, they pretended to be master and servant from
Mecca. Ali ibn el Hussein afterwards became Lawrence’s best friend
among the Arab fighting men and at one time saved his life: he had
already made a name for himself in the fighting at Medina and had been
the leader of the Ateiba tribesmen in much camel-fighting with the
Turks. Ali had run away from home at the age of eleven to his uncle,
a famous robber chieftain, and lived by his hands for months until
his father caught him. The old guide grew enthusiastic in his account
of Ali, ending with the local proverb, ‘The children of Harith are
children of battle.’
The day’s ride which began over shingle continued over pure white sand.
The glare dazzled the eyes, so that Lawrence had to frown hard and pull
his headcloth forward as a peak over his eyes and beneath them too.
The heat beat up in waves from the ground. After awhile the pilgrims’
road was left and a short cut was taken inland over a gradually rising
ground of rock ridges covered with drift sand. Here grew patches of
hard wiry grass and ♦shrubs, on which a few sheep and goats were
pasturing. The guide then showed Lawrence a boundary stone and said
with some relief that he was now at home in his own tribal ground and
might come off his guard.
♦ “shurbs” replaced with “shrubs”
By sunset they reached a hamlet of twenty huts where the guide bought
flour and kneaded a dough cake with water, two inches thick and eight
across. He cooked it in a brush-wood fire that a woman provided for
him and, shaking off the ashes, shared it with Lawrence. They had come
sixty miles from Rabegh since the evening before and still had as far
again to go before they reached Feisal’s camp. Lawrence was stiff and
aching, his skin blistered and his eyes weary. They stopped at the
hamlet for two hours and rode on in pitch darkness up valleys and
down valleys. Underfoot it seemed to be sand, for there was no noise,
and the only change came from the heat of the air in the hollows and
the comparative coolness of the open places. Lawrence kept on falling
asleep in the saddle and being woken up again suddenly and sickeningly
as he made a clutch by instinct at the saddle-post to recover his
balance. Long after midnight they halted, slept for three hours and
went on again under a moon. The road was among trees along another
water-course with sharp pointed hills on either side, black and white
in the moonlight: the air was stifling. Day came as they entered a
broader part of the valley with dust spinning round here and there
in the dawn wind. On the right lay another hamlet of brown and white
houses looking like a dolls’ village in the shadow of a huge precipice
thousands of feet high.
From the houses after a while came out a talkative old man on a camel
and joined the party. The guide gave him short answers and showed
that he was unwelcome, and the old man to make things easier burrowed
in his saddle pouch and offered the party food. It was yesterday’s
dough cake moistened with liquid butter and dusted with sugar.
One made pellets of it with the fingers and ate it that way. Lawrence
accepted little, but the guide and his son ate greedily, so that the
old man went short: and this was as it should be, for it was considered
effeminate for an Arab to carry so much food on a journey of a mere
hundred miles. The old man gave news of Feisal; the day before he had
been repulsed in an attack and had had a few men wounded: he gave the
names of the men and details of their wounds.
They were riding over a firm pebbly ground among acacia and tamarisk
trees and their long morning shadows. The valley was like a park; a
quarter of a mile broad. It was walled in by precipices, a thousand
feet high, of brown and dark-red with pink stains, at the base were
long streaks of dark green stone. After seven miles they came to
a tumbledown barrier which ran across the valley and right up the
hill-sides wherever the slope was not too steep to take the wall: in
the middle were two walled-in enclosures. Lawrence asked the old man
what the wall meant. He answered instead that he had been in Damascus,
Constantinople and Cairo and had friends among the great men of Egypt,
and asked whether Lawrence knew any of the English there? He was very
inquisitive about Lawrence’s intentions and tried to trip him in
Egyptian phrases. Lawrence answered in the Syrian dialect of Aleppo,
whereupon the old man told him of prominent Syrians whom he knew.
Lawrence knew them too. The man then began to talk local politics, of
the Sherif and his sons, and asked Lawrence what Feisal would do next.
Lawrence as usual avoided answering, and indeed he knew nothing of
Feisal’s plans. The guide came to the rescue and changed the subject.
Later Lawrence found that the old man was a spy in Turkish pay who
used to send frequent reports to Medina of what came past his village
for Feisal’s army.
After a long morning’s travel, through two more valleys and across
a saddle of hills, the party found itself in a third valley, where
the old spy had told them that they would soon find Feisal. In this
valley they stopped at a large village where there was a strip of clear
water two hundred yards long and twelve wide, bordered with grass and
flowers. Here they were given bread and dates by negro slaves—the best
dates Lawrence had ever tasted—at the house of a principal man. The
owner was, however, away with Feisal, and his wife and children were in
tents in the hills, looking after the camels. The climate was feverish
in these valleys and the Arabs only spent five months in the year in
their houses: in their absence the negroes did the work for them. The
black men did not mind the climate and prospered with their gardening,
growing melons, marrows, cucumber, grapes, tobacco, which gave them
pocket-money. They married among themselves, built their own houses and
were well treated by the Arabs. Indeed so many of them had been given
their freedom that there were thirteen purely negro villages in this
valley alone.
After their bread and dates, the party went on farther up the valley,
which was about four hundred yards broad and enclosed by bare red and
black rocks with sharp edges and ridges, and soon came upon parties
of Feisal’s soldiers and grazing herds of camels. The guide exchanged
greetings with them and hurried his pace; they pressed towards the
hamlet where Feisal was encamped. Here there were about a hundred mud
houses with luxurious gardens. They were all built upon mounds of earth
twenty feet high, which had been carefully piled up, basket-full by
basket-full, in the course of generations. These mounds became
islands in the rainy season, with the flood-water rushing between them.
At the village where they had just been there were scores of similar
islands, but hundreds more had been washed away and their occupants
drowned in a cloudburst some years before; an eight-foot wall of
water had raced down the valley and carried everything before it. The
guide led on to the top of one of these mounds where they made their
camels kneel by the yard-gate of a long low house. A slave with a
silver-hilted sword in his hand took Lawrence to an inner court. The
account of Lawrence’s meeting there with Feisal can best be given in
Lawrence’s own words:
‘On the farther side of the inner court, framed between the uprights
of a black doorway, stood a white figure waiting tensely for me. I
felt at first glance that this was the man I had come to Arabia to
seek—the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory. Feisal
looked very tall and pillar-like, very slender, in his long white silk
robes and his brown headcloth bound with a brilliant scarlet and gold
cord. His eyelids were dropped; and his black beard and colourless
face were like a mask against the strange still watchfulness of his
body. His hands were crossed in front of him on his dagger.
‘I greeted him. He made way for me into the room and sat down on his
carpet near the door. As my eyes grew accustomed to the shade, they
saw that the little room held many silent figures, looking at me or
at Feisal steadily. He remained staring down at his hands, which were
twisting slowly about his dagger. At last he enquired softly how I had
found the journey. I spoke of the heat and he asked how long from
Rabegh, commenting that I had ridden fast for the season.
‘“And do you like our place here in Wadi Safra?”
‘“Well; but it is far from Damascus.”
‘The word had fallen like a sword into their midst. There was a
quiver. Then everybody present stiffened where he sat, and held his
breath for a silent minute. Some, perhaps, were dreaming of far-off
success: others may have thought it a reflection on their late defeat.
Feisal at length lifted his eyes, smiling at me, and said, “Praise be
to God, there are Turks nearer us than that.” We all smiled with him,
and I rose and excused myself for the moment.’
Any reader, by the way, who prefers Mr. Lowell Thomas’s version of
these incidents is welcome to his choice:
‘On arrival at Jiddah, Lawrence succeeded in getting permission from
Grand Shereef Hussein to make a short camel journey inland to the camp
of Emir Feisal, third son of the Grand Shereef who was attempting to
keep the fires of revolution alive. The Arab cause looked hopeless.
There were not enough bullets left to keep the army in gazelle meat
and the troops were reduced to John the Baptist’s melancholy desert
fare of locusts and wild honey.
‘After exchanging the usual Oriental compliments over many sweetened
cups of Arabian coffee, the first question Lawrence asked Feisal
was, “When will your army reach Damascus?” The question evidently
nonplussed the Emir, who gazed gloomily through the tent-flap at the
bedraggled remnants of his father’s army. “In sh’ Allah,” replied
Feisal, stroking his beard. “There is neither power nor might save in
Allah, the high, the tremendous! May He look with favour upon our
cause. But I fear the gates of Damascus are farther beyond our reach
at present than the gates of Paradise. Allah willing, our next step
will be an attack on the Turkish garrison at Medina where we hope to
deliver the tomb of the Prophet from our enemies.”’
VII
Lawrence visited the Egyptian gunners, who seemed unhappy. Egyptians
are a home-loving race and they were fighting against the Turks,
for whom they had a sentimental feeling, among the Bedouins, whom
they thought savages. Under British officers they had learned to be
soldierly, to keep themselves smart, to pitch their tents in a regular
line, to salute their officers smartly. The Arabs were always laughing
at them for all this, and their feelings were hurt. Next Lawrence had
a long talk with Feisal and his supporter Maulud, an Arab who had
been an officer in the Turkish army and had twice been degraded for
talking of Arab freedom. Maulud had been captured by the British while
commanding a Turkish cavalry regiment against them in Mesopotamia.
But as soon as he heard of the Sherif’s Revolt he had volunteered to
fight the Turks, and many other Arab officers with him. So now he began
to complain bitterly that the Arab army was being utterly neglected:
the Sherif sent them thirty thousand pounds a month for expenses but
not enough barley, rice, flour, ammunition or rifles, and they got no
machine-guns, mountain-guns, technical help or information. Lawrence
stopped Maulud and said that he came for the very purpose of hearing
and reporting to the British in Egypt what was needed, but that he must
first know exactly how the campaign was going. Feisal gave him the
history of the Revolt from the very beginning, as it has been told in a
previous chapter, and mentioned mischievously among other things that
in the fighting with the Turkish outposts, which took place usually
at night because the Turkish artillery was then blinded, the battle
would begin with curses, insults and foul language: and this wordy
warfare reached its climax when the Turks in a frenzy called the Arabs
‘English!’ and the Arabs screamed back ‘Germans!’ There were no Germans
in the Holy Province and Lawrence was the first Englishman: but this
final foul insult was always the signal for hand-to-hand fighting.
Lawrence asked Feisal his plans and Feisal said that until Medina fell
they had to remain on guard, for the Turks were certainly intending to
recapture Mecca. He did not think that the Arabs would want to defend
the hill-country between Medina and Rabegh merely by sitting still and
sniping from the hills. If the Turks moved, he proposed to move too. He
favoured an attack on Medina from four sides at once with four armies
of tribesmen, with himself and his three brothers each at the head of
an army. Whatever the success of the attack, it would check the advance
on Mecca and give his father time to arm and train regular troops.
For without regular troops a steady war against the Turks was
impossible; the tribesmen could not be persuaded to stay away from
their families more than a month or two at a time, and soon got bored
with the war it there was no chance of exciting camel-charges and loot.
Feisal talked at some length and Maulud, who had sat fidgeting, cried
out, ‘Don’t write a history of us. The only thing to be done is to
fight and fight and kill them. Give me a battery of mountain-guns and
machine-guns and I will finish this war off for you. We talk and talk
and do nothing.’
Feisal was dead tired: his eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks hollow.
He looked years older than thirty-one. For the rest, he was tall,
graceful, vigorous, with a royal dignity of head and shoulders, and
beautiful movements. He knew of these gifts and therefore much of his
public speech was by sign and gesture. His men loved him, and he
lived for nothing but his work. He always overtaxed his strength and
Lawrence was told how once after a long spell of fighting in which
he had to guard himself, lead the charges, control and encourage his
men, he had collapsed in a fit and been carried away from the victory
unconscious with foam on his lips.
At supper that night there was a mixed company of sheikhs of many
desert tribes, Arabs from Mesopotamia, men of the Prophet’s family from
Mecca. Lawrence, who had not revealed himself except to Feisal and
Maulud, spoke as a Syrian Arab and introduced subjects for argument
which would excite the company to speak their minds. He wished to
sound their courage at once. Feisal, smoking continual cigarettes,
kept control of the conversation even at its hottest, and without
seeming to do so stamped his mind on the speakers. Lawrence spoke with
sorrow of the Syrian Arabs whom the Turks had executed for preaching
freedom. The sheikhs took him up sharply. The men, they said, had got
what they deserved for intriguing with the French and English: they
had been prepared, if the Turks were beaten, to accept the English or
French in their place. Feisal smiled, almost winked at Lawrence, and
said that though proud to be allies of the English, the Arabs were
rather afraid of a friendship so powerful that it might smother them
with over-attention. So Lawrence told a story of how the guide’s son
on the ride from Rabegh had complained of the British sailors there.
They came ashore every day. Soon, the guide’s son had said, they would
stay overnight and settle down and finally take the country. Lawrence
then had spoken of the millions of Englishmen fighting in France and
had said that the French were not afraid that they would stop
for ever. (As a matter of fact this was not quite true: the French
peasants did have the same fear, but Lawrence had not been in France.)
The guide’s son had scornfully asked whether Lawrence meant to compare
France with the Holy Province.
Feisal pondered over the story and said that, after all, the British
had occupied the Sudan, though as they said, not wanting it; perhaps
they might also take Arabia, not wanting it. They hungered for desolate
lands, to build them up and make them good: one day Arabia might tempt
them. But the English idea of good and the Arab idea of good might be
different, and forced good would make the people cry out in pain as
much as forced evil. Feisal was a man of education, but Lawrence was
surprised at the grasp that these tribesmen, the ragged and lousy ones
even, had of the idea of Arab national freedom. Freedom was an entirely
new idea to the country, and one that they could hardly have been
taught by the educated townsmen of Mecca and Medina. But it appeared
that the Sherif had wisely made his priestly family into missionaries
of this idea; their words carried much weight.
The Sherif had had the sense too, in spite of his great piety as a
Mohammedan, to keep religion out of the war. Though one of his chief
personal reasons for declaring war was that the young Turks were
irreligious, he realized that this would be an insufficient reason
for the tribes. They knew that their own allies the British were
Christians. ‘Christian fights Christian, why not Mohammedan Mohammedan?
We want a Government which speaks our own language and will let us live
in peace. And we hate the Turks.’ They were not troubled by questions
of how the Arab Empire was to be ruled when the Turkish Empire was
ended. They could only think of the Arab world as a confederation
of independent tribes, and if they helped to free Bagdad and Damascus
it would be only to give these cities the gift of independence as new
members of the Arab family. If the Sherif liked to call himself Emperor
of the Arabs, he might do so, but it was only a title to impress the
outer world. Except for the departure of the Turks everything would go
on much as before in the land.
The next morning Lawrence was up early and walking by himself among
Feisal’s troops. He was anxious to find out what they were worth as
fighters by the same means that he had used the night before with their
chiefs. There was not much time to spare for getting the information
he wanted and he had to be very observant. The smallest signs might be
of use for the report which he was to make to Egypt, one which perhaps
might rouse the same confidence in the Revolt that he had always had.
The men received him cheerfully, lolling in the shade of bush or rock.
They chaffed him for his khaki uniform, taking him for a Turkish
deserter. They were a tough crowd of all ages from twelve to sixty,
with dark faces: some looked half negro. They were thin, but strong and
active. They would ride immense distances, day after day, run barefoot
in the heat through sand and over rocks without pain, and climb the
jagged hills. Their clothing was for the most part a loose shirt with
sometimes short cotton drawers and a head shawl usually of red cloth,
which acted in turn as towel, handkerchief or sack. They were hung with
cartridge-bandoliers, several apiece, and fired off their rifles for
fun at every excuse. They were in great spirits and would have liked
the war to last another ten years. The Sherif was feeding them and
their families and paying two pounds a month for every man and
four pounds extra for the use of his camel.
There were eight thousand men with Feisal, of whom eight hundred were
camel-fighters: the rest were hill men. They served only under their
own tribal sheikhs and only near their own territory, arranging for
their own food and transport. Each sheikh had a company of about a
hundred men. When larger forces were used they were commanded by a
Sherif, that is, a member of the Prophet’s family, whose dignity raised
him above tribal jealousies. Blood feuds between clans were supposed to
be healed by the fact of the national war and were at least suspended.
The Billi, Juheina, Ateiba and other tribes were serving together in
friendship for the first time in the history of Arabia. Nevertheless,
members of one tribe were shy of those of another and even within
a tribe no man quite trusted his neighbour; for there were also
blood-feuds between clan and clan, family and family; and though all
hated the Turk, family grudges might still be paid off in a big attack
where it was impossible to keep track of every bullet fired.
Lawrence decided that in spite of what Feisal had said the tribesmen
were good for irregular fighting and defence only. They loved loot and
would tear up railways, plunder caravans and capture camels, but they
were too independent to fight a pitched battle under a single command.
A man who can fight well by himself is usually a ‘bad soldier’ in the
army sense and it seemed absurd to try to drill these wild heroes.
But if they were given Lewis guns (light machine-guns looking like
overgrown rifles) to handle themselves, they might be able to hold
the hills while a regular army was built up at Rabegh. This regular
army was already being formed under command of another Arab deserter
from the Turkish army, somewhat of a martinet, called Aziz el
Masri. In the British prisoners-of-war camps in Egypt and Mesopotamia
were hundreds of Syrians and Mesopotamians who would volunteer against
the Turks if called upon. Being mostly townsmen and therefore not so
independent, they were the right material for Aziz to train. While
the desert fighters harassed the Turks by raids and sudden alarms,
this regular force could be used to do the regular fighting. As for
the immediate danger, the advance through the hills—Lawrence had seen
what the hills were like. The only passes were valleys full of twists
and turns, sometimes four hundred, sometimes only twenty yards across,
between precipices; and the Arabs were fine snipers. Two hundred good
men could hold up an army. Without Arab treachery the Turks could not
break through; and even with treachery it would be dangerous. They
could never be sure that the Arabs might not rise behind them, and if
they had to guard all the passes behind them they would have few men
left when they reached the coast.
The only trouble was that the Arabs were still terrified of artillery.
The fear might pass in time, but at present the sound of a shell
exploding sent the Arabs for miles round scuttling to shelter. They
were not afraid of bullets or, indeed, of death, but the manner
of death by shell-fire was too much for their imagination. It was
necessary then to get guns, useful or useless, but noisy, on the Arab
side. From Feisal down to the youngest boy in the army the talk was all
of artillery, artillery, artillery. When Lawrence told Feisal’s men
that howitzers were being landed at Rabegh that could fire a shell as
thick as a man’s thigh, there was great rejoicing. The guns, of course,
would be no military use; on the contrary. As fighters the Arabs
were most useful in scattered irregular warfare. If they were sent
guns they would crowd together for protection, and as a mob they could
always be beaten by even a small force of Turks. Only, if they were
given no guns, it was clear that they would go home, and this would end
the Revolt. Artillery, then, was the only problem; the Revolt itself
was a real thing, the deep enthusiasm of a whole province.
VIII
Later Lawrence saw Feisal again and promised to do what he could.
Stores and supplies for his exclusive use would be landed at Yenbo, a
hundred and twenty miles north of Rabegh, and about seventy miles from
where he now was at Hamra. He would arrange, if he could, for more
volunteers from the prisoners’ camps. Gun-crews and machine-gun crews
would be formed from such volunteers, and they would be given whatever
mountain-guns or light machine-guns could be spared in Egypt. Lastly,
he would ask for British Army officers, a few good men with technical
knowledge, to be sent to him as advisers and to keep touch for him with
Egypt. Feisal thanked Lawrence warmly and asked him to return soon.
Lawrence replied that his duties in Cairo prevented him from actual
fighting, but perhaps his chiefs would let him pay a visit later when
Feisal’s present needs were satisfied and things were going better.
Meanwhile he wished to go to Yenbo and so on to Egypt as quickly as
possible.
Feisal gave him an escort of fourteen noblemen of the Juheina tribe
and in the evening he rode off. The same desolate country as before,
but more broken, with shallow valleys and lava hills and finally a
great stretch of sand-dunes to the distant sea. To the right, twenty
miles away, was the great mountain Jebel Rudhwa, one of the grandest
in the country, rising sheer from the plain; Lawrence had seen it from
a hundred miles away from the well where Ali ibn el Hussein and his
cousin had watered. At Yenbo Lawrence stayed at the house of Feisal’s
agent, and while waiting for the ship which was to take him off, wrote
out his report. After four days the ship appeared; the commander
was Captain Boyle, who had helped in the taking of Jiddah. Captain
Boyle did not like Lawrence at first sight, because he was wearing a
native headcloth which he thought unsoldierlike. However, he took him
to Jiddah, where he met Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, the British Admiral in
command of the Red Sea Fleet, who was just about to cross over to the
Sudan.
The Navy under Sir Rosslyn had been of the greatest assistance to the
Sherif, giving him guns, machine-guns, landing parties and every other
sort of help; whereas the British Army in Egypt was doing nothing for
the Revolt. Practically no military help came except from the native
Egyptian Army, the only troops at the disposal of the British High
Commissioner. Lawrence crossed over with the Admiral and at Port Sudan
met two English officers of the Egyptian army on their way to command
the Egyptian troops which were with the Sherif, and to help train the
regular forces now being formed at Rabegh. Of one of these, Joyce, we
shall hear again: the other, Davenport, also did much for the Arab army
but, working in the southern theatre of Revolt, was not with Lawrence
in his northern campaign. In the Sudan, at Khartoum, Lawrence met the
commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army who a few days later was made
the new High Commissioner in Egypt. He was an old believer in the
Revolt and glad to hear the hopeful news Lawrence brought: with his
good wishes Lawrence returned to Cairo.
In Cairo there was great argument about the threatened Turkish advance
on Mecca: the question was whether a brigade of Allied troops should be
sent there: aeroplanes had already gone. The French were very anxious
that this step should be taken, and their representative at Jiddah,
a Colonel, had recently brought to Suez, to tempt the British,
some artillery, machine-guns, and cavalry and infantry, all Mohammedan
soldiers from the French colony of Algeria, with French officers. It
was nearly decided to send British troops with these to Rabegh, under
the French colonel’s command. Lawrence decided to stop this. He wrote a
strong report to Headquarters saying that the Arab tribes could defend
the hills between Medina and Rabegh quite well by themselves if given
guns and advice, but they would certainly scatter to their tents if
they heard of a landing of foreigners. Moreover, on his way up from
Rabegh he had learned that the road through Rabegh, though the most
used, was not the only approach to Mecca. The Turks could take a short
cut by using wells of which no mention had been made in any report, and
avoid Rabegh altogether; so a brigade landed there would be useless
anyhow. Lawrence accused the French colonel of having motives of his
own (not military ones) for wishing to land troops, and of intriguing
against the Sherif and against the English: he gave evidence in support
of these charges.
The Commander-in-Chief of the British Army was only too glad of
Lawrence’s report as he still had no wish to help the ‘side-show.’ He
sent for Lawrence. But first the Chief of Staff took Lawrence aside,
talked amicably and patronizingly to him about general subjects and
how jolly it was to have been at Oxford as an undergrad—he apparently
thought that Lawrence was a youngster who had left for the War in his
first year at college—and begged him not to frighten or encourage the
Commander-in-Chief into sending troops to Rabegh, because there were
no men to spare on side-shows. Lawrence agreed on condition that the
Chief of Staff would see that at least extra stores and arms and
a few capable officers were sent. The bargain was struck and kept.
The brigade was never sent. Lawrence was much amused at the change in
the attitude of the staff towards him. He was no longer a conceited
young puppy, but a very valuable officer, of great intelligence,
with a pungent style of writing. All because, for a wonder, his
view of the Revolt was agreeable to them. It is recorded that the
Commander-in-Chief was asked, after Lawrence’s interview with him, what
he thought of Lawrence. He merely replied: ‘I was disappointed: he did
not come in dancing-pumps.’
The friendly Head of the Arab Bureau, to which Lawrence was now
transferred, told him that his place was with Feisal as his military
adviser. Lawrence protested that he was not a real soldier, that he
hated responsibility, and that regular officers were shortly being sent
from London to direct the war properly. But his protest was overruled.
The regular officers might not arrive for months, and meanwhile some
responsible Englishman had to be with Feisal. So he went and left his
map-making, his Arab Bulletin (a secret record of the progress of the
revolutionary movements) and his reports about the whereabouts of the
different Turkish divisions, to other hands, to play a part for which
he felt no inclination.
IX
In December he went by ship to Yenbo, which on his advice had been made
the special base for landing supplies for Feisal’s army. Here he found
a British officer, Captain Garland of the Royal Engineers, teaching
the Arabs the proper use of dynamite for destroying railways. Garland
spoke Arabic well and knew the quick ways both of destruction and of
instruction. From him Lawrence, too, learned not to be afraid of high
explosive: Garland would shovel detonators, fuse and the whole bag of
tricks into his pocket and jump on his camel for a week’s ride to the
pilgrims’ railway. He had a weak heart and was constantly ill, but he
was as careless of his health as of his detonators and kept on until
he had derailed the first Turkish train and broken the first bridge.
Shortly after this he died.
The general position was now this: The advanced tribes this side of
Medina were keeping up the pressure on the Turks and every day sent in
to Feisal captured camels or Turkish rifles or prisoners or deserters,
for which he paid at a fixed rate. His brother Zeid was taking his
place in Harb territory while he made sure of the tribes who were
covering Yenbo. His other brother Abdulla had moved up from Mecca to
the east of Medina, and by the end of November 1916 was cutting off
the city’s supplies from the central oases. But he could only blockade
Medina, he could not make the joint attack with Feisal and Ali and
Zeid because he had with him only three machine-guns and ten almost
useless mountain-guns captured from the Turks at Taif and Mecca. At
Rabegh four British aeroplanes had arrived and twenty-three guns,
mostly obsolete and of fourteen different patterns, but still, guns.
There were now three thousand Arab infantry with Ali, of whom two
thousand belonged to the new regular army which Aziz was training: also
nine hundred camel corps and three hundred troops from the Egyptian
army. French gunners were promised. At Yenbo, Feisal was also having
his peasants, slaves and paupers organized into regular battalions in
imitation of Aziz’s model. Garland held bombing classes there, fired
guns, repaired machine-guns, wheels and harness, and the rifles of the
whole army.
Lawrence had decided that the next thing to be done was to attack Wejh,
a big port two hundred miles away from Yenbo up the Red Sea. The chief
Arab tribe in those parts was the Billi; Feisal was in touch with
these, and had thoughts of asking the Juheina tribe, whose territory
was between Yenbo and Wejh, to make an expedition against the place.
Lawrence said he would go to help raise the tribe and would give
military advice. So he rode inland in company with Sherif Abd el Kerim,
a half brother of the Emir of the Juheina. Lawrence was surprised at
the sherif’s colour; Abd el Kerim was a coal-black Abyssinian, son
of a slave girl whom the old Emir had married late in life. He was
twenty-six years old, restless and active, and was very merry and
intimate with, every one. He hated the Turks, who despised him for his
colour (the Arabs had little colour-feeling against Africans: much more
against the Indians). He was also a famous rider and made a point of
taking his journeys at three times the usual speed. On this occasion
Lawrence, since the camel he was riding was not his own and the day was
cool, did not object.
They started in the early afternoon from Yenbo at a canter which they
kept up for three hours without a pause. Then they stopped and ate
bread and drank coffee while Abd el Kerim, who made no pretence
at dignity, rolled about on his carpet in a dog-fight with one of his
men: after this he sat up exhausted, and they exchanged comic stories
until they were rested enough to get up and dance. At sunset they
remounted and an hour’s mad race in the dusk brought them to the end
of the flat country and a low range of hills. Here the panting camels
had to walk up a narrow winding valley, which so annoyed Abd el Kerim
that when he reached the top he galloped the party downhill in the dark
at break-neck speed; in half an hour they reached the plain on the
other side, where were the chief date gardens of the Southern Juheina.
At Yenbo it had been said that these gardens and Nakhl Mubarak, the
village beside them, were deserted, but as they came up they saw the
flame-lit smoke of camp-fires and heard the roaring of thousands of
excited camels, the shouting of lost men, volleys of signal shots,
squealing of mules. Abd el Kerim was alarmed. They quietly rode into
the village and, finding a deserted courtyard, hobbled the camels
inside out of view. Then Abd el Kerim loaded his rifle and went on
tiptoe down the street to find out what was happening; the others
waited anxiously. Soon he returned to say that Feisal had arrived with
his camel corps and wished to see Lawrence.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of dense grove of palm trees
caption: THE VILLAGE OF DATE PALMS
(Nakhl Mubarak)
_Copyright_
]
They went through the village and came on a wild noisy confusion of men
and camels: pressing through these they suddenly found themselves in a
dry but still slimy river-bed where the army was encamped, filling the
valley from side to side. There were hundreds of fires of crackling
thorn-wood with Arabs eating or making coffee or sleeping close
together muffled in their cloaks. Camels were everywhere, couched or
tied by one leg to the ground, with new ones always coming in and
the old ones jumping up on three legs to join them, roaring with hunger
and alarm. Caravans were being unloaded, patrols going out, and dozens
of Egyptian mules were bucking angrily in the middle of the scene. In
a calm region in the middle of the river-bed was Feisal, sitting on
his carpet with Maulud the Mesopotamian patriot and a silent cousin,
Sharraf, who was the chief magistrate of Taif. Feisal was dictating
to a kneeling secretary while at the same time another secretary was
reading the latest reports aloud by the light of a silvered lamp held
by a slave.
Feisal, quiet as ever, welcomed Lawrence with a smile until he could
finish his dictation. After it was done he apologized for the confusion
and waved the slaves back so that the talk could be private. The slaves
and onlookers cleared a space, but at that moment a wild camel broke
through the ring, plunging and trumpeting. Maulud dashed at its head to
drag it away, but it dragged him instead, and its load coming untied,
an avalanche of camel-fodder came pouring over the lamp, Lawrence and
Feisal’s cousin. Feisal said gravely, ‘God be praised that it was
neither butter nor bags of gold.’ Then he explained what had happened
in the last twenty-four hours.
A big Turkish column had slipped behind the barrier of Harb tribesmen
on guard in the valley where Lawrence had first met Feisal, and cut
their retreat. The tribesmen farther down the valley panicked; instead
of holding up the Turks by sniping from the hills they ran away in
two’s and three’s to save their families before it was too late.
Turkish mounted men rushed down the valley to Zeid’s headquarters, and
nearly caught Zeid asleep in his tent: however, he got warning in time
and managed to hold up the attack while most of his tents and
baggage were packed on camels and driven away. Then he escaped himself;
his army became a loose mob. They rode wildly towards Yenbo, which was
three days’ journey away, by the road south of the one that Lawrence
had just taken.
Feisal hearing the news had rushed down here to protect the main
road to Yenbo which now lay open: he had only arrived an hour before
Lawrence. He had five thousand men with him and the Egyptian gunners,
the Turks perhaps had three or four thousand. But his spy-system
was breaking down—the Harb tribesmen were bringing in wild and
contradictory reports—and he had no idea whether the Turks would attack
Yenbo, or leave it alone and attack Rabegh, a hundred and twenty miles
down the coast, and so go on to Mecca. The best that could happen would
be if they heard of Feisal’s presence here and wasted time trying to
catch his main army (which was what the military textbooks would have
advised) while Yenbo had time to put up proper defences.
Meanwhile he sat here on his carpet and did all he could. He listened
to the news, and settled all the petitions, complaints and difficulties
that came up before him. This went on until half-past four in the
morning, when it grew very cold in the damp valley and a mist rose,
soaking every one’s clothes. The camp gradually settled down for the
night. Feisal finished his most urgent work, and the party, after
eating a few dates, curled up on the wet carpet and went to sleep.
Lawrence, shivering, saw Feisal’s guards creep up and spread their
cloaks gently over Feisal when they were sure that he was asleep.
Awake, he would have refused such luxury.
An hour later the party rose stiffly and the slaves lit a fire of
the ribs of palm-leaves to warm them. Messengers were still coming in
from all sides with rumours of an immediate attack and the camp was
not far off panic. So Feisal decided to move, partly because if it
rained in the hills they would be flooded out, partly to work off the
general restlessness. His drums beat, the camels were loaded hurriedly.
At the second drum, every one leapt into the saddle and drew off to
right or left, leaving a broad lane down which Feisal rode on his
mare; his cousin followed a pace behind him. Then came a wild-looking
standard-bearer with a face like a hawk and long plaits of black hair
falling on either side of his face: he was dressed in bright colours
and rode a tall camel. Behind was a bodyguard of eight hundred men.
Feisal chose a good camping-ground not far off, to the north of the
village of the date-palms.
The next two days Lawrence spent with Feisal and got a close view of
his methods of dealing with a badly shaken army. He restored their lost
spirits by his never-failing calm courage and listened to every man
who came with petitions. He did not cut them short even when they put
their troubles into verse and sang songs of many stanzas at his tent
door. This extreme patience taught Lawrence much. Feisal’s self-control
seemed equally great. One of Zeid’s principal men came in to explain
the shameful story of their flight. Feisal just laughed at him in
public and sent him aside to wait while he saw the sheikhs of the Harb
and of the Ageyl whose carelessness in letting the Turks get by in
the first place had brought about the disaster. He did not reproach
them, but chaffed them gently about the fine show they had put up and
the fine losses that they had suffered. Then he called back Zeid’s
messenger and lowered the tent-flap to show that this was private
business.
Lawrence remembering that Feisal’s name meant ‘the sword flashing down
at the stroke’ was afraid that an angry scene would follow, but Feisal
merely made room for the messenger on the carpet and said, ‘Come and
give us more of your Arabian Nights’ Entertainment: amuse us.’ The man,
falling into the spirit of the joke, began to describe young Zeid in
flight, the terror of a certain famous brigand with him, and, greatest
disgrace of all, how the venerable father of Ali ibn el Hussein had
lost his coffee-pots; one of the ‘children of Harith’ too!
At Feisal’s camp the routine was simple. Just before dawn a man with
a harsh powerful voice who was prayer leader for the whole army would
climb to the top of the little hill above the sleeping army and utter
a tremendous call to prayers, which went echoing down the valley. As
soon as he ended, Feisal’s own prayer-leader called gently and sweetly
from just outside the tent. In a minute, Feisal’s five slaves (who were
actually freedmen, but preferred to go on serving) brought cups of
sweetened coffee. An hour or so later, the flap of Feisal’s sleeping
tent would be raised, his invitation to private callers. Four or five
would be present and after the morning’s news came a tray of breakfast.
Breakfast was mainly dates; sometimes Feisal’s Circassian grandmother
would send up a batch of her famous spiced cakes from Mecca, sometimes
a slave would cook biscuits. After breakfast little cups of syrupy
green tea and bitter coffee went round while Feisal dictated the
morning’s letters to his secretary. Feisal’s sleeping tent was an
ordinary bell-tent furnished merely with a camp-bed, cigarettes, two
rugs and a prayer carpet.
At about eight o’clock Feisal would buckle on his ceremonial
dagger and walk across to the big reception tent, which was open at
one side. He sat at the end of this, his principal men spreading out
to left and right with their backs against the sides of the tent.
The slaves regulated the crowd of men who came with petitions or
complaints. If possible, business was over by noon.
Feisal and his household, which included Lawrence, then went back to
the other of his two private tents, the living tent, where dinner
was brought. Feisal ate little but smoked much. He pretended to be
busy with the beans, lentils, spinach, rice, or sweet cakes until he
judged that his guests had eaten. He then waved his hand and the tray
disappeared. Slaves came forward to wash the eaters’ hands with water:
the desert Arabs use their fingers for eating. After dinner there was
talk, with more coffee and tea. Then till two o’clock Feisal retired
to his living tent and pulled down the flap to show that he was not
to be disturbed, after which he returned to the reception tent to
the same duties as before. Lawrence never saw an Arab come away from
Feisal’s presence dissatisfied or hurt; and this meant not only tact
on Feisal’s part but a very long memory. In giving judgment he had
to recall exactly who every man was, how he was related by birth or
marriage, what possessions, what character he had, the history and
blood feuds of his family and clan; and Feisal never seemed to stumble
over facts. After this was over, if there was time, he would go out
walking with his friends, talking of horses or plants, looking at
camels or asking someone the names of rocks and ridges and such-like in
the neighbourhood.
At sunset came the evening prayer and afterwards, in his living
tent, Feisal planned what patrols and raiding parties were going out
that night. Between six and seven came the evening meal: it was like
dinner except that cubes of boiled mutton were mixed in the great tray
of rice. Silence was kept until the meal was over. This meal ended the
day except for occasional glasses of tea. Feisal did not sleep till
very late and never hurried his guests away. He relaxed in the evening
and avoided work as much as he could. He would send for some local
sheikh to tell stories of tribal history; or the tribal poets would
sing their long epics, stock pieces which, with the change of names
only, did service for every tribe in Arabia. Feisal was passionately
fond of Arabic poetry and would often provoke competitions, judging
and rewarding the best verses of the night. Very rarely he would play
chess—the game was brought to Europe first by the Arabs—swiftly and
brilliantly. Sometimes he told stories of what he had seen in Syria, or
scraps of Turkish secret history, or family affairs. Lawrence learned
from him a great deal about people and parties among the Arabs that was
useful to him later.
Feisal asked Lawrence if he would wear Arab dress like his own while
in the camp: it was more comfortable, and more convenient because
the tribesmen only knew khaki as Turkish uniform and every time
that Lawrence went into Feisal’s tent and strangers were there an
explanation had to be made. Lawrence gladly agreed and Feisal’s slave
fitted him out in splendid white silk wedding-garments embroidered with
gold which had lately been sent to his master, possibly as a hint, by
a great-aunt in Mecca. Arab clothes were not a novelty to Lawrence. He
had frequently worn them in Syria before the War.
X
He decided to go back to Yenbo to organize the defence because Feisal’s
stand could not be more than a short pause. With the hills undefended
the Turks could strike where and when they pleased, and they were much
better armed and better trained than Feisal’s Arabs. So Feisal lent
him a fine bay camel and he raced back by a more northerly route, for
fear of Turkish patrols that were reported to have pushed round to
the road by which he had come. He arrived at Yenbo just before dawn,
in time to see Zeid’s beaten army ride in, about eight hundred camel
fighters, without noise but apparently without any sense of shame at
their defeat. Zeid himself pretended to be less concerned about it than
anyone else: as he rode in he remarked to the Governor, ‘Why! your
town is half in ruins. I must telegraph to my father for forty masons
to repair the public buildings,’ and this he actually did. Meanwhile
Lawrence had telegraphed to Captain Boyle at Jiddah that Yenbo was
threatened and Boyle promptly replied that he would come there at once
with his fleet. Then came more bad news: Feisal had been attacked
in force before his troops had recovered from their fright: after a
short fight he had broken off and was falling back on Yenbo. It seemed
that the war was nearly over, the Revolt crushed. With Feisal were
two thousand men, but Lawrence saw at once that the Juheina tribe was
absent: there must have been treachery, a thing that neither Lawrence
nor Feisal had believed possible from the Juheina.
Lawrence, though dead tired after three days with hardly any sleep,
went to see Feisal at once and heard the news. The Turks had broken in
from the south and threatened to cut Feisal off from Yenbo: their
guide was a Juheina chief, hereditary lawgiver to the tribe, who had
a private quarrel with the Emir of the Juheina. They had seven useful
guns with which they shelled Feisal’s camp. Feisal, undismayed, held
his ground and sent round the Juheina to work down the great valley
to the left and fall on the Turkish right wing. He then posted the
Egyptian gunners on the right and began to shell the palm groves,
where the Turkish centre was concealed, with his own two guns. These
guns were a present from Egypt, old rubbish, but good enough, it was
thought, for the wild Arabs—like the sixty thousand rifles also sent
which had been condemned as useless for the British Army after hard
service at the Dardanelles.
A Syrian Arab, Rasim, who had once been in command of a Turkish
battery, was working these guns but without sights, range-finder,
range-tables or high explosive. He was using shrapnel, old stock left
over from the Boer War, the copper fuses green with mould. Most of
it burst short if it burst at all. However, Rasim had no means of
getting his ammunition away if things went wrong, so he blazed away
at full speed, shouting with laughter at this way of making war. The
tribesmen were much impressed with the noise and smoke and Rasim’s
laughter. ‘By God,’ said one, ‘those are the real guns: the importance
of their noise!’ Rasim swore that the Turks were dying in heaps. The
Arabs charged forward happily. Feisal was hoping for a big victory when
suddenly the Juheina on his left under their Emir and Abd el Kerim, his
brother, halted and finally turned and rode back to the camping-ground.
The battle was lost: he called to Rasim to save the guns at least, and
Rasim yoked up his teams and trotted off to the right towards
Yenbo. After him streamed the centre and right, Feisal and his
bodyguard bringing up the rear and leaving the cowardly or treacherous
Juheina to look after themselves.
As the tale was still being told, and Lawrence was joining in the
general curse against the Emir of the Juheina and Abd el Kerim, there
was a stir at the door and who should come running in but Abd el Kerim
himself! He kissed Feisal’s head-rope in greeting and sat down. Feisal
stared and gasped and said ‘How?’ Abd el Kerim answered that the
Juheina had been dismayed at Feisal’s sudden flight: he and his brother
had been left to fight the Turks for the whole night alone, without
artillery, and the gallant tribesmen had resisted until they were
forced out of the date-palms by weight of numbers. Half the tribe were
just coming along with his brother, the other half had gone inland, for
water. ‘But why did you retreat to the camping-ground behind us during
the battle?’ asked Feisal. ‘Only to make ourselves a cup of coffee: we
had fought all day and it was dusk: we were very tired and thirsty.’
Feisal and Lawrence lay back and laughed; and then went to see what
could be done to save Yenbo.
The first thing was to send the Juheina back to join their fellows and
keep up a constant pressure on the Turkish communications with raids
and sniping. The Turks would have to leave so many men behind, strung
out in small garrisons, to guard their supplies, that by the time
they reached Yenbo the defenders would be stronger than themselves.
Yenbo was easy to defend by day at least; the town was on the top of
a flat coral reef twenty feet above the sea, surrounded on two sides
by water, and on the other two by a flat stretch of ♦sand without any
cover for the attackers. Guns were being landed from Boyle’s
ships, of which he had brought five, and the Arabs were delighted
with their size and number, and were much impressed by the fleet. All
day long the whole army worked hard under Garland’s direction at the
task of fortification, using the old town-wall as a rampart for the
Arabs to defend under the protection of the naval guns. Barbed-wire
entanglements were strung outside and machine-guns grouped in the
bastions of the wall. There was great excitement and confidence, and
nearly every one sat up all night. Lawrence himself was sound asleep on
one of the ships.
♦ “stand” replaced with “sand”
There was one alarm that night at about eleven o’clock. The Arab
outposts had met the Turks only three miles from the town. The garrison
was roused by a crier and every man took his place quietly on the wall
without a shout or a shot fired. The search-lights of the ships, which
were anchored close to the town, crossed and re-crossed over the plain.
But no further alarm was given and when dawn came it was found that
the Turks had turned back. They had been frightened, it was discovered
later, by the search-lights and the blaze of lighted ships crowding the
harbour, and by the silence of the usually noisy Arabs. Yenbo was saved.
A few days later Boyle dispersed his ships, promising to bring them
back at an hour’s notice to Yenbo if the Turks tried again. In one
of these ships Lawrence went down to Rabegh, where he met the French
Colonel. The Colonel was still trying to get a mixed British and French
brigade landed to help the Arabs, and tried to convert Lawrence to his
views. He said that so soon as Mecca was safe the Arabs ought not to
be encouraged to go on further with the war, which the Allies could
manage far better than they. His plan apparently was that if the
brigade were landed at Rabegh, the Arab tribes would suspect Hussein of
selling his province to the English and French and stop fighting for
him. This brigade would then be his main defence against the Turks,
and when the war against the Turks was won on the other battlefields,
Hussein could be confirmed as King of Mecca and Medina as a reward for
his loyalty. The Colonel’s general attitude seemed to be ‘We Allies
must stick together and outwit these Arabs who are savages not worth
the consideration of us Westerners.’
Lawrence thought that he saw the game. The Frenchman was afraid that
if the Revolt were carried farther north to Damascus, Aleppo, Mosul,
the Arabs might capture these cities from the Turks and keep them after
the War; and they were cities that France wanted to add to her colonial
empire. Moreover, in the Sykes-Picot Treaty, made between France,
England and Russia in 1916 for dividing up the Turkish Empire after the
War, the French had actually agreed that independent Arab governments,
though in the French ‘sphere of influence,’ should be established in
these cities if they were freed by the Arabs themselves—an event that
none of the signatories thought possible at the time; it was a matter
of form, merely, to suggest it. At the time Lawrence knew nothing of
this treaty, which was a secret one, but he suspected the Frenchman,
and he had no intention of letting the Arabs down for the sake of the
_Entente Cordiale_. The Colonel, hearing of Lawrence’s and Feisal’s
intention to continue with the plan of attacking Wejh that had been
interrupted by the Turkish advance, did his best to discourage it. On
his honour as a staff-officer (and he had a very distinguished record)
he said that it was suicide to make such a move; and gave many
reasons. Lawrence brushed him aside. He believed that the Arabs had a
chance now of a wide and lasting success, and Wejh was the first step.
The Turks meanwhile were being hard pressed by the Juheina who, split
up in small parties, made their lives wretched by constant raids,
sniping, and looting of supplies: and British seaplanes began bombing
their camp in the palm-groves of Nakhl Mubarak. They decided to
attack Rabegh. There Feisal’s brother Ali, who had now nearly seven
thousand men, was ready to advance against them, and Feisal and the
younger brother Zeid planned to move round inland behind the Turks
and take them in a trap. Feisal had difficulty with the Emir of the
Juheina, whom he asked to move forward with him; the Emir was jealous
of Feisal’s growing power with the tribes. But Feisal made them move
without their Emir. He then rode south to raise the Harb. All was
going well until he heard from Ali that his army had gone a little
way forward when, hearing false reports of treachery, it had rushed
back in disorder to Rabegh. Feisal could do nothing, he could not even
count for certain on the Harb, who might join the Turks if they got the
chance and whose territory ran down south of Rabegh.
Then Colonel Wilson, who was British representative in the province,
came up to Yenbo from Jiddah and begged Feisal to leave the Turks alone
and make the attack on Wejh. The plan was now to move up with the whole
Juheina fighting force and the regular battalions from Yenbo; the
British Fleet would give all the help it could. Feisal saw that Wejh
could be taken in this way, but Yenbo was left defenceless; he pointed
out that the Turks were still able to strike and that Ali’s army
seemed to have little fight in it, and might not even defend Rabegh,
which was the bulwark of Mecca. However, Colonel Wilson gave Feisal
his word that Rabegh would be kept safe with naval help until Wejh had
fallen, and Feisal accepted it. He saw that the attack on Wejh was the
best diversion that the Arabs could make to draw the Turks off Mecca,
and started at once; at the same time sending his brother Abdulla
machine-guns and stores and asking him to move to the impregnable hills
sixty miles north of Medina, Juheina territory, where his forces could
both threaten the railway and continue to hold up the eastern supply
caravans.
The Turks were still making for Rabegh, but very slowly, and with an
increasing sick list among the men and animals, due to overwork and
poor food. They were also losing an average of forty camels a day and
twenty men killed and wounded in raids by the Harb tribes in their
rear. They were eighty miles from Medina and, as Lawrence had foreseen,
each mile that they went forward made their lines of communication
more exposed to attack. Their pace got slower and slower till it was
no more than five miles a day, and on the eighteenth of January 1917
they withdrew, when still thirty miles from Rabegh. It was Feisal’s and
Abdulla’s new moves which finally recalled the expedition to Medina,
and for the next two years until the War ended and the Holy City
surrendered, the Turks were kept sitting helplessly in trenches outside
it, waiting for an attack which never came.
XI
On New Year’s Day 1917 Feisal and Lawrence, who was still rather a
foreign adviser than an actual fighter in the Arab cause, sat down
at Yenbo to consider the Wejh expedition. The army now consisted of
six thousand men, most of them mounted on their own camels. The first
fierce eagerness had left them but they had gained in staying power,
and the farther away they moved from their homes, the more regular
their military habits became. They still worked independently, by
tribes, only bound by goodwill to Feisal’s command, but when he came
by, they now at least fell into a ragged line and together made the bow
and sweep of the arm to the lips which was the Arab salute. They kept
their weapons in good enough order, though they did not oil them, and
looked after their camels properly. In mass they were not dangerous: in
fact their use in battle lessened as their numbers increased. A company
of trained Turks could defeat a thousand Arabs in open fighting, yet
three or four Arabs in their own hills could hold up a dozen Turks.
After the battle of the date-palms it was decided not to mix Egyptian
troops with Arabs. They did not go well together. The Arabs were apt
to let the Egyptians do more than their share of the fighting because
they looked so military; they would even wander away in the middle of a
battle and leave them to finish it. So the Egyptian gunners were sent
home (and went gladly), while their guns and equipment were handed over
to Rasim, Feisal’s own gunner, and to Feisal’s machine-gun officer; who
in their place formed Arab detachments mostly of Turk-trained Syrian
and Mesopotamian deserters. Maulud got together a force of fifty
mule-mounted men whom he called cavalry and, since they were townsmen
and not Bedouin, soon made regular soldiers of them. They were so
useful that Lawrence telegraphed to Egypt for fifty mules more.
Now although the Arabs were of less use in mass than in small groups,
it was necessary to make this march on Wejh a huge parade of tribes to
impress all Arabia. Feisal decided to take all the Juheina tribe and
add enough of the Harb, Billi, Ateiba and Ageyl to make it the biggest
expedition in Arab memory. It would be clear that the Revolt was now a
real national movement, and when Wejh was taken and the tribes returned
home with the news, there would be no more petty jealousies and
desertions of clans to hinder the campaign. Feisal and Lawrence did not
expect any hard fighting at Wejh because the Turks had no spare troops
to send to its defence or time to send them. It would take them weeks
to withdraw their Rabegh expedition—the hindering of which with Harb
help was now Zeid’s occupation—and if the Arab army could reach Wejh in
three weeks’ time, they would surely take it unprepared.
Lawrence was anxious to take part in a small raid on the Turks, just
to get the feel of it for future information, so on January the
second 1917 he set out with thirty-five tribesmen. They rode some
miles south-east until they came to a valley near the Turkish lines
of communication. Ten men stayed guarding the camels, while Lawrence
and the remaining twenty-five climbed over the sharp-edged crumbling
cliffs on the farther side of the valley to another valley, where a
Turkish post was known to be. There they waited shivering for hours
in the mist. When dawn came they saw the tips of a group of Turkish
bell-tents, three hundred yards below, just showing over a small
spur that lay between. They put bullets through these tent-tops, and
when the Turks rushed out to man their trenches, shot at them; but the
Turks ran so fast that probably few were hit. From the trenches the
Turks fired back wildly and rapidly in all directions as if signalling
for help to the nearest big Turkish garrison—there were garrisons
strung all along the road for eighty miles back. As the enemy was ten
times their number already, the raiders might soon have been cut off.
Lawrence decided to do no more: they crawled back over the hill to the
first valley, where they stumbled over two stray Turks and carried them
back to Yenbo as prisoners.
That morning the army started for Weih, first making for a group of
wells fifteen miles north of Yenbo. At their head rode Feisal dressed
in white, his cousin beside him on the right in a red headcloth and
reddish-yellow tunic and cloak, Lawrence on the left in white and
scarlet. Next came three standard-bearers carrying an Arab flag of
faded crimson silk with gilt spikes. Then the drummers playing a march,
then the wild mass of Feisal’s bodyguard, twelve hundred bouncing
well-fed camels, with coloured trappings, packed closely together,
their riders dressed in every possible combination of bright colours.
This bodyguard was of camel-men called the Ageyl. They were not a
desert tribe but a company of young peasants from the oasis country of
Central Arabia. They had signed on for a term of years first of all for
service with the Turkish Army but had soon gone over in a body when the
Revolt started. Having no blood enemies in the desert and being the
sons of desert traders they were most useful in the later campaign.
Beside the road were lined the rest of the army, tribe by tribe,
each man standing beside his couched camel waiting his turn to join
the procession. They saluted Feisal in silence, and Feisal cheerfully
called back ‘Peace be with you!’ and the head sheikhs returned the
phrase. The procession swelled, the broad column filled the valley in
length as far as the eye could see, and, the drums beating, every one
burst into a loud chant in praise of Feisal and his family.
Lawrence went back on his racing camel to Yenbo: he had to make sure
that the naval help for the attack on Wejh would be properly timed.
But first of all, feeling anxious about a possible Turkish attack on
deserted Yenbo, he got a big British vessel, the _Hardinge_, formerly
a troopship, to take on board all the principal stores of the town,
including eight thousand rifles, three million cartridges, thousands of
shells, two tons of high explosive, quantities of rice and flour. Boyle
promised to lend the _Hardinge_ as a supply ship for the force on its
way up the coast, landing food and water wherever needed. This solved
the chief problem, which was how to maintain ten thousand men with only
a small supply column; and, for the rest, Boyle promised that half the
Red Sea fleet would mass at Wejh; landing-parties were already being
trained.
The Billi tribesmen who lived about Wejh were friendly and knew
moreover that if they did not welcome Feisal’s army it would be the
worse for them, so it seemed certain now that Wejh would be taken.
Boyle promised to take on board the _Hardinge_ an Arab landing-party
of several hundred Harb and Juheina tribesmen. While this was being
settled Lawrence heard that the three regular British officers who had
been instructed to help Feisal direct the campaign were now on
their way from Egypt. One of these, Vickery, arrived first. He was an
artillery officer, with a good knowledge of Arabic; and what Lawrence
thought that the Arabs needed, a trained staff officer.
On the sixteenth of January Vickery, Boyle, Feisal, Maulud, Lawrence,
met in Feisal’s camp, now half-way to Wejh, to discuss the advance. It
was decided to break the army up into sections and send them forward
one after the other, because of the difficulty of watering a whole
army at the same time at the few wells or ponds on the line of march.
These sections should then meet on the twentieth of January at a place
fifty miles from Wejh where there was water, and make the last stage
together. Boyle agreed to land tanks of water two days later at a
small harbour only twelve miles from Wejh. On the twenty-third the
attack was to be made; the Arab landing-party would go ashore from
the _Hardinge_ north of the town while Feisal’s mounted men cut all
the roads of escape south and east. It all looked very promising and
there was no news from Yenbo that was not good. Abdulla was moving
up to his position north of Medina, and news came that he had just
captured a well-known Turkish agent, a former brigand, who was going
with bribes among the desert tribes, and was on his way to Yemen far
down in the south where a Turkish garrison was cut off. Abdulla took
with this man twenty thousand Turkish pounds in gold, robes of honour,
costly presents, some interesting papers and camel loads of rifles and
pistols. It was the greatest good fortune.
In the tent with Vickery and Boyle, Lawrence had forgotten his usual
calm and said that in a year the Arab army would be tapping on the
gates of Damascus. There was no response from Vickery, who was angered
at what he thought was a romantic boast that could only come from
a man like Lawrence who did not know his job as a soldier. Lawrence
was disappointed in Vickery, who was so much a soldier that he did not
realize what the Arab Revolt was. It was not like a war in which large
trained armies, with complicated modern equipment, manœuvre from town
to town, seeking each to destroy or cut off the other. It was more
like a general strike over an immense area. The only big army was the
Turkish and even that was not free to move about as it liked, because
of the difficulties of the country. Lawrence knew that his boast had
not been a vain one; five months later he was secretly in Damascus
arranging for the help of its townsmen when Feisal’s forces should
arrive to free them. And a year later he did in fact enter the city in
triumph and become temporary governor. Vickery had not seen that with
a grand alliance of Semites, an idea and an armed prophet, anything
might happen. Had Lawrence only had a sounder military training than
the casual reading of military history for his degree at Oxford (and in
his teens the occasional captaincy of a non-militaristic Church Lads’
Brigade when his brother needed a substitute!) and if now he had been
given a free hand, it would have been Constantinople and not Damascus
that the Arabs should have reached. The conflict between Vickery and
Lawrence, however, was not as between two British military advisers
with different views. It was really as between a British military
adviser and a white Arab; for though it was not quite clear yet to
himself, this was what Lawrence was becoming.
The next morning there was trouble with the second batch of fifty
mules which had arrived for Maulud and was landed by the _Hardinge_
along with the other stores. The mules were sent without halters,
bridles or saddles, and once ashore stampeded into the little town near
by, where they took possession of the market-place and began bucking
among the stalls. Fortunately among the stores taken for safety from
Yenbo were spare ropes and bits, so that after an exciting tussle the
mules were captured and tamed. The shops were reopened and the damage
paid for.
Lawrence remained with Feisal’s army for the rest of the advance. From
this half-way halt they started on January the eighteenth at midday.
The Ageyl rode spread out in wings for two or three hundred yards to
the right and left of Feisal’s party. Soon there came then a warning
patter of drums from the right wing—it was the custom to set the poets
and musicians on the wings—and a poet began to sing two rhyming lines
which he had just invented, about Feisal and the pleasures that he
would provide for the army at Wejh. The men with him listened carefully
and took up the verse in chorus, repeating it three times with pride
and satisfaction and challenge. Before they could sing it a fourth
time, the rival poet of the left wing capped it with a rhyme in the
same metre and sentiment. The left cheered with a roar of triumph, then
the drums tapped again, the standard-bearers spread out their great
crimson banners, and the whole bodyguard right, left and centre broke
simultaneously into the Ageyl marching song. The Ageyl sang of their
own towns left behind and the women whom they might never see again,
and of the great perils ahead of them. The camels loved the rhythm
of the song and quickened their pace, while it lasted, over the long
desolate sand-dunes between mountains and sea.
Two horsemen came riding after them. Lawrence knew one of these as
the Emir of the Juheina, the other he could not make out. But
soon he recognized the red face, strong mouth and staring eyes of his
old friend Colonel Newcombe of the Sinai surveying party, who was
now come here as the chief British military adviser to the Arabs.
Newcombe quickly became friendly with Feisal, and the rest of the
journey was made even happier by his enthusiasm. Lawrence, comparing
notes with him, was glad to find that they both had the same general
views. The march was uneventful. Water was the one problem, and though
water-scouts went ahead to find what they could, the advance was
delayed by its scarcity, so that it was clear that Feisal would be two
days late for the rendezvous with the _Hardinge_ on the twenty-second.
Newcombe rode ahead on a fast camel to ask the _Hardinge_ to come again
with its water-tanks on the twenty-fourth, and to delay the naval
attack if possible until the twenty-fifth.
Many helpers joined Feisal during his advance; the Billi chiefs met
him at their tribal boundary, and later Nasir rode up, the brother of
the Emir of Medina. His family was respected in Arabia only second to
the Sherifs of Mecca, being also descended from the Prophet but from
the younger son of Mohammed’s only daughter. Nasir was the forerunner
of Feisal’s movement; he had fired the first shot at Medina and was to
fire the last shot beyond Aleppo, a thousand miles north, on the day
that the Turks asked for an armistice. He was a sensitive, pleasant
young man who loved gardens better than the desert and had been forced
unwillingly into fighting since boyhood. He had been here blockading
Wejh from the desert for the last two months. He and Feisal were close
friends. His news was that the Turkish camel-corps outpost barring the
advance had been withdrawn that day to a position nearer to the town.
The last three days of the advance were painful; the animals were
without food for nearly three days, and the men came the last fifty
miles on half a gallon of water and with nothing to eat: many of them
were on foot. The _Hardinge_ was at the rendezvous on the twenty-fourth
and landed the water promised; but this did not go far. The mules were
allowed first drink, and what little was left was given to the more
thirsty of the foot-men. Crowds of suffering Arabs waited all that
night at the water-tanks, in the rays of the search-lights, hoping for
another drink if the sailors came again. But the sea was too rough for
the ship’s boat to make another trip.
From the _Hardinge_ Lawrence heard that the attack on Wejh had already
been made the day before; for Boyle was afraid that the Turks would run
away if he waited. As a matter of fact the Turkish Governor had already
addressed the garrison saying that Wejh must be held to the last drop
of blood: after his speech he had got up on his camel and ridden off in
the darkness with the few mounted men whom he had with him, making for
the railway a hundred and fifty miles inland across the mountains. The
two hundred Turkish infantry left behind decided to follow his orders
rather than his example, but they were outnumbered three to one and the
fleet shelled them heavily. The landing was made by the sailors and the
Arab force, and Wejh was taken. But the _Hardinge_ had come away before
the end, so the advancing force could not be sure whether it would find
the town still in Turkish hands.
At dawn on the twenty-fifth the leading tribes halted at a spot a few
miles from the town and waited for the others to come up. Various
small scattered parties of Turks were met; most surrendered, only
one put up a short fight. When they reached the ridge behind which
Wejh lay, the Ageyl bodyguard dismounted, stripping off all their
clothes except their cotton drawers, and advanced to the attack: their
nakedness was protection against bullet wounds, which would strike
cleaner this way. They advanced company by ♦company, at the run, and
in good order with an interval of four or five yards between each man.
There was no shouting. Soon they reached the ridge-top without a shot
fired. So Lawrence watching knew that the fighting was over.
♦ “comany” replaced with “company”
The Arab landing-party was in possession of the town, and Vickery,
who had directed the battle, was satisfied. But when Lawrence found
that twenty Arabs and a British flying officer had been killed, he was
not at all pleased. He considered the fighting unnecessary; the Turks
would soon have had to surrender for want of food if the town had been
surrounded, and the killing of dozens of Turks did not make up for the
loss of a single Arab. The Arabs were not pressed men accustomed to
be treated as cannon-fodder like most regular soldiers. The Arab army
was composed rather of individuals, and its losses were not reckoned
merely by arithmetic. And because kinship is so strong a force in the
desert, twenty men killed meant a far wider range of mourning than a
thousand names in an European casualty list. Moreover, the ships’ guns
had smashed up the town badly, which was a great loss to the Arabs, who
needed it as a base for their future attacks inland on the railway. The
town’s boats and barges, too, had been sunk, so the landing of stores
was a difficulty, and all the shops and houses had been looted by the
Arab landing-party as a compensation for their losses. The townsmen
were mostly Egyptians who could not make up their minds in time to
join the Arab cause.
Still, Wejh was taken, the coast was cleared of Turks, and the march
had been a great advertisement. Abd el Kerim of the Juheina who had
come to Lawrence a week before to beg for a mule to ride, and had
been put off with the promise ‘when Wejh is taken,’ had said almost
regretfully, ‘We Arabs are a nation now’; the regret was for the good
old days of tribal wars and raids which now were at an end. Feisal had
very luckily stopped a private war between the Juheina and Billi just
in time; the Juheina, seeing some camels grazing, had of old habit
ridden out and driven them off. Feisal was furious and shouted to them
to stop, but they were too excited to hear. He snatched his rifle and
shot at the nearest man, who tumbled off his camel in fear; then the
others checked their course. Feisal had the men up before him, beat the
leaders with a camel-stick and restored the camels to the Billi. More
than a nation the Arab army seemed to some of the tribesmen. ‘The whole
world is moving up to Wejh,’ said one old man.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of large troop of people on camels
caption: FEISAL’S ARMY ENTERING WEJH
_Copyright_
]
The success at Wejh stirred the British in Egypt to realize suddenly
the value of the Revolt: the Commander-in-Chief remembered that there
were more Turks fighting the Arabs than were fighting him. Gold,
rifles, mules, more machine-guns and mountain-guns were promised: and
in time sent, all except the mountain-guns, which were the most urgent
need of all. Field-guns were no use because of the hilly roadless
country of Western Arabia, but the British Army could, it seemed,
spare no mountain-guns except a sort that fired only ten-pound shells,
useless except against bows and arrows. It was maddening that the Turks
should always be able to outrange the Arabs by three or four
thousand yards. The French Colonel had some excellent mountain-guns at
Suez with Algerian gunners, but would not send them unless an Allied
brigade was landed at Rabegh to take over the conduct of the war from
the Arabs. These guns were kept at Suez for a year; but then the French
Colonel was recalled and his successor sent them; with their help the
final victory was made possible. Meanwhile a great deal of harm was
done to the reputation of the French, for every Arab officer passing
through Suez on his way to Egypt or back saw these idle guns as a proof
of French hostility to the Revolt.
But while the news of the taking of Wejh was still fresh, the French
Colonel called on Lawrence at Cairo to congratulate him; he said that
the success confirmed his opinion of Lawrence’s military talent and
encouraged him to expect help in extending the success. He wanted to
occupy Akaba with an Anglo-French force and naval help. Akaba was the
port at the very extreme point of the Red Sea on the opposite side
of the Sinai peninsula from Suez, and a brigade landed there might
advance eighty miles inland towards Maan. Maan was an important town
on the pilgrims’ railway about two hundred miles south of Damascus,
and on the left flank of the Turkish army opposing the British on the
borders of Palestine. Lawrence, who knew Akaba from his surveying days
in the winter of 1913, told the Colonel that the scheme was impossible,
because, though Akaba itself could be taken, the granite mountains
behind it could be held by the Turks against any expedition trying to
force the passes. The best thing was for Bedouin Arabs to take it from
behind without naval help.
Lawrence suspected that the Colonel wanted to put this Anglo-French
force in as a screen between the Arabs and Damascus, to keep
them in Arabia wasting themselves in an attack on Medina. He
himself, on the other hand, wanted to take them into Damascus and
beyond. Both men knew what the other’s intention was, but there was
a natural concealment of the real issue. At last the Colonel, rather
unwisely, told Lawrence that he was going to Wejh to talk to Feisal,
and Lawrence, who had not warned Feisal about French policy, decided to
go too. By hurrying he was able to get there first and also to see and
warn Newcombe.
When the Colonel arrived at Wejh eight days after Lawrence, he began
by presenting Feisal with six Hotchkiss automatic guns complete
with instructors. This was a noble gift, but Feisal asked for the
quick-firing mountain-guns at Suez. The Frenchman put him off by saying
that guns were no real use in Arabia; the thing to do was for the Arabs
to climb about the country like goats and tear up the railway. Feisal
was annoyed by the ‘goats,’ which is an insult in Arabic, and asked the
Colonel if he had ever tried to ‘goat’ himself. The Colonel spoke of
Akaba, and Feisal, who had had Lawrence’s account of the geography of
the place, told him that it was asking too much of the British to get
them to risk heavy losses over such an expedition. The Colonel, annoyed
by Lawrence’s Oriental smile where he sat in a corner, pointedly
asked Feisal to beg the British at least to spare the armoured cars
which were at Suez. Lawrence smiled again and said that they had
already started. Then the Colonel went away, defeated, and Lawrence
returned to Cairo, where he begged the Commander-in-Chief not to send
the brigade that was already waiting to be sent to Akaba. The
Commander-in-Chief was delighted to find that this ‘side-show,’ too,
was unnecessary.
Back again in Wejh a few days later Lawrence began hardening himself
for his coming campaign, tramping barefoot over the coral or
burning-hot sand. The Arabs wondered why he did not ride a horse, like
every other important man. Feisal was busy with politics, winning over
new tribes to the cause, keeping his father at Mecca in good humour,
and his brothers in their places. He had to put down a small mutiny:
the Ageyl had risen against their commander for fining and flogging
them too heavily. They looted his tent and beat his servants, and then
getting more excited remembered a grudge that they had against the
Ateiba tribe and went off to do some killing. Feisal saw their torches
and rushed to stop them, beating at them with the flat of his sword;
his slaves followed. They subdued the Ageyl at last, but only by firing
rockets from pistols among them, which set fire to their robes and
frightened them. Only two men were killed; thirty were wounded. The
commander of the Ageyl then resigned and there was no more trouble.
A wireless signalling set was mounted at Wejh by the Navy, and the
two armoured cars from Suez arrived. They had just been released from
the campaign in East Africa. The Arabs were delighted with the cars
and with the motor-bicycles that were sent with them. They called
the motor-bicycles ‘devil horses,’ the children of the cars, which
were themselves the sons and daughters of the trains on the pilgrims’
railway. About this time came Jaafar, a Mesopotamian Arab from Bagdad,
whom Feisal at once made commander-in-chief of the regular Arab forces
under him. Jaafar had been in the Turkish army and had fought
well against the British. He had been chosen by Enver to organize the
Senussi tribes in the desert west of Egypt, and going by submarine had
made the wild men into a good fighting force. The British captured
him at last and he was imprisoned at Cairo. He tried to escape one
night from the Citadel there, slipping down a blanket rope, but
fell, hurt his leg, and was recaptured. Later in hospital he read a
newspaper account of the Sherif’s Revolt and of the executions of Arab
nationalists in Syria; he suddenly realized that he had been fighting
on the wrong side.
Feisal’s politics were going well. The Billi tribe and the Moahib
joined him and the Howeitat and Beni Atiyeh beyond, so that he now
had control of the whole country between the railway and the sea from
a point a hundred and fifty miles north of Wejh right down to Mecca.
Beyond the Howeitat and Beni Atiyeh, to the north, and spreading over
the wide gravel and lava desert to the borders of Mesopotamia lived
the powerful Ruwalla tribe, whose Emir Nuri was one of the four great
Arabian princes, the others being Ibn Saud of Nejd in the central
oases, the Emir of Jebel Shammar, and the Sherif of Mecca. Nuri was a
hard old man whose word was law and who could not be either bullied
or coaxed; he had won his supremacy by the murder of two brothers.
Fortunately he had been on good terms with Feisal for years, and
Feisal’s messengers going to him to ask permission for the Arab army
to pass through Ruwalla territory met Nuri’s messengers already on the
way with a valuable gift of baggage camels for Feisal. Nuri could not
give armed help at present because if the Turks suspected him they
would half-starve his tribesmen in three months; but Feisal could
count on him, when the right time came, for armed help too. It
was most important to have Nuri friendly because he controlled Sirhan,
the one great chain of camping-grounds and water-holes across the
northern desert to the Syrian border, where lived the famous tribe,
the Howeitat. One Howeitat clan, the Abu Tayi, was ruled by Auda, the
greatest fighting man in Northern Arabia; and to get in touch with
Auda had been Feisal’s and Lawrence’s ambition for months. With Auda
friendly it should be possible to win over all the tribes between Maan
and Akaba, and then, after taking Akaba, to carry revolt farther north
still behind the Turkish lines in Syria. And Auda did prove friendly;
his cousin came in with presents on the seventeenth of February 1917,
and the same day arrived a chief of another Howeitat clan that was
settled near Maan. Further arrivals that day were Sherarat tribesmen
from the desert between Wejh and the railway with a gift of ostrich
eggs, Nuri’s son with the gift of a mare, and the chief of another
Howeitat clan from the coast south of Akaba. This last chief brought
Feisal the spoils of the two Turkish posts on the Red Sea which he had
just taken.
The roads to Wejh swarmed with messengers and volunteers and great
sheikhs riding in to swear allegiance, and the Billi, who had hitherto
only been lukewarm in the cause, caught the enthusiasm of the rest.
Feisal’s way of swearing in new converts was to hold the Koran between
his hands, which they kissed and promised ‘We shall wait while you wait
and march when you march. We shall yield obedience to no Turk. We shall
deal kindly with all who speak Arabic whether Arabians, Mesopotamians,
Syrians or others. We shall put Arab independence above life, family
or goods.’ When the chiefs came to Feisal it happened sometimes
that blood-enemies met in his presence, when he would gravely introduce
them and later act as peacemaker, striking a balance of profit and loss
between them. He would even help things on by contributing from his own
purse for the benefit of the tribe that had suffered most loss. For two
years this peace-making was Feisal’s daily task, the combining of the
thousands of hostile forces in Arabia against a common enemy. There was
no feud left alive in the districts through which he passed, and no one
ever questioned his justice. He was recognized as a power above tribal
jealousies and quarrels, and finally gained authority over the Bedouin
from Medina in the south to a point far beyond Damascus.
XII
Early in March information came to Lawrence from Egypt that Enver
the Turkish Commander-in-Chief had ordered the Turks to leave Medina
at once. The message had been intercepted on the pilgrims’ railway,
where Newcombe and Garland were already busy with Arab help blowing up
bridges and tearing up the rails. The Turks were ordered to march out
in mass along the line with railway trains enclosed in their columns;
they were to go for four hundred miles north to a station (Tebuk)
below Maan where they would form a strong left flank to the army
facing the British. As the Turks in Medina were a whole Army-Corps of
the best Anatolian troops with a great deal of artillery, the British
were anxious to keep them away. So Feisal was therefore begged (and
Lawrence instructed) either to take Medina at once or to destroy the
garrison on its way up the line. Feisal replied that he would do his
best, though the Turkish message was days old and the move was already
timed to begin. Feisal’s forces were, at the moment, all moving forward
to harry the railway inland from Weih along a length of a hundred and
fifty miles; so that the second part of the demand from Egypt was being
met. If it was not too late to catch the Turks coming out it might
be possible to destroy the whole force. The Arabs would damage the
railway line until it was too hopelessly broken for the store trains to
pass, and the Turks would therefore be without supplies to take them
farther. When they turned back they would find the line broken behind
them too. Lawrence himself decided to go to Abdulla, who had now moved
to a position just north-west of Medina, to find out whether it was
possible, if the Turks were still in Medina, to attack them there.
When he started he was very weak with dysentery brought on by drinking
the bad water at Wejh: he had a high temperature and also boils on
his back which made camel-riding painful. With a party of thirteen
men, of various tribes, including four Ageyl and a Moor, he set out
at dawn through the granite mountains on his hundred and-fifty-mile
ride. He had two fainting fits on the way and could hardly keep in the
saddle. At one point on the journey the ill-assorted party began to
quarrel and the Moor treacherously murdered one of the Ageyl. A hurried
court-martial was held and the Moor was privately executed, with
general consent, by a member of the party who had no kin for the other
Moors in Feisal’s army to start a blood-feud against.
One can well imagine Lawrence’s loneliness on this ride. He was no
longer merely a British officer; his enthusiasm for the Revolt on its
own account had cut him off from that. Nor was he a genuine Arab, as
his tribelessness reminded him only too strongly. He hovered somewhere
midway between the one thing and the other like Mohammed’s coffin in
the fable. More immediately disturbing was the possibility of being
too ill to ride further, and so of falling into the hands of desert
tribesmen whose idea of medicine was to burn holes in the patient’s
body to let the evil spirits out: when the patient screamed they would
say that it was the devil in him protesting. Eventually he reached
Abdulla’s camp just in time to stave off the collapse. He gave Abdulla
Feisal’s message and then went off to lie in a tent where his weakness
kept him helpless for the next ten days.
This forced idleness had important results: though his body was
weak, his brain cleared and he began to think about the Arab Revolt
more carefully than he had yet done. It was something to do to keep his
mind off his physical condition. Hitherto he had acted from instinct,
never looking more than a step or two ahead at a time: now he could
exercise his reason. He remembered the military writers whose works he
had read at Oxford: he had not been required by his tutors to become
acquainted with any campaigns later than Napoleon’s, but he had, it
seems, out of curiosity read most of the more modern military writers,
such as the great Clausewitz, and von Moltke and the recent Frenchmen,
including Foch (whose _Principes de la Guerre_ had impressed him much
until he found that Foch had, without acknowledgment, lifted many of
his chief principles from an Austrian report on the 1866 campaign).
He began by recalling the main principle on which all these writers
agreed, that wars were won by destroying the enemy’s main army in
battle. But somehow it would not fit the Arab campaign; and this
worried him.
He began to ask himself why they were bothering to attack Medina. What
was the good of it to the Arabs if they captured it? It was no longer
a threat as it had been when there were troops in it to spare for the
attack on Mecca. It was no use as a base or a store-house. The Turks
in it were powerless to harm the Arabs, and were now eating their own
transport animals which they could no longer feed. Why not let them
keep the town? Why do more than continue to blockade it? What of the
railway, which used up a vast quantity of men in guard posts all down
the line and yet was too long to be properly defended? Why not be
content with frequent raids on it, between guard posts, blowing up
trains and bridges, and yet allowing it to be just—only just—kept
in working order, so that it would be a continual drain on the Turks to
the north to keep it going and to feed the troops in Medina? To cut it
permanently would be a mistake. The surrender of Medina would mean that
the captured Turks would have to be fed, many of the troops guarding
the railway would make their way back north, and the drain on the Turks
of men and trains and food would stop. The Allied cause would, in fact,
be best served by attracting and keeping as many Turkish troops as
possible in this unimportant theatre of war, and by using as many Arabs
as possible in the important theatre of war, which was Palestine.
When Lawrence got better, therefore, and left his stinking, fly-swarmed
tent he did not urge Abdulla to attack Medina but suggested a series
of pin-pricking raids against the railway, offering to set an example
in these himself. Abdulla was more a politician than a man of action
and more interested in field sports and practical joking than in
generalship. However, he permitted Sherif Shakir, his picturesque
half-Bedouin cousin, to make a raid against the nearest station on the
railway, a hundred miles away, with a party of Ateiba tribesmen and one
of the mountain-guns which the Egyptian gunners had left with Feisal
and which Feisal had lately sent to Abdulla as a present. Lawrence,
convalescent, went with Shakir, and, on the twenty-seventh of March,
laid his first mine, an automatic one, on the railway. Because it was
his first it was not very successful. He caught the front wheel of
a train all right, but the charge was not big enough to do serious
damage. Nor did Shakir succeed in his raid beyond killing a score
of Turks, damaging the water-tower and station buildings with his
gun, and setting a few wagons on fire; there was, that is to say, no
looting. The chief dramatic interest of the raid seems to have
centred round a shepherd boy who was captured by the Arabs and tied up
while his sheep, Turkish property, were eaten before his unhappy eyes.
However, Lawrence went again a day or two later with a party of Juheina
to experiment further in automatic mines: he was fortunate enough to
have a preliminary failure. A long train from Medina, full of women
and children, ‘useless mouths’ whom the Turks could not feed and so
were sending up to Syria, passed over the mine without exploding it.
There had been a cloudburst the day before, in which Lawrence and his
men had been caught, and the mechanism, owing probably to the slight
sinking of the ground after the rain, was not in touch with the rails.
He adjusted this when night came and, blowing up a few rails and a
small bridge to explain plausibly to the Turks (who had seen them and
were firing and blowing bugles all down the line) what he and the
tribesmen were about, went away and left the mine behind. It caught
the expected repair-train. Most of this story, the episodes of the two
months, March and April 1917, which are left blank in _Revolt in the
Desert_, are accessible, in greater detail, to inquisitive readers.
The _World’s Work_ magazine published them as an article in America in
1921. The fees for this contribution and three others following went
not to Lawrence but to keep a poet, who had lost money in an attempt to
start a grocery-shop, from the bankruptcy court. Lawrence took great
care, for some reason, not to let them appear in England; and as I was
the poet, and this book has the same text for England and America, the
details will not be given by me now.
The fruits of Lawrence’s visit to Abdulla, measured in action, were
small. Abdulla did not have his brother Feisal’s energy and
military keenness, and had been allotted an unattractive part in the
campaign, the blockade of Medina, which encouraged the inactive side
of his character. (The siege of the city was never pressed and dragged
on until after the Armistice in October 1918 when the commander,
Fakhri Pasha, was given orders from Constantinople to hand Medina over
to the Arab forces; and did so, compelled by a mutiny of his chief
staff-officers.) But, apart from action, Lawrence’s visit to Abdulla
was of considerable importance; it marked a turning-point in the Arab
campaign. His fortnight’s solitary thinking in that tent gave him
convictions: he decided on the tactics and strategy necessary if his
party were to achieve that success in the north which he regarded as
essential to justify the Arab Revolt. We find him acting hereafter
with great deliberation and confidence, in striking contrast to his
previous hesitating attitude as adviser to Feisal in the Yenbo and Wejh
operations. He had been right before, but more or less by luck.
On April the tenth Lawrence returned to Wejh by leisurely stages.
Abdulla had been very hospitable, but Lawrence preferred the atmosphere
of Feisal’s camp, where there was a more energetic spirit and a
determination to win the war with as little Allied help as possible. A
good way farther north on the railway than he had laid his mines there
were now two parties doing demolitions (Garland’s and Newcombe’s, and
Hornby’s), but the Turks would find it just a shade less difficult to
keep the railway going between Damascus and Medina than to arrange for
the long and dangerous march-out of the Medina garrison. At Wejh he
found things going on well. More armoured cars had come from Egypt, and
Yenbo and Rabegh had been emptied of their stores and men as a
proof that the Revolt was now safe in the south and was moving north.
The aeroplanes under Major Ross were here and also a new machine-gun
company of amusing history. When Yenbo was abandoned there were left
behind some heaps of broken weapons and two English armourer-sergeants.
Also thirty sick and wounded Arabs. The armourer-sergeants,
finding things boring, had dosed and healed the men and mended the
machine-guns, and combined them into a company. The sergeants knew no
Arabic but trained the men so well by dumb-show that they were as good
as the best company in the Arab army.
XIII
Lawrence was about to withdraw from Feisal’s tent at Wejh after the
exchange of news and greetings, when there was a stir of excitement. A
messenger came in and whispered to Feisal. Feisal turned to Lawrence
with shining eyes, trying to be calm, and said: ‘Auda is here.’ The
tent-flap was drawn back, and a deep voice boomed out salutations to
‘Our Lord, the Commander of the Faithful,’ then entered a tall strong
figure, with a haggard face, passionate and tragic. It was Auda; and
with him Mohammed, his only surviving son, a boy of eleven years old,
already a fighting man. Feisal had sprung to his feet, an honour not
due to Auda on account of his rank, for nobler chiefs had been received
sitting, but because he was Auda, the greatest fighting man in Arabia.
Auda caught Feisal’s hand and kissed it; then they drew aside a pace
or two and looked at each other, a splendidly unlike pair, Feisal the
prophet, and Auda the warrior, each true to his type. They had an
immediate understanding and liking for each other at this first meeting.
[Illustration:
description: Portrait drawing 3⁄4 view chest up of a man in Arab
dress
caption: AUDA
_from a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
]
Auda was simply dressed in white cotton robes and a red headcloth.
He looked over fifty and his black hair was streaked with white: yet
he was straight and vigorous, and as active as a much younger man.
His hospitality was such that only very hungry guests did not find it
inconvenient; his generosity kept him poor in spite of the profits
of a hundred raids. He had married twenty-eight times, and had been
wounded thirteen times. He had killed seventy-five men with his own
hand in battle and never a man except in battle. These were all Arabs;
Turks he did not count and could not guess at the score. Nearly all his
family and kin had been killed in the wars which he had provoked.
He made a point of being at enmity with nearly all the tribes of the
desert so that he might have proper scope for raids, which he made as
often as possible. There was always an element of foresight in his
maddest adventures, and his patience in battle was great. If he got
angry his face would twitch uncontrollably and he would burst into a
fit of shaking passion which could only be calmed by battle: at such
times he was like a wild beast and men fled from his presence. Nothing
on earth could make him change his mind or obey an order or do anything
of which he disapproved. He saw life as an epic in which he took a
leading part, though indeed he believed his ancestors even mightier men
than himself. His mind was stored with old ballads of battle, and he
was always singing them in his great voice to the nearest listener or
to the empty air. He spoke of himself in the third person and was so
sure of his fame that he would even shout out stories against himself.
He had a demon of mischief worse even than Lawrence’s and in public
gatherings would say the most reckless or tactless things that he could
find to say: more than that, he would invent and utter on oath dreadful
tales of the private life of his hosts or guests. Yet even those whom
he most embarrassed loved him warmly; for he was modest, simple as a
child, honest, kind-hearted.
I heard the following story from a friend who was present at a state
banquet given after the War at Maan in Transjordania when Sir Herbert
Samuel, who had just been made High Commissioner of Palestine, was
introduced to all the great chiefs of the district. Sir Herbert,
somewhat shaken by an attempt that had just been made on his
life, was glad of Lawrence’s chance presence as interpreter. In his
speech he trusted that the great chief Auda (turning towards him) was
pleased with the settlement of the Turkish empire and hoped that a long
reign of peace had begun in the East. Lawrence translated this into
Arabic, and Auda burst out violently in answer, ‘What peace so long as
the French are in Syria, the English in Mesopotamia, and the Jews in
Palestine?’ Lawrence, with equal mischief, translated this literally
into English, without turning a hair. Fortunately Sir Herbert was
content to answer with a smile.
Auda had come down to Wejh chafing at the delay of the campaign,
anxious only to spread the bounds of Arab freedom to his own desert
lands. The weight of anxiety was off the minds of Feisal and Lawrence
before even they sat down to supper. It was a cheerful meal but
suddenly interrupted by Auda, who leaped up with a loud ‘God forbid!’
and ran from the tent. A loud hammering was heard outside and the rest
of the company stared at each other. It was Auda pounding his false
teeth to fragments on a stone. I had forgotten, he explained, that
Jemal Pasha (the Turkish commander in Syria who had hanged so many of
the Arab leaders) ‘gave me these. I was eating my Lord Feisal’s bread
with Turkish teeth!’ As a result Auda, having few teeth of his own,
went about half-nourished for two months until a dentist was sent from
Egypt to make him an Allied set.
Auda and Lawrence liked each other at first sight. The irony of their
friendship has never been properly appreciated. From his schooldays
onward, the greater part of Lawrence’s imaginative life seems to have
been lived in the mediæval romances of Frankish and Norman chivalry.
This was not a light passing romanticism, for Lawrence’s
Irish-Hebridean blood would not allow such a thing: light romanticism
is an English trait. It was, as I have said, an incurable romanticism
which is at times not to be distinguished from realism. An English
schoolboy is content to play for awhile at being a knight of the Round
Table out of the _Idylls of the King_, or a jousting baron out of
_Ivanhoe_; but later to dismiss the game as a stupidity and take to
football, cigarette-smoking and the appreciation of cinema-actresses.
Lawrence did nothing of the sort. Instead he went behind Tennyson’s
Victorian sentimentality to the bolder and finer _Morte D’Arthur_
of Malory; nor was he content to play at being a knight of the Holy
Grail without binding himself, for the sake of personal efficiency,
to the same rules of chastity and temperance and gentleness that
Malory’s Galahad had kept; he certainly kept and keeps a knightly sense
of honour as strictly as a Geraint, or a Walter de Manny. He went
behind Scott’s false mediævalism in search of the real mediævalism;
made an intense study of ancient armour and cathedrals and castles;
read old French, studied the Crusades in the Holy Land itself. As
an undergraduate he told a friend that in his opinion the world had
virtually come to an end in 1500, destroyed by gunpowder and cheap
printing. Lawrence so logically pursued his romantic career, which
began by putting his nose between the pages of Scott and Tennyson, and
then between those of Morris and Malory, and then between those of the
original mediæval French and Latin romances, that at last he forced his
whole head and shoulders and body between the pages of an epic in the
making, and in the first book met Feisal, and in the second Auda.
This would have been all very well if Lawrence’s mediævalism had
been natural as Auda’s was, the Middle Ages being not yet over in
Arabia when he was born. But in his struggle against the forces of
false romanticism, to avoid becoming a second Don Quixote, Lawrence
had to arm himself with a careful twentieth-century scepticism which
he continually used in test of his behaviour; true mediævalism was
often cynical, never sceptical. It is, therefore, interesting to note
that he carried three books with him throughout the Arabian campaign.
The first was Malory’s _Morte D’Arthur_; but the second was the
comedies of Aristophanes, whose laughing scepticism, especially in
his anti-militaristic _Lysistrata_, provides a fine antidote to false
romanticism.
His choice of a third book was equally interesting—the _Oxford Book of
English Verse_, a collection which, in my opinion, gives the poetry
it contains too strong an atmosphere of literary artistry. Perhaps I
should have added to my portrait of Lawrence that his blind desire to
be a literary artist is the more to be wondered at because he might
well be something better than a mere artist. Artistic writing comes
from a competitive literary atmosphere and should be the last thing
on earth for Lawrence to aim at; the pursuit of ‘style’ is a social
practice of the vulgarest sort. Lawrence may be excused for carrying
this anthology (which is no worse than most other anthologies and
weighs little when printed on India paper) if he chose it merely as a
mixed potpourri of the English poets, faintly recalling the true smell
of each individual. But I do not believe that this was the case; for a
straining after literary artistry is one of his characteristics. The
justification of the literary epic that came out of this adventure, his
_Seven Pillars_, is that where the pursuit of style is forgotten in
the excitement of story-telling there is clean and beautiful writing,
and that where it is not forgotten one feels that Lawrence is
admitting an unfortunate taint, the suppression of which would be
a suppression of part of the truth about himself. He has, in fact,
only been able to keep his integrity by confessing to an occasional
weakness. But of this more later. The influence of the _Oxford Book of
English Verse_ on his feelings and actions during the campaign would be
well worth studying. The copy survives with marginal annotations, many
of these dated.
At all events, Auda accepted Lawrence as a fellow-mediævalist (the
shadow of the Crusades happily not falling between them) and Lawrence
was content in his company and went through the next book of the epical
romance with only occasional critical doubts about himself. There was
need for true epic action if Akaba was to be taken, for it was a feat
beyond the scope of unheroic twentieth-century soldiering. So the two
took counsel together for a journey northward to catch Auda’s Howeitat
in their spring pastures of the Syrian desert: they would raise a
camel-corps there and take Akaba by surprise from the east without guns
or machine-guns. This would mean an encircling march of six hundred
miles to capture a position which was within gun-fire of the British
Fleet—which indeed was raiding the port at the moment. Yet the longest
way was the only way; for Akaba was so strongly protected by the hills,
elaborately fortified for miles back, that if a landing were attempted
from the sea a small Turkish force could hold up a whole Allied
division in the defiles. On the other hand, the Turks had never thought
of facing their fortifications east against attack from inland. Auda’s
men could probably rush them easily with help of neighbouring clans
of Howeitat from the coast and in the hills. The importance of
Akaba was great. It was a constant threat to the British Army which had
now reached the Gaza-Beersheba line and therefore left it behind the
right flank: a small Turkish force from Akaba could do great damage
and might even strike at Suez. But Lawrence saw that the Arabs needed
Akaba as much and more than the British. If they took it, they could
link up with the British Army at Beersheba, and show by their presence
that they were a real national army, one to be reckoned with. Nothing
but actual contact could ever convince the British that the Arabs were
really worth considering as allies, and once the contact was made,
there would be no more difficulty about guns, money and equipment:
the Arab campaign would no longer be a side-show but part of the main
battle, and the British would feed it properly.
Lawrence discussed with the British officers at Wejh, Feisal’s
advisers, the tactics that had occurred to him while he was lying
sick in Abdulla’s camp. It must always be remembered that Lawrence,
though the Englishman most respected by the Arabs, was not the only one
fighting in Arabia, and, more than that, was not even a senior officer.
On this occasion his views were disregarded. It had been decided some
weeks before, chiefly on Lawrence’s impulse, to march the whole force
inland from Wejh and occupy a large stretch of the pilgrims’ railway
with mixed Egyptian and Arab troops; all arrangements had been made
and it was hoped that Medina would soon surrender. But Lawrence had
changed his mind: he now argued, against this scheme, that it had been
found bad policy to mix Egyptians and Arabs, that the Arabs could
not be trusted to attack or defend a line or a point against regular
troops, that the country which they proposed to hold was barren, and
that to force the Turks to waste men and arms and food in holding
Medina and the railway line would harm them more than any military
defeat that could be inflicted on them. However, plans were already
too far advanced, and Lawrence could do nothing to sidetrack the
expedition. He decided to go off on his own to take Akaba and to ask
his seniors for no help in arms or stores that would in any way weaken
their own expedition.
Feisal was his stand-by (Feisal thought and planned and worked for
every one) and gave him twenty-two thousand pounds in gold from his own
purse to pay the wages of the party and of all the new men enrolled
during the journey. Sherif Nasir, usual leader of forlorn hopes, was
in command. Seventeen Ageyl went as escort, and to deal with the
Syrian Arab converts in the north came Zeki and Nesib, both important
men of Damascus. The gold was shared out between Nasir, Auda, Nesib
and Zeki. The party started on May the ninth; every man carried a
forty-five-pound bag of flour with him as his rations for six weeks.
There were a few spare rifles for presents, and six camel-loads of
blasting gelatine for blowing up rails, trains or bridges in the north.
It seemed a small force to go out to win a new province, and so thought
the French representative with Feisal, who rode up to take a farewell
photograph. Auda was worth photographing; he was dressed in finery
that he had bought at Wejh—a mouse-coloured greatcoat of broadcloth
with a velvet collar, and yellow elastic-sided boots. Nasir was the
guide and knew this country almost as well as his own; after two years
of fighting and preaching always beyond the front line of Feisal’s
armies he was very weary and sunken in spirit. He talked sorrowfully to
Lawrence of his beautiful home in Medina, the great cool house and its
gardens planted with every sort of fruit-tree, the shady avenues,
the vine-trellised swimming tank, the deep well with its wheel turned
by oxen, the many fountains. Now, he said, the blight of the Turks was
on the place: his fruit-trees were wasted, his palms chopped down. Even
the great well, which had sounded with the creak of the wheel for six
hundred years, had fallen silent; the garden, cracked with heat, was
becoming as waste as the hills over which he now rode.
The baggage-camels went slowly, weak with the mange that was the curse
of Wejh, grazing all the way. The riders were tempted to hurry them
but Auda said no; because of the long ride before them they must go
slowly and spare their beasts. This was a country of white sand which
dazzled the eyes cruelly, and they were glad when they came to a small
oasis in a valley where an old man, his wife and daughters, the only
inhabitants, had a garden among the palm-trees. They grew tobacco,
beans, melons, cucumbers, egg-plants, and worked day and night without
much thought of the world outside. The old man laughed at his visitors,
asking what more to eat and drink all this fighting and suffering would
bring; he could not understand their talk of Arab liberty. He only
lived for his garden. Every new year he sold his tobacco and bought a
shirt for himself, and one each for his household; his felt cap, his
only other garment, had been his grandfather’s a century before.
[Illustration:
description: Map of the Sinai area
title caption: THE RIDE TO AKABA
May 9–July 6: 1917
]
At this place they met Rasim, Feisal’s chief gunner, Maulud his A.D.C.,
and others, who said that Sherif Sharraf, Feisal’s cousin, whom they
were to meet at the next stopping-place, was away raiding. So they all
rested for a day or two. The old man sold them vegetables, Rasim and
Maulud provided tinned meat, and they had music each evening round
the camp-fire. This was not the monotonous roaring ballad-music of the
desert, or the exciting melodies of the Central Oases which the Ageyl
sang, but the falsetto quarter-tones and trills of Damascus love-songs
given bashfully on guitars by Maulud’s soldier-musicians. Nesib and
Zeki, too, would sing passionate songs of Arab freedom, and all the
camp would listen dead silent until each stanza ended, then give a
sighing longing echo of the last note. The old man went on splashing
out his water into the clay channels of his garden, laughing at such
foolishness.
Auda hated the luxuriance of the garden and longed for the desert
again. So on the second night they pushed forward again, Auda riding
ahead and singing an endless ballad of the Howeitat. ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ he
boomed on three bass-notes; and his voice guided the party through the
dark valleys; Lawrence did not understand many words of the dialect,
which was a very ancient form of Arabic. On this journey Nasir and
Auda’s cousin Mohammed el Dheilan took pains with Lawrence’s Arabic,
giving him alternate lessons in the classical Medina tongue and the
vivid desert language. He had originally spoken, rather haltingly, the
dialects of the country about Carchemish. Now, from mixing with so many
tribes, he used a fluent ungrammatical mixture of every possible Arabic
dialect, so that new-comers imagined that he came from some unknown
illiterate district, the shot-rubbish ground of the whole Arabic
speaking continent. Of Lawrence’s knowledge of Arabic he has written to
me in a recent letter:
‘In Oxford I picked up a little colloquial grammar, before I first
went out. In the next four years I added a considerable (4,000
word) vocabulary to this skeleton of grammar; words useful in
archæological research mainly.
‘Then for the first two years of the War I spoke hardly a word of it
and as I had never learned the letters to read or write—and have not
yet—naturally it almost all passed from me. So when I joined Feisal
I had to take it all up again from the beginning in a fresh and very
different dialect. As the campaign grew it carried me from dialect
to dialect, so that I never settled down to learn one properly. Also
I learned by ear (not knowing the written language) and therefore
incorrectly; and my teachers were my servants who were too respectful
to go on reporting my mistakes to me. They found it easier to learn my
Arabic than to teach me theirs.
‘In the end I had control of some 12,000 words; a good vocabulary for
English, but not enough for Arabic, which is a very wide language; and
I used to fit these words together with a grammar and syntax of my own
invention. Feisal called my Arabic “a perpetual adventure” and used to
provoke me to speak to him so that he might enjoy it....
‘I’ve never heard an Englishman speak Arabic well enough to be taken
for a native of any part of the Arabic-speaking world, for five
minutes.’
The march was difficult, over rocky country; at last the track became a
goat-path zigzagging up a hill too steep to climb except on all fours.
The party dismounted and led the camels. Soon they had great difficulty
in coaxing them along, and had to push and pull them, adjusting the
loads to ease them. Two of the weaker camels broke down and had to
be killed: they were at once cut up for meat and their loads
repacked on the others. Lawrence was glad when they came to a plateau
at the top: he was ill again with fever and boils. They rode over lava,
between red and black sandstone hills, and at last halted in a deep
dark gorge, wooded with tamarisk and oleander, where they found the
camp of Sharraf. He was still away and they waited until he came three
days later.
Sleeping here in a shepherd’s fold Lawrence was awakened by the voice
of an Ageyl boy pleading to him for compassion. His name was Daud and
he had an inseparable friend called Farraj. Farraj had burned their
tent in a frolic and would be beaten by the captain of the Ageyl who
were with Sharraf. Would Lawrence beg him off? Lawrence spoke to the
captain, who answered that the pair were always in trouble and had
lately been so outrageous in their tricks that he must make an example
of them. All that he could do was to let Daud share Farraj’s sentence.
Daud jumped at the chance, kissed Lawrence’s hand and the captain’s and
ran up the valley. The next day Farraj and Daud hobbled up to Lawrence,
where he was discussing the march with Auda and Nasir, and said that
they were for his service. Lawrence said that he wanted no servants and
that anyhow after their beating they could not ride. Daud turned away
defeated and angry, but Farraj went to Nasir, knelt humbly and begged
him to persuade Lawrence to take them on: which he did.
Sharraf came and reassured them about water, which had been an anxiety;
there were pools of new fallen rainwater farther on their road. They
set out then and had not gone far before they met five riders coming
from the railway. Lawrence riding in front with Auda had the thrill
‘Friend or enemy?’ of meeting strangers in the desert, but soon
they saw that the riders were friendly Arabs, and riding in front was
a fair-haired, shaggy-bearded Englishman in tattered uniform. Lawrence
knew that this must be Hornby, Newcombe’s pupil who vied with him in
smashing the railway. The persistent pair would cling for weeks to the
railway with few helpers and often with no food, blowing up bridges and
rails until they had exhausted their explosives or their camels and had
to return for more. Newcombe was hard on his camels, whom he worked at
the trot and who quickly wore out in that thirsty district; the men
with him had either to leave him on the road—a lasting disgrace in the
desert—or founder their own beasts. They used to complain: ‘Newcombe is
like fire, he burns friend and enemy.’ Lawrence was told that Newcombe
would not sleep except with his head on the rails, and that when there
was no gun-cotton left, Hornby would worry the metals with his teeth.
This was exaggerated, but gave a sense of their destructive energy
which kept four Turkish labour battalions constantly busy patching up
after them.
After greetings and exchange of news Hornby passed on and Lawrence’s
party continued the march over the lava desert. On this eighth day of
their journey they camped in a damp valley full of thorny brushwood
which was, however, too bitter for the camels to feed on. But they ran
about tearing up the bushes and heaping them on a big bonfire, where
they baked bread. When the fire was hot, out wriggled a large black
snake which must have been gathered, torpid, with the twigs. The ninth
day’s journey was still over long miles of lava broken with sandstone,
a dead, weary, ghostly land without pasture. The camels were nearly
spent.
At last the lava ended and they came to an open plain of fine
scrub and golden sand with green bushes scattered over it. There were
a few water-holes scooped by someone after the rainstorm of three
weeks before. By these they camped, and drove the unloaded camels out
to feed. There was an alarm when a dozen mounted men rode up from
the direction of the railway and began firing at the herdsmen, but
the party at the camp ran at once to the nearest mounds and rocks,
shouting, and began firing too. The raiders, whoever they were,
galloped off in alarm. Auda thought that they were a patrol of the
Shammar tribe. They rode on again over the plain through a fantastic
valley in which were red sandstone pillars of all shapes and all sizes
from ten to sixty feet in height, with narrow sand paths between,
then over a plateau strewn with black basalt, and finally reached
the water-pools of which Sharraf had spoken. Hornby and Newcombe had
evidently camped here: there were empty sardine-tins lying about.
Daud and Farraj were proving good servants; they were brave and
cheerful, rode well, worked willingly. They spent much time attending
to Lawrence’s camel which had the mange very badly on its face; having
no proper ointment they rubbed in butter, which was a slight relief
for the intolerable itch. This tenth day’s journey brought the party
to the railway which they had to cross near a station called Dizad.
It ran in a long valley. They happened on a deserted stretch of line
and were much relieved, because Sharraf had warned them of constant
Turkish patrols of mule-mounted men, camel-corps and trolleys carrying
machine-guns. There was good pasture on both sides of the line, and the
riding-camels were allowed to graze for a few minutes while Lawrence
and the Ageyl began fixing gun-cotton and gelatine charges to the
rails. The camels were then caught again and taken on to safety while
the fuses of the charges were lighted in proper order: the hollow
valley echoed with the bursts. This was Auda’s first experience of
dynamite, and he improvised some verses in praise of its power and
glory. Then they cut three telegraph-wires, tied the free ends to the
saddles of six riding-camels and drove the astonished team far across
the valley with the growing weight of twanging wire and snapped poles
dragging after them. When the camels could pull no more, the tangle was
cut loose. They rode on in the growing dusk until the country, with its
switchback of rock ridges, was too difficult to be crossed safely in
the dark by weak camels. They halted, but no fire was lit for fear of
alarming the Turks who, roused by the noise of the explosions, could
be heard in the block-houses all along the line shouting loudly and
shooting at shadows.
The next morning they left the rocky country behind and found
themselves on a great plain: it was a country unknown to Europeans,
and old Auda told Lawrence the names of this valley or that peak,
bidding him mark them on his map. Lawrence said that he did not want
to pander to the curiosity of geographers in an unspoiled country.
Auda was pleased and began to give Lawrence instead personal notes and
news about the chiefs in the party or ahead on the line of march. This
whiled away dreary hours of slow march across this waste of sand and
rotten sandstone slabs. There were no signs of life in this desert,
which was named ‘The Desolate,’ no tracks of gazelle, no lizards, rats
or even birds. There was a hot wind blowing with a furnace-taste and,
as the day went on and the sun rose, it blew stronger. By noon it was
half a gale. The Arabs drew their headcloths tightly across their
faces to keep the stinging sand from wearing open the sun-chapped skin
into painful wounds. Lawrence’s throat was so dry that he could not eat
for three days after without pain. By sunset they had gone fifty miles
and came then to a valley full of scrub as dry as dead wood. The party
dismounted wearily and gathered armfuls to build a great fire to show
the rest of the party, from whom they had got separated the previous
day after crossing the railway, where they were halting. When there was
a fine heap gathered together they found that nobody had any matches.
However, the main body came up an hour later, and that night they set
sentries to watch because it was a district over which raiding parties
frequently passed. They gave the camels the whole night for their
grazing.
Noon of the twelfth day brought them to the place towards which they
had been heading, an ancient stone well about thirty feet deep. The
water was plentiful but rather brackish and soon grew foul when kept
in a water-skin. On the thirteenth day out the sun was hotter than
ever: at midday Auda and his nephew Zaal rode out hunting towards a
green-looking stretch of country while the rest of the party rested in
the shade under some cliffs. The hunters soon returned, each with a
gazelle. Bread had been baked the day before at the well, and they had
water in their skins, so they made a feast of it. On the fourteenth
day they came in view of the great desert of sand-dunes called Nefudh
which Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Gertrude Bell and other famous travellers
had crossed. Lawrence wanted to cut across a corner of it but old
Auda refused, saying that men went to Nefudh only out of necessity
when raiding, and that the son of his father did not raid on a mangy,
tottering camel. Their business was to reach the next place,
Arfaja, alive.
They rode over monotonous glittering sand and over worse stretches of
polished mud, often miles square and white as paper, which reflected
back the sun until the eyes were tortured even through closed eyelids.
It was not a steady pain but ebbed and flowed, piling up to an agony
until the rider nearly swooned; then, falling away for a moment, gave
him time to get a new capacity for suffering. That night they baked
bread; Lawrence gave half his share to his camel which was very tired
and hungry. She was a pedigree camel given to Feisal by his father who
had her as a gift from the Emir Ibn Saud of the Central Oases. The best
camels were she-camels: they were better tempered, less noisy and more
comfortable to ride. They would go on marching long after they were
worn out, indeed until they fell dead in their tracks of exhaustion:
whereas the males when they grew tired would roar and fling themselves
down, and die unnecessarily from sheer rage.
The fifteenth day was an anxious one: there was no water left, and
another hot wind would delay them a third day in the desert. They had
therefore started long before dawn over a huge plain strewn with brown
flints which cut the camels’ feet badly and soon set them limping.
In the distance they saw puffs of dust. Auda said ‘Ostriches,’ and
presently a man rode up with two great eggs. They decided to breakfast
on these, but there was no more fuel than a wisp or two of grass.
However, Lawrence opened a packet of blasting gelatine and shredded
it carefully on the lighted grass, over which the eggs were propped
on stones. Nasir and Nesib the Syrian stopped to scoff. Auda took his
silver-hilted dagger and chipped the top of the first egg. A
terrible stink arose and every one ran out of range. The second egg
was fresh enough and hard as a stone. They dug out the meat with the
dagger, using flints for plates. Even Nasir, who never before in his
life had fallen so low as to eat eggs—eggs were counted as paupers’
food in Arabia—was persuaded to take his share. Later oryx were seen,
the rare Arabian deer, with long slender horns and white bellies,
which are the origin of the unicorn legend. Auda’s men stalked them:
they ran a little but, being unaccustomed to man, stopped still out of
curiosity, and only ran away again when it was too late.
The Ageyl were dismounted and leading their camels for fear that if the
wind blew stronger some of them would be dead before evening. Lawrence
suddenly noticed that one of his men, a yellow-faced fellow called
Gasim from the town of Maan, who had fled to the desert after killing
a Turkish tax-gatherer, was not with the rest. The Ageyl thought that
he was with Auda’s Howeitat, but when Lawrence went forward he found
Gasim’s camel riderless, with Gasim’s rifle and food on it: it dawned
on the party that Gasim was lost, probably miles back. He could not
keep up with the caravan on foot, and the heat-mirage was so bad that
the caravan was invisible two miles away, and the ground was so hard
that it left no tracks. The Ageyl did not care much what happened to
Gasim; he was a stranger and surly, lazy and ill-natured. Possibly
someone in the party had owed him a grudge and paid it; or possibly he
had dozed in the saddle and fallen off. His road-companion, a Syrian
peasant called Mohammed, whose duty it was to look after him, had a
foundered camel and knew nothing of the desert; it would be death for
him to turn back. The Howeitat would have gone in search, but they
were lost in the mirage, hunting or scouting. The Ageyl were
so clannish that they would only put themselves out for each other.
Lawrence had to go himself. If he shirked the duty it would make a bad
impression on the men.
He turned his camel round and forced her grunting and moaning with
unhappiness past the long line of her friends, into the emptiness
behind. He was in no heroic temper; he was furious with his other
servants for their indifference, and particularly with Gasim, a
grumbling brutal fellow whose engagement he had much regretted. It
seemed absurd to risk his life and all it meant to the Arab Revolt
for a single worthless man. He had been keeping direction throughout
the march with an oil-compass and hoped by its help to return nearly
to that day’s starting-place seventeen miles behind. He passed some
shallow pits with sand in them and rode across these so that the camel
tracks would show in them and mark the way for his return. After
an hour and a half’s ride he saw a figure, or a bush, or at least
something black ahead of him in the mirage. He turned his camel’s
head towards it, and saw that it was Gasim. He called and Gasim stood
confusedly, nearly blinded and silly, with his arms held out to
Lawrence and his black mouth gaping. Lawrence gave him water, a gift
of the Ageyl, the last that they had, and he spilled it madly over his
face and breast in his haste to drink. He stopped babbling and began
to wail out his sorrows. Lawrence sat him, pillion, on the camel’s
rump and turned about. The camel seemed relieved at the turn and moved
forward well.
Lawrence went back by his compass course so accurately that he often
found the old tracks that he had made in the pits. The camel began to
stride forward freely, and he was glad at this sign of her reserve
strength. Gasim was moaning about the pain and terror and thirst;
Lawrence told him to stop, but he would not and sat huddled loosely so
that at each step of the camel he bumped down on her hind-quarters.
This and his crying spurred her to greater speed. Lawrence was afraid
that she might founder, and again told him to stop, but Gasim only
screamed the louder. Then Lawrence struck him and swore that if he
made another sound he would be pushed off and abandoned. He kept quiet
then. After four miles a black bubble appeared in the mirage, bouncing
about. Later it broke into three and Lawrence wondered if they were
enemies. A minute later he recognized Auda with two of Nasir’s men,
who had come back to look for him. Lawrence yelled jests and scoffs at
them for abandoning a friend in the desert. Auda pulled at his beard
and grumbled that had he been present Lawrence would never have gone
back. Gasim was transferred to another rider’s camel with insults. As
they went forward Auda said, ‘For that thing not worth the price of a
camel....’ Lawrence interrupted: ‘Not worth half a crown,’ and Auda,
laughing, rode up to Gasim, struck him sharply and made him, like a
parrot, repeat his price. What had happened, apparently, was that Gasim
had dismounted for something or other that morning, and sitting down
had gone to sleep.
An hour later they caught up the caravan and towards evening they
reached Sirhan, the chain of pastures and wells running up towards
Syria. There among sandhills grown with tamarisk they halted. They had
no water yet, but ‘The Desolate’ was crossed and they knew that they
would get some the next day, so they rested the whole night and lit
bonfires for the Emir of the Ruwalla’s slave who had been with the
caravan and had disappeared the same day. Nobody was anxious for
him, for he had a camel and knew the country. He might be riding direct
to Jauf, the capital of the Emir Nuri, to earn the reward of first news
that the party was coming with gifts. However, he did not ride in that
night or next day, and months afterwards the Emir told Lawrence that
the man’s dried body had lately been found lying beside his unplundered
camel far out in the wilderness. He must have got lost in the mirage
and wandered until his camel broke down, and there died of thirst and
heat. Not a long death—the very strongest man would die on the second
day in this summer season—but very painful. Fear and panic tore at the
brain, and in an hour or two reduced the bravest man to a babbling
lunatic; then the sun killed him. Lawrence himself learned to stand
thirst as well as any of the Bedouin. He noticed that they did not
drink on the march and learned to do as they did—to drink deeply at the
wells and make it last, if need be, for two or three days. Only once in
all his journeys did he get really ill from thirst.
The next day, the sixteenth of their journey, they came to the wells of
Arfaja, grown about with a sweet-smelling bush after which the place
was named. The water was creamy to the touch, with a strong smell and
brackish taste: it soon went bad in the water-skins. There was plenty
of grazing for the camels, so they stayed a day and sent scouts to the
southernmost well of Sirhan to inquire for news of Auda’s Howeitat, in
search of whom they came. If they were not in that direction they would
be to the north, and by marching up Sirhan the party could not fail to
find them.
There was an alarm at the wells when a Shammar patrol of three men was
seen hiding among the bushes. Mohammed el Dheilan, Auda’s cousin
and second man of the clan, went after them with a few men, but did not
press the chase because of the weakness of his camels. He was about
thirty-eight years old, tall, strong and active; richer because less
generous than Auda, with landed property and a little house at Maan.
Under his influence the Howeitat war-parties would ride out delicately
with sunshades and bottles of mineral-water. He was the brain of the
clan and directed its politics.
Lawrence was taking coffee that night, sitting at the camp-fire
with the Ageyl and Mohammed el Dheilan. While the coffee-beans were
being pounded in the mortar (with three grains of cardamom seed for
flavouring) and boiled and strained through a palm-fibre mat, and they
were talking about the Revolt, suddenly a volley rang out and one of
the Ageyl fell screaming. Instantly Mohammed el Dheilan quenched the
fire with a kick of his foot that covered it with sand. The coffee
party scattered to collect rifles and shot back vigorously. The
raiders, a party of perhaps twenty, were surprised at the resistance
and made off. The wounded man soon died. It was most disheartening
to be troubled by inter-Arab warfare when all efforts should be
concentrated on fighting the Turks.
The seventeenth and eighteenth days passed without danger as they rode
from oasis to oasis. Nesib and Zeki the Syrians were planning works of
plantation and reclamation here for the Arab Government to undertake
when it was at last established. It was typical of Syrian townsmen to
plan wonderful schemes far ahead and leave present responsibilities
to others. Some days before, Lawrence had said: ‘Zeki, your camel is
mangy.’ ‘Alas,’ he agreed, ‘but in the evening we shall make haste
to dress her skin with ointment.’ The following day Lawrence
mentioned mange again and Zeki said that it had given him an idea.
When Damascus was in Arab hands, he would have a Government Veterinary
Department for the care of camels, horses, donkeys, even sheep and
goats, with a staff of skilled surgeons. Central hospitals with
students learning the business would be founded in four districts.
There would be travelling inspectors, research laboratories and so
on.... But his camel had not been treated yet.
The next day the talk went back to mange and Lawrence chaffed them
about their schemes: but they began talking of stud-farms for improving
the breeds of animals. On the sixth day the camel died. Zeki said:
‘Yes, because you did not dress her.’ Auda, Nasir and the rest kept
their beasts going by constant care: they might perhaps survive until
they reached a tribe that had proper remedies.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of four seated men in Arab dress
caption: AUDA AND HIS KINSMEN
(His son Mohammed is seated on the left)
_Copyright American Colony Stores, Jerusalem_
]
On this eighteenth day they met a Howeitat herdsman who guided them
to the camp of one of the chiefs. The first part of the journey was
happily over and the gold and explosives were safe. A council was held
and it was decided to present six thousand pounds to Nuri by whose
permission the Howeitat were here in Sirhan; Nuri would probably allow
them to stop a few days longer and enrol volunteers, and when they
moved off would protect the Howeitat families and tents and herds.
Auda decided to go to Nuri on this embassy, because he was a friend.
Nuri was too near and too powerful a neighbour for Auda to quarrel
with, however great his delight in war, and the two men bore with each
other’s oddities in patient friendliness. Auda would explain to Nuri
what he, Nasir and Lawrence hoped to do, and say that Feisal wished
him to make a public demonstration of goodwill towards the Turks. Only
by these means could he cover the advance to Akaba while still
keeping the Turks favourably disposed. Feisal knew that Nuri was at the
Turks’ mercy still; they could blockade his province from the north. So
Auda went off with six bags of gold and said that he would rouse all
his clan, the Abu Tayi Howeitat, on the way. He would be back soon.
Meanwhile the local families promised unlimited hospitality and Nasir,
Lawrence, Nesib, Zeki and the rest were bound to accept it. Every
morning they had to go to a different guest-tent and eat an enormous
meal. About fifty men were present at each of these feasts and the food
was always served on the same enormous copper dish, five feet across,
which was lent from host to host and belonged really to Auda. It was
always the same boiled mutton and rice, two or three whole sheep making
a pyramid of meat in the middle with an embankment of rice all round,
a foot wide and six inches deep, filled with legs and ribs of mutton.
In the very centre were the boiled sheeps’ heads propped upright with
flapping ears and jaws pulled open to show the teeth. Cauldrons of
boiling fat, full of bits of liver, intestines, skin, odd scraps of
meat, were poured over the great dish until it began to overflow on the
ground; and at this sign the host called them all to eat. They would
rise with good-mannered shyness and crowd about the bowl, twenty-two at
a time, each man kneeling on one knee.
Taking their time from Nasir, the most honourable man of the company,
they rolled up their right sleeves, said grace and dipped together
with their fingers. Only the right hand might be used, for good
manners. Lawrence always dipped cautiously; his fingers could hardly
bear the hot fat. Nobody was allowed to talk, for it was an insult
to the host not to appear to be very hungry indeed, eating at
top speed. The host himself stood by and encouraged their appetites
as they dipped, tore and gobbled. At last eating gradually slackened
and each man crouched with his elbow on his knee, the hand hanging
down from the wrist to drip over the edge of the tray. When all had
finished Nasir cleared his throat for a signal and they rose together
in haste, muttering, ‘God requite it to you, host,’ and then made room
for the next twenty-two men. The more dainty eaters wiped the grease
off their hands on a flap of the roof-cloth intended for this purpose.
Then sighingly all sat down on carpets, while slaves splashed water
over their hands and the tribal cake of soap went round. When the last
man had eaten and coffee had been served, the guests remounted with a
quiet blessing. Instantly the children would rush for what was left,
and tear the gnawed bones from one another; some would escape with
valuable pieces, to eat them safely behind a distant bush. The dogs
yapping about finishing what was left. Nesib and Zeki soon broke down
under this continual feeding, not being used to desert hospitality, so
Nasir and Lawrence had to go out twice a day for a week and eat for the
honour of Feisal.
On May the thirtieth they went forward again in company with the
whole of the Abu Tayi; it was the first time that Lawrence had ever
taken part in the march routine of a Bedouin tribe. There was no
apparent order, but the caravan advanced simultaneously on a wide
front, each family making a self-contained party. The men were on
riding-camels; the black goat-hair tents and the howdahs in which the
women were hidden were carried on the baggage-camels. Farraj and Daud
were behaving with more than usual mischief in this care-free
atmosphere. They rode about leaving a trail of practical jokes behind
them. Particularly they made jokes about snakes. Sirhan was visited
that summer by a plague of snakes—horned vipers, puff-adders, cobras
and black snakes. By night movement was dangerous and at last the party
learned to beat the bushes with sticks as they walked. It was dangerous
to draw water after dark, for snakes swam in the pools or gathered in
clusters on their brinks. Twice puff-adders invaded the coffee-hearth,
twisting among the seated men.
Lawrence’s party of fifty killed about twenty snakes daily. Seven men
were bitten. Three died, four recovered after great fear and pain. The
Howeitat treatment was to bind up the bite with snake-skin plaster and
read chapters of the Koran to the patient until he died. They also
pulled on thick blue-tasselled red ankle-boots from Damascus over their
feet when they went out at night. The snakes loved warmth and at night
would lie beside the sleepers under or on the blankets: so great care
was taken in getting up each morning. The constant danger was getting
on everyone’s nerves except Farraj’s and Daud’s. They thought it very
witty to raise false alarms and give furious beatings to harmless twigs
and roots: at last Lawrence at a noonday halt forbade them ever again
to call out ‘Snakes!’ About an hour later, sitting on the sand, he
noticed them smiling and nudging one another. His glance idly followed
theirs to a bush close by where lay coiled a brown snake, about to
strike at him.
He threw himself to one side and called out to another of his men, who
jumped at the snake with a riding-cane and killed it. Lawrence then
told him to give the boys half a dozen strokes with the cane to teach
them not to take things too literally at his expense. Nasir,
dozing beside Lawrence, woke up shouting: ‘And six more from me!’ Nesib
and Zeki and the rest who had all suffered from the boys’ bad sense
of humour called out for more punishment still. However, Lawrence
saved Farraj and Daud from the full weight of their companions’ anger;
instead he proclaimed them moral outcasts and set them to gather sticks
and draw water under the charge of the women, the greatest disgrace for
sixteen-year-olds who counted themselves men.
The tribe moved on from well to well—the water always brackish—through
a landscape of barren palms and bushes which were no use for grazing
or firewood and only served to harbour snakes. At last they reached a
place called Ageila where they came on a village of tents, and out rode
Auda to meet them. He had a strong escort with him of Ruwalla horsemen,
which showed that he had had success with Nuri. The Ruwalla, bareheaded
and yelling, with brandished spears and wild firing of rifles and
revolvers, welcomed the party to Nuri’s empty house.
Here they stopped, pitched their tents, and received deputations from
the clans and gifts of ostrich eggs, Damascus dainties, camels and
scraggy horses. Three men were set to make coffee for the visitors, who
came in to Nasir as Feisal’s deputy and took the oath of allegiance
to the Arab movement, promising to obey Nasir and follow him. Their
presents included an unintentional one of lice; so that long before
sunset Nasir and Lawrence were nearly mad with irritation. Auda had a
stiff left arm due to an old wound, but experience had taught him how
to poke a camel-stick up his left sleeve and turn it round and round
against his ribs, which relieved the itch a good deal.
Nebk was the place decided upon for a rallying ground; it had
plentiful water and some grazing. Here Nasir and Auda sat down for days
to discuss together how to enrol the volunteers and prepare the road
to Akaba, now about a hundred and eighty miles to the west. This left
Nesib, Zeki and Lawrence at leisure. As usual the Syrians let their
imagination run ahead of them. In their enthusiasm they forgot all
about Akaba and their immediate purpose, and spoke of marching straight
to Damascus, rousing the Druse and Shaalan Arabs on the way. The
Turks would be taken by surprise and the final objective won without
troubling about the steps between.
This was absurd. There was a Turkish army massing at Aleppo to recover
Mesopotamia, which could be rushed down to Damascus. Feisal was still
in Wejh. The British were held up on the wrong side of Gaza. If
Damascus should be taken now by Nasir he would be left unsupported,
without resources or organization, without even a line of communication
with his friends. But Nesib was infatuated with his idea, and Lawrence
could only stop him by intrigue. So he went to Auda and told him that
if Damascus were made the new objective, the credit and spoils would
go to Nuri and not him; he went to Nasir and used the friendship
between them to keep him on the Akaba plan and also flattered Nasir’s
distinguished birth at the expense of Nesib’s, a Damascene of doubtful
ancestry. This was sordid but necessary. For Damascus, even if captured
by surprise, could not be held six weeks; the British at Gaza could not
attack at a moment’s notice, nor would transport be available for a
landing at Beyrout. And a set-back at Damascus would end the rebellion:
rebellions that stand still or go back are always doomed. Akaba must be
taken first.
Fortunately, Auda and Nasir listened to Lawrence but Nesib decided
to go off with Zeki to the Druse mountains to prepare the way for his
great Damascus scheme. The gold that Feisal had shared out to him was
not enough for his purpose, so he asked Lawrence for a promise of more
if he raised a separate movement in Syria under his own leadership.
Lawrence knew that he could not do this, so promised Nesib that, if he
now lent Nasir some of his gold to help him reach Akaba, funds would be
got together there for the Syrian movement. He agreed, and Nasir was
glad of two unexpected bags of gold for the payment of new volunteers.
Nesib went off optimistically: Lawrence knew that he could do no harm
with the little money that he had with him, and by talking too much
might mislead the Turks into thinking that an immediate attack really
was intended on Damascus.
XIV
What follows next is the brief and unsatisfactory story of what seems
to have been the maddest and most dangerous adventure undertaken by
any man in the whole course of the World War: a four-hundred-mile tour
through the Turks’ country with visits to their key-positions, without
any disguise but the unbelievable folly of the journey. Lawrence
decided to visit Damascus and the railway to the north of it. The
exact account of it he has never given, even in his _Seven Pillars of
Wisdom_, and I have been unable to piece it together accurately from
the casual fragments which he has from time to time given his friends.
But the motive of the journey seems clear, and the fact of it is beyond
dispute. At Nebk Lawrence had time to think about his own part in the
Revolt, and was not pleased with it. He began to see clearly things
that he had been hitherto content to put into the background.
First of all, he was more or less an Englishman and bound to the hope
of staving off his country’s defeat. Successful war in the East, with
the present deadlock in the West, might turn the scale and save further
slaughter. Next, he was an Arab by adoption: the tribes trusted and
loved him, and he was bound to do his honourable best for them. The
Arabs could help the British to success while fighting their own war
for freedom. So far, so good, but then came the difficulty. The Revolt
had begun on false pretences. The British Government through the High
Commissioner of Egypt had agreed to Sherif Hussein’s demand for Arab
freedom not only in Arabia but in parts of Syria and Mesopotamia,
‘saving the interests of our ally France.’ This clause concealed the
secret Sykes-Picot treaty between England, France and Russia, in
which it was agreed to annex some of the promised areas and establish
‘spheres of influence’ over the rest: in fact there was no genuine
freedom possible. The High Commissioner had not been told beforehand
of this treaty and so the Sherif did not know about it either.
What apparently had happened was that the Foreign Office had two
departments, each responsible for one of these agreements, and neither
had taken the other into proper confidence. The High Commissioner,
it may be noted, when instructed by the Government to make the
agreement, had sent a strongly worded message of warning. He had said
that in helping the Nationalist cause in Arabia a most dangerous
thing was being done. Freedom for the Arabs might grow one day into a
Frankenstein’s monster: and he urged that great care should be taken
to deal honourably with the Arab leaders; particularly he recommended
that a single Government Department should be entrusted with all
negotiations.
The Russian revolution took place in the spring of 1917, and the
Bolsheviki published the secret treaty, copies of which the Turks
sent about where they would do harm to England. Nuri had just had a
copy sent him and confronted Lawrence with it; it was a great shock
to Lawrence to be asked which of two contradictory pledges was to
be believed. Lawrence did not know what to answer; he felt that the
most honourable thing to do would be to send the Arabs home, and yet
perhaps only by Arab help could the war in the East be won. So he said
that England kept her word in letter and spirit, and that the later
pledge cancelled the former treaty. This comforted Nuri, and the Arabs
thereafter trusted Lawrence and fought finely with him: but instead
of being proud he was bitterly ashamed of his deception. Later,
he quieted his conscience as well as he might by telling Feisal all
he knew and by refusing all decorations, rank and moneys that his
part in the Revolt brought him personally. He would make the Revolt
so well-armed a success that the Powers could not in honour or common
sense rob the Arabs of what they had won: and he would fight another
battle for the Arab Cause in the Council Chamber after the War ended.
But this was not all. He knew now that the War was entering another
stage. In Syria the reputation of England was powerful and the
reputation of the Bedouin leaders and of Mecca was low. He was the
only man who, knowing the Syrians from before the War and having the
confidence of the Arabians and being a representative of England, could
carry the Revolt successfully north. All the responsibility fell on
him. Was he strong enough to undertake it? He never had counted himself
a man of action; books and maps were more in his line and he had left
the Cairo office only under protest. And, again, towards what freedom
was he leading the Arabs? A Confederation of Arab States, even if such
could be founded against the wishes of France and England, would be
necessarily the inheritor of the Turkish Empire. Town Syrians like
Nesib and Zeki would run these states: their Governments might be more
enterprising than the Turkish Government, but would be as corrupt; and
the innocence and idealism of the desert Arabs on whose account alone
he hoped for freedom would be infected by the filth of Damascus or
Basra. Was the gift of freedom worth giving?
In this tangle of thought and shame he seems to have decided in Bedouin
style to throw himself on the mercy of fate. He would go out on this
mad ride and, so far from taking precautions, would expose himself
to every possible danger. If the Turks were so foolish as to let him
get back safely, they must pay the penalty of their folly, for he would
carry the Revolt through to a finish with no more qualms. If they
caught him, on the other hand, the Revolt would get no farther than the
deserts of Arabia.
On June the third, 1917, in the fifth week of the journey from Wejh,
he started off northward with a few of his body-guard and was away a
fortnight. How he reached Damascus—he admits the visit—is not known,
but it is possible that he went by way of the Druse mountains and the
Lebanon, there visiting his friends the Christian Syrians, and that he
turned south near Baalbek. He is said to have been convoyed by relays
of local tribesmen, beginning with the Ruwalla, and changing them at
each tribal boundary. Apparently none of his own men nor of Nasir’s
completed the journey with him. He is said to have been franked by
private letters of Feisal’s, but, as I say, nothing certain is known
of his immediate purpose, his route or the results of his journey. At
Ras Baalbek, south of Hama, considerably beyond Damascus and Baalbek,
the farthest points associated by rumour with his journey, there
was an important bridge over which all the railway traffic between
Constantinople and Syria passed. An intercepted enemy report of that
month mentions the destruction of the bridge and one hesitates to
regard this as a coincidence; yet its demolition must have meant the
use of a great deal of explosive and Lawrence appears to have ridden
light.
Of the Damascus visit little more than negative information can be
given. Lawrence neither dined, lunched nor breakfasted with Ali Riza
Pasha the Governor (as Mr. Lowell Thomas and others have stated),
nor did he then or at any time since set eyes on Yasin, another
Arab patriot. But it seems that he made arrangements with prominent
members of the Freedom Committee in Damascus for the action to be taken
when the Turks were finally expelled. There is a circumstantial story
current that he rode into Damascus in English uniform on a camel and
that seeing a notice pasted up offering a large reward for the capture
alive or dead of ‘El Orens, Destroyer of Railways,’ with a portrait at
the top, he decided to put the matter to a supreme test; he sat down
to coffee under one of these notices: but, nobody connecting the man
and the portrait, after an hour or two he went on. That while he was in
the city the men with him camped outside the walls in a cherry orchard:
that there they were disturbed by some inquisitive Turkish policemen
who, however, lie buried under the cherry trees. The poster story at
least is untrue: none such were put up, nor was any camera-portrait of
enlargeable size available. On the positive side, Lawrence has told me
that he was never disguised during this ride, either as a woman or as
anything else, but instead put off necessary visits to dangerous places
until after darkness had set in. In the dark his figure could not be
distinguished from that of any other Arab of the desert fringe. And the
reference in _Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ to his usually wearing British
uniform when visiting enemy camps may well refer to a practice begun on
this ride. Whether or no he regarded Damascus as a ‘dangerous place’ I
cannot say. Other picturesque incidents reported of this journey are
as demonstrably untrue as the poster story. For instance, the Lowell
Thomas account of his attempted visit to a military academy at Baalbek
is disproved by there not having been a military academy there—only an
infantry depot and a training camp. It is possible, though, that
he visited these. Nor did he enter Rayak junction (‘for the purpose of
inspecting the railway repair shops’—another story) during the War. He
seems, however, to have visited one or more of the bridges over the
River Yarmuk, of which an account will be given in a later chapter, and
to have been at Ziza, the headquarters of the Beni Sakhr tribe.
At all events, Lawrence’s reticence about this ride is deliberate
and based on private reasons, and it is my opinion that he has found
mystification and perhaps statements deliberately misleading or
contradictory the best way to hide the truth of what really happened,
if anything of any serious importance did happen. His return journey
was possibly by a Yarmuk bridge and across the Deraa-Amman railway to
Azrak, and so to Nebk. I have marked the route, in the map, with dots
to show my uncertainty.
XV
He returned on June the sixteenth and found Nasir and Auda still at
Nebk; the final preparations for the march to Akaba had been made. Auda
bought a small flock of sheep from a drover and gave a farewell feast,
the greatest of the whole series. Hundreds of men were present and five
fills of the great tray were eaten up as fast as they were cooked and
carried in. After the feast the whole party lay round the coffee-hearth
outside the tent in the starlight while Auda and others told stories.
Lawrence happened to remark that he had looked for Mohammed el Dheilan
in his tent that afternoon to thank him for the present of a milch
camel, but had not found him. Auda began to laugh out loud until every
one looked at him to know what the joke was. Auda pointed to Mohammed
sitting gloomily beside the coffee-mortar and said to the company, ‘Ho!
shall I tell you why Mohammed has for fifteen days not slept in his
tent?’ To every one’s delight he told how Mohammed had bought in the
bazaar at Wejh a costly string of pearls and had not given it to any
of his wives, so that they all began to quarrel and only agreed in one
thing, to keep him out of the tent. This was Auda’s usual mischievous
invention and Mohammed, whose wives in the tent near by had come
up close to the partition-curtain to listen, was much confused and
appealed to Lawrence to witness that Auda lied.
Lawrence began his answer with the phrase that introduces a formal tale
in Arabia. ‘In the name of God the merciful, the loving-kind. We were
six in Wejh. There were Auda and Mohammed and Zaal, Gasim, Mufaddhi and
the poor man’ (which meant Lawrence himself). ‘And one night just
before dawn Auda said, “Let us make a raid upon the market.” And we
said, “In the name of God.” And we went; Auda in a white robe and a red
headcloth, and Kasim sandals of pieced leather. Mohammed in a silken
tunic of “seven kings”[3] and barefoot. Zaal ... I forget Zaal. Gasim
wore cotton and Mufaddhi was in silk of blue stripe with an embroidered
headcloth. Your servant was as he now is.’
[3] See page 37.
He paused, and the Howeitat sat dead-silent. Lawrence was mimicking
Auda’s epic style, also the wave of his hand, the booming voice and the
accentuation of the points or what he thought were the points of his
pointless stories. Parody was an unknown art among the Bedouin, and
Lawrence’s beginning had a tremendous effect on them. He went on to
tell how they left the tents (giving a list of them) and walked down
the village, describing all the passers-by and the ridges ‘all bare of
grazing, for by God, that country was barren. And we marched: and after
we had marched the time of a smoked cigarette, we heard something, and
Auda stopped and said, “Lads, I hear something.” And Mohammed stopped
and said, “Lads, I hear something.” And Zaal said, “By God, you are
right.” And we stopped to listen, and there was nothing, and the poor
man said, “By God, I hear nothing.” And Zaal said, “By God, I hear
nothing,” and Mohammed said, “By God, I hear nothing.” And Auda said,
“By God, you are right!” And we marched and marched and the land was
barren and we heard nothing. And on our right came a man, a negro, on a
donkey. The donkey was grey with black ears and one black foot and on
its shoulder was a brand like this’ (here Lawrence made a scribble in
the air) ‘and its tail moved and its legs. Auda saw it and said,
“By God, a donkey.” And Mohammed said, “By the very God, a donkey and a
slave.”’
Lawrence continued this Arab version of the ‘Three Jovial Welshmen’
with ‘And we marched. And there was a ridge, not a great ridge but a
ridge as great as from here to the what-do-you-call-it yonder; and we
marched to the ridge and it was barren. The land was barren: barren:
barren. And we marched; and beyond the what-do-you-call-it was a
thing-um-bob as far as from this very place here to that actual spot
there and afterwards a ridge; and we came to that ridge: it was barren,
all that land was barren: and as we came up that ridge and were by the
head of that ridge and came to the end of the head of that ridge, by
God, by my God, by the very God, the sun rose upon us.’
This brought down the house. Every one knew the repetitions and linked
phrases that Auda used to bring some sort of excitement into the dull
story of a raid in which nothing happened, and they knew of old the
terrible bathos of the sunrise which ended the story. But the walk to
the market at Wejh was one also that many of them had taken. So they
howled with laughter, rolling on the ground.
Auda laughed the loudest and longest, for he loved a joke against
himself, and Lawrence’s parody had only proved to him how fine a
story-teller he really was. So he went over to Mohammed, embraced him,
and confessed that the necklace story was an invention. Mohammed in
gratitude invited the whole camp to breakfast the next morning: they
would have a sucking camel-calf boiled in sour milk.
The next day they rode off making for Bair, sixty miles away in the
direction of Akaba. There were five hundred in the party now and every
one was happy and confident. The country was limestone strewn
with black flints, and in the distance were three white chalk hills.
The leaders had a treat of rice that night, the chiefs of the Abu
Tayi coming in to share it. At coffee-drinking Auda began provoking
Lawrence with talk of the stars. ‘Why are the Westerners always wanting
everything?’ he asked when Lawrence had said that astronomers every
year make more and more powerful telescopes to map the heavens out more
and more accurately, adding thousands to the number of known stars.
‘Behind our few stars we can see God, who is not behind your millions,’
said Auda. ‘We want the World’s End,’ answered Lawrence. ‘But that is
God’s,’ said Zaal, half angry. Auda said that if the end of wisdom was
to add star to star, the foolishness of the Arabs pleased him better.
He took Lawrence ahead next day: he wished to visit the grave of his
favourite son, Annad, which was at Bair. Annad had been waylaid by his
cousins of the Motalga tribe and fought them, one against five, until
he was killed; Auda was bringing Lawrence to hear him mourn for the
dead. As they rode down a slope to the grave, they were astonished
to see smoke wreathing about the wells. They rode up carefully and
found that the well-top had been shattered: looking down they found
that the stone sides had been stripped and split and the shaft choked.
Auda said, ‘This is done by the Jazi.’ They went to see another well
beyond: it was also ruined. So was a third. There was a smell of
dynamite in the air. It was clear that the Turks had got wind of their
coming, and had possibly also raided the wells at Jefer where they had
planned to concentrate before the attack. But in any case they could
not reach Jefer without the Bair water. There was still, however, a
fourth well some way off. They visited this rather hopelessly, and
were delighted to find it undamaged. It was a well belonging to the
Jazi tribe and that it had been spared seemed to prove that Auda was
right. But one well was not enough for five hundred camels. So it was
necessary to open the least damaged of the others. Lawrence went down
in a bucket and found that a set of charges fixed lower in the shaft
had not all been exploded: the Turkish engineers had evidently been
surprised before they had time to finish their work. So he carefully
unpacked the charges and took them up with him. Soon they had two fit
wells and a clear profit of thirty pounds of Nobel dynamite.
They decided to stay a week at Bair and meanwhile sent off a party
to buy flour in the villages near the Dead Sea—it would be back in
five or six days—and a party to inquire about the wells at Jefer. If
Jefer was not spoilt for them they would cross the railway below Maan
and seize the great pass that led down from the plateau of Maan to
the red sandstone plain of Guweira. To hold this pass they would have
to capture Aba el Lissan, sixteen miles from Maan, where was a large
spring of water; the garrison was small and they should be able to rush
it. They could then hold the road to Akaba from Maan and the Turkish
posts along it would have to surrender within a week for want of food;
but before then the hill-tribes would probably have risen in sympathy
and wiped them out.
It was important not to frighten the Turks at Maan before the attack
began on Aba el Lissan, but the destruction of the Bair wells showed
that the news of the Howeitat march had reached them. The only thing to
do was to pretend that Akaba was not the place aimed at, but that they
were driving farther north. Nuri had been misleading the Turks
into thinking this and Newcombe had allowed some official papers to be
stolen from him at Wejh in which was a plan for turning north at Jefer
and attacking Damascus and Aleppo. Nesib was in Druse country preaching
revolt and Lawrence in his Damascus ride had himself, it seems, hinted
to the Druse tribes that they would soon have the Arab army there. The
Turks were taken in by all this and made preparations to resist the
northern advance by strengthening their garrisons.
To make the plan seem more likely still, Lawrence decided to raid the
line about a hundred and twenty miles north near Deraa. He went with
Zaal and a hundred and ten chosen men and they rode hard in six-hour
spells with one- or two-hour intervals, day and night. It was a most
eventful trip for Lawrence because the raid was carried out on the
conventional lines of a tribal raid, the first in which he or possibly
any Westerner had ever taken part. On the second afternoon they reached
a Circassian village north of Amman in Transjordania; there was a big
bridge not far from here, suitable to be destroyed. Lawrence and Zaal
walked down in the evening to have a look at it and found the Turks
there in force. They saw that four arches of the bridge had been washed
away by the spring flood and the line was laid on a temporary structure
while the Turks repaired the arches. It was useless to bother about
a bridge already in ruins; so they decided to try to blow up a train
instead. This would attract more attention than a bridge, and the Turks
would think that the main body of the forces was at Azrak in Sirhan,
fifty miles to the east. As they rode forward over a flat plain in
the dark they heard a rumble and along came a train at great speed.
If Lawrence had had two minutes warning he could have blown the
engine to scrap-iron, but it rushed past and was gone. At dawn they
found an ideal ambush, an amphitheatre of rock with pasture for the
camels, hidden from the railway which curved round it, and crowned
with a ruined Arab watch-tower from which Lawrence could get a fine
view of the line. He decided to lay a mine that night. However, in the
middle of the morning, a force of a hundred and fifty Turkish cavalry,
regulars, were seen riding from the north directly towards the hill.
The Arabs slipped out of sight just in time and the Turks went by. The
place was called Minifer.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of rail tracks in sand receding
into the distance; stone hills border on each side
caption: THE PILGRIM-RAILWAY
_Copyright_
]
The Arabs went on to another hill, from where they saw a number of
black hair-tents, summer quarters of a tribe of friendly Syrian
peasants. Zaal sent messengers who brought back a gift of bread.
Lawrence was glad of this, for their own flour had long been exhausted
and they only carried parched corn with them, which they chewed. It
was too hard for his teeth, so he had fasted for the last, two days.
The peasants promised to tell the Turks that the party had ridden
off towards Azrak. After dark Lawrence and Zaal buried a big mine
and waited for a train to pass. But none appeared that night or the
next morning. Late in the afternoon a company of about two hundred
mule-mounted Turks came up from the south. Zaal was for attacking them;
a hundred men on camels suddenly charging down from higher ground could
sweep double that number of lighter-mounted men off their feet. It
would be a certain victory and they would capture not only the men but
their valuable animals. Lawrence asked Zaal what the Arab casualties
would be. Zaal thought five or six; Lawrence said that this was too
many to lose. They had only one main object, the capture of Akaba; and
they were here to mislead the Turks into thinking that the main body
was at Azrak, not for loot. They could not afford to lose a man
until Akaba had fallen. Zaal agreed, but the Howeitat were furious at
having to let the Turks escape; they wanted the mules. To watch the
company file unsuspecting by at point-blank range was too much for the
patience of one boy, a cousin of Auda’s, who sprang forward shouting
to attract the Turks’ attention and compel a battle. Zaal rushed
after him, caught him, threw him down and began bludgeoning him until
Lawrence feared that his now very different cries would arouse the
Turks, after all. But they did not hear.
Now, if the Howeitat had had their battle, there would have been no
keeping them on the Akaba plan. They would have driven home their
captured mules in triumph to the tents by way of Azrak and not have
come back again until too late. As for the prisoners Nasir could not
have fed them, so that they would have had to be murdered, or else
let go, in which case they would have revealed the raiding party’s
strength to the enemy. So the victory was let slip. But, what was even
more disappointing, no train came for the rest of the day. So at night
they returned to the line and blew up the most-curved rails they could
find: these were chosen because the Turks would have to send all the
way to Damascus for new ones. (This took the Turks three days and then
the repair-train caught the mine that had been left behind and damaged
its engine: so traffic stopped for three days more while the line was
searched for traps. But of this they only learned later.)
They caught two Turkish deserters: one had been badly wounded while
escaping and died soon afterwards; the other, though only wounded
slightly, was very weak and feeble, his body so covered with bruises
and weals, the cause of his desertion, that he dared only lie on
his face. The Arabs gave him the last of their bread and water and did
what they could for him; which was little. When they had to go away
at midnight to water their camels some miles off they were forced to
leave him behind on the hill. He could not walk or ride and they had
no carriage for him. So Lawrence put a notice on the line in French
and German to explain where the poor fellow was and to say that he had
been captured wounded, after a hard fight. They hoped by this means
to save him from being shot when the Turks found him, but coming back
to Minifer six months later they saw his skeleton lying on their old
camping-ground.
The next morning, many miles away on the return journey, they were
watering their camels at the same cisterns that they had used on the
way out, when a young Circassian came in sight driving three cows. This
was dangerous, he might give an alarm. So Zaal sent off the men who
had been most eager for a fight the day before, to stalk him. He was
captured, unharmed but frightened. Circassians were swaggering fellows
but cowards, and this fellow was in a cringing terror. To give him a
chance of recovering his self-respect Zaal set him to fight at daggers
with one of the party, a Sherari tribesman who had been caught stealing
on the march: but after a scratch the man threw himself down weeping.
He was a nuisance. They did not want to kill him, but if they let him
go he would give the alarm and put the horsemen of his village on their
trail. If they tied him up here he would die of hunger—they had no food
to leave with him. And anyhow there was no rope to spare.
At last the Sherari said that he would settle it for them without
murder. So he looped the man’s wrist to his saddle and trotted him off
with the rest of the party for the first hour: they were still near the
railway but four miles from the village when the Sherari dismounted,
stripped the Circassian of his outer garments and threw him down on his
face. Lawrence wondered what was coming next; the Sherari then drew
his dagger and cut the man deeply across the soles of his feet. The
Circassian howled as if he were being killed. Then Lawrence understood.
The man would be able to crawl to the railway on his hands and knees;
it would take him about an hour, but his nakedness would keep him there
in the shadow of the rocks until sunset. It was kinder than killing
him, though he did not seem to be grateful.
Soon they came to a small station consisting of two stone buildings and
crept within a hundred yards behind limestone rocks. They heard singing
from one of the buildings, and a soldier drove out a flock of young
sheep to pasture. The Arabs counted them hungrily, weary of a parched
corn diet. The sheep settled the fate of the station. Zaal led a party
of men round another side of the station and Lawrence saw him take very
careful aim at the party of officers and officials sipping coffee in
shaded chairs outside the ticket-office. He pressed the trigger; there
was a crack and the fattest man slowly bowed in his chair and sank
to the ground among his horrified friends. This was the signal for a
volley and a rush. Zaal’s men broke into the nearest building and began
plundering; but the door of the other clanged to and rifles were fired
from behind the steel shutters. Lawrence’s party fired back, but soon
saw that it was no good and stopped: so did the Turks and allowed the
plundering to go on.
The sheep were driven off into the hills, where the camels were
tied up, and the plundered building was splashed with paraffin and set
on fire. Meanwhile the Ageyl were measuring out explosive and fixing
charges; which were afterwards fired. A culvert, many rails and a
quarter of a mile of telegraph-wire were destroyed. The explosions
scared the sheep and the knee-haltered camels who shook off the
rope-hitches and scattered in all directions. It took three hours to
recapture them, but fortunately the Turks did not attempt anything
in the interval, and the whole party reached Bair safely at dawn
without losing a man. They had had a grand feast of mutton on the way;
twenty-four sheep eaten at a sitting by a hundred and ten men. Nothing
was left, for the riding-camels were trained to like cooked meat and
finished off the scraps. The only difficulty had been the skinning, for
there was a shortage of knives, but they had used flints instead.
At Bair they found that Nasir had bought a week’s flour and were glad
to think that they might well take Akaba before starving again. That
day a messenger came post-haste from the Emir Nuri to say that four
hundred Turkish cavalry had started from Deraa to Sirhan in search of
them. He had sent his nephew as a guide to mislead them by devious
routes, so that men and horses were suffering terribly from thirst.
They were now near Nebk. The Turkish Government would believe that
the expedition was still in Sirhan until the cavalry returned, and
that would be some days. So the coast was clear, especially since the
Turks thought that the Bair wells had been utterly destroyed and that
therefore Maan was safe. The Jefer wells had been also destroyed, and
that settled it. But Lawrence wondered whether the destruction of the
wells at Jefer had not been bungled too. A Howeitat chief who had
been present, and was one of those who had sworn allegiance at Wejh,
sent secretly to say that the King’s Well (Auda’s family property and
the biggest of the wells) had been dynamited from above; but that he
had heard the upper stones clap together and key over the shaft. They
hoped this was so and rode forward on June the twenty-eighth to find
out, over a hard mud-plain blinding white with salt.
Jefer seemed hopeless; the seven wells were completely wrecked.
However, they sounded around the King’s Well and the ground rang
hollow, so volunteers of the Ageyl began to dig away the earth outside.
As they dug, the core of the well stood up in the hollow like a rough
tower, and they carefully removed the stones until at last they knew
that the report had been true; they could hear the mud fragments
slipping between the stones and splashing many feet below. They worked
hard, in relays, while the rest of the men sang to encourage them,
promising rewards of gold when water was found. At sunset came a rush
and rumble, followed by a splash and yells; the well was opened. The
key of stones had given way and one of the Ageyl had fallen in and was
swimming about trying not to drown. All night long they watered there,
while a squad of Ageyl, singing in chorus, built up a new well-head.
The earth was stamped in around this and the well was, in appearance at
least, as good as ever. The Ageyl were rewarded by being feasted on a
weak camel which had failed in the march that day.
From Jefer the next step was the pass of Aba el Lissan, where a
Turkish block-house guarded the crest. A neighbouring clan of the
Howeitat had promised to settle it, so picked men went from Jefer to
help them. The Turks were not, however, taken by surprise; they
manned their stone breastworks and drove the tribesmen off into cover.
Thinking that this was only an ordinary tribal raid, they then sent a
mounted party to take vengeance on the nearest Arab encampment. They
found one old man, six women, and seven children there and cut their
throats. The tribesmen only saw what was happening too late, but then
furiously charged down from the hill across the return road of the
murderers and cut them off almost to a man. They next attacked the now
weakly-garrisoned block-house, carried it in their first angry rush and
took no prisoners.
Hearing this news at Jefer the same day, Lawrence, Nasir, Auda and the
rest went forward towards Aba el Lissan: striking the railway twenty
miles south of Maan and blowing up a long stretch of it, including ten
bridges. Lawrence had learned to destroy these at small expense by
stuffing the drainage holes in the spandrels with five-pound charges
of gelatine. The explosion brought down the arch, shattered the
uprights, and stripped the side-walls. With short fuses it took only
six minutes to finish each bridge. They continued their demolitions
until all their explosive was gone and then struck westward towards
Aba el Lissan, camping that evening about five miles from the railway
on the Akaba side. Hardly had they finished baking their bread when
three men galloped up to say that Aba el Lissan, the block-house, the
pass and the command of the Akaba road were lost again. A large column
of Turks, infantry and guns, had just arrived from Maan, and the Arabs
at Aba el Lissan, disorganized as usual by victory, had run away.
Lawrence learned later that this sudden move was an accident. A Turkish
battalion from the Caucasus had arrived at Maan to relieve another that
had been garrisoned there for some time; while it was still formed
up at the station news arrived of fighting at Aba el Lissan and the
battalion, with the addition of some mountain-guns carried on mules,
was marched off at once to relieve the block-house. When the Turks
climbed up to the pass they had found the place deserted, except for
the vultures flying in slow uneasy rings above the block-house walls.
The battalion commander was afraid that the sight would be too much
for his troops, young conscripts who had never been on a battlefield
before, and led them downhill again to the roadside spring, where they
encamped all night.
The news was startling and unwelcome. The Arabs started off again at
once, eating the hot bread as they rode. Auda was in front, singing,
and the men joined in from time to time with the proud vigour of an
army moving into battle. As they went, the camels in front kicked
against the wormwood bushes and the scent hung in the air, making the
road fragrant for those behind. They rode all night and came at dawn
to the hill-crest overlooking the pass. Here the head-men of the tribe
that had captured the block-house the day before were waiting for them,
the blood still splashed on their anxious faces. It was decided to
attack; unless the battalion were dislodged the dangers and trials of
the last two months would go for nothing. And the Turks made this easy
for them; they slept on in the valley while the Arabs surrounded them,
seizing the crests of all the hills unobserved; and were caught in a
trap.
At dawn the Arabs began sniping while Zaal and the horsemen rode to
cut the Maan telegraph and telephone in the plain behind. The sniping
went on all day. The Turks every now and then would make a sortie
in one direction or another, but were soon driven back again to their
position under some cliffs by the water spring. It was terribly hot on
the hills, hotter than Lawrence had ever known it in Arabia, and the
anxiety and constant moving made it worse. To make up for their small
numbers they had to run behind the hill-crests from point to point to
pretend to be more numerous than they really were. The sharp limestone
ridges cut their naked feet, so that long before evening the more
energetic men left a rusty print on the ground at every stride. Even
some of the tough tribesmen broke down under the heat and had to be
thrown under the shade of rocks to recover.
By noon the rifles had become so hot with shooting that they burned
the Arabs’ hands, and the rocks from behind which they aimed scorched
their arms and breasts, from which later the skin peeled off in sheets.
They were very thirsty but had little water and could not spare men to
fetch more; so every one went without rather than that a few should
drink. The only consolation was that the valley was far hotter, and the
Turks less used to heat than themselves. The mountain-guns were being
constantly fired, which made the Arabs laugh: the little shells burst
far behind the hill-crests, though to the Turkish gunners they seem to
be doing great damage.
Just after noon Lawrence himself broke down with something like a
heat-stroke, and crawled into a hollow behind the ridge where there was
a trickle of mud on the slope. He sucked up some moisture, making his
sleeve a filter. Nasir joined him, panting, with cracked and bleeding
lips, and then old Auda appeared striding along, his eyes bloodshot and
staring, his face working with excitement. He grinned maliciously
to see them lying there under the bank and croaked to Lawrence, ‘Well,
how is it with the Howeitat? All talk and no work?’ Lawrence was angry
with himself for his weakness and with every one else. He spat back at
Auda, ‘By God, indeed they shoot a lot and hit a little!’ Auda, pale
and trembling with rage, tore his headcloth off and threw it on the
ground. Then he ran back up the hill like a madman shouting to the men
in his dreadful strained voice. They gathered together and scattered
downhill past Lawrence. Lawrence was afraid that things were going
wrong. He struggled up to Auda, who stood alone on the hill-top glaring
at the enemy, but all that Auda would say was: ‘Get your camel if
you want to see the old man’s work!’ Nasir and Lawrence mounted; the
Howeitat were riding to a lower part of the ridge, across the crest of
which was an easy slope down to the valley; it ran to a point rather
below the spring where the Turks were huddled. Behind the crest they
found four hundred camel-men massed, waiting. Lawrence asked where the
horsemen were and was told: ‘With Auda yonder.’ At that moment yells
and shots poured up from the valley. The Arabs kicked their camels
to the crest and saw the fifty horsemen galloping at full speed down
another slope, making straight for the Turks and shooting from the
saddle. Two or three went down, but the rest thundered forward. The
Turks hesitated, broke and ran.
‘Come on!’ Nasir screamed to Lawrence with his bloody mouth, and away
down over the crest plunged the four hundred camels, heading off the
Turkish flight. The Turks did not see them coming until too late: then
they fired a few shots, but for the most part only shrieked and ran
faster. Lawrence’s racing camel stretched herself out and charged
at such a speed that she soon outdistanced the rest, and he found
himself alone among the Turks, firing wildly with his pistol. Suddenly
the camel tripped and fell headlong. Since she was going something
like thirty miles an hour, Lawrence was torn from the saddle and went
hurtling through the air for a great distance. He landed with a crash
that drove all the power and feeling from his body and lay there
waiting for the Turks to kill him, or the camels to trample him.
After a long time he sat up and saw that the battle was over. His
camel’s body behind him had divided the charge into two streams; he
looked at it and saw that the heavy bullet of the fifth shot that he
had fired from his revolver was embedded at the back of its skull!
A few of the enemy got away, the gunners on their mules and a few
mounted men and officers. There were only a hundred and sixty prisoners
taken, many of them wounded, for the Howeitat were avenging yesterday’s
murder of their women and children. Three hundred dead and dying were
scattered in the valley. Auda came up on foot, his eyes mad with
delight of battle, and the words bubbling incoherently from his mouth:
‘Work, work, where are words? Work, bullets, Abu Tayi ...’ and he held
up his shattered field-glasses, his pierced pistol-holster, and his
leather sword-scabbard cut to ribbons. He had been the target of a
volley which had killed his mare under him, but the six bullets through
his clothes had not touched him. He told Lawrence later in confidence
that thirteen years before he had bought a miniature Koran as an
amulet. It had cost him one hundred and twenty pounds and he had never
since been wounded. The book was a Glasgow photographic reproduction
and was priced at eighteen-pence inside the cover; but nothing
that the deadly Auda did might be laughed at. Least of all by Lawrence
who, I think, envied Auda’s natural mediæval style; he himself could
only doubtfully and self-consciously use the materials of this
scientific age in the mediæval setting. Mohammed al Dheilan was angry
with Auda and Lawrence, calling them fools and saying that Lawrence was
worse than Auda for insulting him and provoking the folly that might
have killed them all. However, Lawrence could not regret his action,
for the Arabs had only had two men killed and he would have been
content to have lost many more. Time was of the greatest importance
because of the food shortage, and this victory would frighten the
little Turkish garrisons between Aba el Lissan and Akaba into quick
surrender. As for Maan, prisoners told him that there were only two
companies of Turks left in the town, not enough to defend it; much less
to send reinforcements to Aba el Lissan.
The Howeitat then clamoured to be led to Maan, a magnificent place to
loot, though the day’s plunder should have satisfied them. However,
Nasir and Auda helped Lawrence to restrain them; it would have
been absurd to have gone there without supports, regulars, guns or
communications, without gold even—for they were already issuing notes
with promises to pay ‘when Akaba is taken,’ the first notes ever passed
current in Arabia—and no base nearer than Wejh, three hundred miles
away. Yet it would be wise to alarm Maan further, so mounted men went
north and captured two small garrison-villages between them and it; and
news of this, and of the Aba el Lissan disaster, and of the capture of
herds of convalescent army camels pasturing north of Maan by another
of these raiding parties, all reached Maan together and caused a
proper panic.
That night Lawrence experienced the shameful reaction after the
victory: he went walking among the plundered dead with a sick mind; his
thoughts were painful, emotional and shallow. Auda called him away at
last; they must leave the battlefield. Partly this was a superstitious
fear of the ghosts of the dead, partly a fear of Turkish reinforcements
and of neighbouring clans, his blood-enemies, who might catch his
force disorganized and pay off old grudges. So they moved on into the
hills and camped in a hollow sheltered from the wind. While the tired
men slept, Nasir and Auda dictated letters to the Howeitat near Akaba
telling them of the victory and asking them to besiege the Turkish
posts in their district until the force arrived. At the same time one
of the captured officers to whom they had been kind wrote a letter for
them to the garrisons at Guweira, Kethera and other posts on the way,
advising surrender.
The food had been exhausted and water was scarce, so the expedition
had to make haste forward. Fortunately the chief Howeitat sheikh of
the hill tribes, an old fox who had been balancing in his mind which
side to take, was impressed by the victory and captured the Guweira
garrison of a hundred and twenty men. The next post on the Akaba road
refused to surrender, so they decided to attack it, and in irony
assigned the honour to the old fox and his less weary tribesmen,
advising him to attack after dark. It was a strong post commanding
the valley and looked costly to take. The sheikh shrank from the task
and made difficulties, pleading the full moon. Lawrence promised that
there would be no moon that night; by the greatest good luck
he had noticed in his diary that an eclipse was due. So while the
superstitious Turkish soldiers were firing rifles and clanging copper
pots to frighten off the demon of darkness who was devouring their
moon, the Arabs crept up and captured the place without loss.
They went on through the defiles and found post after post deserted.
News came that the defenders had all been withdrawn to trenches four
miles from Akaba, a magnificent position for beating off a landing from
the sea, though facing the wrong way for an attack from inland. They
were, it was said, only three hundred men and had little food (the
Arabs were in the same fix), but were prepared to resist strongly. This
was found to be true. The Arabs sent a summons to surrender by white
flag and by prisoners, but the Turks shot at both; at last a little
Turkish conscript said that he could arrange it. He came back an hour
later with a message that the Turks would surrender in two days if help
did not come from Maan. This was folly; the tribesmen could not be held
back much longer and it might mean the massacre of every Turk and loss
to the Arabs too. So the conscript was given a sovereign and Lawrence
and one or two more walked down close to the trenches with him again,
sending him in to fetch an officer to parley with them. After some
hesitation one came and, when Lawrence explained that the Arab forces
were growing and tempers were short, agreed to surrender next morning.
The next morning fighting broke out again, hundreds of hill-men having
come in that night knowing nothing of the arrangement; but Nasir
stopped it and the surrender went off quietly after all. There were now
no more Turks left between them and the sea.
When the Arabs rushed in to plunder Lawrence noticed an engineer
in grey German uniform with a red beard and puzzled blue eyes; he was a
well-borer and knew no Turkish. He begged Lawrence to explain what was
happening and was astonished when he was told that this was a rebellion
of the Arabs against the Turks. He wanted to know who the Arab leader
was, and Lawrence answered: ‘The Sherif of Mecca.’ The German supposed
that he would be sent to Mecca, but Lawrence told him, ‘No, Egypt.’
He inquired the price of sugar there and was glad to hear that it was
cheap and plentiful. He was only sorry to leave the artesian well
he had been boring, the pump of which was only half-finished. After
quenching their thirst here with help of a sludge-bucket, Lawrence and
his men raced on to Akaba in a driving sandstorm and splashed into the
sea on July the sixth, exactly two months after setting out from Wejh.
XVI
Akaba was in ruins. Repeated bombardments by French and British
warships had knocked the little town to pieces. To the Arabs it seemed
hardly worth while taking at the cost of so much blood and pain and
hunger. And hunger was still with them. They now had seven hundred
Turkish prisoners to feed in addition to their original five hundred
men and two thousand allies, no money (or any market to buy food
in); and the last meal had been two days before. All that they had
to eat was riding-camels, a most expensive form of food and a poor
one. And dates. But this was July and the dates were still green.
Raw, they tasted very nasty, and cooking made them no better. The
only alternative to constant hunger was violent pains. The forty-two
officer-prisoners were an intolerable nuisance. The colonel of the
Turkish battalion at Aba el Lissan had been a difficulty ever since
his capture, when Nasir had only just saved him from the fury of the
tribesmen: the silly man was trying to restore the battle with a little
pocket-pistol. Later he had grumbled at being given a quarter loaf of
brown Turkish ration bread. Farraj and Daud had looted it for their
master Lawrence, who divided it up among the four of them. The colonel
asked was it a fit breakfast for a Turkish officer. Lawrence answered,
certainly it was (he himself a British staff-officer had eaten his with
relish), and he must expect to make it do for lunch and dinner as well
and probably for to-morrow’s breakfast, lunch and dinner too. The Turk
also complained that one of the Arabs had insulted him with an obscene
Turkish word: Lawrence answered that the man must have learned it from
one of his Turkish masters and was rendering to Cæsar the things that
were Cæsar’s. At Akaba it was worse still: the officer-prisoners
were disgusted when they found how unprovided their captors were: they
thought it was only a fraud to annoy them and would not believe that
Lawrence and Nasir had not all the delicacies of Cairo hidden somewhere
in their saddle-bags.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot framed by trees of moored
ships and boats; people and tents are in
foreground
caption: AKABA
_Copyright_
]
In the evening, the first reaction after success having passed off,
they thought of defence. Auda went back to Guweira and three other
defensive posts were set in a semi-circle about Akaba. Lawrence decided
to go to Egypt at once with the great news and ask for food, money
and arms to be sent at once by sea as reward. He chose eight men to
go with him, mostly Howeitat, on the best camels of the force. A bad
ride was ahead of them, and it was difficult to decide whether to go
gently, sparing the animals, in which case they might fail with hunger;
or whether to ride hard, when they might break down with exhaustion or
sore feet in mid-desert. Lawrence decided in the end to keep at a walk;
if they could hold out, they would reach Suez in fifty hours. But in
such cases the test of endurance is harder for the man than for the
camel, and Lawrence was near the end of his strength, having ridden an
average of fifty miles a day for the last month, with very little food.
To make halts for cooking unnecessary they carried lumps of boiled
camel and cooked dates in a rag behind their saddles.
The camels were trembling for weariness early in the night, for the
road wound up across the Sinai hills with a gradient of one in three
and a half. When they reached the top one camel had to be sent back as
unfit for further travel. The others were allowed to graze for an hour.
About midnight they reached Themed, the only wells on the journey,
watered the camels and drank themselves but did not stay many minutes.
They rode all that night and when the sun rose gave the camels
half an hour’s grazing, then on again all day until sunset, when they
halted for an hour. They rode all that second night at a mechanical
walk, over hills, and when dawn came saw a melon-field sown in this
no-man’s-land between the armies by some adventurous Arab. They halted
for an hour and cracked the unripe melons to cool their mouths, then
again forward until Suez came in sight, or something that probably
was Suez, a jumble of points bobbing about far away in the mirage.
They reached great trench lines with forts and barbed wire, roads and
railways; but they were all deserted and falling into decay; the war
had long since moved on a hundred and fifty miles to the north-east.
At last in the middle of the afternoon of the third day they arrived
at the Suez Canal. They had ridden for forty-nine hours without sleep
and with only four short halts and had come a hundred and sixty-eight
miles. When it is remembered that they were tired men before they
started, and that the camels were exhausted too, this must rank as a
good ride, though Lawrence surpassed it himself later.
He found himself still on the wrong side of the Canal, and the
garrison-post that he had aimed for was deserted—he did not know why,
but learned later that there had been an outbreak of plague, so the
troops were out camping in the uninfected desert. He found a telephone
in a deserted hut and called up the Canal Headquarters. He was told
that they were sorry but they couldn’t take him across; there were
no free boats; but next morning for sure they would send across and
take him to the Quarantine Department (for he was now technically
infectious). He tried again, explaining that he had urgent messages
for Headquarters at Cairo, but he was rung off. Fortunately the
telephone-exchange operator told him with friendly oaths that it
was no use talking to the Canal people, and put him through to a Major,
the Embarkation officer at Suez. He was an old friend of the Revolt,
who would catch Red Sea warships as they entered the harbour and make
them unwillingly pile their decks with stores for Wejh or Yenbo. The
Major understood at once the urgency of the matter and sent his own
launch from the harbour to take Lawrence across, making him swear not
to tell the Canal authorities, until after the war, of this invasion of
their sacred waters. The men and camels were sent up the Canal for ten
miles to a rest-camp for animals; he arranged rations for them there by
telephone.
At Suez where he arrived verminous and filthy, with his clothes
sticking to his saddle-sores, he went to a hotel and had six iced
drinks, a good dinner, a hot bath, and a comfortable bed. He
appreciated this dull hotel-comfort after having in the last four
desperate weeks, though not yet recovered from a severe illness, ridden
fourteen hundred miles on camel-back through hostile country. They were
weeks of little sleep, poor food, frequent fighting and never-ceasing
anxiety at the hottest time of the year in one of the hottest countries
of the world. Later he found that he weighed only seven stone, nine
stone being his normal weight; though in his first year at the
University he had carried eleven without being out of condition.
He went to Cairo by train on a permit-ticket given him by the
Embarkation officer. A mixed party of Egyptian and British military
police on the train was most suspicious of him. When he said that he
was in the uniform of a staff-officer of the Sherif of Mecca they
could not believe it. They looked at his bare feet, white silk robes,
gold head-rope and dagger. ‘What army, sir?’ asked the sergeant.
‘The Meccan army,’ Lawrence answered. ‘Never heard of it, don’t
know the uniform,’ the sergeant said. ‘Well,’ said Lawrence, ‘would
you recognize the uniform of a Montenegrin dragoon?’ This beat the
sergeant. Any Allied troops in uniform might travel without permits,
and the police, though expected to recognize all the uniforms of every
army, were not even sure who all the Allies were. Mecca might be the
name of some new country that had joined in without their knowledge.
They wired up the line and a perspiring intelligence-officer boarded
the train near Ismailia to check the statements of this possible spy;
he was very angry to find that he had been sent on a fool’s errand.
At Ismailia all changed and waited on the platform for the Port
Said-Cairo express. Another train had also just arrived and from it
stepped a tall determined-looking general in company with Admiral
Wemyss, the Naval Commander-in-Chief, and two or three important
staff-officers. They marched up and down the platform deep in talk.
After awhile Lawrence caught the eye of a naval captain, who came over
and spoke to him, wondering who he was. When the captain heard of the
surprise capture of Akaba he was properly excited, promising to have
a relief-ship sent there at once loaded with all the spare food in
Suez. He would make immediate arrangements on his own responsibility
so as not to disturb General Allenby. ‘Allenby? what’s he doing here?’
asked Lawrence. ‘Oh, he’s Commander-in-Chief now.’ This was most
important news. Allenby’s predecessor, who at first had been against
the Revolt, had gradually been brought to realize its value to him, and
in his last dispatches to London had written in praise of the Arabs
and particularly of Feisal. But after the second battle of Gaza, which
had been forced on him by orders from London against his better
judgment and ended in defeat, he had been recalled. Lawrence wondered
whether he would have to spend months training Allenby in the same way
to realize the importance of the Arabs. Allenby had been commanding
divisions in France since the outbreak of war and was full of Western
Front notions of gun-power and masses of men wearing down the enemy
by sheer slaughter, ideas which did not apply at all well to war in
the East. But he was a cavalry man and ready perhaps to go back to the
old-fashioned idea of a war of movement and manœuvre.
Later at Cairo he sent for Lawrence, having got his report about Akaba.
It was a comic interview. Lawrence was still in his Arab clothes,
because when he went to the hotel to look out his old army uniform he
found that insects had been at it. Allenby sat in his chair looking
at Lawrence, very much puzzled at this haggard little man, with silk
robes and a face burned brick red with the sun, explaining with a map
a fantastic plan for raising the Eastern Syrians in revolt behind the
enemy lines. He listened quietly, asking few questions and trying to
make up his mind how far Lawrence was a charlatan and how far a real
performer—a doubt that was also constantly in Lawrence’s own mind.
He asked what help he wanted. Lawrence said, stores and arms and a
fund of two hundred thousand pounds in gold to convince and control
his converts. Allenby put up his chin at last, a well-known decisive
gesture and said, ‘Well, I will do for you what I can.’ And meant it.
The meeting of Lawrence with Feisal had begun a new successful phase of
the war in Arabia, the meeting of Lawrence with Allenby began an even
more successful one.
Hitherto Lawrence had sent few and misleading reports to Egypt—even
these were, I am told, often doctored by the Staff on the way to
the Commander-in-Chief—because he could not be sure how acceptable
the truth would be, or how well his secrets would be kept; he had
not, for instance, warned the Commander-in-Chief of his intended
capture of Akaba. But he learned to take Allenby more deeply into his
confidence and never afterwards regretted it. There was little personal
intimacy between the two then or afterwards—they have not met since
1921—but great trust and liking. Allenby is an extremely practical
man and a first-class soldier: spiritual conflicts or philosophic
doubts do not appear to touch him and it is impossible to imagine
him living among Bedouin or doing any of the crazy things that were
Lawrence’s daily life. Lawrence’s methods and motives were a mystery
and remained a mystery to him, but he gratefully accepted him as a
fact and let the rest go by. Lawrence was simply to him, as he told
me recently, a first-class irregular leader and exactly the man he
wanted for the protection of the floating right flank of his army. I
asked whether in his opinion Lawrence would have made a good general
of regular forces too. ‘A very bad general,’ said Allenby, ‘but a good
Commander-in-Chief, yes. There is no show that I would believe him
incapable of running if he wanted to, but he would have to be given
a free hand.’ I also asked Lawrence his opinion of Allenby. ‘A great
man,’ said Lawrence. ‘For instance?’ I asked. ‘For instance, when a
Major-General of the Royal Army Medical Corps, the surgeon-in-chief of
Allenby’s army, had to go, he chose to replace him with the Medical
Officer of a Territorial unit, a mere lieutenant-colonel. And surely
a man who can persuade armoured cars, cavalry, infantry, camel-corps,
aeroplanes, warships and Bedouin irregulars to combine in a single
military operation is a great man, isn’t he?’ When recently
Lawrence published his book the one favourable opinion that he was
really anxious to get was Allenby’s, for the Field-Marshal is as
strict on points of style—he loves Milton’s _Comus_—as upon historical
accuracy. Allenby approved both its style and accuracy; which satisfies
Lawrence completely.
Meanwhile sixteen thousand pounds in English sovereigns were drawn
from a Cairo bank to be sent to Nasir at once to enable him to pay his
debts. It was important to redeem the notes that he had given out,
which were army telegraph-forms pencilled with promises to pay gold at
Akaba. The money went to Suez to join the flour that was being quickly
loaded there, ready to be rushed to famished Akaba. These were the
first things that mattered. After this the changed aspect of the war in
Arabia had to be discussed with the Arab Bureau.
Lawrence began talking with authority. His capture of Akaba made him a
person of very much greater importance than before and had given him
confidence in himself. He told his seniors that the big operations
about the railway near Medina were a mistake. The war had moved north
now. He suggested that the base at Wejh should be closed down, as Yenbo
had been closed before, and that the whole of Feisal’s army should
move up north and make its base at Akaba. Akaba was on Allenby’s right
flank, only a hundred miles from his centre, but eight hundred miles
from Mecca. Once there at Akaba, it was logical that Feisal should no
longer be tied to his father at Mecca, the nominal Commander-in-Chief
of the Arabs, but should be made an army-corps commander under
direct control of Allenby. Lawrence had talked this over with Feisal
long before in Wejh and Feisal had been ready to accept. The High
Commissioner of Egypt who hitherto had been the chief British
partner did not mind the transference being made; though Feisal’s
removal would weaken the forces in Arabia. Abdulla, Ali and Zeid were
strong enough to keep the Turks in Medina from making another attempt
on Mecca. There was only one difficulty and that was Feisal’s father,
the Sherif. Would he make any difficulty? Fortunately Colonel Wilson,
the High Commissioner’s representative at Jiddah, talked him over, and
Feisal decided to move up to Akaba at once. He sent his camel-corps up
the coast and the remainder of the army under Jaafar was transported by
a warship. More stores and ammunition were sent to Akaba, and British
officers to distribute it properly at Feisal’s orders.
Lawrence was at Jiddah with Wilson when two startling telegrams arrived
from the intelligence service in Egypt. The first reported that the
Howeitat at Akaba were carrying on a treacherous correspondence with
the Turks at Maan, the next that Auda was connected with the plot.
This was alarming, for though Lawrence could not believe it of Auda,
Mohammed el Dheilan was quite capable of double play, and the old fox
who had captured Guweira was still less to be trusted. Three days later
Lawrence arrived by warship at Akaba, where Nasir had no notion of
anything wrong. He only told Nasir that he wished to greet Auda, and
asked for a swift camel and a guide. At dawn he arrived at Guweira and
found Auda, Mohammed and Zaal in a tent together. They were confused at
his sudden appearance but said that all was well and they ate together
as friends. Other Howeitat chiefs came in and Lawrence distributed the
Sherif’s presents, telling them among other things that Nasir had at
last got his month’s leave to Mecca. The Sherif was enthusiastic
for the Revolt and would not allow his officers leave from the front.
Poor Nasir’s banishment from his family had been a stock joke and it
was said that he would certainly deserve a holiday when Akaba fell; but
Nasir had not believed that it would be granted until he was handed
Hussein’s letter the day before. In gratitude Nasir sold Lawrence a
famous pedigree camel, Ghazala, as the owner of which he had great
honour among the Howeitat.
After lunch Lawrence took Auda and Mohammed for a walk and mentioned
their correspondence with the Turks. Auda began to laugh, Mohammed
looked disgusted. Then they explained, telling a farcical story of how
Mohammed had wanted to get money from the Turks by a confidence trick
and had therefore taken Auda’s seal and written to the Governor of Maan
offering to desert to the Turks if he were given money. A large sum was
gladly sent on account, but Auda had waylaid the messenger, taken the
spoils and was now denying Mohammed his share. Lawrence laughed with
them over the story but knew that more lay behind it; the fact was,
they had been angry that no guns or troops had yet arrived since Akaba
had been taken a month before, and that no rewards had been given them
for their part in it. Auda, feeling sorry for the Turks whom he had
beaten so badly, was quite ready to fight on their side for a change:
it was generosity rather than treachery with him. But both Auda and
Mohammed were surprised at Lawrence’s knowledge, wanting to know how
he came by it and how much more he knew. He laughed at them, quoting,
as if they were his own words, actual phrases of the letters that had
been exchanged, and made them feel uncomfortable. Then he told them
casually that Feisal’s entire army was coming up, and that Allenby
was sending rifles, guns, high-explosive, food and money. Finally he
added that Auda’s present expenses in hospitality must be great; would
it help if something were advanced of the great gift that Feisal was
bringing up to him? Auda agreed cheerfully to accept the advance and
with it to keep the Howeitat well fed and cheerful. So Lawrence went
back to Akaba, took ship back to Egypt and reported that there was no
treachery at Guweira: everything was going on well there. But he did
not explain the whole story; Headquarters would not have understood it.
XVII
While waiting for Feisal’s army to come up Lawrence began getting his
thoughts in order again. The war in Arabia was as good as over and
Feisal’s army, now under the wing of Allenby, was about to take part
in the military deliverance of Syria. Syria Lawrence knew well. He had
wandered up and down in it before the War, from city to city and tribe
to tribe; he had even written a book about it. Syria was a fertile
strip of land running between the eastern coast of the Mediterranean
and the great Syrian desert, with a backbone of mountains dividing it.
It had been for centuries a corridor between Arabia and Europe, Asia
and Egypt, and held at one time or another by Turks, Greeks, Romans,
Egyptians, Arabs, Persians, Assyrians and Hittites. It was naturally
divided up into sections by the mountain spurs, and the constant
passing to and fro of armies had filled the land with an extraordinary
variety of peoples—to almost every valley a different population, each
little colony kept separate from its neighbours by the spurs between.
There were Circassians, Kurds, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Persians,
Algerians, Jews, Arabians, and many more, with as many varieties of
religion among them as of race.
The six principal cities, Jerusalem, Beyrout, Damascus, Homs, Hama and
Aleppo, were also each of them entirely different in character. The
only possible bond between most of these pieces of the Syrian mosaic
was the common language, Arabic, and though at this time there was
much talk of Arab freedom, it was impossible to think of Syria as a
national unity. Freedom to the Syrians meant local home-rule for each
little community in its valley or city, but a freedom impossible in
modern civilization where roads, railways, taxes, armies, a postal
system, supplies have all to be maintained by a central government.
And whatever central government might be imposed on Syria, even though
Arabic were the official language, would be a foreign government; for
there was no such thing as a true or typical Syrian. How to spread
the Revolt up to Damascus over this chequer-board of communities each
divided against its neighbour naturally by geography and history, and
artificially by Turkish intrigue was a most baffling problem: which
however Lawrence set himself to solve.
It was difficult to do anything on the Mediterranean side of the
central mountain-range, where the mixed population was Europeanized and
could probably not be converted to the idea of an Arab confederation
with its headquarters in the ancient Arab capital of Damascus; it
would prefer a French or English protectorate. But inland, between the
mountains and the desert where the tribes were simpler and wilder, the
national ideal might well be preached. Lawrence decided then to build
up a ladder of friendly tribes in Eastern Syria beginning at the south
with the Howeitat, for three hundred miles until Azrak was reached,
half-way to Damascus. It was the method that had been used before in
Arabia from Jiddah through Rabegh, Yenbo, Wejh to Akaba. Once they were
at Azrak, the Arabs of the Hauran would probably rise in sympathy; the
Hauran being a huge fertile land, just south of Damascus, populous with
warlike self-reliant Arab peasantry. This rising should end the war.
Once more the tactics should be tip and run, not the regular advance
of an organized army, and for this the eastern desert was most
convenient. One might look on it as a sort of sea in which to manœuvre
with camel-parties instead of ships. The railway, to cover it from
the British Fleet, had been built down the eastern side of the
central mountains and could be raided from the desert without fear of
retaliation, for the Turks had no camel-corps worth anything, and in
any case no important point to strike back against. From the war in
the south Lawrence had learned that the best tactics were to use the
smallest raiding parties on the fastest camels, and to strike at points
widely separated with the most portable weapons of destruction. These
weapons would be high-explosive for demolition work and light automatic
guns, Hotchkiss or Lewis, which could be fired from the saddle of a
camel running at eighteen miles an hour. Lawrence at once begged for
quantities of these from Egypt.
The difficulty of the campaign was that, though all the tribes might
join in the Revolt, their jealousies were such that no tribe could
fight in a neighbour’s territory and no tribal combinations were
possible as they had been in Arabia. Feisal’s authority in Syria was
not great enough to heal the feuds. This meant that the brunt of the
fighting had to be borne by a small force of Ageyl and others from
the south, against whom, as distant strangers under the command of
members of the Prophet’s family, there was not so much prejudice. It
was impossible for the Turks to foresee the strength and direction of
the attacks: the camels could, after a watering, travel two hundred
and fifty miles in three days; and in an emergency could go a hundred
and ten miles in twenty-four hours. (Twice Lawrence’s famous Ghazala
did one hundred and forty-three miles of a march alone with him.)
This meant that it might not be impossible to strike at points near
Maan on Monday, near Amman on Thursday, near Deraa on Saturday, and
to get fresh tribesmen and camels from each district to join in the
attack. Above all, the regular raiders must be self-supporting.
From Akaba they could go out with six-weeks’ flour-ration and
ammunition, explosive and gold, and do without the complicated system
of supply-trains and dumps which slows down the pace and shortens the
fighting range of every regular army.
There must be no discipline in the ordinary sense of a chain of
command going down from general to colonel, to captain, to lieutenant,
to sergeant, to corporal, to private; every man must be his own
commander-in-chief, ready, if need be, for single combat against the
enemy without waiting for orders from above or co-operation from his
fellows. And discipline could not in any case have been enforced: the
Arabs were independent by nature and were serving voluntarily. Honour
was the only contract and every man was free to draw his pay up to date
and go home at any time he liked; only the Ageyl and the small regular
army under Jaafar were serving for a definite term, so that the war
when fought was fought with goodwill. There were no shameful incidents
like those on the Western Front where the first dead man that I saw was
an English suicide, and the last one also.
Mr. Herbert Read, by the way, has made a rather unfortunate critical
condemnation of Lawrence’s _Seven Pillars_ as being an account of a
campaign where men did not heroically suffer the machine-made boredom
and agony of the Western trenches, and which therefore can hardly be
taken seriously. This reads like a glorification of the more horrible
sort of war at the expense of the less horrible, which cannot be
what Mr. Read (an anti-militarist, and for good reason) intends. If
he wishes to point out that all war is evil in itself, whatever its
glamour, he should not complicate his argument by a false comparison of
heroisms.
[Illustration:
description: Map of area around Dead Sea with Lawrence’s travel
paths indicated
title caption: LAWRENCE’S RIDES
]
Six weeks had elapsed since the capture of Akaba, and the Arabs
had had opportunity to strengthen themselves. Feisal and Jaafar had
now arrived at Akaba with the army. Plentiful supplies were landed
from Egypt and armoured cars and guns—though the long-range guns never
arrived until the last month of the war—and Egyptian labourers to
rebuild the town and turn round the fortifications to face inland.
The defiles through the hills were strongly held. On the other hand,
the Turks had also been busy and had the advice of the German general
Falkenhayn who had been chiefly responsible for saving them two years
before at the Dardanelles. They had sent down a whole division to Maan
and fortified it until it was quite secure against attack except by
the strong regular forces and heavy guns which the Arabs did not have.
There was an aeroplane-station there now and great supply dumps.
It was probable that the Turks would try to retake Akaba by way of Aba
el Lissan and Guweira. They had already pushed their way up to Aba el
Lissan and fortified it while cavalry held the neighbouring hills.
But Lawrence knew that Akaba was safe enough. He would even welcome a
Turkish attempt on it, which could only end in great losses. There were
Arab posts out north and south of the pass, and old Maulud with his
mule-mounted regiment had taken up his position in the ancient ruins of
Petra north of Maan and was encouraging the local tribes to raid the
Turkish communications in competition with their rivals at Delagha, a
few miles to their south. Raiding went on for weeks and the Turks got
more and more irritated. To prick them into retaliation a long distance
air-raid was made on Maan, from El Arish on the left of the British
Army.
Thirty-two bombs were dropped about breakfast-time in and about
the unprepared station: the aeroplanes flew dangerously low but
returned safely the same morning to a temporary landing-ground thirty
miles north of Akaba where the airmen patched up the shrapnel-torn
wings of their machines. Two of their bombs had struck the barracks and
killed a number of Turks, eight struck the engine-shed, doing great
damage, one fell in the General’s kitchen, four on the aerodrome. The
next morning they visited Aba el Lissan, bombed the horse-lines and
stampeded the animals, and then the tents and stampeded the Turks. The
same afternoon they decided to look for the battery of guns that had
troubled them that morning; there was just enough petrol and bombs.
Skimming the hill-crest they came over Aba el Lissan at a height of
only three hundred feet. They interrupted the Turks’ usual midday
sleep and took the place completely by surprise. They dropped thirty
bombs, silenced the battery and were off again. The Turkish commander
at Maan set his men digging bomb-proof shelters and dispersed his
aeroplanes, when they had been repaired, for fear of a fresh attack on
the aerodrome.
The next plan that Lawrence had for the Arabs was to reduce the troops
that the Turks could spare for the Akaba attack by making frequent
raids on the railway and so forcing them to defend it more strongly.
The gloomy reaction after Aba el Lissan had long passed and left him
adventurous as before and ready to kill without remorse. He thought
out a series of demolitions for mid-September; it might be a good
idea, too, to mine another train. He would try for one at a station
called Mudowwara, eighty miles south of Maan, where a smashed train
would greatly embarrass the enemy. Now, to make sure of the train
new methods had to be found: the automatic mine was uncertain and
might be set off by a trolley or by a train carrying civilian
refugees which they would want to let pass; or, if the Turks put the
engines to push instead of to pull the trains, might only explode
under an unimportant wagon: and the train could then retire safely.
What was wanted seemed to be a mine that could be exploded at will by
electricity. The apparatus was sent to him from Egypt and explained
by electricians on the guard-ship at Akaba. It consisted of a heavy
white box, the exploder, and yards of heavy cable insulated with
rubber. With the engine blown up and the train perhaps derailed,
machine-guns and artillery would be needed to complete the destruction.
For machine-guns, the Lewis guns would have to do, but artillery was
a problem because to take along even the smallest mountain-guns meant
slow travelling. Lawrence then thought of the Stokes trench-mortars
which had lately been used successfully in France. They were simple
guns, like small drain-pipes, tilted at an angle on a tripod. Down the
mouth a heavy shell was allowed to slide, and when it struck the bottom
a charge in its base was fired and it went flying two or three hundred
yards and burst according to a time-fuse. This was not too short a
range for a railway ambush and the Stokes shell was powerfully charged
with ammonal.
Two sergeant-instructors were sent from Egypt to teach the Arabs at
Akaba how to use these weapons. The one in charge of the Lewis guns was
an Australian; reckless, talkative, tall and supple. The Stokes-mortar
sergeant was an English countryman; slow, stocky, workmanlike and
silent. Lawrence knew them as Lewis and Stokes, naming them after their
guns. They were excellent instructors and though they knew no Arabic
taught the tribesmen by dumb-show, until in a month’s time they could
use the guns reasonably well.
Lawrence decided that his raid might include an attack on
Mudowwara station. It was not strongly held, and three hundred men
might rush it at night and destroy the deep well there. Without its
water, the only plentiful supply in the dry hot section below Maan, the
trains would have to waste their wagon-space in carrying water-tanks.
Lewis was anxious to join in the raid; he was sick of being a mere
instructor at the base in Egypt and wanted to do some fighting. Stokes
said that he would come too. Lawrence warned them what to expect, of
hunger, heat and weariness, and explained that if anything happened to
him it might go badly with them alone with the Arabs. This warning only
excited Lewis and did not put off Stokes. Lawrence lent them two of his
best camels.
So they started on September the seventh, riding up to Guweira where
they collected some of Auda’s Howeitat tribesmen. Lawrence was at
first afraid that the heat would be too much for the sergeants. The
granite walls of the valley down which they rode were burningly hot;
a few days before in the cooler palm-gardens of Akaba beach the
thermometer had shown a hundred and twenty degrees. It was now even
hotter. As neither of the sergeants had ever been on a camel before
he let them take the ride easily. He was amused at the way that they
behaved with the Arabs. Lewis, the Australian, seemed at home from the
first and behaved freely towards the Arabs, but was astonished when
they treated him as equals; he could not have imagined that they would
forget the social difference between a white man and a brown. This
race prejudice, however, would soon wear off: meanwhile the joke was
that Lewis was burned a good deal browner than any of the Arabs. On
the other hand, Stokes, the Englishman, remained insular and his shy
correctness reminded the Arabs all the time that he was not one of
them. They treated him with respect and called him ‘sergeant,’ whereas
Lewis was merely ‘the long fellow.’ Lawrence found them typical of the
two opposite kinds of Englishmen in the East: the kind that allowed
themselves to be influenced by native customs and thought in order to
be able the more easily to impose their will on the country; and the
kind that became more English by reacting against native customs and
thought. Lawrence being an extreme instance of the former type, to the
point of identifying himself at times with the Arabs rather than with
the English, seems to have felt a sneaking regard for the John Bull
constancy of Sergeant Stokes.
When they came near Guweira a Turkish aeroplane droned over and the
party at once rode off the open road into bushy country where the
camels would not be seen. It was a daily aeroplane that never did
much damage but provided the idle Guweira camp with excitement and
conversation. They halted, still in the saddle, until the aeroplane
had dropped its three bombs and returned to its own lines near Maan.
Lawrence found the Howeitat all at odds. Auda who drew the wages for
the whole tribe, only a clan of which he ruled personally, was using
his power to compel the smaller clans to accept him as their leader.
This they resented, threatening either to go home or to join the Turks.
Feisal had sent up a sherif, a close kinsman, to settle the dispute,
but Auda was obstinate, knowing how much the success of the Revolt
depended on him. Now some of the clans from the south towards Mudowwara
were about to desert the cause, and they were the very men on whom
Lawrence was counting for help in his operations; but Auda would not
give way. However, he told Lawrence to ride forward some miles
with his twenty baggage-camels and halt to wait events.
They went, glad to leave behind the swarms of flies that plagued
them at Guweira. Lawrence much admired the way that the sergeants
stood the stifling heat, the worst that they had ever experienced; it
was like a metal mask over the face. Not to lower themselves in the
Arabs’ estimation, they did not utter a word of complaint. They were,
however, ignorant of Arabic or they would have known that the Arabs
were themselves making a great fuss about it. Rumm, a place of springs,
half-way to Mudowwara, should have been their first halt, but they went
on by easy stages, stopping the night in a grove of rustling tamarisk
under a tall red cliff. In the very early morning, while the stars
were still shining, Lawrence was roused by the Arab commander of the
expedition, one of the Harith, a poor member of the Prophet’s family.
He crept up shivering and said, ‘Lord, I have gone blind.’ Blindness
for an Arab was a worse fate than for a European and the sherif must
now look forward to a life of complete blankness. However, he would
not go home; he could ride, he said, though he could not shoot, and he
would make this his last adventure and, with God’s help, would retire
from active life at least with the consolation of a victory.
They rode for hours the next day through the valley of Rumm, a broad
tamarisk-grown avenue two miles wide between colossal red sandstone
cliffs. They rose a sheer thousand feet on either side, not in an
unbroken wall, but seemed built in vertical sections like a row of
skyscrapers. There were caverns high up like windows and others at the
foot like doors. At the top were domes of a greyer rock. The pygmy
caravan passing down this street for giants felt awed and kept quite
silent. Towards sunset there was a break in the cliffs to the
right, leading to the water. They turned in here and found themselves
in a vast oval amphitheatre floored with damp sand and dark shrubs.
The entrance was only three hundred yards wide, which made the place
more impressive still. At the foot of the enclosing precipices were
enormous fallen blocks of sandstone, bigger than houses, and along a
ledge at one side grew trees. A little path zigzagged up to the ledge
and there, three hundred feet above the level of the plain, jetted the
water-springs. They watered their camels here and cooked rice to add to
the bully beef which the sergeants had brought, with biscuits, as their
ration.
Coffee was also prepared for visitors: they had heard Arab voices
shouting in the distance at the other end of the place. The visitors
soon arrived, head-men of the several Howeitat clans, all boiling
with anger and jealousy against Auda. They suspected Lawrence of
sympathizing with Auda’s attempt to force them to offer him their
allegiance; they refused to help Feisal further until he gave them
assurance that they would be allowed complete independence as clans.
Lawrence had to do the entertaining that night in place of the blinded
sherif; the awkwardness of the occasion made his task doubly difficult.
One of the head-men, by name Gasim abu Dumeik, a fine horseman who had
led the hill-men at Aba el Lissan, was particularly furious in his
denouncement of Auda. Lawrence singled him out for a verbal battle and
finally silenced him. The other head-men, for shame, gradually veered
round to Lawrence’s side and spoke of riding with him the next day to
Mudowwara. Lawrence then said that Zaal would arrive the next day and
that the two of them would accept help from all the clans except Gasim
abu Dumeik’s. And that the good services of this clan would be wiped
from Feisal’s book because of Gasim’s words and it would forfeit
all the honour and rewards that it had earned. Gasim withdrew from the
fireside, swearing to go over to the Turks at once. The cautious others
tried in vain to stop his mouth. Next morning he was there with his
men ready to join or oppose the expedition as the whim went. While he
hesitated Zaal arrived and the pair had a violent quarrel. Lawrence
and one or two more got between them and stopped the fight: the other
chiefs then came quietly up in two’s and three’s as volunteers, begging
Lawrence to assure Feisal of their loyalty.
He decided to go to Feisal at once to explain matters and, commending
the sergeants to Zaal, who answered for their lives with his own, rode
off hurriedly with a single attendant to Akaba. He found a short cut
and reached Akaba in six hours. Feisal was alarmed to see him back so
soon, but the affair was soon explained and Feisal at once appointed
a distinguished member of his family to go to Rumm as mediator. The
sherif rode back to Rumm with Lawrence and there, gathering together
the Arabs, including Gasim, began to smooth over their difficulties
and persuade them to peace. Gasim, no longer defiant but sulky,
would not make any public statement, so about a hundred men of the
smaller clans dared defy him by promising to join the raid. This was
better than nothing, but Lawrence had hoped for at least a force of
three hundred to deal successfully with the station. And there was
no suitable leader now that the sherif was blinded. Gasim would have
done, had he been willing. Zaal was the only other possible choice,
but he was too closely related to Auda not to be suspected; and he was
too sharp-tongued and sneering for even his good advice to be taken
willingly. On the sixteenth of September, therefore, the party started
out, without a leader.
At Rumm one curious incident had occurred which, though it had
nothing to do with the war, made a profound impression on Lawrence. He
was bathing in a little rock-pool, under one of the lesser springs—his
first freshwater bathe for many weeks—lying in the clear water and
letting the stream wash away the dirt and sweat of travel. His clothes
were in the sun on the rock-ledge, put there for the heat to chase out
the vermin. An old grey-bearded ragged man suddenly appeared, with
a face of great power and weariness, and sat down upon Lawrence’s
clothes, not seeming to notice them or him. At last he spoke and
said: ‘The love is from God; and of God; and towards God.’ It was the
strangest thing that Lawrence had ever heard in Arabia. The connection
of God with Love was an idea quite foreign to the country. God was
Justice, or God was Power or Fear, but never Love. Christianity was
not a wholly Semitic creed, but a grafting of Greek idealism upon
the hard Law of Moses, the typical Semite. It was this Greek element
that had enabled it to sweep over non-Semitic Europe. Galilee, where
Christianity originated, was half-Greek: at Gadara (of the swine) there
was a Greek university of which St. James seems to have been a student,
and with whose doctrines his Master was almost certainly familiar. But
the old man at Rumm was a puzzle; he was a tribesman, a true Arab, and
his brief sentence seemed to contradict all that seemed eternally fixed
in the Semite nature. Lawrence afterwards invited the old man to the
evening meal, hoping that he would utter doctrine, but he would only
groan and mutter, and the riddle remained unsolved. The Arabs said that
he was always so. All his life long he had wandered about, moaning
strange things, not troubling himself for food or work or shelter.
He was given charity by the tribes in pity of his poverty and
madness, but never answered a word or talked aloud except when out by
himself or alone among the sheep and goats.
The ride from Rumm began unpropitiously; though half an hour after
starting some shamefaced men of Gasim’s clan rode out to join them,
unable to endure the sight of others raiding without them. There was
no common feeling between the different little parties that made up
the force. Zaal was admittedly the most experienced fighter among them
and yet the other sullen chiefs would not even allow him to settle the
order of the march. Lawrence spent all his time riding up and down the
column from one chief to the other trying to draw them together for
the common purpose. He was treated by them with some respect, both as
Feisal’s deputy and as the owner of Ghazala, though Ghazala was that
day matched with the only other camel in Northern Arabia better than
herself, a beast called El Jedha, ridden by one Motlog, her old owner.
El Jedha had been a year or two before the sole occasion of a big
tribal war.
XVIII
It fell on Lawrence then to be the leader, a task to which he was
opposed on principle. He had from the first made a point of letting the
Arabs run their own campaign as far as possible by themselves: he was
merely their technical adviser and assistant. But he now constantly
found himself forced into leadership, not only because of his obvious
qualities as a desert fighter and outwitter of the Turks, but because
of his freedom from tribal complications, his whole-hearted zeal for
the Revolt, his disregard of loot and distinctions, his generosity
and tact. Yet, again, he was a most unsuitable commander of a Bedouin
raid. It meant his deciding such difficult questions as food-halts,
pasturage, road-direction, pay, disputes, division of spoil, feuds
and march-order. To be an efficient leader in this sense would mean
a lifetime’s training. However, he managed that day without mishap
and was rewarded at night by seeing the party sit down at only three
camp-fires. Around one were Lawrence’s own men, including three Syrian
peasants of the Hauran, from whom he intended to learn on the road such
things as would be useful to him later when the Revolt was carried up
to their country. At the second fire was Zaal with his twenty-five
famous camel-riders. At the third were the other jealous clansmen from
Rumm. Late at night, when hot bread and gazelle-meat had made tempers
better, it was possible for Lawrence to gather all the chiefs together
at his own neutral hearth to discuss the next day’s fighting. It was
decided to water the next evening at a well in a covered valley two
or three miles the near side of Mudowwara station; and from there go
forward to see whether it could be taken with the few men that they had.
Next day, then, they reached the well, an open pool a few yards
square. It looked uninviting. There was a green slime over the water
with queer bladder-like islands on it, fatty-pink. The Arabs explained
that the Turks had thrown dead camels into the well to make the water
foul; but time had passed and the effect was wearing off. They filled
their water-skins; it was all the drink that they could hope for unless
they took Mudowwara. One of Zaal’s men slipped in by mistake and
when he struggled out again, leaving a black hole in the green scum,
the disturbed water stank horribly of old dead camel. At dusk Zaal,
Lawrence, the sergeants and one or two more crept forward quietly to
a Turkish trench-position on a ridge four or five hundred yards from
the station. It was deserted. The station lay below with its lighted
doors and windows, and its tent-camp. Zaal and Lawrence decided to
creep nearer. They went on until they could hear the soldiers talking
in the tents. A young, sickly-looking officer sauntered out towards
them; they could see his features in the light of a match with which
he lit a cigarette, and were ready to spring up and gag him; but he
happened to turn back. At the ridge they held a whispered council of
war. The garrison was perhaps two hundred men—Lawrence had counted the
tents—but the station buildings seemed too solid for the Stokes shells,
which were time-fused, not bursting on percussion; and the hundred and
sixteen Arabs, though they had the advantage of surprise, could not
yet be trusted to fight honourably together. So Lawrence voted against
the attack, which was put off until a better day. They went away then,
deciding at least to make sure of a train. Mudowwrara was not taken for
another eleven months.
Some miles south of the station they found an ideal place for
their mine and ambush. There was a low ridge of hills under cover of
which they could ride quite close to the railway, and where the ridge
ended was a curve such as Lawrence always chose for his mines because
of the difficulty of replacing curved rails. This curve was within
range of the ridge, which was fifty feet above the level of the rails;
and a raised embankment across a hollow seemed exactly the right spot
for the mine, for in the middle there was a two-arched bridge which
allowed for the passage of flood-water in the rainy season. Whatever
the effect of the mine might be on the engine, the bridge would
certainly go and the coaches behind would be derailed. From behind
the ridge, which was on the outside, not the inside of the curve,
Lewis could sweep the lines in either direction and Stokes could use
his trench-mortar unobserved. Lawrence was glad to have his two chief
responsibilities posted where they had a safe retreat, especially as
Stokes was weak with dysentery from the Mudowwara water, and Lewis
unwell too.
The camels were hobbled out of sight and Feisal’s negro freedmen, who
were in charge of the baggage-camels, carried their loads to the chosen
place—the two Stokes guns with their shells, the two Lewis guns, the
electric mine apparatus and the gelatine. Lawrence went to the bridge
to dig a bed between the ends of two steel sleepers in which to bury
his sandbag-full of gelatine, a fifty-pound shaking jelly. It took him
two hours to do this properly because he had to remove the ballast
which he had dug out, carrying it in a fold of his cloak, and dump it
where it would not show. Also he had been forced to cross a sandbank
and the tracks of his feet had to be covered. Then the two heavy wires,
each two hundred yards long, had to be unrolled, connected with the
charge and carried over the ridge where the exploder was to be put
under cover. The wires were stiff and would not lie flat unless weighed
down with stones, and it took three hours more to hide the marks made
in burying them. Lawrence finally finished off the job with a pair of
bellows and long brushings of his cloak to imitate a smooth wind-swept
surface. It was well done; nobody could see where the mine was, or
how the wires ran. The man who fired the exploder, however, being out
of sight of the bridge, had to be given the signal from a point fifty
yards ahead of him; so Lawrence decided to give the signal rather
than work the exploder himself. Feisal’s favourite freedman Salem was
given that honour and was taught on the disconnected exploder to bang
down the handle exactly as Lawrence raised his hand for an imaginary
engine on the bridge. Meanwhile the rest of the men, who had been left
with the camels, had got tired of the valley and were perched upon the
skyline with the sunset flaming behind them (the ambush was west of
the line), in full view of a small Turkish hill-post four miles to the
south and also of Mudowwara somewhat farther to the north. Lawrence and
Zaal threw them off the ridge, but it was too late; the Turks had seen
them and began to let off rifles at the lengthening shadows for fear of
a surprise attack. However, Lawrence hoped that the Turks might think
them gone if the place looked deserted in the morning; so they stayed
in the valley, baked bread and settled down comfortably for the night.
The party was now united and, ashamed of their folly on the skyline,
the jealous Howeitat tribesmen chose Zaal for their leader.
The next day, the nineteenth of September, Zaal and his cousin Howeimil
managed with difficulty to keep the fidgeting Arabs in the hollow,
but perhaps after all the Turks saw something, for at nine o’clock a
party of forty men came out from the southern post, advancing in
open order. If they were left alone they would discover the ambush
in an hour’s time; if they were opposed the railway would be alarmed
and traffic held up. The only thing to do was to send a small party
to snipe at them and, if possible, draw them away in pursuit behind
another ridge of hills out of sight. This would hide the main position
and reassure the Turks as to the size and intention of the force they
had seen. The trick worked well; they could hear by the shots gradually
sounding fainter in the distance that the Turks were being drawn off.
An ordinary patrol of eight men and a stout corporal then came up the
line from the south in search of mines or obstructions. Lawrence could
see the corporal mopping his forehead, for it was now eleven o’clock
and really hot. They walked over the mine without noticing anything,
but a mile or two farther on halted under a culvert, lay down, drank
from their water-bottles and at last went to sleep. It seemed that
the Turks were quite satisfied that the ridge was deserted, but about
noon Lawrence through his field-glasses saw a force of about a hundred
soldiers coming up towards them from Mudowwara, about six or seven
miles away. They were marching very slowly and no doubt unwillingly at
the thought of losing their accustomed midday sleep, but it could not
be more than two hours before they arrived. Lawrence decided to pack
up and move off, trusting to luck that the mine would not be noticed
and that he might come back later and try again. They sent a messenger
south to their drawing-off party to arrange a meeting-place behind some
rocks a mile or two away. But a minute later the watchman reported
smoke from the south. There was evidently a train in the next station
and, as they watched, it came puffing out towards them. A wild
scramble followed as the Arabs got into position behind the ridge.
Stokes and Lewis forgot their dysentery and raced to their guns.
The train rushed on at full speed and Lawrence saw that there were two
engines in front, not one, which rather upset his calculations: but he
decided to fire the mine under the second. If he mined the first, the
second might uncouple and steam away with the wagons. He was glad that
it was not an automatic mine. The Arabs with their rifles were only a
hundred and fifty yards from the bridge, and the Stokes and Lewis guns
three hundred; the exploder was in between, on the same ridge. On came
the train at full speed and opened random fire into the desert where
the Arabs had been reported. The firing sounded heavy and Lawrence
wondered if his eighty men were enough for the battle. There were ten
coaches with rifle-muzzles crowded at the windows and sandbag nests on
the roofs, filled with sharpshooters. The whistles screamed round the
curve, and Salem was dancing round the exploder on his knees, calling
on God to make him fruitful. As the front wheels touched the bridge
Lawrence raised his hand in the signal to Salem.
There was a terrific roar and the line vanished behind a column of
black dust and smoke a hundred feet high and wide, while fragments of
steel and iron struck clanging all about. An engine-wheel went whirling
over the ridge and fell heavily in the desert behind. There followed a
deathly silence. Lawrence ran to join the sergeants while Salem picked
up a rifle and charged into the smoke. As Lawrence ran he heard shots,
and the Bedouin could be seen leaping forward towards the track. The
train was stationary and the Turks were tumbling out of the doors
on the other side to shelter behind the railway embankment beyond.
Then the Lewis gun opened fire straight down the train, and the
long row of Turks on the roofs was swept off by the furious spray of
bullets. When Lawrence reached Stokes and Lewis, the Turks behind the
eleven-foot high embankment, in the middle of which the bridge had
been, were firing point-blank at the Arabs between the wheels of the
train. The Lewis gun could not reach them, protected by the train and
by the curve of the embankment, but the Stokes mortar could. Its second
shell dropped among them in the hollow and made a shambles of the
place. The survivors ran in a panic across the desert, throwing away
their rifles and equipment. This was the turn of Lewis again, who, with
his assistant, a Sherari boy, mowed down the Turks as they ran. That
ended the battle. The Sherari dropped the Lewis gun and rushed down
to join the others in the plundering. The whole affair had taken ten
minutes. Lawrence looked north and saw the hundred men from Mudowwara
breaking back uncertainly to the railway to meet the train-fugitives
running up the line. He looked south and saw the other thirty Arabs
racing each other to share in the spoil. The Turks with whom they had
been fighting, were coming slowly after them firing volleys. Evidently
the plunderers would be safe for half an hour more.
Lawrence ran down from the ridge to see what effect the mine had had.
The bridge was gone and into the gap had fallen the front wagon, which
had been filled with sick. The smash had killed all but three or four
and rolled dead and dying in a bleeding heap at one end. One of those
still alive called out the word ‘typhus’ in delirium. So Lawrence
wedged the door shut, and left them until their friends should come.
He was feeling pretty sick. The wagons following were derailed and
smashed; the frames of some were buckled beyond repair. The second
engine was a blanched pile of smoking iron. The first engine had come
off better; though it was derailed and lying half over with the cab
smashed, its driving gear was intact and the steam still at pressure.
The destruction of locomotives was the chief object of the campaign
against the railway, so Lawrence had kept a box of gun-cotton with fuse
and detonator ready for this very emergency. He put it on the cylinder,
lit the fuse and drove the plunderers back a little way. In half a
minute the charge burst, destroying the cylinder and the axle too. The
engine would not run again.
The Arabs had gone raving mad. They were running about at top speed,
bareheaded, half-naked, screaming, shooting in the air, clawing at
each other, as they burst open trucks and staggered off with immense
bales which they ripped open by the side of the railway, smashing what
they did not want. The train had been packed with refugees, sick men,
volunteers for boat-service on the Euphrates, and families of Turkish
officers returning to Damascus. To one side of the wreck stood thirty
or forty hysterical women, unveiled, tearing their clothes and hair,
shrieking together. The Arabs paid no attention to them, busy looting
their absolute fill for the first time in their lives. Never was such
a litter of household goods—carpets, mattresses, blankets, clothes
for men and women, clocks, cooking-pots, food, ornaments and weapons.
Camels became common property: each man loaded the nearest with what
it would carry and shooed it westward into the desert while he turned
to his next fancy. The women, seeing Lawrence unemployed, rushed and
caught at him, howling for mercy. He comforted them that there was no
danger, but they would not let him go until they were knocked away by
their husbands, who in turn grovelled at Lawrence’s feet in an
agony of terror, pleading for their lives. He kicked them off with
his bare feet and broke free. Next a group of Austrian officers and
non-commissioned officers, artillery instructors to the Turks, quietly
appealed to him in Turkish for quarter: he answered in German. Then one
of them, mortally wounded, asked in English for a doctor. There was
none, but Lawrence said that the Turks would soon be there to care for
him. The man was dead before that, and so were most of the others, for
a dispute broke out between them and the Arabs; an Austrian foolishly
fired at one of Lawrence’s Syrians, and before Lawrence could interfere
all but two or three were cut down.
Among the passengers were five Egyptian soldiers captured by the Turks
in a night-raid of Davenport’s two hundred miles down the line. They
knew Lawrence and told him of Davenport’s efforts in Abdulla’s sector
where he was constantly pegging away without much encouragement from
the Arabs and forced to rely mostly on imported Egyptians like these.
Lawrence set the five to march off the prisoners to the appointed
rallying-place behind the hills westward. Lewis and Stokes had come
down to help Lawrence, who was a little anxious about them. The Arabs
in their madness were as ready to attack friend as enemy. Three times
Lawrence had to defend himself when they pretended not to know him and
snatched at his things. Lewis went across the railway to count the
thirty men he had killed and to find Turkish gold and trophies in their
haversacks. Stokes went into the hollow behind the embankment, where
he saw the effect of his second shell and turned back hurriedly. One
of Lawrence’s Syrians came up with his arms full of booty and shouted
to Lawrence that an old woman in the last wagon but one wished to
see him. Lawrence told the man to put down the booty and go at once for
Ghazala and some baggage-camels to remove the guns; for the Turks were
coming close and the Arabs were escaping one by one towards the hills,
driving their staggering camels before them. Lawrence was annoyed with
himself for not having thought of moving the guns earlier. Meanwhile
he went to the last wagon but one, found a trembling old invalid, the
Lady Ayesha by name, a friend and hostess of Feisal’s, who wanted to
know what was happening. Lawrence reassured her that no harm would come
to her and found the old negress, her servant, whom he sent to bring a
drink from the leaking tender of the first engine. The grateful Lady
Ayesha later sent him secretly from Damascus a charming letter and a
little Baluchi carpet as a remembrance of their odd meeting. Later
still—as I hear from an indirect but trustworthy source—Lawrence, who
made it his principle to get no spoils of any sort from the War, sent
the carpet with an equally charming letter to Lady Allenby, who now has
it in her bedroom.
The Syrian never brought the camels. All of Lawrence’s servants,
overcome with greed, had escaped with the Bedouin. No one was now left
but the three Englishmen. They began to fear that they must abandon the
guns and run for their lives, but just then saw two camels cantering
back. It was Zaal and Howeimil, who had missed Lawrence and returned
to find him. Lawrence and the sergeants were rolling up the cable,
their only piece. Zaal dismounted and told Lawrence to climb up, but he
loaded the camel with the wire and exploder instead; Zaal laughed at
the quaint booty. Howeimil was lame from an old wound on the knee and
could not walk, but couched his camel while the Lewis guns were hoisted
across behind him, tied butt to butt and looking like scissors.
There remained the mortars, but Stokes appeared unskilfully leading a
stray baggage-camel which he had caught. Stokes was too weak to run, so
he was given Zaal’s camel with the mining apparatus; the trench-mortars
were put on the baggage-camel, and Howeimil went off in charge of them.
Meanwhile Lawrence, Lewis and Zaal, in a sheltered hollow behind the
old gun-position, made a fire of cartridge-boxes, petrol and wreckage,
banked the Lewis-gun drums and spare rifle ammunition round it, and
gingerly laid some Stokes shells on top. Then they ran. As the flames
reached the cordite and ammonal there was a colossal burst of fire,
thousands of cartridges exploded in series like machine-guns, and the
shells roared off in columns of dust and smoke. Both parties of Turks
were impressed by this noise, and decided that the Arabs were posted
strongly. They halted and began to send out flanking parties according
to rule. Through the gap between the main body of the northern party
and their flankers working round on the western side, the three men ran
panting away into concealment among the farther ridges.
At the rallying-place Lawrence found his missing camels and the Syrian
servants with them. In his soft deadly voice he told the Syrians what
he thought of them for their desertion. They pleaded that camels had
become common property and that someone else had gone off with the
right ones. But this did not excuse them for having found others
for themselves and loaded them up with plunder. Lawrence asked if
anyone was hurt and was told that a boy had been killed in the first
Arab rush; three others were slightly wounded. The rush had not been
ordered and was a mistake; the Lewis and Stokes guns could have managed
the killing without Arab help, and Lawrence felt that he was not
responsible for the boy’s death. Then one of Feisal’s freedmen
said that Salem was missing, and others that he had been last seen
lying wounded just beyond the engine. Lawrence had not been told and
was angry, for Salem was under his charge. For the second time he had
been put by Arab carelessness in the position of leaving a friend
behind. He called for volunteers to rescue the negro. Zaal and twelve
of his men said that they would try, but when they came near the train
they saw that they were too late. A hundred and fifty Turks were
swarming over the wreck and by now Salem would be dead, and not only
dead but tortured and mutilated as the Turkish habit was. (The Arabs
made a practice now of mercifully killing their own badly wounded to
prevent them falling alive into Turkish hands.)
They had to go back without Salem, but took the opportunity of
recovering some of the baggage, including the sergeants’ kits, which
had been left at the camping-ground. The Turks caught them at this
and opened fire with a machine-gun. Others ran to cut them off. Zaal,
a dead shot, stopped with five others at a ridge-top and fired back,
calling to the remainder of the party to escape while he held the Turks
up. So they retired from ridge to ridge, hitting at least thirteen or
fourteen Turks at the cost of four of their camels wounded. The Turks
gave up the pursuit.
Victory always undid an Arab force: this was now no longer a raiding
party but a stumbling baggage-caravan loaded to breaking-point with
enough household goods to make an Arab tribe rich for years. Of the
ninety prisoners, ten were friendly Arab women on the way to Damascus
from Medina who had now decided to go instead to Mecca by way of Akaba.
These and thirty-four wounded Turks were mounted in pairs on the
spare camels that had been used for carrying the explosives and
ammunition. The sergeants asked Lawrence to give them a sword each as
a souvenir; and he was going down the column to look for something for
them when suddenly he met Feisal’s freedmen and to his astonishment
saw, strapped on the crupper behind one of them, the missing Salem. He
was unconscious and soaked with blood from a wound through his back
near the spine. Apparently he had been hit in his rush downhill and
left for dead near the engine; where the tribesmen stripped him of his
cloak, dagger, rifle, and head-gear. One of his fellows had found him
alive and carried him off home without, as he should have done, telling
Lawrence. Salem soon recovered but ever afterwards bore Lawrence an
undeserved grudge for abandoning him when wounded and under his charge.
They had to water again at the evil-smelling well—the prisoners
had drunk all their water—and its nearness to Mudowwara made this
dangerous. However, they made what haste they could and found it
unoccupied. So back safely to Rumm by the same long avenue; in the dark
this time, which made the cliffs more terrifying still, for they were
invisible except as a jagged skyline high overhead on either side.
From Rumm to Akaba, entering in glory laden with spoil, and boasting
that the trains were now at their mercy. The two sergeants hurriedly
returned to Egypt, having had the adventure they wanted. They had won
a battle single-handed, had dysentery, lived on camel-milk, learned to
ride a camel fifty miles a day without pain. They were awarded medals
by Allenby.
The success excited the camp at Akaba. Everybody wanted to try this
new and profitable sport of train-mining. The French captain of the
Algerian company of gunners at Akaba, by name Pisani, was the
first volunteer, an active and ambitious officer on the look-out for
decorations. Feisal provided three young noblemen of Damascus who were
eager to lead tribal raids, and on the twenty-sixth of September the
party rode to Rumm in search of tribesmen volunteers. Lawrence said
that the next raid was especially intended for Gasim’s clan. This was
heaping coals of fire on the adversary’s head, but the adversary was
too greedy to refuse the chance. The difficulty indeed was to keep down
the numbers. They took a hundred and fifty men and a huge train of
baggage-camels for the spoils.
This time they worked in the direction of Maan, riding over the Syrian
border into the high hills by Batra where the keen air of the northern
desert came blowing at them through a pass at the top. From Batra
they turned west and struck the railway, marching along it until they
came to a convenient bridge in an embankment, as at Mudowwara. Here,
between midnight and dawn, they buried an automatic mine of a new and
wonderful lyddite type. They lay in ambush a thousand yards away among
the wormwood thickets, but no train came that day or the following
night. Lawrence found the waiting intolerable. The Arabs paid no
attention to the leaders appointed by Feisal and would listen to no
one but Lawrence, whose success was now beginning to have results very
unwelcome to him. He was asked to act as judge and had to consent. With
Feisal’s example and his own pre-war experience at Carchemish to help
him out, he settled during that six days’ ride twelve cases of armed
assault, four camel-thefts, a marriage, two ordinary thefts, a divorce,
fourteen feuds, two cases of evil eye and a bewitchment.
The evil eyes he cured by staring at their possessors with his
own for ten minutes (‘horrible blue eyes,’ as an old Arab woman once
told him, ‘like bits of sky through the eye-holes of a skull’), the
bewitchment by casting a mock-spell of his own over the wizard. Then he
began to realize what he was doing—probably Pisani’s presence reminded
him that he was only an Englishman playing at being an Arab. He went
off on a long train of shameful thought about himself and the fraud
that he was playing on the Arabs. Again Pisani’s presence reminded him
that he was leading them into this war of freedom knowing well enough
that the chances were heavily against their being allowed to keep the
freedom if ever they won it. The agony of his mind’s conflict at Nebk
returned to him in double force. The stings of a scorpion on his left
hand kept him awake that night with an arm so swollen that at least he
was distracted by the pain from further thinking, but by next morning
his position began troubling him again, and he decided to renounce his
leadership. He called up the sheikhs to tell them of his decision.
But at that moment a train was reported, and as always happened with
Lawrence, who was another Hamlet, sudden enforced action cleared away
his philosophic doubts and hesitations. He jumped up to watch the
success of the mine.
However, the train with its cargo of water-tanks passed over without
accident. The Arabs, who wanted something better than water, thanked
him as if he had intended this failure. He had then to go down to
lay an electric mine over the other; the electric mine would set the
first one off. The Turks did not catch him at work, for it was their
hour of midday sleep. There were three bridges in the embankment and
the southern one had been chosen for the ambush. Under the arch of
the middle bridge Lawrence hid the exploder. The Lewis guns were
put under the northern one to rake the far side of the train when the
mine went off. On the near side was a convenient cross-channel in the
valley, three hundred yards from the railway, where the Arabs could
line up behind the wormwood bushes. No train came that day; enemy
patrols went constantly up and down the rails, but without finding the
mine. The next morning, the sixth of October, a train came out of Maan,
but ahead of the train a patrol was walking, and there was an anxious
wait to see which arrived first. If the patrol won the race it would
give warning to the train; however, Lawrence calculated that it would
be beaten by two or three hundred yards, so the Arabs took up their
position. The train came on panting up the gradient. It was a heavy
train with twelve loaded wagons.
Lawrence sat by a bush where he could see the mine, a hundred yards
away, and the exploder and the Lewis guns. He gave the signal when
the engine was exactly over the arch and the history of Mudowwara was
repeated. There was the same roar and cloud, but a green one this
time, because lyddite was being used instead of gelatine, and then the
Lewis gun rattled and the Arabs charged. Lawrence smiled sourly to see
Pisani running excitedly at their head singing the Marseillaise, as
if this was a battle for French freedom. A Turk on the buffers of the
fourth wagon from the end uncoupled the tail of the train and let it
slip downhill. Lawrence ran to stop it by putting a stone underneath
a wheel, but was amused at the trucks sliding off on their own to
safety; his effort was half-hearted. And he had reached a point of such
carelessness about his own safety that he only laughed at a Turkish
colonel in the runaway wagons who fired point-blank at him from a
window with his pistol. The Western military idea of trying to end
the War by reducing the enemy’s man-power seemed comic in the desert.
And the bullet only grazed his hip.
The train had been derailed, the engine ruined and the tender and front
wagon telescoped. Twenty Turks were killed, the others taken prisoners,
including four officers who stood in tears begging for their lives,
which, however, the Arabs never intended to take. The wagons contained
seventy tons of food-stuffs urgently needed down the line, as they
learned from the captured way-bill. For a joke Lawrence receipted this
and left it in the van, sending the duplicate to Feisal as detailed
report of the success. What could not be taken was destroyed under the
direction of Pisani. As before, the Arabs became merely camel-drivers,
walking behind a long string of loaded animals. This time Lawrence
was not deserted; Farraj held the camel, while Sheikh Salem (Gasim’s
brother) and another of the leading Arabs helped with the exploder and
the heavy wire. But rescue parties of the Turks were four hundred yards
away by the time they got off. There were no Arabs killed or wounded.
Lawrence’s pupils afterwards practised the art of mining by themselves
and rumours of their success spread through the tribes, not always
intelligently. The Beni Atiyeh tribe wrote to Feisal: ‘Send us a
_lurens_ and we will blow up trains with it.’ Feisal sent them one of
the Ageyl who helped them to ambush a most important train. On board
were the Turkish colonel who had left his garrison in the lurch at
Wejh, twenty thousand pounds in gold, and precious trophies. The Ageyl
repeated history by only saving the wire and exploder for his share.
During the next four months seventeen engines were destroyed and much
plunder taken. Travelling became a great terror for the Turks.
People paid extra for the back seats in trains. The engine-drivers went
on strike. Civilian traffic nearly ceased. The threat was extended to
Aleppo merely by having a notice posted in Damascus to say that all
good Arabs would henceforward travel on the Syrian railway at their own
risk. The Turks felt the loss severely; not only could they not any
longer think of marching out of Medina, but they were short of engines
in Palestine too, just when Allenby’s threat began to trouble them.
[Illustration:
description: Two photos wide shots of a toppled rail car over a
bridge and men working a railway
caption: DEMOLITIONS ON THE RAILWAY
_Copyright_
]
Meanwhile, in the middle of September, Allenby calling Lawrence to
Egypt asked him what exactly his aims were. Was this blowing up of
the railway more than a melodramatic advertisement for Feisal’s
cause? Lawrence explained his policy, unchanged since he framed it in
Abdulla’s camp six months before. He was hoping to keep the line to
Medina working, but only just working: the garrison was helpless to do
the Arabs harm and cost less to feed than it would in a prisoners’ camp
in Egypt if it surrendered. And while the mining was going on, the Arab
regulars were being properly trained for a move into Syria. Allenby
asked about the pass to Akaba north of Aba el Lissan where he knew from
spies that the Turks intended a big attack. Lawrence explained that
he and the Arabs had been working for months to provoke the Turks to
come forward, and at last were about to be rewarded. The Turks had been
hesitating because they had no idea of the strength of the Arabs, who
being mostly irregulars went about in parties, not in stiff formation;
so that neither aeroplanes nor spies could count them. On the other
hand, Lawrence and Feisal always knew exactly what the Turkish forces
were because they were regular troops and the Arab intelligence service
was excellent. So the Arabs could always decide in time whether to
fight or avoid fight.
Allenby understood then. And when at last the big attack was made from
Maan on Akaba by way of the northern pass, Maulud with his regulars let
the Turks into a trap from which few of them escaped. They never made
another attempt on Akaba.
XIX
In October, 1917, Allenby, who was fast reorganizing the British
Army on the borders of Palestine, had decided on an attack of the
Gaza-Beersheba line, to begin on the last day of the month. He had
resolved that this time the attempt must not fail as before for want
of artillery and troops, but since the Gaza end of the line (nearest
the sea) was very strongly entrenched—its very strength seemed to have
tempted the former disastrous British attacks—the scheme was to try
south at the Beersheba end. Elaborate care was taken to deceive the
Turks with false secret documents which they were allowed to capture,
into thinking that the Beersheba attack was a mere feint and that the
main attack was coming from Gaza.
It was for Lawrence to decide how much help the Arabs could afford
to give Allenby. He was in the unfortunate position of serving two
masters. And he did not ‘hate the one and love the other, cling to
the one and despise the other.’ He admired and had the confidence of
both, yet found himself unable to explain the whole Arab situation
to Allenby, or the whole British plan to Feisal. Allenby expected
much from Lawrence as one of his officers. But Feisal trusted him
implicitly and this trust made him perhaps more careful on the Arab
behalf than he might otherwise have been: and Feisal’s was the weaker
cause, always attractive to Lawrence. Now, the country immediately
behind the Turkish lines was peopled with tribes friendly to Feisal
and a sudden rising there might have an enormous effect on the War. If
Allenby was given a month’s fine weather to make possible the advance
of his cumbrous artillery and supplies he ought to be able to take not
only Jerusalem, which he was aiming at, but Haifa too. In that
case it would be a chance for the Arabs to strike from behind at the
all-important junction of Deraa, the nerve-centre of the Turkish army
in Palestine, where the Medina-Damascus railway joined the railway that
ran to Haifa and to Jerusalem. Near Deraa were great untouched reserves
of Arab fighting men, secretly taught and armed by Feisal from his base
at Akaba. Four main Bedouin tribes could be used there and, better
still, the peasants of the Hauran plain to the north, and the Druses, a
settled mountain folk from the east.
The attack on Beersheba had not yet begun, so Lawrence was in doubt
whether or not to call up all these helpers at once, to rush Deraa at
the same time as Allenby attacked Gaza and Beersheba, smash all the
railway lines, and even go on to surprise Damascus. He could count on
at least twelve thousand men, and success would put the Turks facing
Allenby into a desperate condition. He was greatly tempted to stake
everything on immediate action but could not quite make up his mind.
As a British officer he should have taken the risk, as a leader of the
Arab Revolt he should not have. The Arabs in Syria were imploring him
to come. Tallal, the great fighter who led the tribes about Deraa, sent
repeated messages that, given only a few of Feisal’s men in proof of
support, he could take Deraa. This would have been all very well for
Allenby, but Feisal could not decently accept Tallal’s offer unless
he was sure that Deraa could be held once it was taken. If anything
went wrong with the British advance and the Turks sent reinforcements
down from Aleppo and Damascus, Deraa would be recaptured and a general
massacre would follow of all the splendid peasantry of the district.
The Syrians could only rise once and when they did there must be
no mistake. The English troops were brave fighters, but Lawrence could
not yet trust Allenby, or rather the commanders under him who were,
he thought, quite capable of ruining a perfectly sound scheme, as at
the Suvla landing in the Dardanelles campaign, by not profiting from
their first sudden gains. And there was the weather. So he decided to
postpone the rising until the following year. It is difficult to say
now whether he was right. Allenby’s army fought excellently, but was
later held up by the rains.
He had to do something less than raising a general revolt, in return
for Allenby’s supplies and arms. So he decided that it would have to
be a big raid made by a Bedouin tribe without disturbing the settled
peoples, and something that would help Allenby in his pursuit of the
enemy. The best plan was to blow up one of the bridges crossing the
deep river-gorge of the Yarmuk just west of Deraa on the line leading
to Jerusalem. This would temporarily cut off the Turkish army in
Palestine from its base at Damascus, and make it less able to resist or
escape from Allenby’s advance. It would be a fortnight before either
of the two biggest bridges could be rebuilt. To reach the Yarmuk would
mean a ride of about four hundred and twenty miles from Akaba by way
of Azrak. The Turks thought the danger of an attempt on the bridges so
slight that they did not guard them at all strongly. So Lawrence put
the scheme before Allenby, who asked him to carry it out on November
the fifth or one of the three days following. If the attempt succeeded
and the weather held for the British advance, the chances were that
few of the Turkish army would get back to Damascus. The Arabs would
then have the opportunity of carrying on the wave of the attack
from a half-way point where the British, because of transport
difficulties, must stop exhausted. They should be able to sweep on to
Damascus.
In that case some important Arab was needed to lead the raid from
Azrak. Nasir, the usual pioneer who had led the Akaba expedition, was
away. But Ali ibn el Hussein was available, the young Harith chief
whom Lawrence had met disguised in his first ride to see Feisal a
year before, and who had lately been active in raids on the railway
down the line just above Davenport’s section. Ali knew Syria, for he
had been, with Feisal, the forced guest of the Turkish general Jemal
at Damascus. Besides, his courage, resource and energy were proved,
and no adventure had ever been too great or disaster too deep but Ali
had faced it with his high yell of a laugh. He was so strong that he
would kneel down, resting his forearms palm upwards on the ground,
and rise to his feet with a man standing on each hand. He could also
outstrip a trotting camel running with bare feet, keep his speed for a
quarter of a mile, and then leap into the saddle. He was headstrong and
conceited, reckless in word and deed, and the most admired fighter in
the Arab forces. Ali would win over the tribe of Beni Sakhr, who were
half-peasants, half-Bedouin, on the southern border of Syria. There
were good hopes also of securing the Serahin, the tribe about Azrak,
and there were others farther north on whom they might count for help.
Lawrence’s plan was to rush from Azrak to the Yarmuk village which
was the ancient Gadara; it commanded the most westerly of the two
most important bridges, a huge steel erection guarded by a force of
sixty men quartered in a railway station close by. No more than half
a dozen sentries were, however, stationed actually on the girders and
abutments of the bridge itself, as Lawrence had learned on his
previous ride to Damascus through this country. He hoped to take some
of Auda’s tough Abu Tayi Howeitat with him under Zaal. They would
make certain the actual storming of the bridge. To prevent enemy
reinforcements coming up, machine-guns would sweep the approaches to
the bridge; the men to handle these were a party of Mohammedan Indian
cavalrymen, now mounted on camels, under command of Jemadar Hassan
Shah, a firm and experienced man. They had been up-country from Wejh
for months, destroying rails, and might be assumed to be by now expert
camel-riders. The destruction of the great steel girders with only
small weights of explosive was a problem. Lawrence decided to fix
the charges in place with canvas strips and buckles and fire them
electrically. But this was a dangerous task under fire, so Wood, an
engineer officer at Akaba, came as a substitute in case Lawrence might
be hit. Wood had been condemned as unfit for active service on the
Western front after a bullet through the head.
[Illustration:
description: Portrait drawing waist up of a man in Arab dress
facing forward
caption: ALI IBN EL HUSSEIN
_from a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
]
They were making their last preparations when an unexpected ally
arrived, the chief Abd el Kader. He was an Algerian of a family that
had been living in Damascus since his grandfather, the defender of
Algiers against the French, had been deported from there thirty years
before. Abd el Kader, quarrelsome, deaf and boorish, was a religious
fanatic who, being recently sent by the Turks on secret political
business to Mecca, had paid a dutiful call instead on Sherif Hussein
and come away with a crimson banner and noble gifts, half-persuaded
of the right of the Arab cause. Now he offered Feisal the help of his
Algerian villagers, exiles like himself, living on the north bank of
the Yarmuk, half-way between the two important bridges but close
to others whose destruction might answer nearly as well. This seemed
excellent. As the Algerians did not mix with their Arab neighbours, the
destruction of the bridge or bridges could be arranged quietly without
exciting the whole peasant countryside into revolt.
Suddenly a telegram came from the French Colonel to say that Abd el
Kader was a spy in Turkish pay. This was disconcerting, but there
was no proof, and the Colonel was not greatly liked himself since
his letter to Abdulla about the English and his earlier intrigues at
Jiddah. Probably he was annoyed at Abd el Kader’s private and public
denunciations of the French. So Feisal asked Abd el Kader to ride with
Lawrence and Ali ibn el Hussein, telling Lawrence privately: ‘I know he
is mad, I think he is honest. Guard your heads and use him.’ He joined
the party. Whether or not he was a spy, he was a great annoyance to the
party: being a religious fanatic he resented Lawrence’s undisguised
Christianity, and being ridiculously vain, resented being sent along
with Ali whom the tribes treated as greater, and with Lawrence whom
they treated as better than himself. Also his deafness was most
inconvenient.
For his body-guard Lawrence took six Syrian recruits, chosen largely
for their knowledge of the various districts through which he had to
pass, with two Biasha tribesmen and the inseparable Farraj and Daud.
These two were busy as usual at practical jokes and on the morning
of October the twenty-fourth, the day of departure from Akaba, they
completely disappeared. At noon came a message from fat Sheikh Yusuf,
the Governor, to say that they were in prison and would Lawrence come
and talk about it? Lawrence found Yusuf shaking between laughter and
rage. His new cream-coloured riding-camel had strayed into the
palm-garden where Lawrence’s Ageyl were encamped. Farraj and Daud, not
suspecting that the camel was the Governor’s, had painted its body
bright-red with henna and its legs blue with indigo before turning
it loose. The camel caused an uproar in Akaba and when Yusuf with
difficulty recognized the circus-like animal as his own, he hurried out
his police to find the criminals. Farraj and Daud were found stained to
their elbows with dye and though swearing innocence were soundly beaten
and sent to prison in irons for a week. Lawrence arranged their release
by lending the Governor a camel of his own until the dye had worn off
the other, and promising that the Governor should beat the boys again
after the expedition. So they joined the caravan singing, though they
had to walk mile after mile because of a new kind of saddle-soreness
which they called ‘Yusufitis.’
The expedition went by way of Rumm, crossing the railway line near
Shedia, but it was not a compact or happy family. Abd el Kader was
continually quarrelling with Ali ibn el Hussein, who prayed God to
deliver him from the man’s bad manners, deafness, conceit. Wood
was ill and the Indians, who proved to be very bad at loading and
leading the baggage-camels, had to be helped with them by Lawrence’s
body-guard, and lagged far behind: Lawrence was not much troubled by
these difficulties, because on the first stage of the journey he had
for companion Lloyd (now British High Commissioner in Egypt), who had
originally come out with him from England. It was a great thing to have
someone European-minded and well-read to talk to again after months
with the Arabs. Lawrence’s Bedouin self wore off as he rode ahead with
Lloyd, so engrossed in talk that they nearly lost touch with
the Indians behind and, losing direction too, nearly ran into Shedia
station. They turned in time and crossed the railway line in safety
between two block-houses; contenting themselves merely with cutting the
telegraph-wires. Ali and Abd el Kader were crossing the line farther
north and soon came a rattle of machine-gun and rifle-fire: evidently
they had not been lucky in their crossing. It turned out later that
they had two men killed.
Lawrence’s first stop was Jefer, where he had been before on the ride
to Akaba and had repaired the damaged well: he took his party safely
across the silver plain of polished mud and salt, and near Jefer
found Auda encamped with a few of his tribesmen, including Zaal and
Mohammed el Dheilan. The old man was having a violent dispute over the
distribution of wages which he drew in bulk for the whole tribe, and
was ashamed to be found in such difficulties. However, Lawrence did
what he could to smooth them over and by giving the Arabs something
else to think about, made them smile; which was half the battle. He
then went to Zaal and explained his plan to destroy the Yarmuk bridges.
Zaal disliked it very much. He had been most successful that summer in
his fighting with the Turks, and wealth made life precious to him. And
the train-ambush at Mudowwara from which he had barely escaped with his
life had tried his nerve; so now he said that he would only come if
Lawrence insisted. Lawrence did not insist. Lloyd having to go home at
this point, he was left despondent among the Arabs to unending talk of
war and tribes and camels.
The first thing was to help Auda to settle the money disputes and to
light again in the Howeitat the flame of enthusiasm now nearly
extinct after months of hardship. At dark Lawrence sat by Auda’s
camp-fire, an Arab once more, talking in the hot persuasive tones that
he had caught from Feisal, gradually kindling them to remember their
oath, their promise to put the war with the Turks before all disputes
and jealousy. He won them over, man by man, addressing them by name,
reminding them of their ancestral glories, of their own brave deeds,
of Feisal’s bounty, of the baseness and the approaching collapse of
the Turks. He was still at work near midnight when Auda held up his
camel-stick for silence. They listened, wondering what the danger was,
and after a while heard a rumble, a muttering like a very distant
thunderstorm. Auda said: ‘The English guns.’ Allenby, a hundred miles
north across the hills, was beginning the preparatory bombardment for
his next day’s successful attack on Beersheba, with Gaza to fall five
days later. This sound closed the argument. The Arabs were always
convinced by heavy artillery. When Lawrence and his party left the
camp the next day in a happier atmosphere than they had found it, Auda
gratefully came up and embraced Lawrence with ‘Peace be with you.’ But
he also took the opportunity of the embrace to whisper windily, while
his rough beard brushed Lawrence’s ear: ‘Beware of Abd el Kader.’ He
could not say more; there were too many people about.
They continued that day, the thirty-first of October, towards Bair.
The winter was approaching; it was now a time of peaceful weather with
misty dawns, mild sunlight and an evening chill. The Indians were such
bad camel-masters that they could manage no more than thirty-five miles
a day—fifty was the least that an Arab would think of doing on a long
march—and had to stop to eat three meals a day. The midday halt
brought an alarm. Men on horses and camels were seen riding up from the
north and west and closing in on the party. Rifles were snatched up and
the Indians ran to their machine-guns. In thirty seconds the defence
was ready; Ali ibn el Hussein cried out, ‘Hold the fire until they come
close.’ Then one of Lawrence’s body-guard, belonging to a despised clan
of serfs, the Sherarat, but a devoted servant and brave fighter, sprang
up laughing and waved his sleeve in the air as a signal of friendship.
They fired at him, or perhaps over him. He lay down and fired back, one
shot only over the head of the nearest man; that perplexed them, but
after awhile they waved back in answer. Then he went forward, protected
by the rifles of his party, to meet a man of the enemy, also advancing
alone; it was a raiding party of Arabs of the Beni Sakhr tribe who
pretended to be much surprised on hearing whom they had been about to
attack, and rode in to apologize.
Ali ibn el Hussein was furious with the Beni Sakhr for their
treacherous attack: they answered sullenly that it was their custom to
shoot over the heads of strangers in the desert. ‘A good custom,’ said
Ali, ‘for the desert. But to come on us suddenly from three sides at
once seems to me more like a carefully prepared ambush.’ Border Arabs
like the Beni Sakhr were always dangerous, being not villagers enough
to have forgotten the Bedouin love of raiding, not Bedouin enough to
keep the strict desert code of honour. (There is a Scottish proverb
that I learned from Lawrence’s mother, who speaking of another Border,
quoted: ‘The selvage is aye the warst part o’ the web.’) The Beni Sakhr
raiders, ashamed, went forward to Bair to give warning of the approach
of the party. Their chief thought it best to make up for the bad
reception that such important men as Ali ibn el Hussein and Lawrence
had been given, by preparing a great feast for them. First there was
a public reception, every man and horse in the tribe turned out, and
there were wild cheers of welcome, volleys in the air, gallopings and
curvetings: and clouds of dust. ‘God give victory to our Sherif,’
they shouted to Ali, and to Lawrence, ‘Welcome, Aurans, forerunner of
fighting!’
Abd el Kader grew jealous. He began to show off, climbing up on the
high Moorish saddle of his mare, and with his seven Algerian servants
behind him in a file began the same prancing and curveting, shouting
out ‘Houp! Houp!’ and firing a pistol unsteadily in the air. The Beni
Sakhr chief came up to Ali and Lawrence, saying, ‘Lords, please call
off your servant. He cannot either shoot or ride, and if he hits
someone, he will destroy our good luck of to-day.’ The chief did not
know Abd el Kader’s family reputation for ‘accidental’ shootings in
Damascus. His brother Mohammed Said had had three successive fatal
accidents among his friends, so that Ali Riza, the Governor of Damascus
and a secret pro-Arab, once said: ‘Three things are notably impossible.
The first, that Turkey should win this war. The second, that the
Mediterranean should become champagne. The third, that I should be
found in the same room with Mohammed Said, and he to be armed.’
Ali had a little business to settle before dinner. A party of negro
workmen had been sent by Feisal to re-line the blasted well from which
Lawrence and Nasir had picked the gelignite on the way to Akaba. They
had been here for months, living on the forced hospitality of the
Beni Sakhr and doing no work. Feisal had asked Ali to see what was
happening. Ali hurriedly held a court, tried them, found them
guilty and had them beaten, out of sight, by his own negroes. They
returned stiffly, kissed hands to show repentance and respect, and soon
the whole party, including the masons, were kneeling down at the feast.
The Beni Sakhr hospitality was even richer than that of the Howeitat.
Lawrence, Ali and the rest ate ravenously, for good manners, at mutton
and rice which was soused in so much liquid butter that they splashed
their clothes and greased their faces in their first polite haste.
The pace was slackening somewhat, though the meal was far from its
end, when Abd el Kader grunted, rose to his feet, wiped his hands on
a handkerchief and sat back on the carpets by the tent wall. Lawrence
and the rest did not know whether to rise too, for the custom was for
all to rise together. They looked to Ali their leader, but he merely
grunted ‘the boor!’ and the eating went on until everyone was full and
had begun licking his fingers. Then Ali cleared his throat as the usual
signal, and they went back to the carpets, while the next relay fed
and then the children. Lawrence watched one little five-year-old in a
filthy smock stuffing with both hands until at the end, with swollen
stomach and shining face, it could manage no more. Then it staggered
off speechlessly, a huge unpicked mutton-rib hugged to its breast.
In the corner the chiefs slave was eating his customary portion, the
sheep’s head; splitting the skull and sucking the brain. In front of
the tent the dogs crunched their bones.
As for Abd el Kader, he had not been behaving badly according to his
own standards or indeed those of the border, which allowed the full-fed
man to go off at his own time. But Ali was a sherif and a hero and
therefore the good manners of the central desert ruled for that
feast. So Abd el Kader was ashamed. He tried to carry it off by worse
behaviour. He sat spitting, grunting and picking his teeth, and to
show his grandeur further, sent a servant for his medicine chest and
poured himself out a dose, grumbling that such tough meat gave him
indigestion. This was abominable. Lawrence had once met a chief with
a scar right across his cheek which he had come by in this way: he
had been politely gulping food at a feast when he had begun to choke;
unable to speak but anxious to explain that this was not meant as an
insult, he had slit his mouth to the ear with his dagger to show that
it was only a piece of meat stuck behind his back teeth.
As the party sat about the tribal coffee-hearth, all but Abd el Kader
who had gone off to a fire of his own, they heard the guns again
thudding away in preparation for the second day’s bombardment of Gaza.
It was a good moment for telling the chief why they had come. Lawrence
said that they proposed a raid near Deraa and asked him for help. He
did not mention the bridge, after his failure to get Zaal and his men;
it might seem too forlorn a hope. However, the chief agreed to come
himself and chose out fifteen of his best men and his own son Turki, a
brave boy of seventeen, though ambitious and greedy like his father. He
was an old friend of Ali’s. Lawrence gave Turki a new silk robe, and he
strutted among the tents in it, without his cloak, crying shame on any
man who held back from the adventure.
That night they rode out from Bair, in company with the Beni Sakhr men.
Their chief had first to pay his respects to his dead ancestor whose
grave was near that of Auda’s son. He decided that, as there was great
danger ahead, he would make a propitiatory offering of a head-cord
to add to the ragged collection looped round the gravestone. And as
the raid was Lawrence’s idea, he thought he might ask Lawrence to
provide one. Lawrence handed over a rich red silk and silver ornament,
remarking with a smile that the virtue of the offering lay with the
giver. The thrifty chief man pressed a halfpenny on Lawrence to make
a pretence of purchase and get the virtue for himself. A few weeks
later Lawrence passed by again and noticed that the head-cord was gone.
The chief cursed loudly in his hearing at the sacrilege. Some godless
Sherari, he said, had robbed his ancestor: but Lawrence could guess
where it really was.
Lawrence nearly succumbed to the idleness that the weather invited
the next day. But he had to be busy learning to recognize the tribal
dialect of the Beni Sakhr, and making mental notes of the bits of
family-history that the tribesmen gave him in casual conversation.
Family-history and tribal custom were to these desert people in place
of books. Nothing was so wearing, and yet nothing so important as
the detailed memory that Lawrence had in good manners to cultivate,
whenever he met a new tribe, for relationships and feuds and ancestry
and the ownership of camels and similar matters. When they halted that
night the noise of Allenby’s guns was very loud and clear, possibly
because the hollows of the Dead Sea sent the noise echoing up to their
high plateau. The Arabs whispered, ‘They are nearer. The English are
advancing. God deliver the men under that rain!’ They were thinking
of the Turks, so long their weak and corrupt oppressors whom now they
loved more, in their moment of defeat, than the strong foreigner with
his blind unswerving justice, their victor.
The next day they went forward over ridges of sun-browned flints
so closely grown over with a tiny saffron plant that the whole view
was golden with it; and about noon saw from the top of a ridge a party
of trotting camels coming fast towards them. Turki cantered forward,
with carbine ready cocked, to see who the strangers were, but while
they were still a mile off the Beni Sakhr chief recognized his kinsmen
Fahad and Adhub, famous fighters, the war-leaders of the clan. They
had heard the news of the raid and ridden at once to join it. Lawrence
was glad of them. The next halt was Ammari in Sirhan where there were
water-pools among the salty hummocks. They were mostly too bitter to
drink, though there was one which was thought very good by contrast. It
lay in a limestone hollow and the water, which tasted of mixed brine
and ammonia, was of a deep yellow colour. Into this pool, for a joke,
Daud pushed Farraj fully dressed; he sank out of view and then rose
quietly to the surface at the side of the pool under an overhanging
rock-ledge and lay hid: Daud waited for him to rise, but when there
was no sign of him, got into an agony of anxiety about his friend and,
tearing off his cloak, jumped in after him. There was Farraj smiling
under the ledge. They were fine swimmers, having once been pearl-divers
in the Persian Gulf. Afterwards they began scuffling in the sand beside
the water-pool. They returned to Lawrence’s camp-fire, dripping wet,
in rags, bleeding and covered with mud and thorns, most unlike their
usual foppish selves. They then had the impudence to say that they had
tripped over a bush while dancing, and that it would be like Lawrence’s
generosity if he gave them new clothes. He did nothing of the kind, but
sent them off at once to clean themselves up.
The next day there was another alarm, which again proved a false
one. It was only a party of a hundred Serahin tribesmen on their way
to offer allegiance to Feisal. Now that they could give the oath to
Ali ibn el Hussein instead and be spared the long dangerous journey
through the territory of other tribes and across the Turkish railway,
they turned about with joy. They came back singing to their tents the
same day as they had started out, and there was a great welcome for
the combined party. After more mutton and bread and some sleepless
hours on the verminous rugs offered them, which they could not politely
refuse, Lawrence and Ali ibn el Hussein roused the old chief and his
lieutenant, and explained the intentions of the raid. They listened
gravely but said that the western bridge at Gadara was impossible
because the Turks had just filled the woods about it with hundreds of
military wood-cutters; the bridges in the middle they would not like
to visit under the guidance of Abd el Kader whom they mistrusted and
who would be among his own villagers there; the eastern bridge by Tell
el Shehab was in the country of their blood-enemies who might take the
opportunity to attack them in the rear. Also, if it rained the camels
would not be able to trot over the muddy plains on the farther side of
the line between Azrak and the bridges, and the whole party might be
cut off and killed.
This was very bad. The Serahin were Lawrence’s last hope and, if they
refused to come, it would be impossible to destroy the bridge by the
day that Allenby asked for it to be destroyed. So Ali ibn el Hussein
and Lawrence collected the better men of the tribe and set them round
the camp-fire with the chief of the Beni Sakhr and Fahad and Adhub
to break cold prudence down with desperate talk. Though duty to
Allenby provided the occasion, Lawrence was true Arab now, preaching
with a prophetic eloquence the gospel of revolt. Its glory, he urged,
lay in bitterness and suffering, and the sacrifice of the body to the
spirit. Failure was even more glorious than success; it was better to
defy a hostile Fate by choosing out the sure road to death, proudly
throwing away the poor resources of physical life and prosperity and
so making Fate ashamed at the poorness of its victory. To honourable
men the forlorn hope was the only goal, and if by chance they escaped
alive, then the next forlorn hope. They must believe that there was
no final victory except at last after innumerable hazards to go down
to death, still fighting. The Serahin listened entranced; their
worldliness vanished and before daylight came they were swearing to
ride with Lawrence anywhere.
Now, Lawrence was as sincere as he ever had been in his life, and
this speech struck out in an hour of need gives the clue to much of
his strange history. His has been the romantic love of failure, of
self-humiliation, of poverty. A habit of mind caught from the desert:
though perhaps latent in his blood, of which the Spanish strain—and
Spanish is half-Arab—shows in the severity of his jaw and the cruel
flash of his rare and quickly appeased anger. And yet with all his
love of failure Lawrence has been queerly dogged with success. As Miss
Gertrude Bell said of him once, ‘Everything that he touches flowers.’
His forlorn hopes all come off, he casts his bread magnificently upon
the waters and is peevish to find it again (much swollen) after many
days. The more deeply he abases himself the higher he finds himself
exalted. So hostile Fate revenges itself neatly by refusing to take his
sacrifices; and provokes him to a philosophic bitterness which
is hourly contradicted by his natural impulse towards gentleness and
affection.
They called Abd el Kader and taking him aside among the thickets
shouted into his ear that the Serahin were coming with the party and
would be guided by him to the bridges near his home. He grunted that
it was well, but Lawrence and All ibn el Hussein swore never again, if
they survived, would they take a deaf man as a conspirator with them.
Exhausted, they rested for an hour or so, but soon had to rise to
review the Serahin. They looked wild and dashing, but blustered rather
too much to be quite convincing. And they had no real leader; the
chief’s lieutenant was more a politician than a soldier. However, they
were better than nothing, so the increased party went forward to Azrak.
Azrak was a place of ancient legends; like Rumm and the vast ruins of
Petra, most strangely haunted. It had been the home of ancient shepherd
kings with musical names whose chivalrous memory lived in the Arab
epics, and before that of a garrison of unhappy Roman legionaries.
There was a great fort on a rock above rich meadows and palms and
water-pools. Ali from the ridge that overlooked the place yelled out
‘Grass!’, leaped off his camel and flung himself down among the harsh
green stems that were so exciting to him after the salt and stony
desert. Then with his Harith war-cry he raced along the marsh, his
skirts girded up and his feet splashing among the reeds.
Soon they noticed that Abd el Kader had vanished. They looked for him
in the castle, among the palms, everywhere. At last they heard that
he had ridden off northward not long after the start from the Serahin
camp, making for the Druse mountains. The tribesmen had not known
what the plans were, and, hating the man, had been glad to let
him go without saying anything. But it was bad news. They must now
give up the thought of destroying the middle bridges, and if Gadara
was impossible because of the wood-cutters, the only bridge left for
attack was Tell el Shehab. But Abd el Kader had certainly gone to the
enemy with information of their plans and strength, and surely the
Turks would trap them at the bridge. They took counsel with Fahad, who
advised going on with the plan, trusting to the usual incompetence of
the Turks. But the decision was not confidently taken.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of a marsh
caption: AZRAK
_Copyright_
]
XX
The next day, the fourth of November, they were off again, through
rich pasture valleys where gazelle were shot. The flesh was toasted on
ramrods over the fire until the outside of the lumps was charred but
the inside was juicy and sweet. At this midday halt two of Lawrence’s
body-guard quarrelled. One shot off the head-rope of the other, who
fired back, putting a bullet through the assailant’s cloak. Lawrence
sprang between them and knocked their weapons up, ordering in a loud
voice that the right thumb and forefinger of each should be cut
off. This had the desired effect; they violently embraced and their
companions offered to answer with their own lives that the quarrel was
ended. Lawrence called Ali ibn el Hussein in as judge and he bound
them over to good behaviour. But first they must seal their promise by
the curious old penance of striking their own heads sharply with the
edge of a heavy dagger until the blood trickled down to the waist. The
wounds were not dangerous but ached for some time as a reminder of the
promise given.
At Abu Sawana they found a long pool of delicious rainwater where
they filled their water-skins. In the distance they saw a retreating
party of Circassian horsemen sent by the Turks to see if this water
was occupied—the two parties had missed each other by five minutes;
which was lucky for both. On the fifth of November they reached the
railway and, Lawrence and Fahad scouting ahead, crossed at dusk without
interruption and rode five miles beyond. They camped in a hollow
fifteen feet deep where there was grazing for the camels, but it was
inconveniently near the railway, and they had to keep a close watch on
the camels to prevent them from straying into view, and on the
tribesmen to make them keep their heads down when patrols passed along
the line.
At sunset, Lawrence and Ali ibn el Hussein decided that they would
have to reach Tell el Shehab, blow up the bridge and get back east of
the railway by the next dawn. This meant a ride of eighty miles in the
thirteen hours of darkness with an elaborate mining operation thrown
in. It was too much for the Indians, whose camels were tired out by
bad handling—the fault of the Indians’ cavalry training. So Lawrence
only took the six best riders on the six best camels and Hassan Shah,
their admirable officer, with a single machine-gun. The Serahin were
doubtful fighters, so Ali and Lawrence decided, when the time came, to
use them to guard the camels while a storming party of the Beni Sakhr,
who could be trusted, went forward with the blasting gelatine to settle
the bridge. The fighting force then consisted of Fahad and twenty Beni
Sakhr, the seven Indians, forty Serahin, Ali ibn el Hussein with six
slaves, Wood, and Lawrence with eight of his own men. The other two of
Lawrence’s men developed sudden illnesses which prevented them coming:
Lawrence excused them for the night and afterwards of all duties
whatsoever. They and the rest of the party to be left behind were told
to ride to Abu Sawana and wait there for news.
It was a nervous ride. First they stumbled on a terrified pedlar with
two wives, two donkeys and a load of raisins, flour and cloaks on the
way to the nearest Turkish railway station. One of the Serahin had to
be left behind to guard them in case they gave the alarm. He was to
release them at dawn and then escape over the line to Abu Sawana. Next
a shepherd heard the party coming and fired shot after shot into
the middle of them, but without hitting anybody. Then a dog barked.
Then a camel loomed up suddenly on the track—but it was a stray and
riderless. Then, in a hollow, they came on a woman, probably a gipsy,
who ran off shrieking. They passed a village and were fired on while
yet distant. These incidents delayed them and in any case the Indians,
riding woodenly like cavalrymen, were going much too slowly. Lawrence
and Ali rode behind urging on the lagging animals with camel-sticks.
Then it began to rain and the fertile soil of the plain grew slippery.
A camel of the Serahin fell, then one of the Beni Sakhr, but the
men had them up in a moment and trotted forward. One of Ali ibn el
Hussein’s servants halted and dismounted. Ali hissed him on and, when
the man mumbled, cut him across the head with his cane. The camel
plunged forward and the man, snatching at the hinder girth, managed to
swing himself into the saddle; Ali pursued him with the cane. At last
the rain stopped and their pace increased as they trotted downhill.
They heard a vague rushing sound in the distance; it would be Tell el
Shehab waterfall. So they pressed forward confidently. A few minutes
later they stopped on a grassy platform by a cairn of stones. Below
them, in the darkness, lay the Yarmuk River in its deep gorge. The
bridge would be on the right. They unloaded. The moon was not yet over
Mount Hermon, which stood before them, but the sky was bright with its
rising. Lawrence served out the gelatine—four hundred and fifty pounds
in thirty-pound bags—to the Serahin porters. They then started down.
First went the Beni Sakhr, scouting under Adhub. The ravine was
slippery with the rain and two or three men fell heavily. When they
were at the worst part of the descent, there was a clanking,
screaming noise, and white puffs of steam came up from below. The
Serahin hung back, but Wood drove them on. It was only a train from
Galilee, low down in the ravine on the same side of the river.
Lawrence, in the light of the engine furnace, could see open trucks
in which were men in khaki—probably British prisoners being taken
to Aleppo. They worked down to the right and at last saw the black
shape of the bridge, and at the farther end a flicker of light, the
fire by the sentries’ guard tent. Wood stayed here with the Indians,
who mounted their machine-gun ready to fire at the tent. Ali ibn el
Hussein, Fahad, Lawrence, the Beni Sakhr chief, and the rest crept on
downwards in single file until they reached the railway where it began
to curve to the bridge. There the party halted while Lawrence and Fahad
stole forward. They reached the bridge and slowly crawled along the
abutment in the shadow of the rails until they reached a point where
the girders began. They could see the sentry walking up and down before
his fire, sixty yards away, without setting foot on the bridge itself.
They wished him either much nearer or much farther. Fahad shuffled back
and Lawrence followed, to bring the gelatine-porters along. He was
going to attack the girders and risk the sentry.
[Illustration:
description: Portrait drawing 3⁄4 view chest up of a man in Arab
dress
caption: FAHAD OF THE BENI SAKHR
_from a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
]
Before he reached them there was a loud clatter and bump. Someone had
fallen and dropped his rifle. The sentry started and stared up. He saw
something moving high up in the light of the now risen moon; it was
the machine-gunners climbing down to a new position so as to keep in
the retreating shadow. He challenged them loudly, lifted his rifle and
fired, yelling to the guard in the tent to turn out. Instantly, there
was confusion and uproar. The Beni Sakhr blazed back at random.
The Indians, caught on the move, were not able to use their machine-gun
against the tent in time. The guard rushed out into its prepared trench
and opened rapid fire at the flashes of the Beni Sakhr rifles. The
Serahin porters had been told that gelatine would explode if hit, so
they threw their sacks far down into the ravine and ran.
Lawrence and Fahad were left at the end of the bridge. It was hopeless
now to climb down the ravine in search of the gelatine with no porters
to help and sixty Turks firing from just across the bridge; so they
ran back up the hill and told Wood and the Indians that it was all
over. They reached the cairn where the Serahin were scrambling on
their camels and did the same, trotting off at full speed. The whole
countryside was roused. Lights sparkled everywhere over the plain, and
rifle fire began from all the neighbouring villages. They ran into
a party of peasants returning from Deraa, and the Serahin, smarting
under Lawrence’s sarcasm about their fighting qualities, fell on
them and robbed them bare. The victims ran off screaming for help;
the village of Remthe heard them, and mounted men poured out to cut
off the raiders’ retreat. The Serahin lagged behind, encumbered with
their booty, while Lawrence and Ali hurried forward to safety with the
rest, driving the slower camels along, as before, with their sticks.
The ground was still muddy and many camels fell; but the noise behind
spurred them on again.
At dawn, the tired party reached the railway in safety on the way
back to Abu Sawana. Wood, Ali ibn el Hussein and the chiefs amused
themselves by cutting the telegraph wires to Medina. This, after their
proud intention of the night before! Allenby’s guns still drumming away
on the right were a bitter reminder of failure. It began raining
again, and when they reached the long pool at Abu Sawana they had to
explain to the men left behind there the causes of their failure. Not
a glorious failure even, thought Lawrence, remembering his speech of
five days before, but a silly shameful one. Every one was equally to
blame, but that made it no better. The two body-guardsmen began to
fight again; another of them refused to cook rice and Farraj and Daud
knocked him about till he cried; Ali had two of his servants beaten—and
nobody cared a bit. The party had come nearly a hundred miles, over bad
country in bad conditions between sunrise and sunset, without halt or
food.
They took counsel in the cold rain as to what must be done next. The
Beni Sakhr wanted honour and the Serahin wanted to wipe out their
disgrace. They still had the electric-mine apparatus and a thirty-pound
bag of gelatine; so Ali ibn el Hussein said: ‘Let’s blow up a train.’
Every one looked at Lawrence. He would have liked to encourage them,
but there were difficulties. They would have no food left after that
night and, though the Arabs were accustomed to starving, the Indian
machine-gunners were of no use unless well fed. And to mine a train
properly the machine-guns were needed. The Indians could not even be
given camel-flesh to eat; it was against their principles, though they
were Mohammedans like the Arabs.
Lawrence explained this to Ali ibn el Hussein, who said: ‘Only blow up
the train and we Arabs will manage the wreck without the machine-guns.’
The others agreed; so they sat down to make out a definite plan. The
Indians miserably moved off towards Azrak but, to make their departure
honourable, Lawrence asked Wood to go with them. He consented,
and wisely, for he was showing signs of pneumonia. The remaining sixty
Arabs, with Lawrence as guide, went towards Minifer, to the camp behind
the hill under the ruined watch-tower, where he had been in the spring.
At dusk they went down to lay a mine at the rebuilt culvert that he had
blown up before. They had hardly got there when a tram passed. This was
annoying, it was still more annoying later when, after spending all
night burying the gelatine under a sleeper on the arch of the bridge
and hiding the wires—it was the mud that made him take so long—Lawrence
was signalled at dawn to run back under cover while a patrol went
by; for, in that interval, a train, seen too late through the mists,
steamed past at full speed.
Ali ibn el Hussein said that bad luck was with the expedition. For fear
that someone would next be accused of having the evil eye, Lawrence
suggested putting out new watching posts, north and south, and gave as
a task to the remainder to pretend not to be hungry. Waiting in cold
wind and rain, without food, was bad; the only half-consolation was
that Allenby was being held up by the bad weather too, and the Arabs
would be partners with him next year when the Revolt was riper.
At last a train was signalled; an enormously long train, the report
was, coming very slowly. Lawrence had only a sixty-yard length of wire
and so had to put the exploder quite near the line behind a small bush,
where he waited in suspense for half an hour wondering why the train
did not appear. The engine was apparently out of order and the long
gradient made it go very slowly on its wood fuel. At last it appeared.
The first ten trucks were open ones, full of troops, but it was
too late to choose; so when the engine was over the mine, Lawrence
pushed down the handle.
Nothing happened. He sawed it up and down four times. Still nothing
happened, and he realized that the exploder was out of order and
that he was kneeling behind a bush only a foot high with a Turkish
troop-train crawling past fifty yards away. The Arabs were under cover
two hundred yards behind him, wondering what he was at; but he could
not dash back to them or the Turks would jump off the train and finish
off the whole lot. So he sat still, pretending to be a casual Arab
shepherd and, to steady himself, counting the trucks as they went by.
There were eighteen open trucks, three box-wagons and three officers’
coaches. The engine panted slower and slower and he thought every
moment that it would break down. The troops took no particular notice
of him, but the officers came out on the little platforms at the ends
of the carriages, pointing and staring.
He was not dressed like a shepherd, with his gold circlet and white
silk robes, but he was wet and mud-stained, and the Turks were ignorant
about Arab costume. He waved innocently to them and the train slowly
went on and disappeared into a cutting farther north. Lawrence picked
up the exploder and ran. He was hardly in safety when the train finally
stuck; and while it waited for nearly an hour to get up steam again, an
officers’ party came back and very carefully searched the ground by the
bush. However, the wires were well hidden; they found nothing and, the
engine picking up again, away the whole lot went.
The Arabs were most unhappy. Bad luck was certainly with them, grumbled
the Serahin. Lawrence was sarcastic at their expense and a fight
nearly started between the Serahin and the Beni Sakhr, who took
Lawrence’s part. Ali ibn el Hussein came running up. He was blue with
cold and shaking with fever. He gasped that his ancestor, the Prophet,
had given sherifs the faculty of second sight, and he knew that the
luck was turning. That comforted them and the luck certainly began
when, with no tool but his dagger, Lawrence forced the box of the
exploder open and coaxed the electric gear into working order. All that
day they waited, and still no train. It was too wet to light a fire
and nobody wanted to eat raw camel; so they went hungry again. It was
another cold, wet night: Lawrence spent it lying sleeplessly by the
exploder, which he had re-connected with the wires.
Ali awoke next morning feeling better and cheered the party up. They
killed a camel then and were about to light a fire with some half-dry
sticks, warmed under a cloak all night, and shavings of the gelatine,
when a train was signalled from the north. They left the fire and
dashed to their positions. The train was racing downhill with two
engines and twelve passenger-coaches. Lawrence arrived at the exploder
just in time to catch the driving-wheel of the first engine. The
explosion was terrific. He was sent spinning backwards. He righted
himself and found that his left arm was badly gashed and his shirt
ripped to the shoulder. Between his knees lay the exploder, crushed
under a sooty piece of iron; close by was the horribly mangled body
of the engine-driver. He hobbled back, half-conscious, with a broken
toe, saying weakly in English: ‘Oh, I wish this hadn’t happened.’ The
Turks opened fire, and Lawrence fell. Ali ran forward to him with Turki
and some servants and Beni Sakhr tribesmen. The Turks had the
range and hit seven of the rescuers in a few seconds; the rest picked
Lawrence up and hurried him into shelter. He secretly felt himself
all over and found that, besides the bruises and cuts from flying
boiler-plate, he had five different bullet wounds; none were serious,
but all uncomfortable. His clothes were ripped to pieces.
The train was a wreck; both engines had fallen through the broken
bridge and were beyond repair. Three coaches had telescoped, the rest
were derailed. One was decorated with flags—the saloon of the Turkish
General commanding the Eighth Army Corps. There had been four hundred
troops on board and the survivors, now recovered from the shock,
were under shelter and shooting hard under the eye of their Corps
Commander. The Beni Sakhr had grabbed some loot from the train in the
first rush—rifles, bags, boxes and some loose military medals from the
saloon, but soon had to draw off. If only there had been a machine-gun
posted not a Turk would have escaped. Adhub inquired for Fahad, and
one of the Serahin said that he had been killed in the first rush: he
showed Fahad’s belt and rifle in proof that he was dead and that he
and his friends had tried to save him. Adhub said nothing, but ran to
the rescue right among the Turks, and, by a miracle, came back safely
dragging Fahad, who was badly wounded in the face but alive. The Turks
began to attack then and the Arabs, after giving them a volley which
killed twenty men and drove the rest back, drew off, firing as they
went. Lawrence could only go very slowly because of his hurts, but
pretended to Ali that he was interested in the Turks and studying them.
Turki, who was giving protecting fire from the ridges as they went,
got four bullets through his headcloth. At last they reached
their camels—now forty men instead of sixty—and galloped eastward out
of range. After five miles they met a friendly caravan with flour and
raisins, and, halting under a barren fig tree, cooked their first meal
for three days. There was camel meat, too, for one of the body-guard,
Rahail, had remembered to bring a haunch along from their previous
interrupted meal. There, Fahad and the other wounded men were attended
to. The next day they went on to Azrak, showing their booty of rifles
and medals and pretending that it was a victorious return and that they
had done all that they had intended to do.
XXI
The weather had broken now finally and the Turks in Palestine were safe
until the following year. Lawrence remained at Azrak with Ali ibn el
Hussein and the Indians, and sent to Feisal for a caravan of winter
supplies. It was a good place for preaching the Revolt and comfortable
for the winter, once the ruined fort had been cleaned out and in part
re-roofed. The Indian, Hassan Shah, took charge of the defence of the
fort, mounting machine-guns in the towers and placing a sentry, an
unheard-of thing in Arabia, at the postern gate. They settled down
here with coffee-fires and story-telling, and Ali and Lawrence daily
entertained the many visitors who came in to swear loyalty to the
Revolt—Arab deserters from the Turks, Bedouin chiefs, head-men of
peasant villages, Syrian-Arab politicians, Armenian refugees. There
were also traders from Damascus with presents of sweetmeats, sesame,
caramel, apricot paste, nuts, silk clothes, brocade cloaks, headcloths,
sheepskins, patterned rugs and Persian carpets. In return the
traders were given coffee, sugar, rice and rolls of cotton-sheeting,
necessities of which the war had deprived them. The tale of plenty at
Azrak would have a good political effect on Syria.
During this wet weather an opportunity came to Lawrence for having a
look at the Hauran and in particular the Deraa district, the inevitable
scene of the next Arab advance. For Tallal, the head-man of Tafas, a
village in the Hauran, rode in one morning and consented to act as his
guide. Tallal was a famous fighter, outlawed by the Turks, of whom
he had killed twenty-three with his own hands. There was a price on
his head but he was so powerful that he rode about as he pleased. He
carried richly ornamented arms and wore a green cloth coat with
silk frogs and a lining of Angora sheepskin. His other clothes were
silk, his saddle was silver-mounted and he wore high boots. Under
such guidance Lawrence had a safe and interesting trip round the
vital railway junction which was to be the scene of heavy fighting in
September, 1918. He seems, though, to have got into trouble on the
return journey, after he had parted with Tallal, for he records his
arrest by the Turks (who took him for a deserter from their army) and
his punishment in custody for his refusal to obey an order given him
by the military governor, a Turkish major. This incident, apparently,
did permanent damage to his nerve, coming as it did after the grave
disappointments of the bridge and train failures and the exhaustion of
the last few months.
Back at Azrak, he heard the story of Abd el Kader. The mad fellow,
after his desertion of the Yarmuk party, had gone in triumph to his
villages, flying the Arab flag, his men firing joy shots behind him.
The people were astonished and Jemal, the Turkish governor, went to him
protesting against the insult. Abd el Kader received Jemal in pomp,
remarking that the whole country was now under the rule of the Sherif
of Mecca, who graciously, however, confirmed all the existing Turkish
officials in their appointments! Next morning he made a second progress
through the district. Jemal complained again and Abd el Kader drew his
gold-mounted Meccan sword and swore to cut off his head. The Turks
saw that he was quite mad and so disbelieved his story that a raid
was intended that night on the Yarmuk bridge. Later they employed him
again, as before his ride to Mecca, to have secret dealings with the
Syrian Arab nationalists and then to betray them.
The weather was now worse than ever, with sleet, snow and
continual gales. It was obvious that there was nothing but talking to
be done in Azrak. Lawrence felt himself a fraud, teaching and preaching
armed revolt to this foreign people while knowing the whole time
that it was unlikely that they would ever benefit by their strongest
efforts. And he disliked the Syrian townsmen with their compliments
and servility as they came ‘craving an audience’ with their ‘Prince
and Lord and Deliverer.’ He preferred the simple desert manners of men
who would come bluntly up to him with their requests, shouting: ‘Ho,
Aurans! Do this for me.’ He decided to go off again to see if he could
do anything active against the Turks on the Dead Sea. He handed over
his remaining money and the care of the Indians to Ali ibn el Hussein.
They took an affectionate farewell, exchanging clothes in sign of
intimate friendship, and on November twenty-third Lawrence rode off
south, alone except for Rahail, the strongest of his followers.
He was making by night for Akaba across the wet plain and the going was
fearful. The camels were continually falling with their riders until,
after some hours, Lawrence halted in despair and they lay down in the
mud and slept till dawn. They rode on the next day, caked with mud.
About noon, to the north of Bair, they were suddenly fired at by four
men who rushed shouting from ambush. They asked Lawrence’s name, saying
that they were Jazi tribesmen. It was a plain lie, for Lawrence saw
that their camel-brands were of the Faiz tribe. They covered Lawrence
and Rahail with their rifles at four yards’ range and, jumping off
their own camels, told them to do the same. It was to be murder, but
Lawrence kept his head. He just laughed in their faces and remained in
the saddle. This puzzled them. Then he asked the man who appeared
to be their leader whether he knew his name. The Arab stared, thinking
Lawrence mad, but came nearer, his finger on the trigger. Lawrence,
covering him with a pistol under his cloak, bent down and whispered:
‘It must be _Teras_’ (that is, Seller of Women), for no other tradesman
could be so rude.’ It was an insult which in the desert meant instant
death for the man who uttered it, but the Arab was too astonished to
shoot. He took a step back, looking round to see if Lawrence had a
large armed party near; for otherwise he could never have dared so to
provoke an armed man. Then Lawrence turned slowly, calling to Rahail
to follow, and rode off. The Arabs stood and watched them go and only
recovered their senses when they were a hundred yards away. Then they
fired and charged in pursuit, but Lawrence and Rahail were well mounted
and escaped. The Faiz were a very shifty tribe. On one of Lawrence’s
rides in the previous summer—I believe the Damascus ride—he had been
given hospitality by their chief, a prominent member of the secret
freedom society. Asleep on the rich rugs of the guest-tent, he had
been roused by a whispered warning under the tent-flap. It was one of
the chief’s brothers, telling him that messengers had been sent by his
host to the nearest Turkish garrison. Lawrence only just escaped in
time: the traitor died shortly afterwards, probably murdered by his own
people for disgracing them.
They passed Bair the next night and reached Jefer at dawn, having come
a hundred and thirty miles in thirty hours over bad country. Lawrence
had fever heavy on him and kept going at this pace because he wanted to
reach Akaba before a caravan, that had gone there from Azrak to bring
back stores, started back again. He had long ceased caring what
happened to his own body and was resolved to humble Rahail, who had for
months been aggressively boasting of his strength and endurance, by
riding him to a standstill. Before they passed Bair Rahail was begging
for a halt; before they reached Jefer he was crying with self-pity,
but softly lest Lawrence should hear him. Beyond Jefer they came on
Auda’s tents, stopping only for a greeting and a few dates, and then
on again. Rahail was past protest and riding white-faced and silent.
They continued all that day and all the next night on their weary
camels, crossing the railway. Lawrence’s fever was dying down now and
he fell into a trance in which he saw himself divided into different
persons, one riding the camel, the others hovering in the air and
discussing him. Rahail roused him at dawn, shouting that they had lost
direction and were riding towards the Turkish lines at Aba el Lissan.
They changed direction and reached Akaba by way of Rumm the following
midnight.
To him at Akaba came urgent message from Allenby who had beaten the
Turks in a series of battles, capturing Jaffa and the outskirts of
Jerusalem, to report to him at once. Lawrence went by air, and arrived
just in time to hear of the fall of Jerusalem. Allenby was too busy
with news of victories to wish to hear details of the failure at the
Yarmuk bridge, or to mind very much; a simple statement was enough. He
kindly invited Lawrence to take part in the official ceremony of entry
into Jerusalem and Lawrence accepted, with a quick-change into British
staff-officer’s uniform with brass-bound hat and red tabs.
For the Akaba success, by the way, Lawrence had been made a major and
gazetted a Companion of the Bath, but steadfastly refused to wear the
ribbons and has never accepted these or any other decorations.
He was recommended by the High Commissioner of Egypt for the Victoria
Cross, instead, but the recommendation was, much to Lawrence’s relief,
refused. The Victoria Cross is not given for good staff-work or brainy
leadership but for courage of the fighting sort. This courage was of
course not admitted by Lawrence in his official report—he has never
admitted it since—and the Victoria Cross could not in any case have
been awarded, on technical grounds: ‘No senior officer was present as
witness.’ The nearest senior officer was several hundreds of miles away
on the right side of the Turkish lines. Lawrence’s lieutenant-colonelcy
came early in 1918, to put him on the same level as Lieutenant-Colonel
Joyce who was graded as General Staff Officer, First Class, for liaison
with the Arab Regular Army; Lawrence was General Staff Officer, First
Class, for liaison with the Bedouin Arabs. It would not be correct
to say that Lawrence accepted this rank; he just went on working,
whatever they called him. The Distinguished Service Order to which he
was gazetted was a present for the Tafileh battle of which an account
is given a few pages ahead. His full-colonelcy Lawrence applied for
himself (just after the capture of Damascus), much to the surprise of
General Headquarters where his indifference to rank and awards was
a standing joke. But he explained that he wanted the rank (special,
temporary, acting and with all other possible qualifications) merely
to secure for himself a berth on the staff-train through Italy which
accepted no officers of lower rank than full colonels. He got his way.
He called it his ‘Taranto rank.’
So far as I know, he only once used the privileges of his rank for
other than travelling. Once at a rest-camp he stopped to watch a
bullying officer bawling at two wretched privates, battle-wearied
men, who were passing on the far side of the barrack square: ‘Come
here, you two loungers! Take your hands out of your pockets! Why the
hell didn’t you salute me? Don’t you know I’m a Major?’ The poor
fellows mumbled something. ‘Now stand over there,’ said the major, ‘and
let me see you march past and salute.’ They obeyed and were walking off
hurriedly when the major recalled them. ‘Now come back and do it again
properly.’ They did it again. ‘One moment, Major,’ said a voice behind
him; ‘there is something you have forgotten.’ The major wheeled round
and saw a rather haggard-looking bareheaded boy in a tunic starred and
crowned, on the shoulders, with badges of rank: Lawrence. The major
saluted in confusion; the soldiers, happier now, were shuffling off,
but Lawrence beckoned them to stop. ‘The thing that you have forgotten,
Major,’ Lawrence went on gently, ‘is that in this army the salute
is paid not to the man but to the rank, and the officer saluted is
ordered by the King, whom he represents, to return the salute. But of
course you know that.’ The major was speechless. ‘You will therefore
salute those men,’ said Lawrence, ‘whose salutes just now you failed
to return.’ The major saluted, choking with rage. But the merciless
Lawrence continued: ‘Major, those private soldiers saluted you twice.
You will therefore return their salutes a second time.’ And the Major
had to obey.... This story recalls another: Lawrence, shortly after the
War ended, was in Oxford Street, London, one night, walking head-down
in the drizzling rain. He was pulled up by a lieutenant-colonel
for not saluting him. The lieutenant-colonel was accompanied by a
woman, obviously a new acquaintance. Lawrence slowly peeled off the
badgeless rain-coat that he was wearing and showed his rank. The
lieutenant-colonel grew red in the face. Lawrence said, ‘You can go
away.’ ... The woman went a third way.
To return. Allenby and Lawrence exchanged news and plans together.
Allenby would be kept inactive until February, when he intended to push
down to Jericho, which lies just north of the Dead Sea. Lawrence said
that the Arab army could link up with him there if the daily fifty tons
of supplies that were usually landed at Akaba were sent to Jericho
instead. Akaba could be abandoned as a base now that there was no more
danger from the Turks in that quarter (they had soon to withdraw from
Aba el Lissan to trenches just outside Maan). Allenby agreed gladly. It
was important for the Arabs to move up to Jericho, for on the way they
could stop the food that was reaching the Turkish army from villages
south of the Dead Sea, being taken up to the north end in boats from a
little below Kerak in the south.
Back in Akaba with a month to wait before the move could begin,
Lawrence decided to try the armoured cars in an experimental raid on
the railway. They were now in Guweira, to which a motor-road had been
built from Akaba by Egyptian labourers and the cars’ crews; from thence
it was an easy run across dry mud-flats to the railway near Mudowwara.
The trip was a holiday for Lawrence; there was little danger because
the cars were proof against machine-guns and rifles and went very fast.
The expedition consisted of three armoured Ford cars mounted with
machine guns, a half-battery of two ten-pounder guns carried by three
more cars, Talbots, and open Rolls-Royces for scouting. The crews were
all British and there was bully-beef, biscuit and tea, with two warm
blankets for each man at night. Lawrence, with no Arabs about,
was content to be as English as ever he had been and enjoyed for once
being present at a fight in which he had not to take the leading part;
he could stand on a hill watching through field-glasses. It was these
friendly outings with the Armoured Car and Air Force fellows that
persuaded him, even then, that his best future, if he survived the War,
was to enlist. The cars came up close to a Turkish post at the station
next above Mudowwara and shelled and machine-gunned the trenches, but
since the Turks did not surrender and there was no Arab force handy for
charging, went off again to do the same at another station higher up.
Lawrence only wanted to test the possibility of using the cars against
the railway and as they were clearly a success came home to Guweira the
same day.
The siege of Medina was still maintained in Central Arabia by Feisal’s
brothers, Abdulla and Ali; Yenbo was being used again as a base.
Lawrence could not persuade the British advisers there, who were still
under the High Commissioner of Egypt and not, like him, under Allenby,
that there was no point in making Medina surrender. And when they asked
him to cut the railway permanently at Maan because it was difficult for
them to cut it where they were, he had to pretend that the troops with
him were too cowardly to attempt the operation.
XXII
At Akaba Lawrence began increasing his body-guard, which had started
with Farraj, Daud and the Syrians. (It may be as well to point out here
that the names of most of the _subsidiary_ characters in Lawrence’s
account, such as Farraj, Daud, Sergeants Lewis and Stokes and so
on, are disguised. The names of the more important people such as
Auda, Tallal, Colonel Wilson, are not.) It was advisable to do this
because the price put on his head by the Turks—as also on Ali ibn el
Hussein’s—had risen to twenty thousand pounds. He chose followers who
could live hard and ride hard, men proud of themselves and of good
family. Two or three of these had joined him already and set a standard
by which to judge new candidates. One day Lawrence was reading[4] in
his tent when one of the Ageyl noiselessly entered. He was thin, dark,
short, but most gorgeously dressed, with three black plaited love-locks
hanging on each side of his face. On his shoulder he carried a very
beautiful, many-coloured saddle-bag. Greeting Lawrence with respect, he
threw the saddle-bag on the carpet, saying: ‘Yours,’ and disappeared as
suddenly as he had come. The next day he brought a camel saddle with
its long brass horns exquisitely engraved. ‘Yours,’ he said again. The
third day he came empty-handed in a poor cotton shirt, to show his
humility, and sank down as a suppliant, asking to enter Lawrence’s
service. Lawrence asked, him his name. ‘Abdulla the Robber,’ he
answered (the nickname was, he said, inherited from his honoured
father), and told his story sadly. He had been born in a town of the
Central Oases and when quite young had been imprisoned for impiety.
Later he had left home in a hurry, owing to an unlucky scandal about
a married woman, and taken service with the local Emir, Ibn Saud, the
present ruler of Mecca. For hard swearing in this puritanical service,
he had suffered punishment and deserted to the service of another Emir.
Unfortunately, he had then come to dislike his officer so much that he
struck him in public with a camel-stick. After recovering in prison
from the terrible beating that he got for this, he had taken a job on
the pilgrims’ railway which was then being built. A Turkish contractor
docked his wages for sleeping at midday and he retaliated by docking
the Turk of his head. He was put into prison at Medina, escaped through
a window, came to Mecca, and for his proved integrity and camel-manship
was made carrier of the post between Mecca and Jiddah. Here he settled
down, setting his parents up in a shop at Mecca with the bribe-money
that he alternately got from merchants and robbers. After a year’s
prosperity, he was waylaid and lost his camel and its consignment.
His shop was seized in compensation. He joined the Sherif’s camel
police and rose to be a sergeant, but for his hard swearing and
dagger-fighting was reduced again. On this occasion he accused a
tribesman of the Ateiba of bringing about his downfall through jealousy
and stabbed the man in court in front of Feisal’s cousin, Sharraf, who
was trying the case. He nearly died of that beating. Then he entered
Sharraf’s service. When war broke out he became orderly to the captain
of the Ageyl, but after the mutiny at Wejh, when the captain resigned
and became an ambassador, the Robber missed the companionship of the
ranks and now applied to enter Lawrence’s service. He had a letter
of recommendation from the captain. Lawrence read it. It said that
Abdulla the Robber had been two years faithful but most disrespectful;
that he was the most experienced of the Ageyl, having served every
Prince in Arabia and having always been dismissed after stripes and
prison for offences of too great individuality; that he was the best
rider of the Ageyl, next to the writer of this letter, a great judge of
camels and as brave as any son of Adam. Lawrence engaged him at once as
captain of half the body-guard and never regretted it. This was only
informal rank: his pay was the same as the rest.
[4] It has been said that besides Malory, Aristophanes and _The Oxford
Book of English Verse_ he also carried Doughty’s _Arabia Deserta_, but
this is untrue, though his memories of the book were most helpful to
him, in the absence of maps, for the first part of the campaign.
Abdulla the Robber and Abdulla el Zaagi, the captain of the other half,
a man of more normal officer type, examined all candidates for service
between them, and a gang of desperate-looking villains grew about
Lawrence: the British at Akaba called them cut-throats, but they only
cut throats at Lawrence’s order. Most of them were Ageyl, wonderful
camel-masters who would call their beasts by name from a hundred yards
away and make them stand guard over the baggage. Lawrence paid them six
pounds a month and provided them also with their camels and rations;
whereas the ordinary Arab in Feisal’s ranks had to provide his camel
out of the same pay. So Lawrence had the pick of the countryside at his
disposal. They spent their wages chiefly in buying clothes of every
possible colour—only they did not presume to wear white, which was what
Lawrence himself always wore. They fought like devils with Turks and
outsiders, but not among themselves. The Robber and El Zaagi kept them
in order with punishments so severe that they would have been monstrous
had not the men, who were at liberty to resign whenever they liked,
taken a perverse pride in them. They had for Lawrence a blind,
half-superstitious devotion, and in his service nearly sixty of them
died. The bravest individual deed of the war was performed by one of
them who twice swam up the subterranean water-conduit into Medina and
returned with a full report of the besieged town. Lawrence had to live
up to their standard of hardness. He had learned to keep himself fit
by breaking all civilized habits, eating much at one time, then going
without food for as many as four days and afterwards over-eating. The
same with sleep—doing without it for days except for drowsy naps taken
while still riding, and riding carefully, on long night journeys. The
men with him suffered less than he did from the heat, but he less than
they in the frost and snow of the short winter that they passed in the
mountains. In physical endurance there was equality between them, but
in spirit and energy he outdid them. Throughout the campaign, it goes
almost without saying, Lawrence had a secret personal motive, stronger
than patriotism, religion, personal ambition, love of adventure or of
justice, in the light of which alone his extraordinary feats become
intelligible. But shortly before the capture of Damascus this motive
was, it seems, removed, and this is one explanation, I believe, of his
coming so quickly away from the scene of his triumph, leaving the work
of consolidating the Arab achievement to other hands; and of much that
has happened to him since.
[Illustration:
description: Portrait drawing waist up of a seated man in Arab dress
facing forward
caption: ABDULLA EL ZAAGI
_from a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
]
On the eleventh of January, 1918, Nasir, the usual pioneer leader
for Feisal, made an attack on Jurf, the nearest railway station to
Tafileh, the group of villages commanding the south end of the Dead
Sea. He took with him some Beni Sakhr tribesmen, some Arab regulars
under Nuri Said (the chief-of-staff to General Jaafar, Feisal’s
commander-in-chief of the regular forces), a mountain-gun, and
some machine-guns. They had luck in capturing the station, which the
tribesmen camel-charged before Nuri Said intended them to, with a
loss of only two killed. Two engines, the water-tower, the pump and
the railway points were then blown up by the engineers. They took
two hundred prisoners with seven officers and much booty, including
weapons, mules and seven trucks of Damascus delicacies intended for the
officers’ messes at Medina. The regulars, mostly Syrians, then tasted
olives, sesame paste, dried apricot and other sweets and pickles for
the first time since they had left home three or four years before.
There was also a whole truck of tobacco. When Feisal heard that the
Medina garrison was now quite without anything to smoke, he was so
sorry for the Turks, being a confirmed smoker himself, that he sent a
number of pack-camels loaded with cheap cigarettes straying into their
lines, with his compliments.
Lawrence was glad to see how well the army could manage without his
personal direction. This was a raid merely, but Nasir and Lawrence
soon followed it up by marching from Jefer to Tafileh with Auda and
his tribesmen. Nasir appeared at dawn on a cliff above the valley,
threatening to bombard the place if it did not surrender. It was only
a bluff, because Nuri Said with the guns had gone back to the base,
and the Turkish garrison may have known this. Supported by most of the
villagers, they began to fire at the Howeitat, who spread out along the
cliff and fired back. All except Auda. He rode in anger alone down the
cliff-path, and reining in close to the houses bellowed out: ‘Dogs,
do you not know Auda?’ When they heard the terrible name of Auda, the
villagers’ hearts failed them and they compelled the Turks to surrender.
Tafileh was a great anxiety to Feisal’s brother Zeid, whom Feisal
now sent up, with more guns and machine-guns, to take charge of the
Dead Sea operations. Auda’s Abu Tayi were in occupation alongside
their former blood-enemies, another clan of Howeitat, the Motalga.
The Motalga were twice as numerous as the Abu Tayi. Among them were
two boys of good birth whose father had been killed by Auda’s son,
Annad. Auda pretended a great magnanimity towards these boys, forgiving
them for Annad’s death at the hands of their uncles. But they had not
forgotten their dead father and muttered of further vengeance. Auda
laughed at the boys and threatened to whip them round the market-place;
so to stop further mischief Zeid thanked him for his services and paid
him a large sum in gold; and Auda went back to his tents for a while.
Things then quieted down in Tafileh, for Zeid had plenty of money to
pay for the food he bought for the men, and the villagers, who had only
sided with the Turks because some of their hated neighbours had sided
with Feisal, consented to join in the Revolt.
Suddenly on the twenty-fourth of January came the news that the
Turks were advancing from Kerak to retake the village. Lawrence was
astonished and annoyed. Tafileh was no possible use to the Turks:
their only hope of holding Palestine against Allenby was to keep every
possible man for the defence of the River Jordan. Apparently the chance
of surprising the Arabs for a change, instead of being surprised by
them, was a temptation that made them forget commonsense strategy. And
it was a real surprise. The Turkish General in command of the Amman
garrison was in charge; he had with him about nine hundred infantry, a
hundred cavalry, twenty-seven machine-guns and two mountain howitzers.
Their cavalry drove in the Arab mounted posts guarding Tafileh on
the north and by dusk were only about a mile off. Zeid decided to give
the village to the Turks and defend the cliffs on the south side of the
deep valley in which Tafileh lay. Lawrence objected strongly. To give
up the village meant antagonizing the villagers and, in any case, the
southern cliffs were dangerous to defend because a Turkish force could
slip round from the railway on the east and cut off the defenders. Zeid
listened to Lawrence’s advice and decided to hold the northern cliffs
of the valley, but not before most of the villagers had cleared out
with their movable goods in a midnight panic.
Tafileh was about four thousand feet above sea-level, and it was
freezing and blowing hard; Lawrence, who was up all night seeing to
things, was in a furious temper at the disturbance. He decided that
the Turks should pay for their greediness and stupidity. He would give
them the pitched battle that they were so eager for and obligingly kill
them all. This was the one occasion in the War that Lawrence abandoned
his principles of irregular mobility and fought a real battle, as a
sort of bad joke, on the ordinary easy textbook lines. Zeid, who was a
very cool young man and had learned much since his defeat by the Turks
before Rabegh fourteen months previously, let Lawrence have his way.
There had been firing all night to the north. The local peasants were
strongly resisting the Turks on the other side of the northern cliffs,
and Lawrence had sent the young Motalga chiefs with whom Auda had
quarrelled, to tell them to hang on, for help was coming. The boys
galloped off at once on their mares, with an uncle and about twenty
relations, the most that could be rallied in the confusion, and the
Turkish cavalry were held up till the morning. Then Lawrence started
his battle in earnest.
First he sent forward Abdulla, a Mesopotamian machine-gun
officer of Feisal’s, with two automatic guns to test the strength and
disposition of the enemy. He then found some of his body-guard turning
over the goods lying in the street after the night’s panic and helping
themselves to whatever they fancied. He told them at once to get their
camels and ride to the top of the northern cliffs by the long, winding
road, and to bring another automatic gun. He took a short cut himself,
climbing barefoot straight up the northern cliffs to the plateau at
the top. There he found a convenient ridge about forty feet high which
would do well for a defence position if he could find any troops to
put there. At present he had nobody. But very soon he saw twenty of
Zeid’s Ageyl body-guard sitting in a hollow and by violent words
managed to get them to arrange themselves on the ridge-top as if they
were look-outs of a big force behind. He gave them his signet-ring to
use as a token and told them to collect as many new men as they could,
including the rest of his body-guard.
Abdulla’s arrival had encouraged the Motalga and the peasants; together
they had pushed the Turkish cavalry from the ridge across the corner
of a two-mile-wide plain, triangular in shape, with the ridge as its
base, and over the nearer end of another low ridge that made the
left-hand side of the triangle. At this second ridge the Arabs stopped
and took up a defensive position, behind a rocky bank. Lawrence, who,
from climbing up the cliff, was warmer than he had been, went forward
towards them, across the plain, until he came under shell-fire. The
Turkish main body were shelling the ridge where the Arabs were, but the
shrapnel that they were using was bursting far beyond in the plain. He
met Abdulla on his way back to Zeid with news. Abdulla had lost
five men and an automatic gun from shell-fire and had used up all his
ammunition. He would ask Zeid to come forward with all the available
troops. Lawrence was delighted and went on to the ridge.
When he reached it, the Turks had shortened the range and the shrapnel
was bursting accurately overhead. Obviously some of the enemy must
have come forward where they could get observation and signal back to
the guns. He looked about and saw that the Turks were working round on
the right of the ridge and would soon turn them out. There were about
sixty Arabs at the ridge: the Motalga, dismounted, firing from the top,
at the bottom sixty peasants on foot, blown and miserable, with all
their ammunition gone, crying to Lawrence that the battle was lost. He
answered gaily that it was only just beginning and pointed to the men
on the reserve ridge, saying that the army was there in support. He
told the peasants to run back, refill their cartridge belts and hold on
to the reserve ridge for good.
The Motalga held the forward ridge for another ten minutes and had
nobody hurt, but then had to leave in a hurry. They overtook Lawrence,
who had started back before them since he had no horse, and one of
the young chiefs lent him a stirrup to hold as he ran. Lawrence was
counting his steps (it was a distraction from the pain of running with
bare feet over sharp sticks and stones) to discover the exact range
from the part of the ridge that they had just left to the reserve
ridge. Here he found eighty men, and new ones were constantly arriving.
The rest of his body-guard turned up with their automatic gun, and a
hundred more Ageyl and two more guns. The Turks were occupying the
ridge that the Motalga had just left, and to delay their attack
Lawrence ordered the three automatic rifles to fire occasional shots.
They were to fire short, so as to disturb the enemy, though not too
much, and so make them delay their attack. It was just noon and
Lawrence went to sleep for an hour or two, knowing that the Turks would
do nothing for a while. In the middle of the afternoon Zeid arrived
with the rest of the army—twenty men on mules, thirty Motalga horsemen,
two hundred villagers, five more automatic guns, four machine-guns and
an Egyptian Army mountain-gun which had been right through the campaign
since the battle of the date-palms. Lawrence woke up to welcome them.
He had all day long been making jokes about military tactics, quoting
tags from the textbooks. At the ridge with the Motalga he had told
the young chief that the great Clausewitz had laid it down that a
rear-guard effects its purpose more by being than by doing. But
the joke would have been lost on the boy, even had twenty Turkish
machine-guns not been in action against the top of the ridge and
distracted his attention. Now he had Turk-trained Arab regular officers
to try his wit upon: he sent Rasim, Feisal’s chief gunner but a cavalry
leader for this occasion, to envelop the enemy’s left wing, adding mock
instructions to ‘attack them upon a point, not a line. By going far
enough along any finite wing, it will be found eventually reduced to a
point consisting of a single man,’ Rasim liked the joke and promised
to bring back that man. With Rasim were five automatic guns and all
the mounted troops, the Motalga horse, the mule-men and Lawrence’s men
on camels. The senior Motalga chief drew his sword and made a heroic
speech to it, addressing it by name (every good sword in Arabia has a
name, as in the days of European chivalry). They rode off under
cover round the right-hand side of the triangular plain, where there
was another ridge corresponding with the one that the Turks were
occupying. They would take a few minutes to get round and meanwhile a
hundred peasants arrived who were the herdsmen of this district: they
had quarrelled with Zeid the day before about war-wages, but hearing of
the fighting had generously sunk old differences and come up to help.
General Foch had somewhere advised attack only from one flank, but
Lawrence decided to improve on him. He sent the herdsmen to work round
on the left with three automatic guns. Knowing well every ridge and
hollow, they managed to crawl unseen to within three hundred yards of
the extreme Turkish right. The Turks had arranged their machine-guns in
line right along the crest of the ridge with no post set out on either
flank and no supports; it was lunacy. Lawrence, knowing the range, set
four machine-guns to fire along the Turkish ridge-crest and keep the
enemy busy. The crest was rocky and the flying chips of stone were as
alarming as the bullets that scattered them.
It would soon be sunset and the Turks were losing heart at the
unexpected resistance. ‘Never have I seen rebels fight like this in my
forty years of service,’ said their general. ‘The force must advance.’
But he spoke too late. Rasim on the right and the herdsmen on the left
attacked simultaneously and wiped out the crews of the machine-guns on
each Turkish flank with a burst of fire from their automatics. That was
the signal for the main body of the Arabs. They charged forward, headed
by Zeid’s chief steward on a camel, his robes billowing in the wind,
and the crimson standard of the Ageyl flapping over his head. Lawrence
stayed behind with Zeid, who was clapping his hands for joy to see the
Turkish centre collapse and stream back towards Kerak. Behind the
Arabs followed a body of Armenian villagers, deported here some years
before after the Turkish massacres; they were armed with long knives
and howling for vengeance on the Turks.
Then Lawrence realized just what he had done: to avenge a personal
spite against the Turks and to parody the usual farce of a regular
battle, he had caused a wanton and useless massacre. And, worse, he
had carelessly thrown away the lives of many of his Arab friends. It
would have been quite possible to have refused battle, even without
yielding the village, and by manœuvring about to have drawn the Turks
into a trap from which they would have escaped with some loss and great
irritation. But this was ghastly. The Turkish survivors were pouring
down a steep defile back towards Kerak, with the whole force of Arabs
in pursuit. It was too late now for Lawrence to run after and call
the Arabs off, and he was too tired to try. In the end, only fifty
exhausted Turks of the whole brigade got safely back. For though the
Arab army did not pursue the broken enemy for more than a mile or two,
the peasants farther along the Kerak road shot them down one by one as
they ran.
The Arabs had captured the two mountain howitzers (very useful to
them afterwards), the twenty-seven machine-guns, two hundred horses
and mules, two hundred and fifty prisoners. But twenty or thirty dead
Arabs were carried back across the cliff to Tafileh and the sight
filled Lawrence with shame. Then it began to snow and the wind blew
to a blizzard. Only very late and with great difficulty they got in
their own wounded; the Turkish wounded had to lie out and were all
dead the next day. The blizzard continued and Lawrence was unable to
follow up his success. He amused himself by writing a report of
the battle, in his boyish handwriting, to the British Army Headquarters
in Palestine. It was a parody, like the battle itself, and full of
all the usual military catchwords used in official despatches. It was
taken quite seriously. Lawrence was thought to be a brilliant young
amateur doing his best to imitate the great models and the bad joke was
turned against him by the offer of another military decoration, the
Distinguished Service Order this time.
He partly regained his self-respect three days later by a far more
important piece of work, which was the stopping of the transport of
food up the Dead Sea, which Allenby had asked him to undertake. He
had arranged with a chief of the Beersheba Bedouin, encamped near by,
to raid the Turkish ships that were at anchor in a little port below
Kerak at the south-east end of the Dead Sea. This was one of the two
occasions in British military history when mounted men have fought and
sunk a fleet. The Bedouin, in a sudden charge at dawn, surprised the
sailors asleep on the beach, then scuttled the launches and lighters in
deep water and looted the port. They took sixty prisoners, burned the
storehouse, and came away without any loss to themselves.
Lawrence in making his report ironically countered the award of the
military D.S.O. by recommending himself for a naval D.S.O., which
has a different coloured ribbon. But this time Headquarters saw
the joke; which he hammered away at later in a further ridiculous
self-recommendation.
At Tafileh it was colder than ever and though there was food enough
Lawrence could not stand the squalor of crowding with his twenty-seven
men in two tiny rooms. It was the fleas and the painful smoke of
green wood on the open fire, and the dripping mud roof. And his
men’s tempers. One of the Syrians who had given trouble before
on the ride to the Yarmuk bridge had a dagger fight with Mahmas, a
camel-driver. In Europe, Mahmas would have been called a homicidal
maniac, so possibly it was not the guardsman’s fault. If Mahmas was
worsted in argument or laughed at, or even for a mere fancy, he would
lean forward with his little dagger and rip the other man up. Three
men at least he had killed so; once Lawrence had the unpleasant task
of disarming him when he was running amok. After the War when Eric
Kennington, who has edited the illustrations of this book, was in
Transjordania drawing portraits of Arabs, one of the men he chose out,
without knowing his history, was Mahmas. As he was working on the
portrait he noticed the whites of Mahmas’s eyes turning up queerly
and his face going insane; and suddenly he was on Kennington with his
dagger raised. Kennington pretended to pay no attention but stooped
carelessly to pick up a piece of chalk. This saved his life. The
madness died and Mahmas was as friendly as he had been before the
attack. Kennington sketched in the dagger as a comment on the occasion.
[Illustration:
description: Portrait drawing of a seated man in Arab dress
facing forward with right hand holding a dagger
caption: MAHMAS
_from a drawing by_ ERIC KENNINGTON
]
For his fight—quarrelling in the guard was an unforgivable
offence—Mahmas was heavily whipped by El Zaagi, his captain, so was
the other contestant. Lawrence, in the next room, could not endure
the noise of the blows after his Deraa experience and stopped El
Zaagi before he had gone very far. Mahmas was weeping before the
punishment started and when it was over was in disgrace as a coward.
To the Syrian, who had endured without complaint, Lawrence gave an
embroidered silk headcloth next morning for his faithful services; but
did not tell the man the real reason of the gift. After this, Lawrence
decided to scatter his body-guard among the other houses. The men were
too high-spirited to be shut up together in two small rooms with
nothing to do. He went off himself on a journey to get the gold that
Zeid would need, when the fine weather came, for enrolling the new
tribesmen through whose territory the Arabs were to advance.
On the fourth of February, 1918, Lawrence started towards Akaba with
five men, on camels, across the hills; a most painful ride in bitter
cold and whirling snow. At a night halt in the shelter of the rock the
four men with him, lying on the frozen ground beside their camels,
resigned themselves to death. They would not speak or move when he
called to them and he could only rouse them by pulling one of them up
by the love-locks, which startled him painfully to life, and the others
then woke up too. From Feisal in Akaba he got thirty thousand pounds
in gold, two attendants of the Ateiba tribe and a party of twenty men
under a sheikh to carry the gold. The gold was in £1,000 bags, each
bag weighing about twenty-two pounds. Two were enough weight for each
camel, swung on either side of the saddle. They had hardly started
before the sheikh stopped for hospitality at the tent of a friend and
said that perhaps he and his men might come on with Lawrence the next
day, if the weather improved. Lawrence knew what delay this would mean
and decided that the best way to get the party moving for sure the
next day was to ride on ahead and shame them into following. So he
went forward with his own attendants. The wind blew so bitter, that
the men, who, being from Central Arabia, had never experienced cold
like this before and now saw snow for the first time in their lives,
thought from the pains in their lungs that they were strangling. The
party rode behind the hill where old Maulud and his regulars were
besieging the Turks at Maan: for Lawrence wanted to spare his men
the unhappiness of passing a friendly camp without a halt.
Maulud’s men had been here for two solid months in dugouts on the
side of the hill. Their only fuel was wet wormwood, on which they
with difficulty baked bread every other day. They had no clothes but
khaki drill uniform; and when Feisal’s supply officer had applied on
their behalf to Egypt for ordinary khaki serge the answer had been
that Arabia was a tropical country and that therefore only tropical
kit could be issued. Nor could he get them sufficient army boots. (The
regulars got boots, most of them. The irregulars did not, though their
need was as great.) They slept in wet verminous pits on empty flour
sacks, six or eight huddled together in a bunch to make their few
blankets go as far as possible. More than half of them died or were
broken in health by the cold and wet. But Maulud, by his great heart,
somehow kept the survivors in their places, daily exchanging shots with
the Turks. Their camp was four thousand feet above sea-level.
Lawrence’s journey grew worse, with frequent falls and a wind so
violent that they could do no more than a mile an hour against it.
They had frequently to dismount and pull the camels up mud-banks
and through icy streams. After many hours the men flung themselves,
weeping, on the ground and refused to go farther, so they camped there
for the night in the slush between their camels. The next day, coming
on a Howeitat camp, the two Ateiba tribesmen refused to go farther
with Lawrence. They said that it would be death. Lawrence called them
cowards and swore that he would go the rest of the journey alone with
their four bags of gold, in addition to his own two. He had a very fine
cream-coloured camel, by name Wodheiha, who saved his life that
day: she refused to take a short cut over some frozen mud-flats, but,
when he fell through the cat-ice and got bogged to the waist, came
close so that he could pull himself out by grabbing at her fetlock. He
did ten miles that afternoon, travelling all the time, and stopping the
night at an old Crusaders’ castle where a friendly chief was encamped.
The old man was hospitable but mentioned, as he blessed the meal, that
the next day his two hundred men must starve or rob, for they had
neither food nor money and his messengers to Feisal were held up by
the snow. Lawrence immediately gave him five hundred pounds on account
until his subsidy came.
In the morning he rode out again on the last stage of his journey to
Tafileh. With him came two men from the castle as escort, but they soon
deserted him and he went on alone. That afternoon, climbing uphill
through snowdrifts that completely hid the path, Wodheiha grew very
tired, missed her footing and slipped eighteen feet, with Lawrence,
down the steep hill-side into a frozen snowdrift. After the fall she
rose trembling and stood still. He was afraid that she had come to the
end of her strength and vainly tried to tow her out, up to his neck in
snow. Then he hit her from behind but could not budge her. He mounted
her and she sat down. He jumped off and heaved her up, wondering if the
drift was too deep for her. With his bare hands and feet he scooped
her a road. The crust was sharp and cut his wrists and bare ankles
till they bled over the snow, but he carried the little road back to
the path, mounted Wodheiha again and rushed her successfully up the
hill-side. They went on cautiously, Lawrence sounding the path with
his stick or digging new roads through the deeper drifts. In three
hours they were on the mountain-ridge overlooking the valley of
the Dead Sea. Thousands of feet below he could see village-gardens
green and happy in their summer-like weather. Towards evening Wodheiha
balked at a snow-bank and he was afraid that she would not manage it
this time and would have to be left there to die. So he led her back a
hundred yards and charged her over at a canter. The other side of the
bank was slippery, having been exposed to the sun all the afternoon.
Wodheiha lost her footing and went slithering down on her tail, with
locked legs, for about a hundred feet; Lawrence still in the saddle.
There were stones under the snow and she sprang up in rage, lashing
her tail, then ran forward at ten miles an hour, sliding and plunging
down the path towards the nearest mountain-village. Lawrence was
clinging to the saddle, in terror of broken bones. Some men of Zeid’s
were weather-bound at this village, and came out much amused at the
distinguished entry. Lawrence made the last eight miles to Tafileh in
safety, gave Zeid some money and his letters and went gladly to bed.
He went forward the next day to plan out the Arab advance to Kerak and
so along the eastern side of the Dead Sea. The weather was improving
and he was reassured that the steps of the advance would be easy.
Jericho was still in Turkish hands, but would soon fall, and it would
be as well to go forward at once to threaten the Turkish left flank
on the eastern bank of the Jordan. He came back and told Zeid of his
plans. But the Tafileh district had seen too many changes in the
fortune of the Arab Revolt to decide on any more risks on its behalf.
Zeid had to confess that to arrange a further advance was beyond his
powers.
This was a facer for Lawrence, who had promised Allenby to fulfil a
certain programme by certain dates and had drawn special credits
for the operation. His scheme was now breaking down, not for military
reasons, but because of a defect in propaganda, for the purpose of
which Lawrence was attached to Feisal’s headquarters. It therefore
reflected personally upon him.
There was nothing for Lawrence to do but go at once to Allenby at
his Headquarters at Beersheba, confess to failure and resign. He
started late the same afternoon with four men, cutting straight across
country, first down five thousand feet from the Tafileh hills and then
up three thousand feet into Palestine. At Beersheba he met his old
friend, Hogarth, and explained the whole business to him. That his
breakdown should have been with Zeid, a little man whom he liked, put
a finishing touch to his general feeling of exhaustion. Lawrence went
on to complain that never since he landed in Arabia had he been given
an order, never anything more than requests and options. He was tired
to death of free-will and responsibility, all he wanted now was to
resign and be given a job in which he was not compelled to think or act
for himself; any routine job would do. Also he had for the last year
and a half ridden something like a thousand miles a month on camels,
not to mention thousands of miles more in crazy aeroplanes and jolting
cars. In each of his last five fights he had been wounded and he now so
dreaded further pain that he had to force himself to go under fire. He
had generally been hungry, and lately always cold. Frost and dirt had
poisoned his wounds to a mass of festering sores. And the guilt of the
fraud on the Arabs and of the deed of Tafileh was heavy on his mind.
However, it was not to be. Hogarth took him to the head of the Arab
Bureau, who refused to let him resign. The Imperial War Cabinet was
counting on Allenby to end the deadlock in the West by winning the
war in the East. If Allenby could take Damascus and possibly Aleppo,
Turkey would be forced to surrender and that might encourage Austria
and Bulgaria to follow suit; the Germans could not then hold out
longer. But Allenby could not win his war without a protected right
flank and Lawrence was the only man with enough control of the Arabs to
give him this. The matter of a few paltry thousand pounds was not going
to stand in the way of victory. So he was actually ordered this time to
take up the task, and quietly accepted the inevitable.
Allenby wanted to know whether Lawrence could still link up with him at
Jericho, which had just been taken, and so continue the advance north
to Amman. Lawrence said that he could not manage at present without a
great deal of help. The first trouble was Maan, which was holding up
the Arab Army. Maan must be taken and, now that the time had come, the
pilgrims’ railway must be permanently cut. The Arab Army could do it
but would want seven hundred baggage camels for transport, also money,
more guns, more machine-guns and protection from a counter-attack from
Amman. Allenby promised all this, and Lawrence promised in return that
when Maan fell the Arab Army would move up to Jericho and join in
Allenby’s great advance on Damascus from the Mediterranean Coast to the
Dead Sea.
He went to Feisal at Akaba and explained that the Arabs would now soon
be driven out of Tafileh by the Turks, but that Tafileh did not matter.
Amman and Maan were the only important points from now on and a Turkish
force in Tafileh would actually waste the Turkish strength. Feisal,
anxious for Arab honour, sent a warning message to Zeid, but without
avail; for six days later the Turks drove him out of the place.
XXIII
Spring had come and the war was starting again in earnest. The Arab
army was now very well provided with transport and everything else it
wanted except enough guns; it had a special branch of Allenby’s staff
to look after its interests, under Colonel Dawnay. He was the only
British officer, Lawrence writes, who ever learned to understand the
difference between national revolt, with the irregular fighting it
entailed, and modern warfare between large regular armies, and to keep
the two going together without confusion.
The plan that was worked out for the taking of Maan was for the
armoured cars to go to Mudowwara and permanently cut the railway there
while the Arab regulars seized the railway, a day’s march north of
Maan, and compelled the Turkish garrison to come out to fight if they
would not starve. The Arab regulars were now easily a match for the
Turks and would have the help of irregulars on their flanks. Feisal and
Jaafar liked the plan but, unfortunately, the other officers wanted
to make a direct assault on the town and old Maulud wrote to Feisal
protesting against British interference with Arab liberty. Then, though
the supplies, arms, pay and transport were all now being supplied by
the British, Lawrence and Dawnay saw that it would be wise to give the
Arabs their way even if it was a foolish way. The Arabs were volunteers
in a far truer sense than the British Army, in which enlistment
by every able-bodied man had now for some months, though ‘deemed
voluntary,’ been in fact compulsory; (for, as Lord Carson said with
perhaps unconscious humour, ‘the necessary supply of heroes must be
maintained at all costs’). Arab service was literally voluntary,
for any man was at perfect liberty to return home whenever he liked.
A large number of the Arab irregulars were going to Atara, seventy
miles due north of Bair, there to wait for news of Allenby’s attack
on Amman, fifty miles to the north-west. Lawrence went, too, with his
body-guard. On the fourth of April the army started with its train of
two thousand baggage camels and reached Atara four days later without
loss. At the crossing of the railway, Lawrence happened to be ahead
of his body-guard. It was near sunset and everything seemed peaceful
enough; but as he rode up the embankment the camel’s feet scrambled in
the loose ballast and out of the long shadow of a culvert on the left,
where no doubt he had slept all day, rose a Turkish soldier. He looked
wildly at Lawrence, who had a pistol in his hand, and then with sadness
at his own rifle yards away out of reach. Lawrence stared at him and
said softly, ‘God is merciful.’ The Turk knew the sense of the Arabic
phrase and a look of incredulous joy came over his fat, sleepy face.
However, he made no answer. Lawrence pressed the camel’s shoulder with
his foot; she went carefully over the metals and down the bank on the
other side. The Turk had enough good feeling not to shoot him in the
back, and he rode away with the warmth of heart that a man always has
towards a life he has saved. When, at a safe distance, he looked back,
the Turk had his thumb to his nose and was twinkling his fingers in
farewell.
At Atara everything was green and fresh with spring, and the camels
were enjoying themselves greatly. News came that Amman was taken;
the Arabs were making an immediate move farther north to join them,
but further reports said that the British had been driven out again
with heavy losses. Lawrence, who had lately impressed on the Arabs
that the British never failed in their attacks, refused to believe the
story, but it was true. Major Buxton’s battalion of English camel-corps
had taken the town, but the Australian cavalry, who were to have
attacked on his right, had their animals so wearied after the fighting
at the Jordan-crossing and a long march over the central mountain
range, that they were forced to leave Buxton to carry on the battle on
his own. He was driven out with a loss of over half his force and a
second attack the next day had to be called off; other British troops
that came up to help him had, as one of their officers has informed me,
been drinking too much ration-rum on empty stomachs.
This meant no advance for the Arabs. They turned south. But first
Lawrence went spying into Amman in company with three gipsy women and
Farraj disguised, like himself, as one of them. He had a good look
round and decided that the place should be left alone as too strong
for Arab attack. As they were returning some Turkish soldiers stopped
them and made love to them; they only escaped by running away at top
speed. Lawrence decided in future to use British khaki uniform again
as the best disguise because too brazen to be suspected. Farraj was a
changed person. Daud had died of the cold and wet that terrible winter,
and Farraj went about heavy-eyed and restless, alone. He took greater
care than ever of Lawrence’s camel, saddles and clothes, and of the
coffee-making, but never made another joke and began praying regularly
three times a day. A week after this Amman visit he was himself
dead, being mortally wounded in a mounted raid against a Turkish
railway-patrol.
They then rode down towards Maan to see how the attack there was
getting on. The Arabs had done well; under Jaafar they had cut the
line north of Maan, destroying a station and three thousand rails; and
south of Maan Nuri Said had accounted for another station and five
thousand rails. They were making an attack now on Maan itself. Lawrence
came upon old Maulud badly wounded, his thigh-bone splintered above
the knee; but he called to Lawrence in a weak voice from the litter,
‘Thanks be to God, it is nothing. We have taken Semna.’ ‘I am going
there,’ said Lawrence. Semna was the crescent-shaped hill overlooking
Maan from the west, and Maulud, though hardly able to see or speak
for exhaustion, craned over the side of the litter to point backwards
to the hill and explain the best way of defending the place against
counter-attack. Two days later, when Auda’s Abu Tayi had taken two
Turkish posts on the farther side of the station and Jaafar, now in
command, had massed his guns on the south, Nuri Said led an attack on
the railway station. They captured it, but unfortunately the ammunition
of the artillery covering their advance gave out and the station was
retaken. This was disappointing, but the Arab troops had behaved so
well under machine-gun fire and made such good use of ground, that it
was clear that they could be used safely in future without a stiffening
of British troops. This discovery was something to set off against
defeat.
The next move was against the eighty miles of railway north of
Mudowwara. Colonel Dawnay was in charge of the attack which was to be
made by the armoured cars, with aeroplanes to drop bombs and Egyptians
and Arab tribesmen to do the hand-to-hand fighting. He issued formal
typewritten operation-orders with map references and an accurate
programme of times and objectives. This rather amused Lawrence, whose
fighting hitherto had all been of the careless verbal sort, (‘Let’s
attack that place over there; you go round this way and I’ll go round
the other, and afterwards we’ll blow something up if we can’), and
who did not regard the present operations as on a big enough scale to
justify the use of the typewriter.
As Dawnay knew no Arabic, Lawrence came along as interpreter to
look after the tribesmen and the Egyptians. He knew that one
misunderstanding would spoil the delicate balance of the Arab Front and
that such misunderstandings would be bound to occur unless somebody
responsible was continually on the watch. As he was himself about the
only man intimate enough with the Arabs to be ceaselessly with them
without boring them into sulks, he tried to god-father every mixed
expedition. The programme worked out exactly except that the Turks
at the post north of the first station to be attacked surrendered
ten minutes too soon and that the Arab tribesmen who took the south
post did not advance in alternate rushes with covering fire, as they
were expected, but made a camel-charge, steeplechasing across the
Turkish breastworks and trenches. Then the station itself surrendered
and the Arabs enjoyed the maddest looting of their history. Lawrence
himself broke his no-looting rule by taking off the brass station-bell
(which, after the War, I once heard him ring out of his window in
the quadrangle of All Souls College at Oxford, to wake up someone
he wanted in the place). He was called in to settle a dangerous
dispute about loot between the Arabs and the Egyptians. However, this
was arranged, for nearly all the Arabs were, for once, completely
satisfied with what they had got. They moved off home; only a few
faithful ones were left behind for the attack on the next station.
These few were rewarded. There was no fighting—the Turks had run
away—and plenty of loot; so they praised themselves loudly for their
loyalty. Mudowwara itself was the next objective, but there was a
troop-train in the station and the Turks opened on the armoured cars
with accurate gun-fire at four miles’ range, so the attack was not
pressed. Meanwhile, Lawrence and Hornby in Rolls-Royces were running
up and down the line, blowing up bridges and rails. They used two tons
of gun-cotton. Lawrence visited the place south of Mudowwara where he
had mined his first train, and destroyed the long bridge under which
the Turkish patrol had slept on that adventurous day in the previous
September.
Mohammed el Dheilan (the victim of Auda’s pearl-necklace story) and
the Abu Tayi tribesmen then took five more stations between Maan and
Mudowwara and so eighty miles of line were cut beyond repair. That
settled the fate of Medina, four hundred miles to the south.
Early in May Lawrence went up to Palestine to discuss the future with
Allenby, leaving the Arabs and English to make another eighty-mile
break north of Maan. On arrival he found to his disgust that Allenby’s
chief of staff had decided on a raid against Salt, with the help of
Beni Sakhr tribesmen. This was trespassing on Lawrence’s ground, and
clumsy trespassing. He asked who was to lead the Arab forces and
was told: ‘Fahad, at the head of twenty thousand tribesmen.’ It was
ridiculous. Fahad was never able to raise more than four hundred of
his own clan and, in any case, he had now moved south to help the new
operations just above Maan. Some of his greedy relations must have
ridden over to Jerusalem to screw money out of the English by
giving these impossible promises. Of course no Beni Sakhr appeared and
the raid miscarried with heavy losses; the survivors only just escaped
being cut off and captured.
The Arabs now found that there were disadvantages as well as advantages
in being tied to the English. Allenby could not make his intended great
attack because the Germans had begun their last big offensive and his
best troops were being taken from him and hurried to France to save a
break-through. The Arabs had to wait, too, until new troops reached
Allenby from India and his army was reorganized—a delay of perhaps four
or five months. Meanwhile Allenby was lucky if he could hang on to his
Jerusalem-Jaffa line. He told Lawrence so on May the fifth, the very
day chosen for the great joint advance north. It was bad news for the
Arabs besieging Maan with forces only half the size of the garrison.
Maan was well supplied with stores and ammunition—the Turks had sent
down a supply column of pack animals—and now that the pressure from the
English was relaxed, big forces of Turks would probably come down from
Amman, raise the siege and push the Arabs out of Aba el Lissan.
However, Allenby said that he would do his very best for Lawrence in
helping the Arab army in every way but with men. He promised repeated
aeroplane raids on the railway and these turned out most useful in
hindering the Turks in their advance. As Allenby was giving Lawrence
tea that day, he happened to remark that he was sorry that he had been
forced to abolish the Imperial Camel Brigade, which was in Sinai, but
men were short and he had to use them as cavalry up at Jerusalem.
Lawrence asked what was going to be done with the camels. Allenby
told him to ask the Quartermaster-General. So Lawrence left the
tea-table and went to the Quartermaster-General’s office with the
question. The Quartermaster-General, who was very Scotch, answered
firmly that the camels were needed as transport for one of the new
divisions which were on their way from India. Lawrence explained that
he wanted two thousand of them. The Quartermaster-General answered
briefly that he might go on wanting. So Lawrence went back and said
aloud at the tea-table that there were for disposal two thousand two
hundred riding camels and thirteen hundred baggage camels. All, he
said, were earmarked for transport, but of course _riding camels were
riding camels!_ The staff whistled and looked wise, as if they doubted
whether riding camels could carry baggage. Lawrence had known that
a technicality might be useful, even a sham one, for every British
officer had to pretend that he understood animals, as a point of
honour. So he was not surprised that night at dinner to find himself on
one side of Allenby, with the Quartermaster-General on the other.
With the soup, Allenby began to talk of camels, and the
Quartermaster-General immediately said how lucky it was that the
Indian Division’s transport would now be brought up to strength by
the disbanding of the Camel Brigade. It was a bad move; Allenby cared
nothing for strengths. He turned to Lawrence and said with a twinkle:
‘And what do you want them for?’ Lawrence answered hotly: ‘To put
a thousand men into Deraa any day you please.’ Now Deraa junction
(the secret of whose weakness against surprise Lawrence had bought
at great cost to himself) was the nerve-centre of the Turkish army.
Its destruction would cut off, from Damascus and Aleppo, both the
line south to Amman and Maan and the line east to Haifa and Northern
Palestine. So Allenby turned to the Quartermaster-General again
and smilingly said: ‘Q, you lose.’
It was a princely gift, for now the Arab army could move about freely
far from its base and could win its war when and where it pleased.
Lawrence hurried back to Feisal, who was at Aba el Lissan, and teased
him by first talking at length about histories, tribes, migrations, the
spring rains, pasture, and so on. At last casually he mentioned the
gift of two thousand camels. Feisal gasped with delight and sent his
slave running for Auda, Zaal, Fahad, and the rest of his chiefs. They
came in anxiously asking: ‘Please God, is it good?’ He answered with
shining eyes: ‘Praise God!’ The chiefs heard the news with astonishment
and looked at Lawrence, who said: ‘The bounty of Allenby.’ Zaal spoke
for them all: ‘God keep his life and yours.’ Lawrence replied: ‘We have
been made victorious.’ The chiefs were as delighted as Feisal.
But before the camels could be used against Deraa the nearer danger
must be settled. There was a big Turkish force gathering at Amman for
the relief of Maan. Nasir was asked to delay it by another big breach
of the railway at Hesa, half-way between the two towns. He succeeded by
the old method of blowing up bridges north and south, the night before,
and at dawn bombarding the station, with a camel-charge to follow. As
usual, there were no losses at all. Hornby and others with explosives
then hurriedly demolished fourteen miles of railway.
This was excellent: the Turks would be delayed at least a month and it
would be the end of August before they could patch up the railway just
north of Maan and be ready to attack Aba el Lissan. By that time, for
it was now early June, Allenby would be nearly ready to advance again
and the Turks might not dare to make the attempt. The Arab forces
could then be divided into three main parties: a thousand camel-men
to take Deraa, and two or three thousand infantry to join up with
Allenby at Jericho, the remainder to continue to keep watch above Maan.
Lawrence decided to get Sherif Hussein, as nominal commander-in-chief
of the Arab armies, to send Feisal all the regular troops besieging
Medina under his brothers, Abdulla and Ali. Medina was in a pitiful
state now, with short rations and scurvy, cut off from Damascus by the
railway-breach between Maan and Mudowwara, and needed no more harrying;
while the Arab troops were urgently needed for the advance north. But
the old man was jealous of Feisal’s success and made difficulties.
Lawrence went down to Jiddah to talk him over, bringing letters from
Feisal, Allenby and the High Commissioner of Egypt, the Sherifs
paymaster. But the Sherif, pleading the fast of Ramadan, retired to
Mecca, a holy place where Lawrence could not follow him. The Sherif
consented to talk over the telephone, but sheltered himself behind
the incompetence of the Mecca exchange whenever he did not like the
conversation. Lawrence, in no mood for farce, rang off and came away.
Allenby was going to begin his attack on September the nineteenth
and, to make sure that the Turks did not begin their move on Aba el
Lissan before it started, something new was needed. Dawnay was then
inspired to remember the surviving battalion of the Imperial Camel
Corps, the one that had been in the Amman raid, three hundred men under
their capable officer, Major Buxton. Allenby’s chief-of-staff agreed
to lend this battalion to the Arabs for a month, on two conditions:
the first that a scheme of operations should be provided, the
second—a quaint one—that there should be no casualties. The actual
operation-orders made out by Dawnay and Lawrence are, as a matter of
interest, to be found in an appendix at the end of this book.
Buxton’s march was to be the diversion; three weeks later the real blow
was to be struck at Deraa. Lawrence calculated that the two thousand
new camels would supply the necessary transport for five hundred Arab
mule-mounted regulars, the battery of French quick-firing mountain-guns
that had at last been sent from Suez, machine-guns, two armoured cars,
engineers, camel-scouts and two aeroplanes. They would strike at Deraa,
destroying the junction and paralysing the Turkish communications three
days before Allenby launched his attack. Allenby had said that he would
be content if ‘three men and a boy with pistols’ were before Deraa on
September the sixteenth. This expedition was a liberal interpretation
of the phrase. The arrangements for equipping this force would be made
by the British officers at Akaba, while Lawrence went off with Buxton.
Of the part played by Lawrence in relation to these British officers,
one of them, Major Young, has written clearly enough:
‘The British officers who were helping the Arabs were at first all
under political control, but as soon as the revolt took definite
military shape a special liaison staff was formed at Allenby’s
Headquarters to deal with what were known as the Hejaz operations
and a number of officers were attached to the Arab forces. Dawnay
was officially the chief staff officer of the Hejaz liaison staff
(the telegraphic name for which was “Hedge-hog”), just as Joyce was
officially the senior British officer with Feisal’s army. But
Lawrence really counted more than either of them with Allenby and
Feisal. He used to flit backwards and forwards between the two as the
spirit moved him.
‘Besides being helped with munitions and rations Feisal was lent five
armoured cars, a flight of aeroplanes, two 10-pounder guns mounted
on Talbot cars, a detachment of twenty Indian machine-gunners, a
section of French Algerian gunners armed with four “65” mountain-guns,
an Egyptian Army battalion for guard duties at Akaba, and later
on a detachment of the Egyptian Camel Corps and a company of the
Egyptian Camel Transport to help him with his transport. All these
were under the command of Joyce ... whose staff consisted of a chief
staff-officer, a base-commandant for Akaba, a combined supply and
ordnance officer, two medical officers and a works officer. Others
drifted in and out helping with demolitions, ciphering and deciphering
telegrams, landing stores, pegging down wire roads in the sand and
doing a hundred other odd jobs.
‘Mr. [Lowell Thomas]’s cinema pictures were a triumph of journalistic
composition. But they depicted only the earlier Lawrence of the heroic
period and wrongly credited him with doing single-handed the whole of
the later work of “Hedge-hog” and of Joyce and the British staff. I
came too late, so that I practically never saw the real Elizabethan
Lawrence who characteristically drew back into his shell during that
long period of preparation after the taking of Akaba. Like the Bedouin
with whom he rode he held aloof from regular soldiers and everything
that they did. At the same time it is bare justice to give him the
chief credit for the whole series of Arab operations which ended in
the setting up of Arab rule in Damascus.’
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of loaded pack mules on a rocky path
caption: MULE TRANSPORT NEAR ABA EL LISSAN
_Copyright French Army Photo Dept._
]
To this account it should be added that Colonel Joyce, the senior
British adviser to Feisal since Newcombe had been captured on a raid
in Southern Palestine, was officially Lawrence’s superior officer
throughout the campaign. He acted as commandant at Akaba until the work
at the port became too heavy to be combined with his front-line duties,
when he appointed a major from Egypt, Scott, to take on the duty. The
Arab affair was run with great economy of British helpers; it was
Lawrence’s policy to let it be managed with only one-twentieth of the
staff that a more formal side-show would have expected. It was Joyce
who decided on the main policy of the Revolt when Lawrence was off on
raids or making plans for advances. Lawrence acted as his chief source
of intelligence.
The supply and ordnance officer was Captain Goslett (who took one or
two of the photographs in this book). His view of the Arab campaign was
a very different one from Lawrence’s. The supply-question covered all
Feisal’s supporters for hundreds of miles around, and was enormous.
There were also huge trade-imports at Akaba, not directly concerned
with the campaign, for the carriage and regulation of which he was
responsible. Goslett was (and is again) a London business-man, whose
organizing ability and patience were put to a most severe test. There
were some hundreds of English at Akaba, but except for the Armoured-Car
men they were not there for fighting. They suffered no casualties,
except for the death of a corporal who was accidentally killed while
doing amateur police-work on his own.
To encourage the regular Arab officers by recognizing their great
services in the fighting about Maan and against the railway, Allenby
distributed decorations. Jaafar, the commander-in-chief, was given
a C.M.G., and Allenby delighted him by providing, as a guard of honour
for the ceremony, the same troop of Dorset Yeomanry that had gained
great credit two years before by galloping him down in the Senussi
desert and taking him prisoner. Jaafar had also won the German Iron
Cross in 1915. This double event in a single war is possibly a unique
performance.
During these months of planning, Lawrence had not (in spite of Major
Young’s account) interrupted his active adventures. One strange ride in
July took him to Kerak, Themed and Amman, all held by Turkish troops.
He was inspecting the ground for the coming Arab advance to Jericho.
At Kerak, where he arrived at midnight with a party of camel-men,
the Turks were terrified and locked themselves into their barracks,
expecting the worst. But nothing happened. The sheikh with Lawrence
merely swore that he was hungry and had a sheep killed and cooked
for him by the villagers. Later, in the pitch-dark, they stumbled
over some Turkish cavalry watering at a stream, and were fired on.
Lawrence protested with fluent Turkish curses and the Turks replying
bad-temperedly with a few more shots drew off.
Everywhere he went there was Arab hospitality, guestings and
coffee-fires at which he preached revolt, until he had made sure
of all the clans in the ladder of his advance. On the way back,
the party was mistaken for Turks by some British aeroplanes which,
swooping low, emptied drum after drum of Lewis-gun ammunition at them.
Fortunately, the shooting was bad. (Later, in reporting the affair to
Air Vice-Marshal Sir Geoffrey Salmond, Lawrence ironically recommended
himself for the Distinguished Flying Cross, ‘for presence of mind in
not shooting down two Bristol Fighters which were attempting to
machine-gun my party from the air.’ He had made the regulation signal
agreed upon for such cases; and had twenty automatic rifles in the
party.) As soon as the aeroplanes had disappeared, a party of Turkish
policemen tried to chase them.
Next day, near Jurf, where Lawrence was going to inspect the ground for
an attack by Arab regulars—Jurf was the only water-supply for the Turks
on that part of the line—much worse happened. A party of mixed horse
and foot from the railway cut off his retreat and more troops appeared
in front. There was no escape and the Arabs with Lawrence, taking
cover, resolved to hold out to the last. Lawrence, half-glad, saw that
all was over. He decided to imitate Farraj and end it quickly. He rode
alone against the enemy. The mounted Turks came forward to meet him,
finger on trigger, calling out ‘Testify!’ He answered: ‘There is no
god but God; and Jesus is a prophet of God’—a queer statement which no
Mohammedan could make, and yet no Christian could make either; the sort
of tactless thing that a nervous man might blurt out by mistake. They
did not shoot; they gasped, stared and cried out: ‘Aurans!’ They were
friends, a party of Arab regulars, raiding the railway, but dressed
in the uniforms of slain Turks and mounted on captured horses. Their
rifles, too, were Turkish. They had never seen Lawrence before and had
mistaken his party for members of an unfriendly Arab tribe with whom
they had just been fighting.
* * * * *
The following letter was written by Lawrence from Cairo on the
fifteenth of July, 1918, to his Oxford friend Mr. V. Richards, whose
eyesight had hitherto debarred him from active service. The
hastiness of its style would probably make Lawrence repudiate it; but
the contents are valuable as contemporary evidence of his state of mind
at this critical point in the campaign.
‘15. 7. 18.
‘Well, it was wonderful to see your writing again, and very difficult
to read it: also pleasant to have a letter which doesn’t begin
“Reference your G.S. 102487b of the 45th.” Army prose is bad, and I
have so much of it that it makes me fear contamination in my own.
‘I cannot write to anyone just now. Your letter came to me in Aba el
Lissan, a little hill-fort on the plateau of Arabia S.E. of the Dead
Sea, and I carried it with me down to Akaba, to Jidda, and then here
to answer. Yet with all that I have had it only a month, and you wrote
it three months ago. This letter will be submarined, and then it is
all over for another three years.
‘It always seemed to me that your eyes would prevent all service for
you, and that in consequence you might preserve your continuity. For
myself, I have been so violently uprooted, and plunged so deeply into
a job too big for me, that everything feels unreal. I have dropped
everything I ever did, and live only as a thief of opportunity,
snatching chances of the moment when and where I see them. My people
have probably told you that the job is to foment an Arab rebellion
against Turkey, and for that I have to try to hide my Frankish
exterior, and be as little out of the Arab picture as I can. So it’s
a kind of foreign stage, on which one plays day and night, in fancy
dress, in a strange language, with the price of failure on one’s head
if the part is not well filled.
‘You guessed rightly that the Arab appealed to my imagination.
It is the old old civilization, which has refined itself clear of
household gods, and half the trappings which ours hastens to assume.
The gospel of bareness in materials is a good one, and it involves
apparently a sort of moral bareness too. Arabs think for the moment,
and endeavour to slip through life without turning corners or climbing
hills. In part it is a mental and moral fatigue, a race trained out,
and to avoid difficulties they have to jettison so much that we think
honourable and brave: and yet without in any way sharing their point
of view, I think I can understand it enough to look at myself and
other foreigners from their direction, and without condemning it. I
know I’m a stranger to them, and always will be: but I cannot believe
them worse, any more than I could change to their ways.
‘This is a very long porch to explain why I’m always trying to blow
up railway trains and bridges instead of looking for the well at the
world’s end. Anyway, these years of detachment have cured me of any
desire ever to do anything for myself. When they untie my bonds I will
not find in me any spur to action. However, actually one never thinks
of afterwards: the time from the beginning is like one of those dreams
which seems to last for aeons, and then you wake up with a start, and
find that it has left nothing in your mind. Only the different thing
about this dream is that so many people do not wake up in this life
again.
‘I cannot imagine what my people can have told you.[5] Until now
we have only been preparing the groundwork and bases of our revolt,
and do not yet stand on the brink of action. Whether we are going to
win or lose, when we do strike, I cannot ever persuade myself. The
whole thing is such a play, and one cannot put conviction into one’s
day dreams. If we succeed I will have done well with the materials
given me, and that disposes of your “lime light.” If we fail, and
they have patience, then I suppose we will go on digging foundations.
Achievement, if it comes, will have a great disillusionment, but not
great enough to wake me up.
[5] Mrs. Lawrence had written: ‘Ned has been in the Hejaz fighting
with the Arabs against the Turks for the last year and more. He has
been doing wonderful things, blowing up trains, bridges, etc., and
killing Turks by the hundred. He has had all sorts of decorations,
which he ignores. He says that if any private letters are sent giving
his rank and honours he will return them unopened.’ ...
‘Your mind has evidently moved far since 1914. That is a privilege
you have won by being kept out of the mist for so long. You’ll find
the rest of us aged undergraduates, possibly still unconscious of
our unfitting grey hair. For that reason I cannot follow or return
your steps. A house with no action entailed, quiet, and liberty to
think and abstain as one wills—yes, I think abstention, the leaving
everything alone and watching the others still going past, is what I
would choose to-day, if things ceased driving me. This may be only
the reaction from four years’ opportunism, and is not worth trying to
resolve into terms of geography and employment.
‘Of course the ideal is that of the “lords who are” still “certainly
expected,”[6] but the certainty is not for us, I’m afraid. Also for
very few would the joy be so perfect as to be silent. Those words
peace, silence, rest, and the others take on a vividness in the
midst of noise and worry and weariness like a lighted window in the
dark. Yet what on earth is the good of a lighted window? and perhaps
it is only because one is overborne and tired. You know when one
marches across an interminable plain a hill (which is still the worst
hill on earth) is a banquet, and after searing heat cold water takes
on a quality (what would they have said without this word before?)
impossible in the eyes of a fen-farmer. Probably I’m only a sensitized
film, turned black or white by the objects projected on me: and if
so what hope is there that next week or year, or to-morrow, can be
prepared for to-day?
[6] A reference to a previous letter of his own from Cairo in 1915:
‘You know Coleridge’s description of the heavenly bodies in _The
Ancient Mariner_. “Lords that are certainly expected” ... etc. I
don’t want to be a lord or a heavenly body, but I think that one end
of my orbit should be in a printing-shed with you. Shall we begin by
printing Apuleius’ _Golden Ass_, my present stand-by?’
‘This is an idiot letter, and amounts to nothing except a cry for a
further change, which is idiocy, for I change my abode every day,
and my job every two days, and my language every three days, and
still remain always unsatisfied. I hate being in front, and I hate
being back and I don’t like responsibility, and I don’t obey orders.
Altogether no good just now. A long quiet like a purge and then a
contemplation and decision of future roads, that is what is to look
forward to.
‘You want apparently some vivid colouring of an Arab costume, or of a
flying Turk, and we have it all, for that is part or the mise-en-scène
or the successful raider, and hitherto I am that. My bodyguard of
fifty Arab tribesmen, picked riders from the young men of the deserts,
are more splendid than a tulip garden, and we ride like lunatics and
with our Beduin pounce on unsuspecting Turks and destroy them in
heaps: and it is all very gory and nasty after we close grips. I love
the preparation, and the journey, and loathe the physical fighting.
Disguises, and prices on one’s head, and fancy exploits are all part
of the pose: how to reconcile it with the Oxford pose I know not.
Were we flamboyant there?
‘If you reply—you will perceive I have matting of the brain—and your
thoughts are in control, please tell me of B—, and if possible W—.
The latter was the man for all these things, because he would take a
baresark beery pleasure in physical outputs....
‘L.’
XXIV
The plan that Lawrence had in mind for Buxton’s camel-corps was this:
it would start from the Suez Canal, across Sinai to Akaba, arriving on
the second of August. The next step was from Akaba through the passes
to Rumm. From Rumm it would make a raid on Mudowwara which was still
holding out after having been threatened for over a year, and destroy
the Turkish water-supply, thereby completing the strangle-hold on
Medina. From Mudowwara it would go by the old Jefer and Bair route to
Kissir on the railway, three miles south of Amman, to destroy the big
bridge and tunnel which the British cavalry and camel raid had left
undamaged: this would delay the Turkish relief of Maan for three weeks,
by which time Allenby’s offensive would be beginning. The camel-corps
would then be back on Allenby’s front by way of Tafileh and Beersheba
on August the thirtieth.
Besides the Englishmen Lawrence would take his own body-guard and
pick up sponsors from other Arab tribes as he went. The ride was a
great responsibility for him. To take a large body of Christian troops
in khaki through Arab tribal territory was at least as dangerous an
adventure as the fighting that had to be done against the Turks. He
asked Buxton’s leave to address the men, without their officers, before
they started. I have had from one of them an account of his speech,
and the extraordinary impression it made on him and his comrades. At
first sight they had not trusted Lawrence in the least, disliking his
Bedouin dress and Bedouin gestures; whispering that he was a spy and
would betray them. But once he began to talk: ‘We are about to start
on a trip so long and difficult that the Staff believe we won’t
manage it ...,’ he captured their imaginations. He knew the value of
the appeal to personal vanity. He told them that they had to ride a
thousand miles in thirty days, nearly twice the set daily march of
their brigade, through desert country, on short rations for man and
beast, with two difficult night-attacks on Turkish posts thrown in. Any
delay in the march would mean thirst or starvation, probably both, and
if they wore out their camels by careless riding they would be stranded
in the desert and would probably never return. He asked them to be very
patient with the excitable Arabs, particularly at the wells.
[Illustration:
description: Map 200x600 miles of Palestine and Arabia centered
around the Dead Sea
title caption: THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NORTH
]
Buxton’s first impression of Lawrence can be given in a quotation from
a private letter that he wrote home on the fourth of August. He was at
Rumm watering the camels at the springs in the great amphitheatre; with
great difficulty, for the Beni Atiyeh tribe were there too, watering
a thousand camels a day, and jealousy for first turn might lead to
disturbance and bloodshed:
‘_August_ 4_th_, 1918. 4_th Anniversary of War_.
‘RUMM.
‘I am sitting between two rocks with a waterproof sheet overhead,
somewhere in the middle of Arabia, between Akaba and the Euphrates.
It is a place with rocky mountains on each side of me which last
night in the evening light became a most wonderful rosy red colour
growing purple as the shadow fell across them. The wells are about
three hundred yards up a stiff cliff, and the difficulties of watering
camels are terrific. We have been watering camels the last thirty-six
hours continuously day and night, and I hope to get off with my column
this evening. We are here very much under sufferance of the
Sherif, and none of the inhabitants and Arabs here like us at all, and
rifles which reverberate like a battle are continuously going off.
Lawrence and his odd-looking cut-throat band have just left us to
rejoin the Sherif near Maan, and we have now Nasir, a relation of the
Sherif, who acts as intermediary between us and the Arabs.
‘Our first night attack against the Turks will take place about forty
miles from here, two nights ahead. To-morrow about daybreak I go on
with Nasir and two or three of my officers dressed as Arabs, or rather
with Arab head-gear and coat, to give the proper “silhouette” effect,
and we do a personal reconnaissance of the places to be attacked about
sunset and then rejoin the column on the march after making plans for
the attack.
‘Lawrence has started all this Arab movement. He is only a boy to look
at, has a very quiet, sedate manner, a fine head but insignificant
body. He is known to every Arab in this country for his personal
bravery and train-wrecking exploits. I don’t know whether it is his
intrepidity, disinterestedness and mysteriousness which appeal to the
Arab most, or his success in finding them rich trains to blow up and
loot. After a train success he tells me the army is like Barnum’s
show and gradually disintegrates. At any rate it is wonderful what he
has accomplished with the poor tools at his disposal. His influence
is astounding not only on the misbeguided natives, but also I think
on his brother officers and seniors. Out here he lives entirely with
the Arabs, wears their clothes, eats only their food, and bears all
the burdens that the lowliest of them does. He always travels in
spotless white, and in fact reminds one of a Prince of Mecca more than
anything. He will join us again later, I hope, as his presence is
very stimulating to us all and one has the feeling that things cannot
go wrong while he is there.....’
Lawrence had ridden off not to Maan, as Buxton’s letter says, but to
Akaba where he collected his body-guard, sixty strong, and rode with
them to Guweira. El Zaagi had sorted them out in Ageyl fashion to ride
in a long line with a poet to right and a poet to left, each among
the best singers. Lawrence was on Ghazala, whose calf had recently
died and left her in great grief. Abdulla the Robber, riding next to
Lawrence, carried the calf’s dried pelt behind his saddle. Ghazala in
the middle of the singing began to tread uneasily, remembering her
grief, and stopped, gently moaning. Abdulla leaped off his camel and
spread the pelt before her. She stopped crying and sniffed at it three
or four times, then whimpering went on again. This happened several
times that day but in the end she forgot her grief. At Guweira he
left his body-guard to wait. An aeroplane took him to Jefer—to Feisal
who was there with Nuri, the Emir of the Ruwalla. It was Nuri who
had given Lawrence and Auda leave a year before to ride through his
territory on the way to Akaba. He had now to be asked a far greater
favour, the passage through his country of British troops and armoured
cars. If he consented it would mean war with the Turks toward whom,
at Feisal’s request, he had so far kept up a show of friendship. Nuri
was a hard, short-spoken old man of seventy, and it was with great
relief that Feisal and Lawrence heard his plain ‘Yes.’ It came at the
end of a great conference of all the Ruwalla chiefs where Feisal and
Lawrence in the tent at twilight sat preaching revolt. The combination
was irresistible; their method perfected after two years was to
say just enough to set the Ruwalla imagination on fire so that the
tribesmen almost believed themselves the inventors of the idea and
began spurring Feisal and Lawrence to greater enthusiasm and more
desperate action.
Lawrence’s short stay at Rumm with Buxton’s men had made him home-sick
for England. (It was an ideal England which he loved with a perverse
Anglo-Irish sentiment which was quite compatible with being out of
sympathy with most Englishmen.) So here at Jefer he accused himself of
play-acting, of continuing his cruel fraud on the Arabs for the sake of
England’s victory.
But then Nuri once more came to him with documents. The English
Government had been working with its foreign departments still at
odds together. Besides the original pledges to the Sherif promising
Arab independence and the later Sykes-Picot treaty partitioning up
the Arab area between England, France and Russia, there were now two
more statements: a promise made to seven prominent Arabs at Cairo
that the Arabs should keep such territory as they conquered from the
Turks during the war, and a promise to the Zionists for a Jewish
National Home in Palestine. Which of all these was Nuri to believe?
Once more Lawrence smiled and said, ‘The latest in date.’ Nuri took it
good-humouredly and ever afterwards helped Lawrence well, yet warned
him with a smile: ‘But if ever henceforth I fail to keep a promise,’
said Nuri, ‘it will be because I have superseded it with a later
intention.’
Lawrence’s loyalty was further tried by his discovery that negotiations
had been begun between the British Government and the Conservative
Turks about the terms of Turkey’s surrender. The news did not come to
him officially but privately through friends in Turkey, and the
Arabs had not been first consulted. This was most unfortunate because
the Conservatives, unlike their powerful opponents the Nationalists
(headed by Kemal, the present head of the Turkish Republic), were
most unwilling to allow Arab governments to be set up in Syria. The
British proposals would have been fatal to many of the Arabs already
in arms for freedom. Lawrence therefore encouraged Feisal to begin
a correspondence with the Kemalists, so that in case Allenby’s
thrust failed and a separate peace were made by the British with the
Conservative Turks, there might still be a chance of winning and
holding Damascus by alliance with the Turkish Nationalists against the
Conservatives.
It seems that after all this Lawrence did not quite know where he was,
and the only relief as usual for his distress of mind was violent
action and a longing for death to end his shame. Yet from actual
suicide he shrank. That would be to take death far too seriously; it
would not be cowardice but a flippancy unworthy of a serious person
like himself. The most that he could allow himself was a constant
exposure to danger, leaving himself only the narrowest margin of safety
and always hoping for an accident. Accidents, however, though numerous
were never fatal; he was too scrupulous about keeping the honourable
margin. If he had not been so much in love with the idea of death, he
would have been killed a hundred times over.
Nuri’s young nephew Bender begged Lawrence before all the chiefs to
give him a place in the body-guard. He had heard wild tales of its
excessive joys and sorrows from Rahail, his foster-brother, with whom
Lawrence had made the ride from Azrak. Lawrence did not want Bender;
a luxurious young man who was too much of a responsibility. But
Lawrence could not shame him in front of the chiefs, so he turned
the request by asking, ‘Am I a king to have Ruwalla princes as my
servants?’ Nuri’s eye met Lawrence’s in silent approval.
From this meeting with Nuri he flew back to Guweira, and from there
decided to go forward with the armoured cars as far as Azrak to prepare
Buxton’s road. They crossed the railway safely and at Bair met Buxton
coming up with his camel-corps from the attack on Mudowwara. He had
captured the place and its garrison of about a hundred and forty men
with a loss of four killed and ten wounded; destroyed the wells,
the engine pumps and the great water-tower, and more than a mile of
rails. The only trouble was that the supply-column that accompanied
him had left the last stop, Jefer, half-mutinous with fear of the
desert and had lost, stolen or sold a third of the rations which the
baggage camels were carrying. So the force had to be reduced by fifty
of Buxton’s least needed men, a hundred camels, and one of the two
armoured cars. There was great delay at Bair, watering at the only two
wells. At one of these there were six hundred camels of the Howeitat
and Beni Sakhr, and at the other a mob of a thousand Druses, Syrian
refugees, Damascus merchants and Armenians, all on their way to Akaba.
Lawrence helped Buxton with the watering: the Howeitat were astonished
at the English, never having imagined that there were so many of that
tribe in the world.
It was Lawrence’s thirtieth birthday and he made it the occasion for a
long self-examination, an inquiry into his personality, and his desire
to understand his personality, and the difficulties and deceits arising
from his desire to understand his personality by testing its effect
on others. His desire to be liked and his ambition to be famous,
and his cautious or shamefaced restraint of both these impulses. His
refusal to believe good of himself or his works; his actual dislike of
as much of himself as he could see and hear and feel.
At this point he was roused by shouts and shots. He was afraid that
a quarrel had broken out between Buxton’s men and the tribesmen, but
it was only an appeal for help against the Shammar who some miles
away had driven off eighty Howeitat camels. By the time that he had
sent in pursuit four or five relatives of the men robbed, his train
of thought was broken. They went forward then. Lawrence’s body-guard
were, for this ride, set to lead or drive the baggage camels carrying
the six thousand pounds of gun-cotton for the blowing up of the bridge.
They were disgusted at this unexciting and menial task, particularly
as their charges were very slow Somali camels which could do no more
than three miles an hour. El Zaagi urged them on, taunting them with
being coolies and drovers, offering to buy their goods when they came
to market, and made them laugh in spite of themselves. They kept up
by lengthening the marches into the night and stealing time from the
breakfast and midday halts. They brought the caravan through without
the loss of a single beast, a fine performance for such gilded
gentlemen; but then, they were the best camel-masters for hire in all
Arabia.
Lawrence was delighted with the Imperial Camel-Corps. Buxton had
revised all the hard-and-fast rules of march discipline. His men
no longer rode in line but in irregular clumps, each man picking
his easiest way over the bad ground. He had reduced and re-hung the
loads, and broken the old clockwork system of halting once every hour.
Each march his men became more workmanlike, more at home on
their animals, tougher, leaner, faster. If only the Indian camel-men
had learned to accommodate themselves in the same way to irregular
fighting, the Yarmuk bridge raid of the previous autumn might have
ended successfully.
[Illustration:
description: Photos three wide sequential shots of a building
and water-tower being blown up
caption: BUXTON’S MEN BLOWING UP MUDOWWARA STATION
_Copyright_
]
However, Kissir bridge and tunnel escaped too. On August the twentieth
they came within sight of the railway and hid in the ruins of a Roman
temple some miles off. Lawrence sent forward members of his body-guard
who were peasants of the district to scout in the three villages
between them and the bridge. They returned to say that by bad luck
Turkish tax-gatherers were in the villages that night, measuring out
the heaps of corn on the threshing-floors under guard of troops of
mounted infantry. Three such troops were in the three villages nearest
the great bridge, villages close to which they would have to pass on
their way to blow it up. And a Turkish aeroplane had come over their
column that morning and probably seen them. They took counsel. Lawrence
had no doubt that Buxton’s men could deal with the Turkish bridge-guard
and blow up the bridge. The only question was whether the business was
worth its cost in British lives. The plan was to dismount nearly a mile
from the bridge and advance on foot. The blowing up of the bridge with
three tons of gun-cotton would wake up the whole district and Turkish
patrols might stumble on the camel-park, which would be a disaster.
Buxton’s men could not, like Arabs, scatter like a swarm of birds after
the explosion, to find their own way back. In night-fighting some of
them would be sure to be cut off. They might lose altogether fifty men.
This was too expensive. The destruction of the bridge, anyhow, was only
to frighten and disturb the Turks so that they would leave Maan
alone until August the thirtieth, when the great attack on Deraa was to
be made from Azrak. This was already the twentieth. The danger seemed
nearly over now, for the Turks had wasted the last month, doing nothing.
Buxton’s men were most disappointed when they heard that the raid was
off, but Lawrence reassured them that the chief object of their coming
would be gained. He sent men down to the villages to spread reports of
a coming great attack on Amman, of which this was the advance guard. It
was what the Turks dreaded most; patrols were sent up at once to report
on the truth of the villagers’ wild reports, and found the hill-top,
where the raiders had been, littered with empty meat tins, and the
valley slopes cut up by the tracks of enormous cars. Very many tracks
there were; as Lawrence, with his single car, had taken care that there
should be. This alarm checked them for a week; the destruction of the
bridge would only have added a few days more. The expedition returned
by way of Azrak, where the Englishmen bathed in the pools, and to Bair
(shouting ‘Are we well fed? No! Do we see life? Yes!’), where they
found a few more ‘iron rations’ dumped for them from Akaba. Then Buxton
took them back to Palestine. Lawrence returned with the armoured cars
to Akaba.
XXV
At Akaba preparations for the grand expedition of all arms to cut the
railways at Deraa were complete—so complete that Dawnay and Joyce were
both for the moment on holiday. Lawrence was glad to be there to cope
with a most unexpected and absurd situation. The Sherif, Hussein, had
issued a Royal Gazette from Mecca with a proclamation to the effect
that fools were calling Jaafar Pasha the General Officer Commanding
the Arab Northern Army, whereas there was no such rank, indeed no rank
higher than captain in the Arab Army, in which Sheikh Jaafar, like many
another, was doing his duty. Hussein had heard of Jaafar’s C.M.G. and
had published this proclamation in jealousy without warning Feisal. He
intended by it to spite the Syrian and Mesopotamian Arabs in Feisal’s
army. They were fighting, he knew, to free their own countries for
self-government, but he was aiming at a regular Arab Empire which he
was ambitious to rule from Mecca, with the spiritual leadership of
the Mohammedan world thrown in. Jaafar and all the Arab officers at
once resigned. Feisal refused the resignations, pointing out that
their commissions as officers were issued by himself and he alone
was disgraced by the proclamation. He telegraphed to Mecca resigning
command. Hussein appointed Zeid in his place. Zeid promptly refused
to take command. Hussein sent threatening messages by cable and all
military life was at an end from Akaba to Aba el Lissan.
Lawrence had to do something. The first alternative was to put
pressure on Hussein to withdraw his statement; the second to ignore
the humours of this narrow-minded old man of seventy, and carry on;
the third, to set up Feisal in independence of his father and,
when Damascus fell, try to give him a throne there. But the difficulty
was that the expedition had to start in three days’ time if it was
to reach Deraa before Allenby began his advance. The first course
was best, to avoid the appearance of dissension among the Arabs, but
might take weeks. So Allenby and the High Commissioner of Egypt (who
provided Hussein’s subsidy) were at once set to work on the Sherif,
whose answers to Feisal through them were cabled across to Akaba in
cipher. Lawrence, remembering Hussein’s trick on the telephone, saw to
it that the cable-station at Akaba only accepted the desirable parts
of the messages and made a hopeless jumble of the others, notifying
these to Mecca as ‘corrupt.’ Fortunately Hussein instead of repeating
the censored passages, toned them down until at last there came a
long message, the first half a lame apology and withdrawal of the
proclamation, the other a renewal of the offence in a new form.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of men standing and on horses facing
forward; Mohammed el Dheilan, Feisal, and Jaafar
indicated
caption: AT GUWEIRA
_Copyright French Army Photo Dept._
]
Lawrence suppressed this second half and took the first to Feisal
marked ‘very urgent.’ The secretary decoded it and Feisal read it aloud
to the staff about him, concealing his surprise at the meek words of
his usually obstinate and tyrannical old father. At the end he said,
‘The telegraph has saved all our honour.’ Without Feisal the great
expedition to Deraa, which it was hoped might mean also Damascus, would
have been incomplete and Lawrence had pressed him to come in spite of
his father; Feisal having resigned his command had offered very nobly
to come under Lawrence’s. So now he bent towards Lawrence, adding
in an undertone: ‘I mean the honour of nearly all of us.’ Lawrence
said demurely, ‘I do not understand what you mean.’ Feisal answered,
‘I offered to serve for this last march under your orders, why
was that not enough? Because it would not go with your honour,’ said
Lawrence. ‘You always prefer mine before your own,’ Feisal murmured,
then sprang up energetically to his feet saying, ‘Now, sirs, praise God
and work!’
The expedition started only a day late. Lawrence first had to suppress
a mutiny among the Arab regular soldiers who knew something bad
was happening, but had heard only the false rumour that Feisal had
deserted. He had not been seen out of his tent for a week. The gunners
thought that their officers were betraying them and ran to turn the
guns on their tents. However, Rasim had foreseen this and, secretly
collecting the breech-blocks in his own tent, had outwitted them. At
this ludicrous moment Lawrence came smiling along and talked to the
men, telling as a great joke the whole story of Hussein’s proclamation
and the resignations; they laughed like schoolboys at the private
quarrels of their leaders. Feisal then appeared, driving through the
lines in his Vauxhall car which was painted with the holy green colour
of the Prophet’s family; and the situation was saved.
Lawrence went by armoured car to Azrak and at Bair heard the news that
the Turks at Hesa had moved suddenly to Tafileh and were advancing
south to the relief of Maan. The chief of the Beni Sakhr who brought
the news thought Lawrence mad when he laughed aloud. But, now that
the expedition had started, the Turks might relieve Maan and take Aba
el Lissan, Guweira, Akaba itself for all he cared. The news meant
that the Turks believed in the pretended threat to Amman and were
making a counter-stroke. Every man that they sent south was a man, or
rather ten men lost. Deraa was all that mattered now. To complete the
deception Lawrence had sent thousands of his ‘horsemen of St.
George’ (British sovereigns) to the Beni Sakhr tribe to purchase all
the barley on their threshing-floors for a force that would be shortly
coming along from Azrak, through their villages, towards Amman. The
Turks got the news soon, as was intended. Hornby was going in charge of
the other expedition to join up with Allenby at Jericho, so that if the
Deraa plan failed the combined parties could make the feint on Amman
a reality. But the Turkish advance on Tafileh checked him and he had
instead to defend Shobek against them.
The Deraa expedition was now assembling at Azrak and on the twelfth
of September was complete. First arrived Lawrence’s body-guard, jolly
on their well-fed camels, then two aeroplanes, then the rest of the
armoured cars and a great baggage train. Feisal brought the Arab
regular army, a thousand camel-men on Allenby’s gift-camels; with the
French Algerian gunners under Pisani. Nuri appeared with the Ruwalla
tribesmen; and Auda with Mohammed el Dheilan and the Abu Tayi; and
Fahad and Adhub with their Beni Sakhr; and the chief of the Serahin;
and many more Bedouin, Druses and town-Syrians flocking from all
directions. And the great outlaw Tallal arrived, who had taken Lawrence
spying in the Hauran the winter before.
First of all it was necessary to cut off Deraa from Amman. For this
purpose a detachment of Indian Gurkhas on camels under their British
officer were sent to raid a block-house on the railway just north of
Amman, while a party of Egyptian camel-corps blew up near-by bridges
and rails. Two armoured cars went with them, and local guides. The rest
of the army moved up to Umtaiye, a great rainwater-pit fifteen miles
below Deraa, and waited there for news.
Unfortunately this demolition did not come off; the Arabs between
the raiders and the line disliked the Indians, despised the Egyptians
and would not let them pass. So Lawrence went himself the next day
from Umtaiye with two armoured cars and a hundred and fifty pounds of
gun-cotton to the nearest point on the line, where there were two good
bridges to destroy and easy going for the cars. Joyce came with him.
While Joyce’s car kept the neighbouring block-house busy, Lawrence’s
ran to the biggest bridge, whose guard-garrison of eight men made a
first brave defence but then surrendered—as also did the block-house
garrison. Joyce and Lawrence then hurriedly set about the bridge,
destroying it scientifically so that the four arches were smashed but
the skeleton left tottering. The Turks would first have the difficult
task of destroying it completely before they could begin rebuilding.
The cars then bumped off, because a large body of Turks was seen coming
up in the distance. Lawrence’s car bumped too carelessly; at the first
watercourse there was a crash and it stuck. They hurriedly inspected
the damage and found that the front bracket of the near back-spring
had broken; a hopeless break which only a workshop could mend. The
driver, Rolls, was nearly in tears over this mishap, the first
structural damage in a team of nine cars driven for eighteen months
over the maddest country. But he realized that the fate of the whole
party rested on him and said that there was just one hope. They might
jack up the fallen end of the spring and wedge it, by balks upon the
running-board, into nearly its old position. With the help of ropes the
thin angle-irons of the running-board might carry the additional weight.
There was in each car a length of timber to help the double
car-tires over muddy places; three blocks of this would do for
the proper height. But there was no saw, so they used machine-gun
bullets instead, and soon had their three blocks. The Turks heard the
machine-gun firing and halted cautiously. Joyce’s car also heard and
came back to help; the repair was hurriedly made, only just in time.
When they got back to Umtaiye they strengthened it with telegraph-wire
and it lasted until they reached Damascus. The loss of this bridge
would keep the Turks from reinforcing Deraa from Amman and also help
Zeid and Jaafar with the Arab army at Aba el Lissan, and Hornby at
Shobek, for the Turks massing at Tafileh were delayed until the line
was mended behind them.
Meanwhile the Arab expedition moved to Tell Arar, four miles north
of Deraa, where they were to cut the northern railway to Damascus.
Lawrence and Joyce hurrying to join them in the armoured cars arrived
late because of bad going over heavy plough-land. They watched the
battle from a hill: Ruwalla horsemen dashing towards the line over
the liquorice-grown bed of a watercourse, and a Ford car, with
machine-guns, bouncing after. A Turkish guard-post opened fire, but
Pisani’s guns silenced it and the Ruwalla took it with only one man
killed. Ten miles of railway were won in only an hour’s fighting and
the Egyptians, after a halt for breakfast, began steady demolition-work
from south to north while the Arab army swarmed over the plain.
Lawrence could hardly realize the good fortune. It was September the
seventeenth, two days before Allenby could throw forward his full
power. In two days the Turks might decide to change their dispositions
to meet this new danger from the Arabs at Deraa, but they could not
do so before Allenby struck. Lawrence had cut the one railway
that connected the Turks in Amman, Maan, Medina, Nazareth, Nablus,
the Jordan valley, with their base in Damascus and with Aleppo,
Constantinople, Germany.
The Egyptians used ‘tulips,’ which were thirty-ounce charges of
gun-cotton planted beneath the centre of the central sleeper of each
ten-yard section of the track. The sleepers were hollow steel and the
explosion made them hump bud-like two feet in the air. The lift pulled
the rails three inches up, the drag pulled them six inches together,
and the chairs were inwardly warped. This threefold distortion put them
beyond repair. And it was quick work; six hundred such charges could
be laid and fired in two or three hours and would take the Turks a
week to mend. While they were busy, eight Turkish aeroplanes flew out
from Deraa and began dropping bombs. They did not seem to notice the
Egyptians on the railway but came diving down with machine-gun fire
among the Arabs. There was no overhead cover on the plain at all, so
the only thing was to scatter and present the thinnest possible target,
while Nuri Said’s automatic guns rattled back at the aeroplanes and
Pisani’s mountain-guns fired shrapnel and made them fly too high to
bomb accurately.
The question now was how to get at the Yarmuk railway-bridge which
Lawrence had failed to blow up the year before. Its destruction would
top off the cutting of the other two lines from Deraa. The enemy
aeroplanes were, however, making movement impossible. There had been
two British aeroplanes with the expedition, but the only useful one,
a Bristol Fighter, had been damaged in an air-fight the day before
and had flown back for repairs to Jerusalem; there remained only an
antiquated and almost useless B.E.12 machine. But Junor, the
pilot, had heard at Azrak from the pilot of the returning Bristol
Fighter that enemy aeroplanes were active at Deraa and most bravely
decided to take his place. When things were at their worst at Tell
Arar he suddenly sailed in and rattled away at the eight Turkish
aeroplanes with his two guns. They scattered for a careful look and he
flew westward drawing them after him: he knew that the chance of an
air-fight usually makes aeroplanes forget their ground-target. It was
deliberate self-sacrifice on Junor’s part, for his machine was utterly
useless for air-fighting. Nuri Said hurriedly collected three hundred
and fifty regulars and marched them in small parties across the rails.
He was making for Mezerib, seven miles west from Deraa, the key to the
Yarmuk bridge. The returning aeroplanes would probably not notice that
his men were gone. Armed peasants were sent on after Nuri Said, and
half an hour later Lawrence called up his body-guard, to follow himself.
As he did so, he heard a droning in the air and to his astonishment
Junor appeared, still alive, though surrounded by three enemy
aeroplanes, faster than his own, spitting bullets at him. He was
twisting and side-slipping splendidly, firing back. But the fight could
only end in one way. In a faint hope that he might get down alive
Lawrence rushed with his men and another British officer, Young, to
clear a landing-place by the railway. Junor was being driven lower; he
threw out a message to say that his petrol was finished. The body-guard
worked feverishly, rolling away boulders, and Lawrence put out a
landing-signal. Junor dived: the machine took the ground beautifully
but a flaw of wind then overturned it and he was thrown out. He was up
in a moment with only a cut chin, and rescued his Lewis-gun and
machine-gun and ammunition just before one of the Turkish aeroplanes
dived and dropped a bomb by the wreck. Five minutes later he was asking
for another job. Joyce gave him a Ford car and he ran boldly down the
hill until near Deraa and blew a gap in the rails there before the
Turks saw him. They fired at him with artillery but he bumped off in
the Ford, still unhurt.
Lawrence hurried forward to Mezerib with his body-guard, but an
aeroplane saw them and began dropping bombs: one, two, three misses,
the fourth fell right among them. Two camels fell, terribly wounded,
but the riders escaped unhurt and scrambled up behind two of their
friends. Another machine came by and dropped more bombs. A shock spun
Lawrence’s camel round and nearly knocked him out of the saddle with a
numbing pain in his right arm. He felt that he was hard hit and tears
came to his eyes with the pain and the disappointment of being put out
of action so soon before the triumphant end. Blood was running down
his arm. Perhaps, if he did not look at it, he might carry on as if he
were unhurt. The aeroplane was machine-gunning them now and his camel
swung round. He clutched at the pommel and realized that his damaged
arm was there, still in working order. He had judged it blown off. He
felt for the wound, and found a very small very hot splinter of metal
sticking into his arm. He realized how bad his nerves were. This was,
by the way, the first time that he had been hit from the air, of all
his twenty or more wounds.
Mezerib surrendered after a bombardment by Pisani’s guns and twenty
machine-guns. (Tallal had previously gone forward demanding a bloodless
surrender—he knew the stationmaster—but the Turks had fired a volley at
him and at Lawrence, who came with him, from point-blank range:
they had crawled back painfully through a field of thistles, Tallal
swearing.) The station was looted by hundreds of Hauran peasantry. Men,
women and children in a frenzy fought like dogs over every object;
even doors and windows, door-frames and window-frames, steps of the
stairs, were carried off. Others smashed and looted the wagons in the
siding. Lawrence and Young cut the telegraph, the Palestine army’s
main link with home. They cut it slowly to draw out the indignation
of the German-Turkish staff at Nazareth. The Turks’ hopeless lack of
initiative made their army a directed one, so that by destroying the
telegraph Lawrence went far towards turning them into a leaderless mob.
The points were then blown in and tulips planted all over the station
track. Among the captures were two lorries crammed with delicacies for
some German canteen. Nuri Said found an Arab prising open a tin of
bottled asparagus and cried out: ‘Pigs’ bones!’ The peasant spat in
horror and threw them down. Nuri Said picked them up and later shared
them with Lawrence, Joyce and Young. The trucks were splashed with
petrol and set on fire and the blaze that evening acted as a beacon
for hundreds and hundreds of Arab peasant rebels who came on camel, on
horse, on foot, in great enthusiasm, hoping that this was the final
release of their country.
Visitors were welcome. Lawrence’s business was to let each one tell
him all the news he wanted to tell; afterwards re-arranging it in his
mind and getting a clear picture of the whole enemy situation. Even
the magistrates of Deraa itself came offering to open the town, but
Lawrence put them off, to their disappointment. Though he knew that
the town controlled the local water-supply, the possession of
which must force the railway-station to surrender too, he would not
risk accepting the gift. If Allenby did not completely break the Turks,
Deraa might be retaken and a merciless massacre of the Hauran peasants
would follow.
The next step was to blow up Tell el Shehab bridge. There had arrived
the boy-chief of Tell el Shehab village, which crowned the cliff above
the bridge: he described the position of the large Turkish guard at
the bridge. Lawrence thought that he was probably lying, but he went
off and soon returned with his friend the commander of the Turkish
bridge-guard, an Armenian captain, who confirmed the story. The
Armenian was anxious to betray his charge; he suggested an ambush in
his own room at the village to which he would in turn call all his
lieutenants, sergeants and corporals—hated Turks—to be trussed up by
three or four waiting Arabs. The rest of the force would be ready then
to rush the leaderless guard. Lawrence agreed and at eleven o’clock he
and Nasir were close to the village with camel-men and the body-guard
bringing bags of gelatine. Lawrence knew the bridge well since his
attempt on it with Ali ibn el Hussein and Fahad from the other side of
the ravine. It was pitch-dark and the damp air came up from the river,
wetting their woollen coats. Waiting for the Armenian to come and fetch
the trussers-up they could hear the occasional cries of the sentry
challenging passers-by on the bridge far below, and the constant roar
of the waterfall, and then the noise of a train, with the squealing of
brakes as it stopped in the station close by the bridge. After awhile
the boy-chief came up holding his brown cloak open to show his white
shirt like a flag. He whispered that the plan had failed. The train in
the ravine had been sent up with German and Turk reserves from
Afuleh under a German colonel to rescue panic-stricken Deraa. They had
arrested the Armenian captain for being absent from his post. There
were dozens of machine-guns and dozens of sentries patrolling up and
down.
Nuri Said offered to take the place by main force. Surprise and numbers
were on the Arab side, but Lawrence was at his old game of reckoning
the cost and as usual found it too dear. They said good night to the
chief, thanked him, and turned back. Lawrence, Nasir and Nuri Said
sat with rifles ready on the cliff edge, waiting for their men to
get back out of danger. Lawrence’s rifle was a famous one, a British
Lee-Enfield captured at the Dardanelles and given by Enver, the Turkish
commander-in-chief, as a present to Feisal, with an inscription on a
gold plate; Feisal had given it to Lawrence. It was a great temptation
sitting there to fire a rocket pistol into the station and scare the
Germans into all-night terror. Nasir, Nuri and Lawrence all had the
same childish idea at the same moment, but managed to restrain each
other from carrying it out. Instead, some of the body-guard were sent
to blow up rails in the ravine a mile or two beyond the bridge, Tallal
providing guides. The echoing explosions gave the Germans a bad night.
Then the rest of the army moved from Mezerib towards Nisib on their
way back to Umtaiye. Before leaving they lit a long time-fuse to a
mine under the water-tower. When the Germans came forward from Tell
el Shehab—they heard that Mezerib was empty—the mine exploded with a
tremendous noise and they cautiously retired again.
Nisib was ten miles south of Deraa. Pisani’s guns shelled the station
at two thousand yards’ range and the machine-guns supported him. But
the Turks would not surrender, returning a hot fire from the
trenches. This did not matter much, for the real objective was not the
station but a great bridge a few hundred yards to the north, protected
by a Turkish post which Nuri Said now began to bombard. Lawrence’s
men were tired out, like their camels, and when he asked them to come
forward with him against the bridge they refused. They knew that one
bullet in the gelatine that they were carrying would blow them sky-high.
It was the first time that they had flinched. Lawrence tried to get
them forward by making jokes, but it was hopeless. At last he cast them
off and standing on the crest with bullets cracking round him called by
name the youngest and most timid of them all to come with him to the
bridge. He shook like a man in a sick dream but obeyed quietly. They
rode over the crest towards the bridge. Lawrence then sent the young
Arab back to tell the men that he would hurt them worse than bullets
if they did not join him. He intended to go forward to see whether the
guard-post was holding out after the bombardment. While the body-guard
hesitated, up came El Zaagi with Abdulla the Robber: they were men who
feared nothing. Mad with fury that Lawrence had been betrayed these
two dashed at the shrinkers and chased them over the ridge-top, with
no more harm than six bullet-grazes. The post was indeed abandoned, so
Lawrence dismounted and signalled to Nuri Said to cease fire. He and
his body-guard crept up on foot to the bridge and piling eight hundred
pounds of explosive against the piers, which were about five feet thick
and twenty-five feet high, blew it to pieces. This was Lawrence’s last
bridge, the seventy-ninth since he started and a most important one,
for the Arab army was to wait close by at Umtaiye until Allenby’s
troops came up to join it.
The Turkish aeroplanes were a pest, Umtaiye was only twelve
miles from their aerodrome near Deraa and they kept coming over and
dropping bombs on the Arab camp. The irregulars would soon lose their
nerve and go off home unless something was done; so Lawrence and Junor
went off in two armoured cars to raid the aerodrome. They got quite
close by silencing the cars and found three aeroplanes on the ground.
One they shot to pieces; the two others escaping flew to Deraa and
returned to chase the cars with bombs. The first dropped its four bombs
all together from a height and missed badly, but the other flew low,
placing one bomb at a time with great care. Lawrence and Junor drove
slowly on over rocky ground, quite defenceless. One bomb sent a shower
of stones through the driving slit of Lawrence’s car but only cut his
knuckles. Another tore off a front tire and nearly overturned them. But
they returned safely to Umtaiye.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of armoured car with front
wheels buried up to the axles
caption: AN ARMOURED FORD IN THE DESERT
_Copyright Imperial War Museum_
]
Two days later a news-aeroplane was due at Azrak, so Lawrence decided
to go back in it to Palestine and beg Allenby to send along some
Bristol Fighters. He rode towards Azrak with his body-guard, intending
on the way to smash another bridge. But he noticed that his men were
red-eyed and trembling and obeyed orders with hesitation: evidently El
Zaagi and The Robber had mercilessly gone through the list of those
who had flinched at Nisib. He decided that they were not in form that
night, so sent the Egyptians and Gurkhas (on the first stage of their
journey back to help Zeid at Aba el Lissan) to do the raid instead.
He followed them in an armoured car and Junor came, too, in his Ford.
Lawrence, who was guiding, lost the way in the darkness; his wits were
wandering after five sleepless nights in succession. But the
Egyptians fired their thirty tulips all right, while Lawrence and Junor
overtook a train and machine-gunned it. Junor let fly a green shower of
tracer-bullets which probably did little harm but made the Turks howl
with terror.
At Azrak they found the aeroplane waiting with the first amazing news
of Allenby’s victory. He had burst through at every point and the
Turkish army was in rout. Lawrence sent the news to Feisal, advising
him to proclaim the general revolt at last, and flew off to Palestine.
An hour or two later he was with Allenby who was very calm in spite of
the magnitude of his victory and was allowing the Turks no rest. He
was making three new thrusts: with the New Zealanders to Amman, with
the Indians to Deraa, with the Australians to Kuneitra in the Hauran.
The New Zealanders would stop at Amman but the other two divisions
would later converge on Damascus. Allenby asked Lawrence to assist all
three advances with his Arabs but not to push on to Damascus until
the Indians and Australians were in line with him. Lawrence in return
asked for aeroplanes, and was given them: two Bristol Fighters, with an
enormous Handley-Page and a D.H.9 to carry petrol and spare parts.
Back with the Arabs the next day Lawrence told them that Nablus was
taken and Afuleh and Haifa and Baisan. The news ran like fire through
the camp. Tallal began boasting, the Ruwalla shouted for instant
march on Damascus, even the still smarting body-guard cheered up.
That day, the twenty-second of September, Lawrence was breakfasting
near Umtaiye with the airmen: there were sausages frying. Suddenly a
watcher called out:‘Aeroplane up.’ The pilots of the Bristol Fighters
Jumped into their machines, and the pilot of the D.H.9 looked
hard at Lawrence, silently asking him to come up with him to handle
the machine-guns. Lawrence pretended not to understand. He had learned
the theory of air-fighting all right, but it was knowledge not yet
become instinctive action. No, he would not go up. The pilot looked
reproachfully at him while the air-fight began without them. Five
minutes later the Bristols were back, having driven down a two-seater
and scattered three scout-aeroplanes. The sausages were still hot. They
ate them and drank some tea and were starting on some grapes, a present
from the Druse country, when again the watcher cried ‘Aeroplane’ and up
the pilots jumped and soon brought it down in flames.
Later with Feisal (whom he had gone by air to fetch with his staff
from Azrak) and Nuri, the Emir of the Ruwalla, Lawrence went off north
in Feisal’s green Vauxhall to see the Handley-Page alight. Twenty
miles from the landing-ground they met a single Arab tribesman running
southward like the prophet Elijah with grey hair and grey beard flying
in the wind and his clothes girded about his loins. He yelled out to
the car, waving his bony arms, ‘The biggest aeroplane in the world’
and rushed on to spread his great news among the tents. They found the
Handley-Page surrounded by Arabs who cried out, ‘Indeed and at last
they have sent us the aeroplane, of which these others were foals.’
Before night the news had spread all over the Hauran and across the
Druse mountains and every one knew by this token that the Arabs were
on the winning side. The great machine unloaded a ton of petrol, oil
and spare parts for the Bristol Fighters, and rations for the men; then
sailed off for night-bombing at Deraa.
The task that Allenby had set the Arab army was to harass the
Turkish Fourth Army until the New Zealanders forced it out of Amman,
its headquarters, and afterwards to cut it up on its retreat north.
Feisal’s force now consisted of four thousand men, of whom three
thousand were irregulars. But these irregulars were nearly all under
the sovereignty of the Emir Nuri, whose word nobody dared disobey,
so Feisal could count on them. The old man led a charge of Ruwalla
horsemen in a further raid on the railway and under his eye the tribe
showed unusual valour; armoured cars came along too and the line was
now permanently broken between Amman and Deraa. It only remained to
wait for the fugitives streaming up from Amman in flight from the New
Zealanders.
A body of hostile cavalry was reported to be coming north towards them.
The Emir Nuri with his Ruwalla horse and Tallal with his Hauran horse
went to meet it. Armoured cars joined them. But it was only a mob of
fugitives looking for a short cut home, so hundreds of prisoners were
taken and much transport. A panic spread down the line and troops miles
away from the Arabs threw away all they had, even their rifles, making
a mad rush towards supposed safety in Deraa.
XXVI
Lawrence suggested at a midnight council that the whole Arab force
should move up to Sheikh Saad, north of Deraa, astride the line of
retreat of the main Turkish forces. The British staff-officer appointed
by Joyce as senior military adviser for the expedition objected. He
said that Allenby had set the Arabs as watchmen merely of the Fourth
Army; they had seen its disorderly flight and their duty was over. They
might now honourably fall back twenty miles out of the way to the east
and there join forces with the Druses under their leader, Lawrence’s
foolish friend Nesib.
Lawrence would not hear of this. He was most anxious for the Arabs to
be first in Damascus and to do their full share of the fighting. To
thrust behind Deraa into Sheikh Saad would put more pressure on the
Turks than any British unit was in a position to put. They could be
prevented from making another stand this side of Damascus, and the
capture of Damascus meant the end of the War in the East, and probably
the end of the European War too. So for every reason the Arabs should
go forward. The staff-officer would not be convinced. He argued and
tried to drag Nun Said into the debate. Finally he insisted that he
was the senior military adviser and must reluctantly point out that
as a regular officer he knew his business. It was not the first time
that Lawrence had been slighted for not being a regular. He merely
sighed, and said that he must sleep now, because he was getting up
early to cross the line with his body-guard and the Bedouin, whatever
the regulars did. However, Nuri Said decided to come with Lawrence and
so did Pisani, and so did the rest of the British officers. And
Tallal and the Emir Nuri and old Auda were already pressing forward.
Tallal and Auda undertook attacks on Ezraa and Ghazale, towns on the
Damascus railway. The Emir Nuri would sweep towards Deraa in search
of escaping Turkish parties. Lawrence himself went to Sheikh Saad
with his body-guard, arriving there at dawn on the twenty-seventh of
September. There was nearly a serious accident here, for they were
invited to guest at the tent of one of the Emir Nuri’s blood-enemies.
Fortunately, the man himself was absent, so Lawrence’s party accepted:
Nuri, when he arrived, would find himself temporary host of his enemy’s
family and have to obey the rules. It was a great relief. Throughout
the campaign they had been bothered with these same blood-feuds, barely
suspended by Feisal’s authority. It was a constant strain keeping
enemies apart, trying to keep the hostile clans in friendly rivalry on
separate ventures, making them camp always with a neutral clan between,
and avoiding any suspicion of favouritism. As Lawrence comments, the
campaign in France would have been harder to control if each division,
almost each brigade, of the British Army had hated every other one
with a deadly hatred and had fought at every chance meeting. However,
Feisal, Nasir and he had managed successfully for two years and the end
was only a few days off.
Auda returned boasting, having taken Ghazale by storm and captured
a train, guns and two hundred men. Tallal had taken Ezraa, held by
none other than Abd el Kader, the mad Algerian. When Tallal came
the townsmen joined him and Abd el Kader had to escape to Damascus.
Tallal’s horsemen were too heavy with booty to catch him. The Emir Nuri
captured four hundred Turks with mules and machine-guns: these
prisoners were farmed out to remote villages as labourers to earn their
keep. The rest of the army now arrived under Nuri Said and the peasants
came shyly up to look at it. Feisal’s army had hitherto been only a
legendary thing. When no Turks were about, the peasants had spoken in
whispers the famous names of its leaders—Tallal, Nasir. Nuri, Auda,
‘Aurans’; whom now they saw in the flesh.
Lawrence and five or six others went up a hill for a look south to see
if anything was moving. To their astonishment a company of regulars
in uniform—Turks, Austrians, Germans—was coming slowly towards them
with eight machine-guns mounted on pack-animals. They were marching up
from Galilee towards Damascus after their defeat by Allenby, thinking
themselves fifty miles from any war. Some of the Ruwalla nobles were at
once sent to ambush them in a narrow lane: the officers showed fight
and were instantly killed, the men threw down their arms and in five
minutes had been searched and robbed and were being led off to the
prisoners’ camp in a cattle-pound. Next, Zaal and the Howeitat were
sent against three or four other parties seen moving in the distance,
and soon returned, each man leading a mule or a pack-horse. Zaal
disdained to take such broken men prisoners. ‘We gave them to the girls
and boys of the village for servants,’ he sneered.
The whole of the Hauran had now risen and in two days’ time sixty
thousand armed men would be waiting to cut up the Turkish retreat.
A British aeroplane hovered over and dropped word that Bulgaria had
surrendered. Evidently the whole war would soon be at an end as well as
this Eastern campaign. The Germans were burning storehouses and
aeroplanes at Deraa and another aeroplane dropped word that a Turkish
column of four thousand men was retiring north from the town towards
Sheikh Saad, and another column of two thousand from Mezerib. The
smaller column seemed a safer size to attack, so the bigger, which
later proved to be more like seven thousand strong, was let go by, with
merely the Ruwalla horse and some Hauran peasants to harry it and cut
off stragglers.
Tallal was anxious about the Mezerib Turks, because their path would
lie through his own village of Tafas. He hurried there as fast as he
could, determined to hold a ridge south of it. Lawrence galloped ahead
of him, hoping to delay the Turks until the rest of the army came up.
Unfortunately the camels and horses were tired out. On their way they
met mounted Arabs herding a drove of Turkish prisoners stripped to
the waist, beating them on with sticks. The Arabs shouted that these
were the remnants of the police battalion at Deraa. Their record of
monstrous cruelty towards the peasants Lawrence knew well and he made
no appeal for mercy.
At Tafas he arrived too late. The Governor of Syria’s own lancer
regiment had already taken it and was burning the houses after
massacring the inhabitants. Lawrence and the Arabs lay in ambush on
a ridge to the north as the Turks marched out in good order with the
lancers in front and rear, infantry in a central column, a flank-guard
of machine-guns, guns and transport in the centre. When the head of
the long column showed itself beyond the houses the Arabs opened fire
with machine-guns. The Turks replied with field-guns, but as usual the
shrapnel was badly ranged and burst far behind the ridge. Then up came
Nuri Said and Pisani with mountain-guns, and Auda, and Tallal,
nearly frantic with the news of the massacre of his people. The Arabs
lined the northern ridge and opened rapid fire with mountain-guns,
rifles and machine-guns. Tallal, Sheikh Abd el Aziz and Lawrence with
their attendants slipped round behind the Turkish column, the last
parties of which were just leaving the smoking village. There seemed
to be no soul left alive in the ruins. But then from a heap of corpses
a child tottered out, three or four years old, her dirty smock stained
red with blood from a lance thrust where neck and shoulder joined. She
ran a few steps, then stood and cried in a voice that sounded very loud
in the ghastly silence, ‘Don’t hit me, Baba.’ Abd el Aziz choked out
something: it was his village as well as Tallal’s. He flung himself off
his camel and stumbled to the child. His suddenness frightened her, for
she threw up her arms and tried to scream, but instead dropped in a
little heap; the blood rushed out again and she died.
They saw four more dead babies and scores of corpses, men and women
obscenely mutilated. El Zaagi broke out in peals of hysterical
laughter: Lawrence said, ‘The best of you are those who bring me the
most Turkish dead.’ They rode after the Turks, killing stragglers and
wounded without mercy. Tallal had seen all. He gave one moan, then rode
to the upper ground and sat awhile on his mare, shivering and staring
at the retreating Turks. Lawrence moved near to speak to him, but Auda
restrained him with a hand on his reins.
Very slowly Tallal drew his headcloth about his face, then seemed to
take hold of himself and galloped headlong, bending low and swaying in
the saddle, right at the main body of the enemy. It was a long ride
down a gentle slope and across a hollow. Both armies waited for him.
Firing had stopped on both sides and the noise of his hooves
sounded unnaturally loud as he rushed on. Only a few lengths from
the enemy he sat up in the saddle and shouted his war-cry, ‘Tallal,
Tallal!’ twice in a tremendous voice. Instantly the Turkish rifles and
machine-guns crashed out and he and his mare fell riddled through and
through among the lance-points.
Auda looked cold and grim. ‘God give him mercy,’ he said, ‘we will take
his price.’ Then he slowly moved after the enemy. He took command of
the Arabs, sending out parties of peasants this way and that and at
last by a skilful turn drove the Turks into bad ground and split their
force into three parts. The pursuit continued. The smallest section,
consisting chiefly of German and Austrian machine-gunners grouped round
three motor-cars, fought magnificently. The Arabs were like devils;
hatred and revenge so shook them that they could hardly hold their
rifles straight to fire. At last this section was left behind while
Lawrence and his men galloped after the other two which were fleeing in
panic. By sunset all but a few were destroyed. For the first time in
the war Lawrence gave the order: ‘No prisoners.’ The peasants flocked
to join in the attack. At first only one man in six had a weapon,
but gradually they armed themselves from the fallen Turks until at
nightfall every man had a rifle and a captured horse.
Just one group of Arabs who had not heard of the horror of Tafas took
prisoners the last two hundred men. Lawrence went up to inquire why
their lives had been spared, not unwilling to leave them alive as
witnesses of Tallal’s price. But a man on the ground screamed out
something to the Arabs and they turned to see who it was. It was one
of their own men, his thigh shattered, left to die. But even so
he had not been spared. In the manner of Tafas he had been further
tormented with bayonets hammered through his shoulder and other leg,
pinning him to the ground like a collector’s specimen. He was still
conscious. They asked him, ‘Hassan, who did it?’ For answer he looked
towards the prisoners huddled together near him. The Arabs shot them
down in a heap and they were all dead before Hassan too died.
The killing and capturing of the retreating Turks went on all night.
Each village, as the fight rolled towards it, took up the work. The
main body of seven thousand men had tried to halt at sunset, but
the Ruwalla had forced them on in a stumbling scattered mob through
the cold and darkness. The Arabs, too, were scattered and nearly as
uncertain and the confusion was indescribable. The only detachments
that held together were the Germans. Lawrence for the first time felt
proud of the enemy that had killed his two younger brothers. They went
firmly ahead, proud and silent, steering like armoured ships through
the wrack of Turks and Arabs. When attacked they halted, took position,
fired at the word of command. It was glorious. They were two thousand
miles from home, without hope and without guides, footsore, starving,
sleepless: yet on they went, their numbers slowly lessening.
The Ruwalla took Deraa in a mounted charge that night; the garrison had
been holding up the Indians at Remthe. Lawrence rode to Deraa to take
charge of things, with his body-guard and Nuri Said. He was riding his
grand racing-camel, Baha, so called from the bleat that she had from
a bullet wound in her throat. He gave her liberty to stretch herself
out, drawing ahead of the tired body-guard, so that he arrived alone
at Deraa in the full dawn. Nasir was already there arranging
for a military governor and police. Lawrence helped him by putting
guards over the pumps and engine-sheds and what remained of the looted
repair-shops and stores. Then he explained to Nasir what course had
to be taken if the Arabs were not to lose hold of what they had won.
Nasir, who now for the first time heard that there would be difficulty
in persuading the English to take the Arabs seriously, was bewildered.
But he soon grasped the point.
General Barrow, commanding the Indians, was advancing now to attack
the town, not knowing that it was already captured. Some of his men
began firing on the Arabs and Lawrence rode out with El Zaagi to stop
them. A party of Indian machine-gunners was proud to capture such
finely-dressed prisoners, but Lawrence explained himself to an officer
and was allowed to hurry off to find General Barrow. His troops were
already encircling the town and his aeroplanes bombed Nuri Said’s men
as they entered from the north. Barrow seemed annoyed that the Arabs
had got there first, but Lawrence was not sorry for him; particularly
since he had delayed a day and a night watering at the poor wells at
Remthe, though his map had showed the lake and river of Mezerib close
ahead on the road by which the enemy was escaping. Barrow said that his
orders were to take Deraa and he was going there anyhow, whoever was
in possession. He asked Lawrence to ride beside him. But Baha’s smell
disturbed the horses, so Lawrence had to take the centre of the road
while the General and his staff rode their bucking horses in the ditch.
Barrow said that he must put sentries in Deraa to keep the populace
in order. Lawrence explained gently that the Arabs had appointed a
military governor. When they reached the wells the General said
that his engineers must inspect the pumps. Lawrence answered that he
would welcome their assistance, but that the Arabs had already lit the
furnaces and hoped to begin watering his horses in an hour’s time.
Barrow snorted that Lawrence seemed to be at home; so he would only
take charge of the railway station. Lawrence pointed to an engine
moving out towards Mezerib and asked Barrow to instruct his sentries
not to interfere with the proper working of the line by the Arabs.
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot of Lawrence standing in a line of
Arabs on camels
caption: LAWRENCE AND HIS BODYGUARD AT AKABA
Summer, 1918
_Copyright_
]
Barrow had no orders as to the status of the Arabs and had come in
thinking of them as a conquered people; Lawrence wondered how to
prevent him from doing anything foolish to antagonize them. He had
read a military article, written by Barrow years before, in which the
General had insisted that Fear was the people’s main incentive to
action in war and peace; and knew what he was up against. Then Barrow
remarked that he was short of forage and food-stuffs, and Lawrence,
kindly offering to provide these, persuaded him that he was the guest
of the Arabs. Barrow was sufficiently convinced to salute Nasir’s
little silk flag propped on the balcony of the Government office, with
a sentry beneath it. The Arabs thrilled with pleasure at the compliment
and were ready to listen to Lawrence’s instructions that these Indians
must be given all hospitality as guests. Later, General Allenby’s
Chief Political Officer assured Barrow that Lawrence’s attitude was
politically right, so all was well. There had been no disturbances,
though the Indians pilfered freely from the Arabs, and the Bedouin were
horrified at the manner of the British officers towards their men. They
had never seen such personal inequality before.
Thousands of prisoners had meanwhile been taken by the Arabs. Most
were boarded out in the villages, some were handed over to the
British, who counted them again as their own captures. Feisal drove up
in his green car from Azrak the next day, September the twenty-ninth,
with the armoured cars behind him. General Barrow, now watered and fed,
was due to meet Chauvel, the general commanding the Australians, for
a joint entry into Damascus. He told Lawrence to ask Feisal to take
the right flank. That suited Lawrence, for there along the railway was
Nasir still hanging on to the main Turkish retreat (the column seven
thousand strong which the Ruwalla had harried on the night of the Tafas
massacre), reducing its numbers by continuous attack night and day. He
stayed another day at Deraa, having much to attend to, but his memories
of the place were too horrible, and he camped outside the town with his
body-guard.
He could not sleep that night, so before dawn he went off in the
Rolls-Royce towards Damascus. The roads were blocked with the Indians’
transport; he took a cut across country and along the railway. He
overtook Barrow, who asked him where he was going to stop that night.
‘At Damascus,’ Lawrence answered, and Barrow’s face fell. Barrow was
advancing very cautiously, sending out scouts and cavalry-screens
through friendly country already cleared of Turks by the Arabs.
Lawrence’s Rolls-Royce continued along the railway till he came on
Nasir, the Emir Nuri, and Auda with the tribes, still fighting. The
seven thousand Turks had melted to two in three days’ ceaseless battle.
Lawrence could see the survivors in ragged groups halting now and then
to fire their mountain-guns. Nasir rode up to greet Lawrence on his
liver-coloured Arab stallion (the splendid creature was still spirited
after a hundred miles of running flight). With him were old Emir Nuri
and about thirty of his servants. They asked whether help was
coming at last. Lawrence told them that the Indians were just behind.
If they could only check the enemy for just an hour.... Nasir saw a
walled farm-house ahead guarding the track and he and Nuri galloped
forward to hold it against the Turks.
Lawrence drove back to the Indian cavalry and told a surly old colonel
what a gift the Arabs had waiting for him. The colonel hardly seemed
grateful, but at last sent a squadron out across the plain. The Turks
turned their little guns at it. One or two shells fell near and to
Lawrence’s disgust the colonel ordered a retirement. Lawrence and the
staff-officer in the car with him dashed back and begged the colonel
not to be afraid of the wretched little ten-pound shells, hardly more
dangerous than rocket-pistols. But the old man would not budge, so the
Rolls-Royce had to rush back farther until Lawrence found a general
of Barrow’s staff and got him to send some Middlesex Yeomanry and
Royal Horse Artillery forward. That night the remaining Turks broke,
abandoning their guns and transport, and went streaming off across the
eastern hills into what they thought was empty land beyond. But Auda
was waiting there in ambush, and all that night, in his last battle,
the old man killed and killed, plundered and captured until, when dawn
came, he found that all was over. So passed the Turkish Fourth Army.
It may be interesting to note the record of these operations in the
official handbook, _A Brief Record of the Advance of the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force_:
‘The Fourth Mounted Division (General Barrow’s) coming up from the
south with the Arab forces on its right entered Deraa unopposed
on September 28th, and next day got in touch with the retreating Turks
in the Dilli area. For two days the enemy was pressed and harassed,
his columns were fired upon and broken up, and on September 30th the
division got into touch with the other divisions of the Desert Mounted
Corps and reached Zerakiye late that night.’
Other references to the Arabs’ services are similarly reticent. (There
are, however, plentiful references to the way that the Beni Sakhr tribe
_failed_ the Amman raiders some months previously.) This withholding
of credit where due was, I think, principally Lawrence’s fault; he did
not send detailed reports to General Headquarters. He was, of course,
far too busy. What really mattered to him was not that the Arabs should
be given homage in Allenby’s despatches—they would not for the most
part have been particularly gratified—but that they should set up a
government in Damascus before somebody else did.
XXVII
The war was over. Lawrence went on to Kiswe, where the Australians were
waiting for Barrow to join them. He did not stop long, for Allenby
had allowed him and Feisal a single night in which to restore order
in Damascus before the British entry. The Ruwalla horse was sent in
at dusk to find Ali Riza, the governor, and to ask him to take charge
of things. Ali Riza who, as chairman of the committee of freedom, had
long been prepared to form an Arab government when the Turks finally
left, was away, put by the Turks in command of the army retreating from
Galilee. But Shukri, his assistant, was there and with unexpected help,
as will be related, set up the Arab flag on the Town Hall as the last
Turkish and German troops marched out. It is said that the hindmost
general saluted it ironically.
Four thousand Ruwalla tribesmen were sent in to help Shukri keep order.
All that night huge explosions were heard from the town, and showers of
flame shot up. Lawrence thought that Damascus was being destroyed. But
dawn showed him the beautiful city still standing: it had only been the
Germans blowing up the ammunition dumps and stores. A horseman galloped
out with a bunch of yellow grapes, a token from Shukri, crying: ‘Good
news: Damascus salutes you.’ Lawrence, who was in the Rolls-Royce,
gave Nasir the tidings. Nasir’s fifty battles since the Revolt began
in Medina two and a half years back had earned him the right of first
entry. So Lawrence gave him a fair start with the Emir Nuri while he
stopped to wash and shave at a wayside brook. Some Indian troopers
again mistook him and his party for Turks and tried to take them
prisoners. When delivered from arrest Lawrence drove on up the
long central street to the Government buildings.
The way was packed with people crowded solid on either side of the car,
at the windows, on the balconies and housetops. Many were crying, some
cheered faintly, a few bolder ones cried out greetings. But for the
most part, there came little more than a whisper like a long sigh from
the gate of the city to the city’s heart. At the Town Hall there was
greater liveliness. The steps and stairs were packed with a swaying
mob yelling, embracing, dancing, singing. They recognized Lawrence and
crushed back to let him pass.
In the antechamber he found Nasir and the Emir Nuri seated. On either
side of these stood—Lawrence was dumb with amazement at the sight—his
old enemy the Algerian Abd el Kader who had betrayed him on the Yarmuk
raid, and Mohammed Said, the assassin, his brother. Mohammed Said
leaped forward and said that he and his brother, grandsons of the
famous Abd el Kader, Emir of Algiers, had, with Shukri, formed the
government the previous afternoon and proclaimed Hussein ‘Emperor of
the Arabs’ in the ears of the humbled Turks and Germans. Lawrence
turned inquiringly to Shukri, an honest man beloved in Damascus
and almost a martyr in the people’s eyes for what he had suffered
at Jemal’s hands. Shukri told how these two alone of all Damascus
had stood by the Turks until they saw them running. Then with their
Algerian retainers they had burst in on Shukri’s committee where it sat
in secret and brutally assumed control.
Lawrence determined with Nasir’s help to check their impudence at once.
But a diversion interrupted him. The yelling crowd was parted as if by
a battering ram; men went flying right and left among ruined chairs and
tables while a familiar voice roared them to silence. It was Auda,
in a dog-fight with the chief of the Druses. Lawrence and Mohammed el
Dheilan sprang forward and broke the two apart. They forced Auda back
while somebody else hustled the Druse chief into a side room. Auda,
with bleeding face and his long hair streaming over his eyes, was too
blind with rage to know what was happening. They held him down in a
gilt chair in the great pompous state-hall, where he shouted till his
voice cracked. His body was twitching and jerking, his hands reached
wildly for any weapon within reach. The Druse had hit him first and he
swore to wipe out the insult in blood. Zaal and one or two more came in
to help. It was an hour before they could calm Auda down and get him to
promise to ♦postpone his vengeance for three days.
♦ “pospone” replaced with “postpone”
Lawrence went out and had the Druse chief secretly and speedily removed
from the city. When he returned Nasir and Abd el Kader had gone off.
There remained Shukri. Lawrence took him out in the Rolls-Royce to show
him off as acting-Governor to the delighted city. The streets were
more crowded than ever. Damascus went mad with joy. The men tossed
up their red felt hats, the women tore off their veils. Householders
threw flowers, hangings, carpets into the road before the car. Their
wives leaned out, screaming with laughter, through the harem-lattices,
splashing Lawrence and Shukri with bath-dippers of scent. Dervishes ran
before and behind, howling and cutting themselves with frenzy, while a
measured chant rose from the men of the crowd: ‘Feisal, Nasir, Shukri,
Aurans,’ rolling in waves round the city. Chauvel, like Barrow, had no
instructions as to what to do with the captured city and was relieved
when Lawrence told him that an Arab government was appointed.
But Lawrence begged him to keep his Australians out of Damascus that
night, because there would be such a carnival as the city had not seen
for six hundred years and Arab hospitality might pervert the troops’
discipline. Chauvel agreed, and asked if it would be convenient to make
a formal entry the next day. Lawrence said: ‘Certainly.’
While they were discussing ceremonial antics there was enormously more
important work waiting inside and outside the city for both of them.
Lawrence felt ashamed to be spoiling Chauvel’s entry in this rather
low-down way, but the political importance of winning the game of grab
justified everything. Now he hurried off to the Town Hall to find Abd
el Kader and his brother, but they had not returned, and when he sent
a messenger to their house he received only a curt reply that they
were sleeping. So should Lawrence have been, but instead he was eating
a snatch meal with the Emir Nuri, Shukri and others, seated on gold
chairs at a gold table in the gaudy banquet-hall. He told the messenger
that the Algerians must come at once or they would be fetched: the
messenger ran off hurriedly.
The old Emir asked quietly what Lawrence meant to do. He answered that
he would dismiss Abd el Kader and his brother. The Emir asked whether
he would call in English troops. Lawrence answered that he might have
to do so, but the trouble was that afterwards they might not go. The
Emir thought a moment and said, ‘You shall have the Ruwalla to do all
you want to do, and at once.’ He ran out to muster his tribe. The
Algerians came to the Town Hall with their body-guards, murder in their
eyes, but on the way met the Ruwalla tribesmen massed under their
Emir; and Nuri Said with his Arab regulars in the Square; and in the
Town Hall itself Lawrence’s reckless body-guard lounging in the
antechamber. They saw that the game was up; but it was a stormy meeting.
Lawrence speaking as Feisal’s deputy pronounced their government
abolished. He named Shukri as acting Military Governor until Ali Riza’s
return. Nuri Said was to be Commandant of Troops, and he appointed also
a Chief of Public Security and an Adjutant-General. Mohammed Said in a
bitter reply denounced Lawrence as a Christian and an Englishman; he
called on Nasir, whom he and his brother had been entertaining and who
knew nothing of Abd el Kader’s treacheries, to assert himself. Nasir
did not understand this falling out of his friends: he could only sit
and look miserable. Abd el Kader leaped up and cursed Lawrence, working
himself up to a fanatic passion. Lawrence paid no attention at all.
This maddened Abd el Kader even more. Suddenly he went for Lawrence
with a drawn dagger.
Like a flash old Auda was on him, still boiling with fury from the
morning’s insult and longing for a fight. Lawrence he loved and trusted
as much as he loathed the traitor Abd el Kader. It would have been
heaven for the old man to have torn the Algerian limb from limb with
his great hands. Again he was pulled away. Abd el Kader was frightened,
and the Emir Nuri closed the debate in his short dry way by saying
that the Ruwalla were at Lawrence’s service, and no questions asked.
The Algerians rose and angrily swept out of the hall. Lawrence was
convinced that they should be seized and shot, but he did not want to
set the Arabs a bad example of political murder on the first day of
their government.
He set about helping Shukri and the rest to organize the government of
the city and province. He knew that the change from war to peace
was an ungracious one; rebels, especially successful rebels, were
necessarily bad subjects and worse governors. Feisal’s unhappy duty
would be to rid himself of most of his war-friends and replace them by
the officials who had been most useful to the Turkish Government. These
were the solid steady people who had been too unimaginative to rebel
and who would work for an Arab government as solidly and steadily as
they had for the Turks. Nasir did not realize this, but Nuri Said and
the Emir Nuri knew it well.
Quickly they collected a staff and began to take the necessary
administrative steps. A police force. The water-supply (for the
city-conduit was foul with dead men and animals). The electric light
supply; most important, for to have the street-lights working again
would be the most obvious sign that peace had come at last—it was
successfully working that night. Sanitation; the streets and squares
were full of the strewn relics of the Turkish retreat, broken carts,
baggage, dead animals, typhus and dysentery corpses. Nuri Said
appointed scavengers to clear up and distributed his few doctors among
the hospitals, promising drugs and stores next day if any were to
be had. A fire-brigade; the local fire-engines had been smashed by
the Germans and the storehouses were still on fire, but volunteers
were sent to blow up houses around the fires to keep the flames from
spreading farther. The prisons; warders and prisoners had vanished
together, so Shukri proclaimed a general amnesty. Civil disturbance;
they must gradually disarm the citizens or at least persuade them not
to carry rifles in the street. Relief-work; the destitute had been
half-starved for days, so the damaged food rescued from the burning
storehouses was distributed among them.
The general food-supply; there were no food-stocks in Damascus
and starvation would follow in two days if steps were not taken
at once. It would be easy to get temporary supplies from the near
villages if confidence were restored, the roads safeguarded and the
transport animals (carried off by the Turks) replaced by others from
the general pool of captures. The British refused to share out, so
the Arab army had to give the city all its own transport animals. The
railway; for the future food-supply. Pointsmen, drivers, firemen,
shopmen, traffic-staff had to be found and re-engaged immediately. The
telegraph-system; the lines had to be repaired and directors appointed.
Finance; the Australians had looted millions of pounds in Turkish
notes, the only currency in use, and reduced it to no value by throwing
it about. One trooper had given a boy a five-hundred pound note for
holding his horse for three minutes. What was left of the British
gold from Akaba was used to stabilize the currency at a low rate of
exchange; but new prices then had to be fixed and this meant setting up
a printing press.
Then a newspaper was demanded, to restore public confidence. Then
Chauvel demanded forage for his forty thousand horses. He had to be
given it, for otherwise he would be compelled to seize what he needed
by main force. The Arabs could expect little mercy from Chauvel and
the fate of Syria’s freedom depended on his being satisfied. Three
Arabic-speaking British officers who had been on the Akaba expedition
with Lawrence helped him and Shukri and the rest with all this hasty
organization. Lawrence’s aim had been to run up a façade rather than
a whole well-fitted building, but so furiously well had the work of
that evening been done that when he left Damascus three days later
the Syrians had a government which endured for two years without
foreign advice, in an occupied country wasted by war, and against the
will of at least one of the occupying Allies.
Lawrence writes then:
‘Later I was sitting alone in my room working and thinking out as firm
a way as the turbulent memories of the day allowed, when the muezzins
began to send their call of last prayer through the moist night over
the illuminations of the feasting city. One, with a ringing voice of
special sweetness, cried into my window from a near mosque. I found
myself involuntarily distinguishing his words: “God alone is great: I
testify that there are no gods but God: and Mohammed is his Prophet.
Come to prayer: come to security. God alone is great: there is no
god—but God.”
‘At the close he dropped his voice two tones, almost to speaking
level, and softly added: “And He is very good to us this day, O people
of Damascus.” The clamour hushed, as every one seemed to obey the call
to prayer on this their first night of perfect freedom.’
It is with this passage that Lawrence closes the popular abridged
version of his great _Seven Pillars of Wisdom_. But almost dishonestly,
for there followed this further sentence:
‘While my fancy, in the overwhelming pause, showed me my loneliness
and lack of reason in their movement: since only for me, of all the
hearers, was the event sorrowful and the phrase meaningless.’
He is referring, I think, both to the extinction of that strong
personal motive that kept him alive through the almost incredible
hardships of his task, and to the shame he felt for deceiving the Arabs
with what still seemed the hollowest of frauds.
XXVIII
He went to sleep, for the first time for days, but was almost
immediately aroused by news that Abd el Kader was making rebellion. He
sent word across to Nuri Said, glad that the mad fellow was digging
his own grave. Abd el Kader had summoned his retainers, told them that
the members of the new government were merely the tools of the English
and called on them to strike a blow for religion while there was yet
time. The simple Algerians had taken his word that it was so and run to
arms. They were joined by the Druses, who were angry that Lawrence had
sharply refused to reward them for their services; they had joined the
Revolt too late to be of any real use. Algerians and Druses together
began to burst open shops and to riot.
Lawrence and Nuri Said waited until dawn, then moved men to the upper
suburbs and swept the rioters towards the river-districts of the
centre of the city. Here machine-guns kept a constant barrage of fire
along the river-front, aimed merely at blank walls but impossible to
pass. Mohammed Said was captured and gaoled; Abd el Kader fled back to
his Yarmuk village. The Druses were expelled from the city, leaving
horses and rifles in the hands of the Damascus citizens enrolled for
the emergency as civic guards. By noon everything was quiet and the
street traffic became normal again with the pedlars hawking, as before,
sweetmeats, iced drinks, flowers and little crimson Arab flags.
When the fighting began Lawrence had called up Chauvel on the telephone
and he had at once offered troops. Lawrence thanked him and asked
for a second company of horse to be added to the company already
stationed at the principal Turkish Barracks; to stand by in case of
need. But they were not needed. The only startling effect was on
the war-correspondents. They were in a hotel, the blank wall of which
was the stop-block of one of the barrages, and began telegraphing home
without sufficient caution the wild stories that were flying about.
Allenby, still in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, asked Lawrence to
confirm their reports of wholesale massacre. He sent back a death-roll
naming the five victims and the hurts of the ten wounded.
He returned to the organization of public services. The Spanish Consul
called officially; he was representing the interests of seventeen
nationalities and had been vainly searching for some responsible
governing body with which to deal. Lawrence was glad of the opportunity
of using such international channels for spreading the authority of a
Government which he had audaciously appointed on his own initiative.
At midday an Australian doctor appeared, imploring Lawrence for the
sake of humanity to take notice of the Turkish hospital. Lawrence ran
over in his mind the three hospitals in Arab charge, the military, the
civil, the missionary, and told him that they were as well cared for as
they could be. The Arabs could not invent drugs and Chauvel could not
let them have any of his. The doctor went on to describe a huge range
of filthy buildings without a single medical officer or orderly, packed
with dead and dying; mainly dysentery cases, but at least some typhoid;
and it was to be hoped, no typhus or cholera.
Lawrence wondered if he could mean the Turkish barracks where the
two Australian companies were stationed. He asked whether there were
sentries at the gates. ‘Yes, that’s the place,’ said the doctor, ‘but
it’s full of Turkish sick.’ Lawrence walked there at once and parleyed
with the Australian guard. At last his English accent got him
past the little lodge, and a garden filled with two hundred wretched
prisoners in exhaustion and despair. He stood at the great door of the
barrack and called up the dusty echoing corridors.
Nobody answered. The guard had told him that thousands of prisoners had
yesterday gone from here to a camp beyond the city. Since then no one
had come in or out. He walked over to a shuttered lobby and stepped in.
There was a sickening stench and a heap of dead bodies laid out on the
stone floor, some in uniform, some naked. A few were corpses of no more
than a day or two old; some had been there for days. Beyond was a great
ward from which he thought he heard a groan. He walked down the room
between the beds, lifting his white silk skirts off the filthy floor.
It seemed that every bed held a dead man; but as he went forward there
was a stir as several tried to raise their hands. Not one of them had
strength to speak, but the dry whisper ‘Pity, pity’ came in unison.
Lawrence ran into the garden where the Australians had picketed
their horses and asked for a working party. They could not help him.
Kirkbride, the young English officer who had been with Lawrence
since Tafileh and had been foremost in suppressing the Abd el Kader
rebellion, came to help. He had heard that Turkish doctors were
upstairs. He burst open a door and found seven men in nightgowns
sitting on unmade beds in a great room, boiling toffee. Lawrence
impressed on these Turks that the dead must be at once sorted from the
living and a list of the numbers presented to him in half an hour’s
time. Kirkbride, a tall fellow with heavy boots and a ready revolver,
was a suitable overseer of this duty.
Lawrence then found Ali Riza, now back again from the Turks and
appointed Governor, asking him to detail one of the four Arab Army
doctors to take charge of the place. When the doctor arrived the
fifty fittest prisoners of the lodge were pressed to act as a labour
party and set in the backyard to dig a common grave. It was cruelty
to work men so tired and ill, but haste gave Lawrence no choice. The
doctor reported fifty-six dead, two hundred dying, seven hundred not
dangerously ill. A stretcher party was formed, but before the work was
done two of their bodies were added to the heap of dead men in the pit.
The Australians protested that it was no fit place for a grave; the
smell might drive them from their garden.... Lawrence found quicklime
to cover the bodies. Before the work was finished it was midnight, and
Lawrence went off to his hotel, leaving Kirkbride to finish the burying
and close the pit.
Lawrence then slept—for four days he had only allowed himself three
hours’ sleep—and in the morning everything in Damascus seemed to have
cleared up wonderfully. The tramcars were running, the shops open,
grain and vegetables and fruit were coming in well from outside.
The streets were being watered to lay the terrible dust, though no
surface treatment would remedy the damage of three years’ heavy lorry
traffic. Lawrence was particularly glad to see numbers of British
troops sightseeing unarmed in the city. The telegraph was restored with
Palestine and Beyrout. He was sorry to hear that the Arabs had seized
Beyrout the night before, for as long ago as the Wejh operations he had
warned them, when they took Damascus, to leave Beyrout and the Lebanon
to the French, but to take the port of Tripoli, fifty miles north,
instead. Still, he was glad to think that they felt themselves grown-up
enough to disobey him.
Even the hospital was better. The fifty prisoners, now called
‘orderlies,’ had cleaned up the litter and rubbish. Others had gone
through the wards, lifting and washing each patient. One ward had been
cleared of beds, brushed out and sprinkled with disinfectant, and the
less serious cases were about to be transferred here for their ward to
be cleaned in turn. At this rate three days would have seen the place
in fairly good order.
Lawrence was arranging other improvements when an Army Medical Corps
major strode up and asked him shortly whether he spoke English. ‘Yes,’
said Lawrence. The Major looked with disgust at his skirts and sandals
and asked: ‘You’re in charge?’ ‘In a way I am,’ Lawrence answered.
‘Scandalous, disgraceful, outrageous, ought to be shot ...’ the major
bellowed. At this sudden attack Lawrence, whose nerves were very
ragged, began to laugh hysterically; he had been so proud of himself
for having bettered what was apparently past hope. The major had not
seen the charnel-house of the day before, nor smelt it, nor helped in
the burying of the putrefying corpses. He smacked Lawrence in the face
and stalked off.
When Lawrence returned to the hotel he saw large crowds round a
familiar grey Rolls-Royce: he ran in and found Allenby. Allenby
welcomed him and approved the steps that he had taken for setting
up Arab governments at Deraa and Damascus. He confirmed Ali Riza’s
appointment as his military governor and regulated the spheres
of interest for Feisal and Chauvel. He agreed to take over the
barracks-hospital and the railway. In ten minutes all difficulties had
slipped away: Allenby’s confidence and decision and kindliness were
like a pleasant dream.
Then Feisal’s train arrived from Deraa and the rolling cheers as
he came riding up could be heard louder and louder through the windows.
He was coming to call on Allenby, and Lawrence was happy to be the
interpreter between his two masters at their first meeting. Allenby
gave Lawrence, for Feisal, a telegram just received from the British
Government ‘recognizing to the Arabs their status as belligerents.’ But
nobody knew what it meant in English, let alone in Arabic, so Feisal,
smiling but still with tears in his eyes from his welcome by the crowd,
put it aside to satisfy the ambition of a year—he thanked Allenby
for the trust which had helped his Revolt to victory. ‘They were a
strange contrast,’ writes Lawrence—‘Feisal large-eyed, colourless and
worn, like a fine dagger; Allenby gigantic and red and merry, fit
representative of the Power which had thrown a girdle of humour and
strong dealing around the world.’
[Illustration:
description: Photo wide shot man in Arab dress on dark horse
riding in a crowd
caption: FEISAL JUST AFTER HIS MEETING WITH ALLENBY
_Copyright Imperial War Museum_
]
The interview lasted only a few minutes and when Feisal had gone
Lawrence made Allenby the first and last request that he had ever
made for himself—leave to go away. For a while Allenby would not give
it, but Lawrence pointed out how much easier the change from war to
peace conditions would be for the Arabs if his influence were removed.
Allenby understood and gave his permission and then Lawrence at once
realized how sorry he was to be going.
He took leave of his Arab friends. Among those others who came to say
good-bye was Chauvel, who thanked Lawrence warmly for all he had done
for him. He went off then in a Rolls-Royce. For more than a year after
there were groups of his friends hanging about the aerodromes in hope
of his return. It rather annoyed the Air Force officers when they
landed from a flight that each time a small mob came pressing about the
machine, to draw back always disappointed, crying: ‘No Aurans!’
XXIX
He returned to England, arriving in London, after four years’ absence,
on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918. Feisal arrived a few weeks later
and Lawrence, after first escorting him round England, accompanied him
to Paris for the Peace Conference. Lawrence had been appointed by the
British Foreign Office as a member of the British Delegation, and he
now used the same extraordinary energy that had gone towards winning
the war in the Desert for winning the war in the Council Chamber. But
he knew well that it was a losing one.
The French had made things difficult for a start by refusing to
recognize Feisal as the ruler of Damascus and of the other Syrian
cities that they wanted for themselves. And Feisal’s position was
not at all a secure one. His only right to take part in the Peace
Conference was as representing the ‘ally’ Sherif Hussein, his father,
whose claim to call himself King of the Hejaz (the Holy Province and
the Red Sea coast as far as Akaba) was alone recognized. All official
business had to be transacted in Hussein’s name, though actually no
Hejaz business came before the Peace Conference. All discussion was
limited to Syria and Mesopotamia, about which Hussein’s right to treat
was not admitted by the French. If Hussein and Feisal had been in
agreement it would have been easier, but the ambitious narrow-minded
old man was most jealous of his son. He wanted to rule a great
religious Empire consisting of all the Arabic-speaking parts of the old
Turkish Empire, and to make Mecca his capital.
While the war lasted it was advisable not to oppose him too strongly,
since unity was necessary in the Arab movement; but when the
Armistice came Lawrence set about putting him quietly in his place.
Mecca was the worst city in the whole Arabic-speaking world, a hot-bed
of religious fanaticism (and also of vice) and, because of its sanctity
and its distance from Syria and Mesopotamia, impossible as the capital
of any enlightened State. Also the Desert (for Mecca was the Desert)
could never rule the settled lands: the settled lands were passing into
modern civilization and the Desert would always remain barbarous and
primitive.
Sir Henry McMahon, who as High Commissioner of Egypt had concluded the
first treaty with Hussein that made him enter the war on the side of
the Allies, has told me about Lawrence at Paris. ‘I was appointed,’
he said, ‘as British member of the delegation to Syria, Palestine and
Mesopotamia to report on the feeling of the peoples concerned as to
what governments would be most welcome to them and on the possibility
of gratifying their wishes. When I got to Paris nobody seemed to know
anything about what was happening; I could not even find out who my
colleagues were. The only person who seemed to know every one and
everything and to have access to all the Big Three—Clemenceau, Lloyd
George and Woodrow Wilson—was Lawrence. I don’t know how he did it, but
he was in and out of their private rooms all the time and, as he was
about the only man who knew the whole Eastern geographical and racial
question inside out, they were probably glad of his advice. He found me
my colleagues at once, all except the French delegate: but, possibly,
the French never intended the delegation to go, for the Frenchman
was never appointed and never will be, and nothing ever came of the
business.’
Lawrence took Lloyd George into his confidence, a man in whom he found
a sympathy for small or oppressed nations that matched his own,
and explained to him simply what the problem was. Arab independence
had begun in the Desert; as was to be expected, for the Desert is the
starting-off point of all great Arab movements. But as soon as it
reached the settled countries of Syria and Mesopotamia it had to be
stabilized there; the Desert has always made sudden magnificent efforts
that in the end tail off into nothing. He wanted Damascus as the
settled home of this new Arab independence and he wanted Feisal as the
first ruler of the new Syrian state with Damascus as his capital. The
French, in exact accordance with the terms of the Sykes-Picot treaty,
might be satisfied with having Beyrout and the Lebanon and the north
Syrian coast for their own, and with the privilege of assisting the
Damascus State with what advice its administrators needed.
Mesopotamia would form another Arab State, or perhaps two, even, and
eventually some generations hence when communications by road, rail and
air had drawn together the more civilized Arab provinces, there might
be a United States of Arabia. Lawrence advised that nothing should now
be done to promote early confederation; but that, particularly, nothing
should be done to hinder it. The Desert should be left alone to look
after itself in the old way without interference from the settled lands
of Arabia, or from the rest of the world.
Lloyd George might have agreed to this, but unfortunately the
Sykes-Picot Treaty had put Mosul into the sphere of French influence.
This did not distress Lawrence, but it threatened ruin to the military
occupation of Mesopotamia which the Imperial Government, Bagdad having
been won at such cost, intended to turn into a British administered
province. So when the case came up before the Council of Ten—present,
Clemenceau and Pichon (France), Lloyd George (England), Montagu
(Indian Government), Sonnino (Italy) and others—the French were allowed
to take the same equivocal attitude towards Syria as the British
were taking towards Mesopotamia. Lawrence was present as Feisal’s
interpreter at this most eventful meeting and spoke in Arabic, French
and English. An amusing incident was Pichon’s speech quoting St. Louis
and France’s claims on Syria during the Crusades. Feisal, a successor
of Saladin, replied, ‘But pardon me, M. Pichon, which of us won the
Crusades?’
The various contradictory pledges which Lawrence had first been shown
by the Emir Nuri were then discussed, and finally, after months of
intrigue, Feisal and Clemenceau appear to have come to a secret
working agreement. Feisal was, with French help, to rule the greater
part of inland Syria, from Damascus; the French took Beyrout and the
Syrian coast. The Jews were given a home in Palestine, under British
protection. But the British kept Mesopotamia and discouraged all
agitation there towards Arab independence. Nothing of this agreement,
if it was an agreement, was made public during the life of the Peace
Conference: but Feisal returned to Syria and the working arrangement
began to show itself.
Lord Riddell has kindly given me the following story: ‘After the
final debate at Versailles I had a talk with Feisal and Lawrence. The
latter ascribed to Feisal the following observation: “In the desert,
overtaking a long caravan of camels, you find each camel tied by his
nose-rope to the tail of the camel in front of him; but when you reach
the head of the string after a long walk you find that it is led by a
little donkey!” The implication was of course that the stately
ones were dull and lacking in brains, and that the leaders were artful
but not profound.’
This was how matters stood at the close of the Peace Conference and
Lawrence was not at all satisfied with them: as he clearly showed in
his letter to _The Times_ in 1920, printed in Appendix B. In England,
at his first coming, he had refused to accept his British decorations.
According to an account that he gave me a few months later, he
explained personally to his Sovereign that the part he had played in
the Arab Revolt was dishonourable to himself and to his country and
government. He had, by order, fed the Arabs with false hopes and would
now be obliged if he might be quietly relieved of the obligation to
accept honours for succeeding in his fraud. He said respectfully as
a subject, but firmly as an individual, that he intended to fight by
straight means or crooked until His Majesty’s ministers had conceded
to the Arabs a fair settlement of their claims. According to this
account, to which Lawrence had nothing to add when I submitted my
version of it to him recently, for verification, His Majesty, though
unwilling to believe that Ministers of the Crown were capable of
double-dealing, respected Lawrence’s scruples, permitting him to forgo
his decorations. Lawrence expressed his gratitude, and thereupon also
returned his foreign decorations to their donors with an account of the
circumstances.
Lord Stamfordham, His Majesty’s Private Secretary, to whom I wrote for
permission to print this paragraph, has been good enough to get His
Majesty’s own recollections of the interview: ‘His Majesty does not
remember that Colonel Lawrence’s statement was what you have recorded:
but that, in asking permission to decline the proffered decorations,
Colonel Lawrence explained in a few words that he had made
certain promises to King Feisal: that these promises had not been
fulfilled, and consequently, it was quite possible that he might find
himself fighting against the British Forces, in which case it would be
obviously impossible and wrong to be wearing British Decorations. The
King has no recollection of Colonel Lawrence’s saying that the part he
had played in the Arab Revolt was dishonourable to himself and to his
Country and Government.’
He returned to Cairo during the tail-end of the Peace Conference to
collect his diaries and photographs of the war-period and on his way by
Handley-Page was in a bad crash at Rome. Both the pilots were killed
and Lawrence had three ribs and a collar-bone broken, with other
injuries. It was at Paris that he began writing his book _Seven Pillars
of Wisdom_, of which the next chapter will treat. In July 1919 he was
demobilized and at the conclusion of the Peace Conference returned to
London and lived there until November 1919, when he was elected to a
seven-year research fellowship at All Souls’ College, Oxford. 1920 he
again spent in London.
Meanwhile things were developing politically. After Clemenceau retired,
the French Government’s attitude to Syria became stiffer, and the
working agreement that had apparently existed was replaced by a veiled
state of war. This soon gave an excuse for open hostilities, and
Feisal, not himself resisting, was turned out of Damascus. He withdrew
to Palestine and thence to Italy and England, where he pleaded to the
British Government for help. Nothing could be done for him and he
returned to Mecca. Here he lived for some while until he received an
invitation, through his father, from influential elements in Bagdad
to visit Mesopotamia as their nominee for the now vacant throne of
that country. He obtained assurances from the British Government
that his acceptance of the throne would be welcome to it; and was duly
crowned in Bagdad with the assistance of Sir Percy Cox, the British
High Commissioner.
It had seemed after Feisal’s expulsion from Damascus that Lawrence’s
worst fears were realized, that having duped the Arabs with false hopes
he had been unable even to win them a small degree of independence.
But he did not give up hope. Finally, in February 1921, the crisis
in Mesopotamia became so acute that Middle Eastern affairs were
transferred to the sphere of the Colonial Office and the appointment
was made of Mr. Winston Churchill as Colonial Minister. He sent for
Lawrence and offered him the post of adviser to himself, with the
promise of a fair deal if he would help to put things straight in the
East. Lawrence consented on one condition, that the war-time pledges
given to the Arabs should at last be honoured. His ‘straight means or
crooked’ are plainly given in the following letter which he wrote to me
in reply to certain queries of mine as to his motives and intentions
during this very obscure period:
‘Events in Mecca had changed much between June 1919, when I found
the Coalition Ministry very reluctant to take a liberal line in the
Middle East, and March 1921, when Mr. Winston Churchill took over. The
slump had come in the City. The Press, with help from many quarters,
including mine, was attacking the expense of our war-time commitments
in Asia. Lord Curzon’s lack of suppleness and subtlety had enflamed
a situation already made difficult by revolt in Mesopotamia, bad
feeling in Palestine, disorder in Egypt and the continuing break
with Nationalist Turkey. So the Cabinet was half persuaded to make
a clean cut of our Middle East responsibilities; to evacuate
Mesopotamia, “Milnerize Egypt,” and perhaps give Palestine to a third
party. Mr. Churchill was determined to find ways and means of avoiding
so complete a reversal of the traditional British attitude. I was at
one with him in this attitude: indeed I fancy I went beyond him in my
desire to see as many “brown” dominions in the British Empire as there
are “white.” It will be a sorry day when our estate stops growing.’
(The Lawrence who wrote that last sentence is difficult to reconcile
with the nihilistic Lawrence without national predilections, but both
are Lawrence—or rather Shaw—and you can take your choice.)
* * * * *
The War Office (under Sir Henry Wilson) was a strong advocate of
Mesopotamian withdrawal, since the minimum cost of military occupation
was twenty million pounds a year. Winston Churchill persuaded Sir Hugh
Trenchard, the Air Chief of Staff, to undertake military responsibility
there for less than a quarter that cost. The Royal Air Force was to
be used instead of troops and the Senior Air Officer would command
all forces in Irak. This was a new departure in Air history: but Sir
Hugh Trenchard was confident in the quality of the men and officers
under his command. And Lawrence, who advocated the change with all his
powers, believed that such early responsibility would be the making of
the young Service. (Lawrence again in a purposeful mood!)
But this policy would only be practicable if it were joined with a
liberal measure of Arab self-government controlled by a treaty between
Irak (the Arabic name for Mesopotamia) and Great Britain, instead of a
Mandate. The Cabinet agreed after an eventful discussion and the new
policy brought peace.
‘British and native casualties in the five years since the treaty
was made with Irak have only been a few tens, whereas before the
treaty they had run to thousands. The Arab Government in Irak, while
not wholly free from the diseases of childhood, is steadily improving
in competence and self-confidence. There is a progressive reduction in
the British personnel there. The country has financial independence
in sight. Our aim is its early admission to the responsibility of
membership of the League of Nations. Our hope is that it will continue
its treaty relations with Great Britain in return for the manifest
advantages of intimate connection with so large a firm as the British
Empire.
‘I told Lloyd George at Paris that the centre of Arab Independence
will eventually be Bagdad, not Damascus, since the future of
Mesopotamia is great and the possible development of Syria is small.
Syria now has 5,000,000 inhabitants, Irak only 3,000,000. Syria will
only have 7,000,000 when Irak has 40,000,000. But I envisaged Damascus
as the capital of an Arab State for perhaps twenty years. When the
French took it after two years, we had to transfer the focus of Arab
nationalism at once to Bagdad; which was difficult, since during
the war and armistice period British local policy had been sternly
repressive of all nationalist feeling.
‘I take to myself credit for some of Mr. Churchill’s pacification of
the Middle East, for while he was carrying it out he had the help of
such knowledge and energy as I possess. His was the imagination and
courage to take a fresh departure and enough skill and knowledge of
political procedure to put his political revolution into operation in
the Middle East, and in London, peacefully. When it was in working
order, in March 1922, I felt that I had gained every point I
wanted. The Arabs had their chance and it was up to them, if they were
good enough, to make their own mistakes and profit by them. My object
with the Arabs was always to make them stand on their own feet. The
period of leading-strings could now come to an end. That’s why I was
at last able to abandon politics and enlist. My job was done, as I
wrote to Winston Churchill at the time, when leaving an employer who
had been for me so considerate as sometimes to seem more like a senior
partner than a master. The work I did constructively for him in 1921
and 1922 seems to me, in retrospect, the best I ever did. It somewhat
redresses, to my mind, the immoral and unwarrantable risks I took with
others’ lives and happiness in 1917–1918.
‘Of course Irak was the main point, since there could not be more than
one centre of Arab national feeling; or rather need not be: and it
was fit that it should be in the British and not in the French area.
But during those years we also decided to stop the subsidies to the
Arabian chiefs and put a ring-wall around Arabia, a country which must
be reserved as an area of Arabic individualism. So long as our fleet
keeps its coasts, Arabia should be at leisure to fight out its own
complex and fatal destiny.
‘Incidentally, of course, we sealed the doom of King Hussein. I
offered him a treaty in the summer of 1921 which would have saved him
the Hejaz had he renounced his pretensions to hegemony over all other
Arabic areas: but he clung to his self-assumed title of ‘King of the
Arabic Countries.’ So Ibn Saud of Nejd outed him and rules in Hejaz.
Ibn Saud is not a system but a despot, ruling by virtue of a dogma.
Therefore I approve of him, as I would approve of anything in Arabia
which was individualistic, unorganized, unsystematic.
‘Mr. Churchill took a moderate line in Palestine to obtain peace
while the Zionist experiment is tried. And in Transjordania he kept
our promises to the Arab Revolt and assisted the home-rulers to form a
buffer-principality, under the nominal presidency of Feisal’s brother
Abdulla, between Palestine and the Desert.
‘So as I say, I got all I wanted (for other people)—the Churchill
solution exceeded my one-time hopes—and quitted the game. Whether
the Arab national spirit is permanent and dour enough to make itself
into a modern state in Irak I don’t know. I think it may, at least.
We were in honour bound to give it a sporting chance. Its success
would involve the people of Syria in a similar experiment. Arabia will
always, I hope, stand out of the movements of the settled parts, as
will Palestine too if the Zionists make good. Their problem is the
problem of the third generation. Zionist success would enormously
reinforce the material development of Arab Syria and Irak.
‘I want you to make it quite clear in your book, if you use all this
letter, how from 1916 onwards and especially in Paris I worked against
the idea of an Arab Confederation being formed politically before it
had become a reality commercially, economically and geographically by
the slow pressure of many generations; how I worked to give the Arabs
a chance to set up their provincial governments whether in Syria or
in Irak; and how in my opinion Winston Churchill’s settlement has
honourably fulfilled our war-obligations and my hopes.’
There is little to add to this account. The French have had great
trouble in Syria since Feisal left and their repressive methods have
involved them in war with the Druses and a destructive bombardment
of Damascus; and in heavy expenses in running the province.
Feisal, ruling securely in Bagdad, has sent his son to an English
Public School, so that when he succeeds his father relations between
England and Irak may continue cordial. Zeid was not too old to become
an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford. He rowed in the ‘2nd
Torpids’ boat, and the next term wired apologies to the Master of
Balliol for coming back late: Feisal was ill and Zeid thought that it
was his duty to act as Regent in Irak until he recovered. Abdulla in
Transjordania, the country east of the Jordan and south of the Yarmuk,
with an opening to the Red Sea at Akaba, still enjoys his practical
joking and blindman’s buff; he manages his kingdom well enough (his
first prime minister was Ali Riza), though the townsmen and villagers
complain that he is too lenient to the semi-nomadic tribes in letting
them off taxes. However, it is not want of firmness on Abdulla’s part:
when old Auda, from the edge of his dominions, refused to pay his
taxes, sending an insolent message, Abdulla caught him and put him into
gaol at Amman. Of course Auda, being Auda, escaped, but the old man
then thought better of it and paid the taxes. Auda died this year of
cancer; his amulet protected him to the end from death in battle; and,
as Lawrence once prophesied, the Middle-Ages of the Desert Border have
died with him.
Abdulla originally came to Transjordania with the idea of making war
on the French to avenge his brother’s expulsion, but has suspended his
hostile intentions. An amusing incident occurred in 1921 when he found
two French Catholic priests stirring up anti-British propaganda. He
dismissed them from his kingdom and put in their places two American
Presbyterian missionaries. When a furious protest came from the
Vatican, Abdulla replied innocently, pleading his ignorance of the
difference between the various Christian sects; however, as Lawrence
happened to be with him at the time, we may doubt this.
Certainly the extraordinary disappearance of a steam-roller, from the
Palestine Border, which later after much useful work in road-making
across in Transjordania was found again abandoned near the border, may
be safely put down to Lawrence’s magic; and perhaps also Abdulla’s
official letter to the Palestine Government, saying that among their
hosts of steam-rollers the Transjordanians have great difficulty in
identifying any deserting machines from Palestine, suggests Lawrence’s
style.
Abdulla’s most dangerous neighbour is Ibn Saud, who now rules
practically the whole of the Arabian peninsula. Ibn Saud has the
support of a puritan sect of Arabs known as the Brothers, founded over
a hundred years ago by a prophet called Wahab; hence they are sometimes
called the Wahabis. Arabia under him is going through a period not
unlike the Commonwealth in England under Cromwell, except that Ibn Saud
is far more strict than Cromwell in keeping religious virtue among his
followers. Smoking a cigarette, even, is an abominable offence. He has
stopped inter-tribal raiding throughout his dominions, but permits
raiding across the borders. He has spread his influence as far north
as Jauf, from which he has expelled the Ruwalla—old Nuri the Emir is
dead—and across Sirhan.
The worst thing about the Brethren is that they have learned Turkish
methods of war and employ them even against Arabs who are not Brethren.
A body of about a thousand of these fanatics came marching up in
1922 from the Central Oases in an eight-hundred-mile raid on Amman.
They surprised a little village close to the railway, twenty miles
south of Amman, and massacred every man, woman and child. The chief
of the Faiz Beni Sakhr, however, caught them a day or two later and
few escaped back to Arabia to tell the tale: no prisoners were taken.
The Faiz victory was accidentally helped by a British aeroplane which
happened to be flying over: the Brethren thought that it was going to
bomb them and threw down their arms.
Against further inroads Abdulla has an efficient defence force with
British advisers. It is unlikely that the Wahabi faith will spread to
the settled country from the desert. The new prosperity in the north
of the Arabic-speaking area since the departure of the Turks will
discourage this. The railway south from Damascus is working again, but
only as far as Maan and not very busily; a branch-line is, however,
planned to Akaba.
Of Lawrence during this political period there are many stories which
one day will be collected, true and false together, in a full-length
‘Life and Letters’ which this book does not, of course, pretend to
be. I can, however, vouch for the truth of two or three typical ones.
Lawrence went to Jiddah in June 1921 and tried to make the treaty with
Hussein to which he refers in the letter that I have quoted. Hussein
kept him arguing for two months in the heat, hoping to break down
British opposition to his claim for a paramount position above other
Arab princes, and finally put him off altogether, suggesting that
he should continue the negotiations with his son Abdulla in Amman.
Lawrence sent a cipher cable to Lord Curzon, the Foreign Minister.
‘Can do nothing with Hussein. Are you fed up or shall I carry on with
Abdulla?’ Curzon, who was a stickler for the diplomatic phrasing
of official despatches, asked his secretary: ‘Pray, what does this
term _fed up_ signify?’ The secretary, who had a sense of humour,
replied, ‘I believe, my lord, that it is equivalent to “disgruntled.”’
‘Ah,’ said Curzon, ‘I suppose that it is a term in use among the middle
classes.’ When ‘carry on’ had also been explained, Curzon gave consent
to the Abdulla negotiations and Lawrence carried them on. Meanwhile the
secretary, a friend, had told him in a private letter of the ‘fed-up’
episode. So Lawrence, having successfully concluded his negotiations
with Abdulla, again cabled to Curzon in cipher: ‘Have wangled things
with Abdulla. Details follow by letter. Note, the necessary verb
“wangle” is absent from the diplomatic cipher. I submit that a
letter-group be allotted to it to save spelling it each time.’ The word
is now in the cipher book.
A late member of the Foreign Office staff, who wishes to remain
anonymous, has told me an even odder story of Lawrence and Lord Curzon.
‘It was at the first meeting of the British Cabinet held to discuss
the Middle-Eastern situation. Curzon made a well-turned speech in
Lawrence’s praise, introducing him. I could see Lawrence squirming
at the praise, which he seemed to think was misplaced, and at the
patronage. Lawrence already knew most of the ministers present. It was
a very long speech and when it ended Curzon turned to Lawrence and
asked him if he wished to say anything. Lawrence answered sharply,
“Yes, let’s get to business. You people” (imagine Curzon addressed
as “you people”!) “don’t understand yet the hole you have put us all
into!” Then a remarkable thing happened. Curzon burst into tears, great
drops running down his cheeks, to an accompaniment of slow sobs.
[Illustration:
description: Portrait drawing 3⁄4 view chest up of a Lawrence
in Arab dress
caption: LAWRENCE AT VERSAILLES
_Copyright_
]
‘It was horribly like a mediæval miracle, the weeping of a church
image. I felt dreadful; probably Lawrence did too. However,
Lord Robert Cecil, who seemed to be hardened to such scenes, of
which hitherto I only knew by hearsay, interposed roughly: “Now, old
man, none of that!” Curzon wiped his eyes, blew his nose in a silk
pocket-handkerchief, and dried up. And business proceeded.’
At Paris Lawrence had several rows with politicians and soldiers.
The most sensational was in the hall of the Hotel Majestic, the
headquarters of the British delegation. A major-general began treating
him as an interfering young fellow who had no business to be poking his
nose into matters that did not concern him. Lawrence retorted warmly.
The general barked out, ‘Don’t dare to speak to me in that tone. You’re
not a professional soldier.’ This stirred Lawrence. ‘No,’ said he,
‘perhaps I’m not; but if you had a division and I had a division, I
know which of us would be taken prisoner.’
Throughout these years Lawrence lived in great retirement. The
advertising of his Arabian adventure both by the Press and by Mr.
Lowell Thomas’s cinema lecture-tour proved most unwelcome to him. He
received an enormous mail, including, it is said, over fifty offers of
marriage from unknown women, and was relentlessly and unsuccessfully
pursued by lion-hunting hostesses. Most of the time that he was not
writing his book or engaged in politics he spent reading, catching
up with modern literature after a four years’ break, and looking at
pictures and sculpture.
In his visit to the East in 1921, treaty-making, he did return by
air as had been prophesied, and found a crowd still waiting at the
aerodrome to greet him with ‘Aurans at last!’ A friend of mine was
talking to him shortly afterwards, at Jerusalem, when an Arab came up
and saluted. It was a member of the body-guard, ‘an awful-looking
scoundrel with love-locks and a sash-full of weapons.’ Lawrence asked
if he was doing anything important now. The man, trembling with
pleasure at seeing Lawrence, answered, ‘No, lord, nothing important.’
‘Then you must go to Basra and enrol in the service of Lord Feisal, who
will want your services and the services of the rest.’
Lawrence met Foch at Paris. It is related that Foch remarked in a
friendly way to Lawrence, ‘I suppose now that there will soon be war
in Syria between my country and your Arabs? Will you be leading their
armies?’ ‘No,’ Lawrence answered, ‘unless you promise to lead the
French armies in person. Then I should enjoy it.’ The old Marshal
wagged his finger at Lawrence. ‘My young friend, if you think that I
am going to sacrifice the reputation that I have so carefully compiled
on the Western Front by fighting you on your own ground and under
conditions imposed by yourself, you are very much mistaken.’ Asked
whether this story was true, Lawrence has replied that ‘the event has
faded from my retentive memory,’ which can mean anything that anyone
likes it to mean.
One more story (out of its place but recalled by this discussion of
international affairs):
When Lawrence was working up from Akaba into Syria he once took a
mobile hospital with him on a raid. All the stretcher-camels were,
for economy of transport, loaded up with dynamite. The Royal Army
Medical Corps Headquarters in Palestine got to hear of this and
telegraphed expecting that the Arab Army would in future observe the
Geneva Convention which insists that the transport devoted to fighting
shall be kept distinct from that devoted to medical work. Lawrence on
his next raid therefore left both hospital _and doctor_ behind.
The Medical Headquarters again protested, and Lawrence replied that
transport could not be wasted on non-combatants. This enraged the
Surgeon-General, who tried to catch Lawrence by wiring a peremptory
request to know how Lawrence proposed, in the absence of his medical
officer, to dispose of his wounded. Lawrence then replied tersely,
‘Will shoot all cases too hurt to ride off.’ This closed the argument.
XXX
Lawrence wrote his great history of the Arab Revolt, _Seven Pillars of
Wisdom_. or seven out of ten books of it, between February and June,
1919, in Paris. He did the present beginning of the introduction in six
hours in the Handley-Page aeroplane, on his way from Paris to collect
his belongings in Cairo: the rhythm of it is affected, he says, by the
slow ‘munch, munch, munch’ of the great Rolls-Royce engines. In London
he wrote an eighth book, but had all the eight stolen from him about
Christmas 1919 while changing trains at Reading. Only the introduction
and the drafts of two books remained.
He has never imagined a political motive for the theft, but his friends
have. They even whisper darkly that one day the lost text may reappear
in certain official archives. Lawrence himself hopes it will not: he
had destroyed most of his war-time notes as he went along and when he
began again the weary task of rewriting the quarter of a million words
he could not quite trust his memory. However, Colonel Dawnay, who
saw both texts, tells me that one chapter at least that he read more
carefully than others in the original seems to be the same, word for
word and almost comma for comma, in the second version. Lawrence still
had two skeleton-diaries and some rough route-sheets, but little else.
This second writing was done in less than three months at the rate
of some four to five thousand words a day. But Lawrence, immoderate
as usual, did not keep to a daily ration. He did it in long sittings
and probably set up a world’s literary record by writing Book VI in
twenty-four hours between sunrise and sunrise without a pause. Book
VI was about 34,000 words in length! ‘Naturally the style was
careless,’ he says. But it served as a basis for a careful literary
rewriting; which is the _Seven Pillars_ as it was finally published. He
wrote it in London, Jiddah and Amman in 1921, again in London in 1922,
in the Royal Tank Corps near Dorchester in 1923 and 1924, and in the
Royal Air Force at Cranwell in 1925 and 1926. He checked the historical
accuracy with the help of all available official documents and his
British friends who had served with the Arab army.
Lawrence does nothing by halves and not only set about making the book
a history of the Arab Revolt which the Arabs themselves would never
write, but one that he would not be ashamed of as literature. For this
last ambition he secured the advice of two of the best-known English
writers and taught himself with their help to write professionally.
_Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ is, beyond dispute, a great book: though
there is such a thing as a book being too well written, too much a part
of literature. Lawrence himself realizes this and was once, indeed,
on the point of throwing it into the Thames at Hammersmith. It should
somehow, one feels, have been a little more casual, for the nervous
strain of its ideal of faultlessness is oppressive. Lawrence charges
himself with ‘literary priggishness,’ but that is unfair. His aim was,
all the time, simplicity of style and statement and this he achieved in
the most expert way. He has, somewhere, confessed to a general mistrust
of experts and it may be that he should have carried it further, and
dispensed with expert advice in literary matters too. (Possibly,
though, in actual practice he did; he was always a difficult pupil.)
On the whole I prefer the earliest surviving version, the so-called
Oxford text, to the final printed book which was the version that
I first read consecutively. This is a physical rather than a critical
reaction. The earlier version is 330,000 words long instead of 280,000
and the greater looseness of the writing makes it easier to read. From
a critical point of view no doubt the revised version is better. It is
impossible that a man like Lawrence would spend four years on polishing
the text without improving it, but the nervous rigor that the revised
book gave me has seemingly dulled my critical judgment. I may add that
Lawrence had foreseen the effect that the book would have on me and
refrained for many years from letting me see it.
Lawrence was anxious to make the book as solid as possible, so he
employed the best artists that he could find to do drawings for it
under the art-editorship of Eric Kennington.
He published something more than a hundred copies for subscribers at
thirty guineas apiece and gave away half as many more to friends.
But he was so keen to do things well that he actually spent £13,000
on the edition—the reproduction of the pictures alone cost more than
the subscrip-tions—leaving himself £10,000 out of pocket. It was to
pay this debt to his backers (for he has no private means) that the
abridgment _Revolt in the Desert_ was undertaken for public sale. He
made it in two nights, at Cranwell Camp, with the help of two other
airmen, Miller and Knowles. The _Seven Pillars_ was never intended
for publication: it was to be a private record for Lawrence and a few
friends. _Revolt in the Desert_ was only published by the accident of
the £10,000 debt. It is a series of incidents loosely strung together
and purged of the more personal material. Single copies of the _Seven
Pillars_ now sell at extraordinary prices.
Lawrence has not made a penny himself from either of these books.
He was scrupulous to arrange that when the debt of the _Seven Pillars_
was paid off the extra money made by _Revolt in the Desert_ should not
go to him. It has been a set determination of his to make nothing out
of the Arab war directly or indirectly. His army pay went towards the
expenses of the campaign. His salary from Winston Churchill for the
year at the Colonial Office he did not spend on himself either, but
used it for official purposes. (On the other hand, Lawrence’s friends
have much benefited by his generosity. The gift of a _Seven Pillars_
with the note ‘please sell when read’ has been worth as much as £500.)
The success of _Revolt in the Desert_ called for a French translation
but when an application for the rights came from a Paris publisher
Lawrence offered permission on one condition—that the book must bear on
its jacket the inscription: ‘The profits of this book will be devoted
to a fund for the victims of French cruelty in Syria.’ So there could
be no French translation so long as he controlled the book rights.
I have never yet met with an explanation of the meaning _Seven
Pillars of Wisdom_ in all that has been written about the book. It is
reminiscence from a chapter in the _Book of Proverbs_, part of which
runs as follows:
‘Wisdom hath builded a house: she hath hewn out her seven pillars. She
crieth upon the highest places of the city, “Whoso is simple let him
turn in hither.... If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself.”’
The idea is, I believe, further elaborated in later Jewish theological
writings. This title was all that Lawrence rescued from an earlier
book of travel written in 1913 and destroyed in 1914; it compared
the seven cities of Cairo, Smyrna, Constantinople, Beyrout, Aleppo,
Damascus and Medina.
_The Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ will not be reprinted in Lawrence’s
lifetime. It is not a book, people agree on Lawrence’s behalf, that
should be published for a popular audience. (A simple member of the
public, an electrician, was shown the most painful chapter while proofs
were being passed. Then he could do no work for a week, but walked up
and down the pavement outside his house, unable to rid his mind of
the horror of it. The chapter about the Turkish hospital is almost as
painful.) Also popular publication might, they say, involve Lawrence
in a series of libel actions: he seems to spare nobody in his desire
to tell the whole story faithfully (least of all himself). Again,
the censor might, it is suggested, ban as obscene some of the more
painfully accurate accounts of Turkish methods of warfare. But in any
case Lawrence never intended publishing the book, except privately, so
these remarks are really irrelevant. The book was first written as a
full-length and unrestrained picture of himself, his tastes, ideas and
actions. He could not have deliberately confessed to so much had there
been any chance of the book coming out. Yet to tell the whole story was
the only justification for writing anything at all. And once written a
strictly limited publication of the book promised to remove the need of
even thinking about that part of his life again.
The historical accuracy of Lawrence’s account has been jealously
questioned by some overseas reviewers of _Revolt in the Desert_: he has
been accused of self-interested exaggeration. However, as there were
forty or fifty British officers, besides Arabs, as witnesses of his
activities and as no one of them has challenged the accuracy of his
statements, this criticism hardly calls for answer. Moreover, all
the documents of the Arab Revolt are in the archives of the Foreign
Office and will soon be available to students, who will be able to
cross-check Lawrence’s account and are likely to find that his chief
fault has been telling rather less than the truth.
It has been suggested that Lawrence’s part in the Eastern War was
devoid of serious military significance. Part of a letter protesting
against this point of view may be reprinted from a London weekly. I
know the writer as an expert in these matters:
‘SIR,—
‘Your reviewer of _Revolt in the Desert_ denies the Arab Army
any “serious military significance,” and suggests that Allenby’s
advance on Damascus would have been successful had it never existed.
As one who took part in the Palestine campaign, and was for a
considerable time entrusted with the preparation of the “Enemy Order
of Battle,” may I affirm the contrary? The revolt of 1916 isolated
the Assir Division of six battalions, destroyed two-thirds of the
Hejaz Division of nine battalions and brought a new division (58th)
from Syria to Medina. In the autumn of 1917 when Lord Allenby struck
his first blow the equivalent of twenty-four battalions was strung
out on the line from Deraa to Medina. I include mounted infantry and
camel corps. Some artillery was also engaged. Had the Arabs sat still
two-thirds of this force, which included good Anatolian units such
as the 42nd and 55th Regiments, would have been available for the
Gaza-Beersheba front. In 1918 the British threat to Transjordania only
became possible because of the growing strength of the revolt and the
increasing sympathy of the local Arab population for Arab success.
Lord Allenby’s demonstrations and the activity of the Arabs
tied up more and more Turks and some German units, and by September,
1918, reinforcements from Rumania (part of the 25th Division) and
the Caucasian front (48th Division) liberated by the Russo-Rumanian
collapse, had been used up east of Jordan instead of on the Palestine
front. Without going into details of military organization and the
dislocation of troops, dull reading to any but the professional
military historian, I can confidently assert that the Arab Army of
4,000 fighting men and an uncertain number of occasional pillagers was
worth an Army Corps to the British Army on the Palestine front, not
only on account of the Turks, whom it kept busy in the wrong place,
but on account of the strain it put on Turkish transport and supply.
‘Finally, may I remark that Lawrence and his Arabs saw a good deal
more at Tafas than one mutilated Arab woman, and the wonder to me
is not that they saw red then, but that they generally showed such
astonishing restraint against an enemy who habitually shot his Arab
prisoners, tortured Arab wounded with obscene ingenuity, and often
indulged in gross brutalities, at the expense of non-combatants, women
and children.
‘Yours, etc.,
‘B.’
The humour of the controversy lies in the siding of Lawrence himself
with the critics of whom ‘B.’ disposes so crushingly. What is called
‘serious military significance’ is part of the whole modern theory
of War, the seeking out and destroying by one side of the organized
military forces of another—a theory which he rejected as futile
and barbarous almost from the start. What Lawrence wanted, rather,
was to achieve serious _political_ significance for the Revolt by
whatever means lay readiest to his hand. Actual fighting, as opposed to
pin-pricking raids and demolitions, was a luxury that he indulged the
Arabs in merely to save their self-respect. They could not have thought
freedom honourably won without it. The capture of Akaba is a clear
instance of an operation that, though it affected the more conventional
war at Gaza and Beersheba, had in itself serious political rather than
serious military significance. It was only by an accident that the
Turkish battalion happened to bar the way at Aba el Lissan and invite
destruction. The rest of the operation was more like a chess problem;
white to play and mate in three moves.
This is not the place, and it probably is not the time to weigh up
Lawrence’s strategy and tactics during the Arab Revolt. Of the strategy
he makes no secret whatever. It lies in _Revolt in the Desert_ open
for anyone who can use a map intelligently. The _Seven Pillars_ gives
yet fuller details; the first number of the _Army Quarterly_ (1920)
contains a long article by him on the subject of irregular war—a
summary of the results of his sick-bed theorizing in Emir Abdulla’s
camp in March 1917. The obvious comment to be made on his strategy is
that it enabled the Arab Revolt in the sphere of politics, as in the
sphere of war, to assume a much larger share of influence and attention
than its material importance justified. B.’s letter just quoted, had it
compared the Arabs’ resources in arms and equipment, as well as in men,
with those of the Turkish forces opposed to them, would have made the
point still clearer. Lawrence would probably take this judgment as the
highest praise, for we find him throughout insisting, with a repetition
that conveys the painfulness of his problem, upon the extreme economy
of means necessary. The material and military assistance that the
Arabs could themselves provide, with all the goodwill in the world, was
small. Nor might it be helped out by large borrowing of material and
military resources from the Allies without a proportionate political
debt when the fighting was over. Lawrence would therefore be proud to
think that he made his little go such a long way—even the total of ten
million pounds and the score or so of British casualties that the Arab
Revolt cost Great Britain was a flea-bite compared with, for instance,
the monthly cost of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force in lives and
cash-and that politically he made so much ado out of what had begun as
little or nothing.
From the point of view of tactics, his conduct is far less clear. A
casual reading of his books might lead one to suppose that he fought
his battles with bluff and crimson banners for main argument; or even
that the hypnotic effect that his presence seems to have had on the
Arabs extended to the enemy, who were fascinated into stupidity—that
the moon herself came under the influence and consented to open one of
the more difficult gates to Akaba for him. But actually his tactics
were, I believe, thought out with the same care and artifice, not to
say humour, as his general strategic principles. And his reasons for
slurring over the ways and means of fighting are connected with the
political relations between the Syrian Government and the French in
1919 when he first wrote his book. Both sides were preparing for armed
struggle in Syria and it looks as if Lawrence set himself to contribute
nothing in the form of a manual of warfare that could be used in
this struggle. His late re-draftings of the book at a time when the
danger had become less acute only modified the literary style without
adding (or taking away) much of the content. He had to select the
materials to be used with great severity. His two active years provided
enough for ten books of the size to which he limited himself—his
memory was uncomfortably clear and full—so that wherever possible he
sacrificed the details of the fighting.
He mentions, for instance, no more than three or four armoured-car
actions in which he took part; but it seems that he fought at least
fifty, enough to evolve a whole system and scheme of battle for them.
(Readers of _Revolt in the Desert_ will have found no more than two or
three occasions mentioned on which Lawrence was wounded, against the
four or five mentioned in the _Seven Pillars_; but the total number
was nine times, including the occasion of Minifer when he had five
bullet grazes, cuts from flying boiler-plate and a broken toe.) Nor is
adequate mention made in either book of the numerous engagements in
which he tempered his body-guard into a real fighting weapon. We can
only gather, from casual allusions, that he did not leave the tactics
of the desert as he found them.
He based his strategy on an exhaustive study of the geography of his
area; of the Turkish Army; of the nature of the Bedouin tribes and
their distribution. So he based his desert tactics on a study of
the raiding parties of the Arabs. As we have seen, one of his first
actions on being posted as military adviser to Feisal was to accompany
a raid on the Turkish force attacking Rabegh. And he continued this
self-education, in the school of Auda and Zaal and Nasir, until after
the occupation of Akaba. Only by graduating in this Bedouin school
could he win the experience and prestige that would allow him to modify
its traditions.
Exactly what these modifications were is nowhere explained, though they
seem to have achieved a greater unity of purpose among the members
of the raiding party, at the more critical moments before and after the
attack, without impairing the self-reliance and self-sufficiency of any
individual. His English companions knew the difference between an Arab
raid when he was present and one when he was not present; but they were
not professional soldiers, nor students of war, so could not put their
finger on the precise points of difference. And he himself, except in
the battle fought north of Tafileh, withholds any account of himself
in command. This battle proves what we knew already, that he relied on
automatic rifles and not on ordinary rifles. The rapid-fire exercise,
with an ordinary rifle, of fifteen to thirty aimed shots a minute,
saved the British Expeditionary Force at the first battle of Ypres in
face of enormously superior machine-gun fire; but it was only perfected
by years of intense musketry training. The Bedouin Arabs would never
have had the patience to master it and in any case it would have been
of little use to them in camel-fighting.
Bayonets he scornfully rejected with the memorandum (to General
Headquarters!) that they were ‘unintelligent masses of steel, generally
fatal to the fools behind them.’ He might have added that the Turk, a
good man with the bayonet, would have welcomed this choice of weapons.
Machine-guns, except when armoured, were less suited for his battles
than automatics because their longer bursts of fire did not make up
for their greater weight and cumbersomeness. There is one recorded
case of a British machine-gun sergeant, in France, picking up his
weapon and using it like a rifle, but he was a giant. When it came to a
choice between Lewis and Hotchkiss automatic rifles, he preferred the
Hotchkiss, because it was not so easily jammed by mud and sand;
but the files of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force Headquarter Office
were full of his demands for quantities of either or both. The battle
of Tafileh is a neat example, though not, one gathers, his first, of
what is technically known as ‘attack by infiltration,’ with automatic
rifles to the fore. Lawrence seems, before this, to have reduced his
gun-crews to two men and a gun. His body-guard of forty-eight men
had in one fight with a Turkish cavalry regiment (place and date
unfortunately are not available) twenty-one automatics. He himself
carried an ‘air-Lewis’ (borrowed from the Air Force) in a bucket on
his camel-saddle. He once said that if he could get control of an
arms-factory to make him Hotchkiss guns he would supersede the use of
the rifle in war. A pleasant gift to civilization!
Lawrence’s attitude to war, by the way, seems to be that he has no
stronger objection to war, as war, than to the human race as the human
race; but he does not like wars in which the individual is swallowed
up in the mass. He commented to me once on the anti-war poetry of
Siegfried Sassoon, who had the misfortune to serve, on the Western
Front, in divisions that were accustomed to lose the equivalent of
their full strength every four or five months, that had Sassoon been
serving with him in Arabia he would have written in a completely
different vein. That is very likely true. On the other hand, Lawrence’s
revolt in the desert was a form of fighting so unlike ‘civilized’
war, and so romantically appealing, that it is perhaps fortunate that
Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Edmund Blunden, and the other poets
who got badly involved in the war were all infantrymen in France.
Lawrence’s use of heavy machine-guns (Vickers’), in the armoured cars,
developed from the first experimental raids after Akaba until he could
use them in combined operations of camelry, armoured cars and
aeroplanes. He was also able to improve on the regulation uses of
high explosive as laid down in the Manual of Field-Engineering. He
discovered how to fire electric mines along the telegraph wires and
how to introduce petards into the fire-boxes of railway locomotives by
‘salting’ their wood-fuel piles with infernal contraptions that would
escape the notice of the firemen. But so strongly was he moved by a
sense of what we may call the ‘literary style’ of the epical romance
in which he found himself a leading character—a ‘many-wiled Odysseus’
let us say—that he always saw his own scientific ingenuities as things
alien and incongruous in the Arab setting. We are therefore left with
only shadowy clues as to their importance and effectiveness in the
campaign.
XXXI
In August 1922 Lawrence, having finally renounced the use of that name,
enlisted in the Royal Air Force. He did all the usual duties of a man
in the lowest grade of the Force and steadfastly refused promotion.
For six months he raised no suspicion at all about his identity. He
got on well with the men, though he was very raw and clumsy at the new
life. Unfortunately an officer recognized him and sold the information
for thirty pounds to a daily paper, with the result that there was an
unwelcome publicity-stunt made of it and the suspicion then arose among
the men that Lawrence was an Air Force spy! The Secretary of State
for Air feared that questions might be asked in the House of Commons
as to what he was doing there under an assumed name, so he judged it
necessary to dismiss him in February 1923. This was most disappointing
to Lawrence, who had got through the first hardship and bitterness of
his recruit’s training, with a stainless character, only to be thrown
out.
He had been stationed at Uxbridge, where his knowledge of photography
seems to have put him into a section of photographic specialists.
He disguised his previous history with half-truths, accounting,
for instance, for his too accurate rifle-shooting at the range by
saying that he had done some big-game shooting (perhaps he meant
by ‘big-game’ some of the staff-officers on the train derailed at
Minifer). He accurately informed the recruiting officer that he had
previously _served in no regiment_, and so framed his explanations that
apparently they noted down that he was interned by the Turks during
the greater part of the War. At Uxbridge he nearly outdid himself
in self-effacing efficiency. He was chosen as one of the squad to
rehearse arms-drill for the Cenotaph ceremony at Armistice. He was
unwilling to take part in it for fear of being recognized; fortunately
his height saved him. He was rejected for not being five-foot-eight.
I am sure, by the way, that Lawrence would not, if he could, ‘by
taking thought add a cubit’ (even an inch or two) ‘to his stature.’
Height is rarely useful to a man except in crowds and in games (both
of which Lawrence avoids) and makes him conspicuous. I remember his
saying once of an official: ‘Six-foot-three; and yet has brains’: being
six-foot-two myself I uncomfortably wondered at what height upward
Lawrence regards normal intelligence as usually ending.
At Uxbridge, on the first Commanding Officer’s Hut-inspection, the
Wing-Commander was asking all the recruits personal questions. He
noticed a few unusual books in Lawrence’s locker (where they were quite
in order) and said: ‘Do you read that sort of thing? What were you in
civil life?’
‘Nothing special, sir.’
‘What were you doing last?’
‘Working in an architect’s office, sir.’ (This was true enough. Sir
Herbert Baker had lent a room of his office in Barton Street for
Lawrence to write Seven Pillars in.)
‘Why did you join the Air Force?’
‘I think I must have had a mental break-down, sir.’
‘What! What! Sergeant-Major, take this man’s name; gross impertinence!’
The next day Lawrence was ‘up’ and was able to explain that the
Wing-commander had misunderstood him.
At school in Uxbridge—the Royal Air Force makes much of education—the
master, a civilian, asked the recruits to write a confidential
first essay, for his eye alone, giving details of previous education.
As he was obviously a decent and sincere man, Lawrence wrote truthfully
that he had got scholarships and exhibitions from the age of thirteen
onwards, which had helped to pay school and university bills until he
had taken honours in history and been elected to a research-fellowship
in political theory. That later events arising out of the War had
constrained him to enlist and that he found himself over-educated for
his present part in life. The master respected the confidence and
instead of lessons gave Lawrence books to read in school hours and a
quiet place to sit in.
A month after being dismissed from the Air Force he re-enlisted, with
War-Office permission, in the Royal Tank Corps. He had got a qualified
assurance that if he served without incident for a while in the Army,
his return to the Air Force might be considered. He remained in it for
more than two years, stationed near Dorchester. He found life rough but
made many friends among the soldiers and was fortunate to be near Mr.
and Mrs. Thomas Hardy, to whom I had the satisfaction of introducing
him.
It happened more than once that journalists and celebrity hunters would
break in on Mr. Hardy’s quiet and meeting there a little figure in
clumsy khaki with a quiet, almost filial regard for the old poet, would
not give him a second glance. Whereas, as Mrs. Hardy has told me, ‘they
would have given their ears, almost, for a conversation with him had
they known who he was.’
Lawrence was never without a Brough-Superior racing motor-bicycle. Each
year he used to wheedle a next year’s model from the makers—and ride it
to death—to report on it. He nicknamed his machines ‘Boanerges’ (sons
of thunder) and they carried him well. He had five of them in
four years and rode 100,000 miles on them, making only two insurance
claims (for superficial damage to the machine after skids) and hurting
nobody. The greatest pleasure of his recent life has been speed on the
road. The bicycle would do a hundred miles an hour, but he is not, he
says, a racing man. The first time that he really let Boanerges the
Third go, in the early dawn on a long stretch of road near Winchester,
he was curious to see the speed-dial make two complete revolutions. It
did, and broke with a scream, so he flattered himself that he covered
an unknown number of miles beyond the hundred an hour. But this was not
his daily practice.
He wrote to me in a letter:
‘It’s usually my satisfaction to purr along gently about 60 m.p.h.
drinking in the air and the general view. I lose detail even at such
moderate speeds but gain comprehension. When I open out a little more,
as for instance across Salisbury Plain at 80 or so, I feel the earth
moulding herself under me. It is _me_ piling up this hill, hollowing
this valley, stretching out this level place. Almost the earth comes
alive, heaving and tossing on each side like a sea. That’s a thing
that the slow coach will never feel. It is the reward of speed. I
could write you pages on the lustfulness of moving swiftly.’
He had at least one serious conflict with authority in the Royal
Tank Corps, when he was brought up on the charge of insubordination
towards a corporal. (Probably more. But none of them seem to have
had unfortunate sequels, for when he left the Tank Corps his
character-sheet was free of major entries.)
Of this occasion a comrade, Private Palmer, writes:
‘The corporal was a Scotsman of the old school, an ex-officer,
overbearing, with a wonderful idea of his own importance. T.E. used
to rag him unmercifully. The corporal had a habit of laying the
dust in the hut with a bowl of water sprinkled on the floor. This
performance annoyed T.E. and everybody else, so one day T.E. got up
early and swamped the hut with I forget now how many bowls of water.
We all paddled. Later a man in the hut received a few days “Confined
to Barracks” unfairly, through the Corporal. T.E. simply slung the
corporal’s suit-case into the sanitary bin.’
Private Palmer has very kindly given me further amusing if slight
details of Lawrence’s life in the Tank Corps:
‘He did the normal work of a private soldier even to receiving
“three days confined to barracks” for leaving overalls on his bed.
After “passing off the square” he did fatigues. That is how I met
him. We began talking about Thomas Hardy. I was employed in the
quartermaster’s stores and T.E. joined me there. He did his work
well; he had to mark recruits’ kits with their numbers, fit them with
clothing, boots, etc. In the afternoons sometimes, we used to solve
cross-word puzzles together. Generally, however, T.E. would work on
sections of the _Seven Pillars_. He did correcting, etc., in the
Quartermaster’s office, of an evening, and sometimes early morning.
‘One day I “pulled his leg” and he beat me with a slipper—after a
struggle, mind you. The Quartermaster walked in and wanted to know
whether the store was a gymnasium. “No, sir,” said T.E., “I’m sorry;
I was only correcting Private Palmer with this slipper!” The
Quartermaster laughed and said “Carry on!”
‘When rumours started in the camp as to who he was, it was amusing
to see the troops studying photographs of him in the _Daily_ ... and
comparing them with the original. “It’s not him!” “I bet you a
dollar it is him”; these were the sort of remarks that passed between
the troops. T.E. appeared to be indifferent as to what they thought
and said about him. This stage of excitement soon passed and he was
treated as one of ourselves again. The tradespeople were more polite
to him, however.
‘His recreations were gramophone music—he loved the Bach concerto for
two violins in D minor—and Brough-riding. Most Sundays he used to take
me, pillion, to breakfast at Corfe: order breakfast first and look at
the castle while it was being prepared: he never tired of the castle.
Sometimes he took me to cathedrals—Salisbury, Winchester, Wells. Of
course we passed everything we met on the road: T.E. couldn’t resist a
race.
‘His passing from the Tank Corps made a nine-days’ wonder: I was
bombarded with questions. As the people who knew him are scattered
now, his name has passed into the legend stage. Strangely enough, he
is remembered, not for anything he did during the War, but for his
performances on that wonderful motor-cycle.’
That ‘T.E. couldn’t resist a race’ seems to me a misinterpretation of
motive. He is not of a competitive nature, but dislikes other people’s
dust. And he never took the machine out on a dry road without letting
it out, all out, at least once for every hundred miles that he rode.
Just to keep the two of them from getting sluggish.
In August 1925, through the intercession of a highly-placed friend
with the Prime Minister, he was re-transferred to the R.A.F., his
ambition for the last two years, and in December 1926 was sent overseas
to the Indian frontier, where he now is. He wrote to me some months ago:
‘If old P— asks you again why I am in the R.A.F., tell him that it is
simply because I _like_ the R.A.F. The being cared for, the rails of
conduct, the impossibility of doing irregular things, are easements.
The companionship of “shop,” the enforced routine of simple labour,
the occasional leisures are actively pleasant. While my health lasts
I’ll keep in it. I did not like the Army much, but the R.A.F. is as
different from the Army as the air is from the earth. In the Army the
person is at a discount: the combined movement, the body of men, is
the ideal. In the R.A.F. there are no combined movements: its drill
is a joke except when some selected squad is specially trained for a
tattoo or a ceremony. The airman is brought up to despise the army.
“Soldier” is our chief insult and word of derision.’
I hope that these quotations will not be considered tactless; but will
take the risk. He wrote to me a year or two ago in the same strain:
‘You were in the regular infantry, so the chances are that you have
rather a cock-eyed view of the life we lead in the R.A.F. Our ideal is
the skilled mechanic at his bench or machine. Our job is the conquest
of the air, our element. That’s a more than large enough effort
to comprehend all our intelligence. We grudge every routine duty,
such as are invented for soldiers to keep them out of mischief, and
perform our parades deliberately ill, lest we lose our edges and
become degraded into parts of a machine. In the Army the men belong
to the machine. In the R.A.F. the machines, upon earth, belong to the
men; as in the air they belong to the officers. So the men have the
more of them. Drill in the Air Force is punitive, in the eyes of men
and officers alike. Whenever the public see a detachment of airmen on
a “B-S” (ceremonial) parade, they should realize that these, their
very expensive servants, are being temporarily misemployed—as though
Cabinet ministers should hump coal in office-hours.’
Sergeant Pugh, of his Flight at Cranwell, in Lincolnshire, has written
me a letter about Shaw in the R.A.F., which I print as it stands:
‘ARRIVAL AT CRANWELL
‘As far as my mind takes me back, it was in the first week of Sept.
1925 that he came to the camp, and although many had heard of his
“carryings-on”, few had seen him. He was met with all kinds of looks
(suspicious): was he finding out who’s who and what’s what of the
R.A.F.? Is that why he was discharged previously? (amazement): we had
heard he was a man with a terrible scowl of harshness, etc., etc.
(wrath): he is some ex-service guy pulling our legs; and yet! you know
his carriage, slight, mild, unassuming, why did he set the camp alive
in excitement just to see him?
FIRST FATIGUE. (I was taking names.)
‘Perhaps a dozen men were to have a “go” at cleaning the camp
fire-buckets. Taking names (you know why) he happened to be the first
on the roll and, asked his name, promptly sprang to attention,
giving his particulars. The second and third names were taken before
the S.M. snapped at those two for not doing likewise and commented on
the fact that S. had shown them his military training, by saying “take
an example of Shaw, you are letting yourselves down” and possibly
stronger words were used. (His start at once told.) Having occasion
to call and view the work in progress (and between you and me to get
a good “close-up” of this man nobody could weigh up), there he was
with bathbrick, polishing and rubbing as though his life depended on
the result (eagerness personified) and laughing his heart out in some
crude joke of his work-mate; an aircraftman of, to say the best, poor
intellect who stood by while our friend grinned and worked.
CREDIT FROM THE TANK CORPS
‘It soon flashed through the camp that he was in credit to the tune
of £50 from the Tank Corps and at “stand easy” when ordering tea and
cakes from the canteen, he asked for about four or five extra teas and
wads (cakes). Asking a few of the (secretly scrutinising) airmen to
“muck in,” at least three “lots” were left in sheer wonder and almost
embarrassment; smiles and expressions, “Deep B.” etc., being used.
CHURCH
‘Our camp church he liked—that was all. Always a true soldier
preparing for and marching to same, when his turn for it came along.
But it was a d—d shame that men of the calibre he went with, should be
compelled to listen to the “something rot” that they were attending;
for ♦Sermous were not Shaw’s strong point. Generosity itself for a just
cause. Apparent stupidity (which was amusing to all who “eyed
him”) for any cause concerning his presence in the above-mentioned
place of worship. Politics clashed with divinity—Shaw’s view.
♦ “Sermous” replaced with “Sermons”
S. JOINS UP IN R.A.F. SECOND TIME
‘An amusing item was told of his second admission to the R.A.F. All
recruits must pass an educational test before admission. S. had to do
a paper of a visit to some place or other and accomplished this with
such speed, tact and general show of a born author, that the Officer
i/C. asked him why he came to join up and yet could turn out his
“stuff” with so much apparent ease. His reply was “Chiefly a mental
rest.” which took the wind completely out of the officer’s sails, and
yet the mask of mildness on his face floated him clear of trouble. A
lot of heart-to-heart talk took place about various authors to whom he
might apply for a job. Finally he was shown a list of R.A.F. trades
and I swear he would tackle the lot in turn and decided to be a full
blown Air Craft Hand, which means he does all kinds of fatigues and is
treated as though he were a mere nothing in uniform.
[Illustration:
description: Photo low full front shot looking up at Lawrence
astride a stationary motor-bicycle
caption: ‘T.E.’ ON ‘BOANERGES,’ THE MOTOR-BYCYCLE
_Copyright_
]
“B” FLIGHT, CRANWELL
‘Being posted to “B” Flight and the way he behaved during his stay was
worth a guinea a box. Every conceivable kind of job was put before
S. as the office “boy” of our flight. (I could give you a real good
list of his duties which he was to do.) He had every job well mastered
in a week and “taped” for any clerk who might follow. Our Flight
Lieutenant took to S. and at once realized the asset he must mean to
the flight. What “got him” was that S. had more power for getting
things than he had himself. (I’m speaking dead honestly now.) He did
not on any occasion ever let anyone think that what was given at all
was given through thoughts of what he might do or say. His sheer
force of personality got him, as you may say, undreamed of odds and
ends necessary for us in our work, which seemed unattainable to any
Sergeant to say the most, and never an aircraft hand. To know him was
to be drawn by his magnetic personality and the heavens fell through,
that alone is what made the airmen scratch their heads and THINK.
A GRAMOPHONE WAS BOUGHT
‘There is a good story on its own. A beautiful machine with Records.
At first we held aloof wondering what class of music appealed to
S.—Mozart, Beethoven, Tannhauser? (excuse my ignorance of the
classical variety). It left us guessing, but we soon woke up to the
fact that he pulled our legs by ordering some of the most awful
sounding records possible to get, yet his face was a blank. Should
we laugh? moan? or what? That broke all the ice barrier of wondering
which had built up between the airmen.
HE STARTS
‘No clock was ever made to beat S. for awaking when he wanted, be
it any hour. How was it done? Sailors they say do manage it, but at
regular intervals. With S. any time was his time. _But_ always before
reveille. Baths are his god. He bribed the “civvie” stoker to attend
to the fires for his bathing “Saloon” before the others; and to see
him enjoy a real Turkish variety, gradually cooling to D. cold, was to
know when a man is happy. Duty compelled me to have a week of his
routine before 6 a.m. So this is authentic. _Bath_ is S.’s second name.
‘To show there is no ill feeling he starts one of the most appalling
records on the market and to hear the various good humoured grumblings
of the flight will send S. in fits of laughter. “Onward Christian
Soldiers” was his weak or _strong_ point. National Anthem he reserved
for medical inspection in the huts on Mondays. _Rude but true._ A
rather sleepy (at the night time) sailor, whom S. loved to tease was
presented by him, S., to a most glorious hand-knitted pair of pink
woollen bed socks. He had them specially made in our _Town_.
BROUGHS
‘S. had a Brough-Superior 1926 model. You might call that machine
his house. To see him ride was enough. To see that baby on a machine
like that at speed made the population gasp. Brough junior says that
he is the opposite number to his “bus”—“Two Superiors.” An insight
concerning both is in the following:
‘Out riding one summer evening, he came across a smash-up between a
car (driven by an oldish man) and a pedestrian. When the unconscious
pedestrian had been safely disposed of,—stowed in the back of the
car for carriage to hospital—S. was asked to swing the car for the
old boy. Nervousness and excitement caused the driver to leave the
ignition fully advanced and on S. swinging the starting handle flew
back and broke S.’s right arm. Without so much as a sign to show what
had taken place S. asked if he would mind retarding the offending
lever, and swung the car with his left hand. After the car was at a
safe distance S. got an A.A. Scout to “kick over” his Brough, and
with his right arm dangling and changing gear with his foot S. got
his bus home and parked without a word to a soul of the pain he was
suffering. Through some unknown reason the M.O. was away and it was
next morning before his arm could be “done.” That is a man—S., I mean.
‘S. had intended doing a “pull off” from an aeroplane with me and
descending by parachute. Unfortunately his arm spoiled it for the pair
of us. (Personally I was relying on his personality to get permission
for the “drop”), so you see how everyone “fell” for him through his
ways. Have served a little while in the R.A.F. but never before have I
seen a man refuse to go in Hospital with a broken arm. Yet S. did and
“got away with it.” Having after 10 days got into the style of writing
with his left hand, the good work went on. His skill and supervision
in his position astounded one and all. He will want to cancel this
but let me tell you as his friend that his broken arm was the 33rd
broken bone he has had at various times, including 11 ribs. This last
sentence must be known whether he approves or not. In his book _Seven
Pillars of Wisdom_ he mentions a fact about his capture by a Turkish
officer and his treatment under his captor’s hands. A bayonet had been
forced after two attempts between his ribs,—those scars are on his
body still and are very noticeable at once when he is stripped.
“OFFICE BOY”
‘As previously stated S. carried out every duty, job or any mortal
thing that came his way with amazing speed and accuracy that often we
wondered at his reserve power which pointed him out as differently as
though he was miles above our standard at anything we tackled.
His letters were the joke of the flight, because at every post
something or other turned up. Am convinced that had he been given more
spare time, the load of letters would not have been littered all over
the trays, tables and pigeon-holes—in fact they were everywhere. Mind
you his kit was kit, but correspondence he could not keep in check.
To see him sign a cheque on his book-account (_Seven Pillars_) for a
large amount, with his left hand after his accident made me wonder
what proof the bank held of the genuineness of the signature. They
used to get through without a line or word of doubt.
FIRES
‘S.’s job during cold weather would be to light the fires in the
offices. Coal was usually difficult to obtain, but nothing would
prevent the fires from being lighted. One day he pulled down a dead
tree actually in the Air Officer Commanding’s private plantation,
walking past flights and offices till he reached the “B” Flight,
perspiring like a bull and all smiles. Anyone would think he walked
about invisible. He invented a “Shaw mixture” of old oil from aero
engines, sawdust and coaldust and mixed it like mortar. So with his
trees and mixture fires were kept roaring all day long.
NIGHTS OUT
‘Asked his idea of a good night out, he told me that to take a man on
his Brough to a decent town and give him a good feed and general good
time was O.K. to a limit. That limit was that his companion on those
rides must be mildly a ruffian, for preference, and his pleasure was
derived in studying the man’s peculiarities unseen to the man
himself.[7] “There are too many honest men in this world and a few
more rogues would make the world a very interesting place.” Never sly,
he would weigh up a cute scoundrel and gently smile at the result of
his observation.
[7] Shaw has told me himself that he took out nearly all ‘B’ Flight
at one time or another: all very decent fellows, he said, whom he
admired very much.—Sergeant Pugh has made a joke read too seriously, I
think.—R. G.
PROMOTION
At the beginning of each quarter a return is to be submitted stating
the particulars of men recommended for promotion. Talking it over with
the Flight Commander, he asked for S. to see if he had any views on
the matter. S. emphatically refused to hear of any advance, a thing
which made the Flight Commander nearly curl up, laughing.
NIGHT RIDING
‘It sometimes took place that S. felt like a blind into the night,
summer or winter, and would cover as many miles as safety permitted,
arriving in camp dog-tired and dirty yet cheery and stroll to the
canteen for a couple of packets of “Smith’s Crisps”—chipped potatoes.
That would invariably mean his supper. Yet he would be loaded up with
good things for his room-mates. Fruit he loved, and would go a long
way for a good apple. Other fruits he liked, but the best was the
apple.
OFFER OF AIR OFFICER COMMANDING
‘The Air Commodore at Cranwell offered S. his house for the purpose
of spending Christmas, but no! He was an Aircraft hand and as
I’ve said before he kept his place as such, never allowing anything to
break him from his position in the R.A.F.
‘It seemed his sole purpose was to be an airman of the lowest grade
and rank and to be left alone with his Brough at “B” Flight, Cranwell.
He was hero-worshipped by all the flight for his never failing cheery
disposition, ability to get all he could for their benefit, never
complaining, and his generosity to all concerned till at times it
appeared that he was doing too much for everyone and all were out to
do their best for him. Quarrels ceased and the flight had to pull
together for the sheer joy of remaining in his company and being with
him for his companionship, help, habits, fun and teaching one and
all to play straight. He fathered us and left us a sorrowful crowd
awaiting letters or his return.
FLYING AND SCRUBBING
‘When opportunity permitted he made a point of flying with all the
officers in the flight so that each knew him well and in my opinion
were proud of the fact, the way they used to smile when he climbed
in with them. Flying is a very old hobby of his but although he has
crashed 7 times, still goes on. He even used to leave the office at
times, shove overalls on, and away out into the hangar, scrubbing and
washing machines down although there was never any need to do so. Just
to feel that he could do any job that came along. The number of times
he has corrected mistakes and styles of mine are innumerable but I’m
afraid I’ve slipped back during his absence. His languages got us
beat, although he would not shoot out anything out of place unless
asked, in that respect.
SCROUNGING
‘The hut table could be improved upon, so forthwith S. and a party
went away with it to exchange it for a lovely one in the mess-deck. He
made his only mistake by taking one that was marked by birds, and was
“rumbled,” but as usual got away with it. The Quartermaster was a good
sort. S. said so.
‘S. has been known to lift all manner of articles for our use,
sometimes going so far as to speak to the victim and walk away with
anything he fancied would be of use to us. Never for himself.
COAL
‘A good incident took place when the strike was on; all coal issues
were stopped and “B” Flight had only a lot of coal dust and slack.
‘S.’s sheer cheek got to work, and calmly filling a huge bucket with
dust he inquired the name of a Big officer who had stopped the issue.
Walking point blank to his office, he found that the officer had
not stopped his own coal ration, so he exchanged his load for some
wonderful pieces of coal as big as himself. No one has found out who
changed the dust yet. His comments were a broad grin and silence.
CIVIL POLICE
‘He was held up on three separate occasions by the same “copper” on
point duty in a traffic muddle in _Town_ (Sleaford) and reported the
matter to the Superintendent. He pointed out that police were the
servants of the public, paid by the public, and he did not think
that the “copper” on point duty knew his job, that he was decidedly
inefficient and a “_Swede_” (Airman’s term for villager). The
Super, and S. had a grand argument, but S.’s eloquence floored the
Super, and left him wondering what the R.A.F. had enlisted. That
“copper” is now permanently excused traffic-control.[8]
[8] The point of this story may be lost on most of my readers who
are unaware of the cavalier treatment that men in uniform usually
get at the hands of jacks-in-office. The Cranwell fellows were
astonished that Shaw was not arrested for making a protest against the
inefficiency of a police-constable.—R. G.
AIR DISPLAY
‘He took all the flight and wives to Hendon by charabanc although I
personally know that his ambition was to charter an Imperial Airways
machine and “do” it by air, but he was let down for a “Kite” at the
last minute.
‘Both going and coming he did not sit down for more than an hour,
continually watching traffic and direction, and never turned a hair
while the remainder slept or curled up, tired.
JOBS
‘On the summer holidays coming round he told us he had got the offer
of a job as a Steward aboard a liner going to U.S.A., but finally
turned it down owing to work on his book. (Wish this had come off.)
A VISIT
‘He used to Brough down to “Smoke” (London) most Saturdays to look
after his book being printed, sleeping at the Union Jack Club. One
night it was full, but they shoved him in somewhere. He came back and
gave us his views. He said what with sleeping in a dormitory with a
drunken sailor one side and a “blind” marine on the other there
was nothing to do but swear.’
Here ends Sergeant Pugh’s account.
* * * * *
So far as I know Lawrence has only once filled in a confession album;
for a comrade in the Royal Air Force. His statements are slight but
amusing, and may be taken entirely seriously:
Favourite colour: Scarlet.
„ dish: Bread and water.
„ musician: Mozart.
„ author: Wm. Morris
„ character in history: Nil.
„ place: London.
Greatest pleasure: Sleep.
„ pain: Noise.
„ fear: Animal spirits.
„ wish: To be forgotten of my friends.
His future plans are simply to stay out his full time in the Royal
Air Force, and afterwards to settle down quietly in some room in
London, ‘the only possible place to live in permanently,’ with a
country cottage somewhere for his occasional retreat, and a pair of
mechanically driven wheels to tie the two bedrooms together. But
whether he will succeed in settling down quietly is another question.
Mr. Winston Churchill’s short summary of Lawrence is a very penetrating
one: ‘A rare beast; will not breed in captivity.’ It has suggested the
text from the Vulgate, which I have made the motto to the book.
APPENDIX A
OPERATIONS BY BRITISH MOBILE COLUMN AGAINST HEJAZ RAILWAY
SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS
(1) Two companies, Imperial Camel Corps (Commander, Major R. V. Buxton;
strength 16 officers, 300 other ranks, 400 camels, with 6 Lewis guns)
have been placed temporarily at the disposal of Hejaz Operations, for
the purpose of carrying out the following operations on the Hejaz
Railway:
(_a_) To seize Mudawra,[9] with the primary object of destroying the
enemy’s valuable water supply at that place.
[9] The spelling of this report is not consistent with the spelling
I have used: but it does not matter. There is no accurate English
spelling of Arabic names.
(_b_) To destroy the main railway bridge and tunnel at Kissela, 5 miles
south of Amman,
or
should circumstances arise rendering (_b_) impracticable—
(_c_) The demolition of the railway bridge immediately north of Jurf Ed
Derwish, and the destruction of the enemy’s supply dumps and wells at
Jurf Station.
(2) The following instructions and attached march programme are based
on the assumption that objectives (_a_) and (_b_) will be carried out.
Should it prove necessary, as the second phase of the operations,
to substitute (_c_) for (_b_), which will be decided solely at the
discretion of the O.C., Imperial Camel Corps, these instructions will
be amended, and a revised plan prepared by the officer responsible for
its execution.
(3) MARCHES.
The column will march, subject to such modifications as may be imposed
by circumstances at present unforeseen, in accordance with the march
programme and time table attached marked ‘A.’
(4) OPERATIONS.
(_a_) The operations, both at Mudawra and at Kissela (or Jurf Ed
Derwish), will be carried out as night attacks, under cover of
darkness. In each case, the precise plan of attack will be decided,
after personal reconnaissance of the positions to be assaulted by the
O.C., I.C.C. In this connection, stress is laid upon the value to be
obtained by the element of surprise, the Turks in the Hejaz area being,
hitherto, unaccustomed to attack by night, and therefore, probably
ill-prepared to resist an operation of this nature.
(_b_) To provide artillery support during the operation against
Mudawra, the Hejaz ten-pounder section will be placed by the O.C.
Troops, Northern Hejaz, temporarily at the disposal of the O.C., I.C.C.
On the completion of this operation, the section will not proceed east
of the Railway, but will return independently to Guweira or elsewhere,
under the orders of the O.C. Troops, Northern Hejaz.
(_c_) For the operation against Kissela, the O.C. Troops, Northern
Hejaz, should arrange for the co-operation of a detachment of armoured
cars, to be held in readiness at a suitable point east of the Railway
to cover the retirement of the column to Bair in the event of pursuit
by hostile cavalry from Amman.
(5) SUPPLIES.
The column will march from Akaba, carrying three days’ supplies and
water for men, and forage for animals. In addition, each man will
carry one day’s emergency iron ration, to be consumed only by direct
order of the O.C. Column.
Dumps for the replenishment of supplies and forage will be established,
in advance, under arrangements to be made by the O.C. Troops, Northern
Hejaz, as under:
(_a_) At Rum, 5 days’ rations for men and forage for animals.
(_b_) At El Jefer, 4 days’ rations for men and forage for animals.
(_c_) At Bair, 14 days’ rations for men and forage for animals.
(6) WATER.
Plentiful drinking water for men and animals will be found in the
following localities:
Rum, Mudawra, El Jefer, Bair, Wadi Dakhl (vide attached march tables).
(7) MEDICAL.
A casualty hamla, with capacity for dealing with 24 cases (12 sitting
and 12 lying) will be organized at Akaba, to accompany the column, by
Major Marshall, M.C., R.A.M.C., under instructions to be issued by the
O.C. Troops, Northern Hejaz.
A general scheme for the evacuation of casualties during the operations
will be prepared by Major Marshall and forwarded through O.C. Troops,
Northern Hejaz, to this office for information as early as possible.
(8) AMMUNITION.
260 rounds S.A.A. per man, and 2,000 rounds per Lewis gun will be
carried.
(9) EXPLOSIVES.
(_a_) Under arrangements to be made by the O.C. Troops, Northern Hejaz,
an explosive hamla, carrying 2,500 lb. of gun-cotton, will accompany
the column from Akaba to Mudawra. Empty camels and drivers should
return from Mudawra to Akaba on the conclusion of that phase of the
operations.
(_b_) For the operation at Kissela, arrangements should be made for an
explosive hamla carrying 6,000 lb. of gun-cotton to meet the column on
the arrival of the latter at Bair, whence it will accompany the column
to Kissela.
(10) GUIDES.
(_a_) For the first phase of the operations (from Akaba to El Jefer,
inclusive), the following arrangements should be made by the O.C.
Troops, Northern Hejaz, through Sherif Feisal.
(_a_) Guides (Amran Howeitat) to meet the column at Akaba and to
conduct it thence to Rum.
(_b_) A suitable Sherif selected by Sherif Feisal, together with the
requisite party of guides (Abu Tayi), to join the column at Rum, and
to conduct it thence to Mudawra, and subsequently from Mudawra to
El Jefer.
Provision of food for Arab guides, and of forage for their camels,
whilst employed with the column, should be included in the
arrangements to be made in accordance with para. 5 above (Supplies).
(_b_) The provision of guides required for the march of the column
north from El Jefer to Kissela, will be arranged on his arrival, by
Lieut.-Col. Lawrence.
(11) COMMUNICATIONS.
The O.C. Troops, Northern Hejaz, should arrange for the closest
possible touch to be kept with the column whilst operating east of the
Railway, as far north as El Jefer (inclusive), by aeroplanes of the
Hejaz Flight.
If possible, similar arrangements will be made direct with G.H.Q.
for the maintenance of communication by aeroplane from the Palestine
Brigade during the second phase of the operations, north of Bair.
(12) ATTACHED OFFICERS.
The following officers should be detailed by the O.C. Troops, Northern
Hejaz, to accompany the column from Akaba:
Political Officer for Major Marshall, M.C., R.A.M.C.
liaison with Arabs: (In addition to duties as M.O.)
Demolition Officer: (_Either_) Capt. Scott-Higgins,
(_or_) Bimbashi Peake, E.A.
Staff Officer (for 1st Major Stirling, D.S.O., M.C.
phase of operations
as far as El Jefer only):
(13) The O.C. Troops, Northern Hejaz, should report by telegram to
this office on the completion of the arrangements for which he is
responsible, vide paras. 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12 above, confirming
in detail all measures taken by mail at first opportunity.
(14) Acknowledge by wire.
If available, it is suggested that the services of Sherif Hazaar, or
of Sherif Fahad, might be obtained.
(signed) A. C. DAWNAY.
CAIRO. Lt.-Col.,
SAVOY HOTEL, General Staff,
16_th July_, 1918. Hejaz Operations.
Copies: No. 1
No. 2 Hejaz Operations.
No. 3 O.C. Troops, Northern Hejaz.
No. 4 O.C. Imperial Camel Corps.
No. 5 General Headquarters.
‘A’
PROVISIONAL MARCH PROGRAMME AND TIME TABLE
_Zero day._ _Column marches from Akaba._
Z+1 Akaba—Rum (11 hours).
Z+2
Z+3 Rest day, Rum.
Z+4 Rum—position of readiness West of
Z+5 Mudawra (14 hours).
Night Z5/Z6. Attack on Mudawra.
Z+6
Z+7 Mudawra—El Jefer (20 hours).
Z+8
Z+9 Rest day, El Jefer.
Z+10 El Jefer-Bair (13 hours).
Z+11
Z+12 Rest day, Bair.
Z+13
Z+14 Bair—position of readiness East of Kissela
(30 hours).
Z+15
Night Z15/Z16 Attack on Kissela bridge and tunnel.
Z+16
Z+17 Kissela—Bair (30 hours).
Z+18
Z+19 Rest days, Bair.
Z+20
Z+21
Z+22 Bair—Wadi Dakhl (24 hours).
Z+23
Z+24 Wadi Dakhl—Bir es Aaba (20 hours).
Z+25
NOTE.—All marches are estimated at an average rate of 3 1⁄2 miles per
hour.
SECRET
G.S.31
MAJOR R. V. BUXTON,
I.C.C. Ismailia.
In amplification of the special instructions, G.S.31, handed to you
on the 16th inst., should unforeseen circumstances arise rendering
both (_b_) and (_c_) objectives impracticable within the limit of time
fixed for these operations, you are authorized, after the attainment
of your first objective, to adopt, in consultation with Lieut.-Colonel
Joyce and Lieut.-Colonel Lawrence, as an alternative, any modified plan
of offensive action against the Hejaz Railway, _North_ of Maan,
which, in your opinion, the situation justifies, and of which local
circumstances allow.
(Sgd.) A. C. DAWNAY.
CAIRO. Lieut.-Colonel,
22_nd July_, 1918. General Staff,
Hejaz Operations.
Copy to: O.C. Troops, Northern Hejaz. For information.
APPENDIX B
LAWRENCE’S LETTER TO THE LONDON _TIMES_:
_July 22nd_, 1920.
SIR,—
In this week’s debate in the Commons on the Middle East a veteran of
the House expressed surprise that the Arabs of Mesopotamia were in
arms against us despite our well-meant mandate. His surprise has been
echoed here and there in the Press, and it seems to me based on such a
misconception of the new Asia and the history of the last five years,
that I would like to trespass at length on your space and give my
interpretation of the situation.
The Arabs rebelled against the Turks during the war not because the
Turk Government was notably bad, but because they wanted independence.
They did not risk their lives in battle to change masters, to become
British subjects or French citizens, but to win a show of their own.
Whether they are fit for independence or not remains to be tried. Merit
is no qualification for freedom. Bulgars, Afghans, and Tahitans have
it. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent,
or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour’s
occupying you is greater than the profit. Feisal’s Government in Syria
has been completely independent for two years, and has maintained
public security and public services in its area.
Mesopotamia has had less opportunity to prove its armament. It
never fought the Turks, and only fought perfunctorily against us.
Accordingly, we had to set up a war-time administration there. We had
no choice; but that was two years ago, and we have not yet changed
to peace conditions. Indeed there are yet no signs of change. ‘Large
reinforcements, according to the official statement, are now being
sent there, and our garrison will run into six figures next month. The
expense curve will go up to 50 million pounds for this financial year,
and yet greater efforts will be called for from us as the Mesopotamian
desire for independence grows.
It is not astonishing that their patience has broken after two years.
The Government we have set up is English in fashion, and is conducted
in the English language. So it has 450 British executive officers
running it, and not a single responsible Mesopotamian. In Turkish days
70 per cent, of the executive civil service was local. Our 80,000
troops there are occupied in police duties, not in guarding the
frontiers. They are holding down the people. In Turkish days the two
army corps in Mesopotamia were 60 per cent. Arab in officers, 95 per
cent, in other ranks. This deprivation of the privilege of sharing the
defence and administration of their country is galling to the educated
Mesopotamians. It is true we have increased prosperity—but who cares
for that when liberty is in the other scale? They waited and welcomed
the news of our mandate, because they thought it meant Dominion
self-government for themselves. They are now losing hope in our good
intentions.
A remedy? I can see a cure only in immediate change of policy. The
whole logic of the present thing looks wrong. Why should Englishmen (or
Indians) have to be killed to make the Arab Government in Mesopotamia,
which is the considered intention of His Majesty’s Government? I agree
with the intention, but I would make the Arabs do the work. They can.
My little experience in helping to set up Feisal showed me that the art
of government wants more character than brains.
I would make Arabic the Government language. This would impose
a reduction of the British staff, and a return to employment of the
qualified Arabs. I would raise two divisions of local volunteer troops,
all Arabs, from the senior divisional general to the junior private.
(Trained officers and trained N.C.O.’s exist in thousands.) I would
entrust these new units with the maintenance of order, and I would
cause to leave the country every single British soldier, every single
Indian soldier. These changes would take 12 months and we should then
hold of Mesopotamia exactly as much (or as little) as we hold of South
Africa or Canada. I believe the Arabs in these conditions would be as
loyal as anyone in the Empire, and they would not cost us a cent.
I shall be told that the idea of brown Dominions in the British
Empire is grotesque. Yet the Montagu scheme and the Milner scheme are
approaches to it, and the only alternative seems to be conquest, which
the ordinary Englishman does not want, and cannot afford.
Of course, there is oil in Mesopotamia, but we are no nearer that while
the Middle East remains at war, and I think if it is so necessary for
us, it could be made the subject of a bargain. The Arabs seem willing
to shed their blood for freedom; how much more their oil!
T. E. LAWRENCE.
ALL SOULS COLLEGE,
_July_ 22.
INDEX
Aba el Lissan (place), 195, 202, 208, 227, 228, 290, 293, 321, 323,
324, 330, 347, 350, 358, 413
Abd el Aziz (Sheikh), 366
Abd el Kader (the Algerian), 260–74, 287, 363, 375, 377, 378, 382, 384
Abd el Kerim (of the Juheina), 117–18, 126–7, 142
Abdul Hamid (Sultan), 63–7, 88
Abdulla (Machine-gun officer), 302–3
Abdulla el Zaagi (Captain of body-guard), 297, 308, 335, 342, 357, 358,
366, 369
Abdulla, Emir, 66, 79, 91–3, 116, 131, 136, 149–55, 169, 173, 177, 261,
294, 324, 398, 399–402, 413
Abdulla the Robber, 295–7, 357, 358
Abu Sawana (place), 275, 276, 279, 280
Abu Tayi (Howeitat clan), 147, 320 (etc., _see_ Auda)
Aden (place), 60
Adhub (Sheikh), 270, 271, 277, 284
Afuleh (place), 356, 359
Ageyl (class of), 109, 121, 133, 134, 138, 141, 145, 150, 163, 167,
201, 202, 225, 226, 262, 295, 296, 297, 302, 303, 305, 335
Ahmed (servant), 31
Aintab (place), 18
Akaba (place), 39, 143, 161–222, 226–9, 234, 249, 255, 257, 261,
288–90, 293, 294, 309, 314, 325–7, 335, 344, 347, 399, 401, 413, 415,
418
Aleppo, 27, 34, 36, 99, 129, 139, 183, 196, 223, 234, 257, 314, 351
Alexandretta, 36, 60, 72, 73, 116
Alexandria, 64
Ali (Emir), 60, 74, 78, 79, 92–4, 130, 294, 324
Ali ibn el Hussein (Sherif), 76, 97, 112, 259–88, 295, 355
Ali Riza Pasha (Governor of Damascus), 188, 266, 378, 385, 386, 399
Allenby, Lady, 246
Allenby, Field-Marshal Viscount, 24, 216–19, 223, 249, 254, 256, 258,
281, 290, 293, 313, 314, 320–7, 346, 348, 350, 358, 359, 362, 370, 373,
374, 387, 383, 411
Amman (place), 196, 300, 314, 316, 317, 321, 323, 324, 328, 344, 347,
348, 350, 359, 361, 373, 401, 407
Ammari (place), 270
Anatolia, 64, 85
Annad (Auda’s son), 194, 300
Apuleius, Marcus, 332
Arab Bureau, The, 90, 115, 219, 313
Arab Freedom Societies, 36, 69–74, 86, 106, 289, 374
Arfaja (place), 172, 176
Aristophanes, 160, 295
Armenians, 68, 77, 306
Atara (place), 316
Ateiba (tribe), 97, 109, 133, 152, 296, 309, 310
Athens, 84
Auda abu Tayi (Sheikh), 12, 147, 156–213, 220–2, 231, 233, 263, 299,
300, 318, 323, 348, 363–7, 371–2, 376–8, 399, 415
Australians, The, 72, 317, 359, 374, 380, 382–5
Austrians with Turks, 245, 364, 367
Ayesha, the Lady, 246
Aziz el Masri, 110, 117
Azrak (place), 190, 196–8, 224, 258, 259, 264, 273–80, 285–9, 341, 344,
347, 348, 358, 359, 371
Baalbek (place), 188, 189
Bagdad, 28, 36, 37, 108, 391, 393, 394, 396, 399
Baha (camel), 368, 369
Bair (place), 193, 194, 195, 201, 264, 265, 268, 288, 289, 290, 316,
335, 341, 347, 438–44
Baisan (place), 359
Baker, Sir Herbert, 420
Barrow, General, 369–74, 376
Basra, 187, 404
Batra (place), 250
Beersheba, 162, 256, 237, 264, 313, 335, 413
Bell, Miss Gertrude, 35, 171, 272
Bender (Emir Nuri’s nephew), 340
Beni Atiyeh (tribe), 146, 253, 265, 336
Beni Sakhr (tribe), 83, 190, 259, 265–85, 298, 320, 321, 341, 347, 373
Beyrout, 36, 183, 223, 385, 390, 391
Biasha (peasants), 261
Billi, The (tribe), 108, 117, 133, 135, 139, 142, 146, 147
Birejik (place), 19
Blenheim Palace, 53
Blunden, Edmund, 417
Blunts, The, 35, 171
Boanerges, _see_ Brough Superior
Bolsheviki, 186
Borneo, 20
Boyle, Admiral, 113, 125, 128, 135, 136
Brough Superior (motor-bicycle), 14, 424, 430
Buchan, Colonel J., 85
Bulgaria, 73, 314, 364
Burckhardt (traveller), 35
Buxton, Colonel, 317, 324, 325, 335–44, 438–445
Cairo, 36, 82–90, 95, 112, 113, 143, 144, 215, 329, 332, 393, 406
Carchemish, 20–38, 81, 165, 250
Carson, Lord, 315
Cecil, Lord Robert, 403
Chauvel, General, 371–7, 380, 383–7
Churchill, Right Hon. Winston, 51, 54, 394–8, 409, 437
Clausewitz, 151
Clemenceau, 389, 391, 393
Coleridge, S. T., 332
Constantinople, 36, 37, 72, 351
Contzen, Herr, 29–32
Cranwell, 407, 408, 426–37
Crusaders, The, 17, 18, 20, 21, 161, 311, 391
Cox, Sir Percy, 394
Curzon, Viscount, 394, 401, 402, 403
Dahoum (photographer at Carchemish), 34
Damascus, 36, 73, 76, 102, 129, 136, 137, 144, 178, 183, 184, 187–9,
196, 223, 224, 257–9, 298, 314, 326, 340, 345, 359, 362, 371–87,
390–9, 411
Dardanelles, The, 72, 227, 258, 356
Davenport, Colonel, 113, 245, 259
Dawnay, Colonel Alan, 315, 318, 319, 324, 325, 345, 406, 443–5
Dead Sea, The, 288, 293, 298, 312, 314
Deraa (place), 196, 201, 257, 286, 308, 322, 323–5, 344–73, 348,
350–73, 386, 411, 431
Desolate, The (desert), 170
Dinamit (Emir), 12
Distinguished Flying Cross, 328
Distinguished Service Order, 291, 307
Dizad (place), 169
Dorchester, 407, 421
Druse (Mountains and inhabitants), 183, 184, 188, 196, 273, 360, 362,
376, 382, 398
Doughty, C. M., 35, 295
Egyptian gunners, 79, 104, 120, 132
El Arish (place), 227
El Jedha (camel), 236
Enver Pasha, 68, 75, 85, 149, 356
Erzeroum (place); 85
Euphrates, River, 18, 27, 28, 38, 60, 86
Ezraa (place), 363
Fahad (Sheikh), 270, 271, 276–79, 284, 320, 355
Faiz, The (clan), 288, 289, 401
Fakhri, Pasha, 77, 154
Falkenhayn, General, 227
Faroun (island), 39
Farraj and Daud, 167, 169, 180–2, 212, 253, 261, 262, 270, 280, 295,
317, 329
Feisal, Emir, 59, 66, 71–80, etc., to 404
Foch, Marshal, 151, 305, 404
Fontana, Mrs., 27
Fowle, Mr., 26, 28
French Colonel, The, 88, 114, 128, 143, 144, 251
Gadara (place), 235, 259, 271, 274
Galilee, 235, 278, 364, 374
Garland, Major, 116, 117, 128, 154
Gasim, of Maan, 173–5
Gasim abu Dumeik, 233–4, 250, 253
Gaza, 162, 183, 216, 256, 257, 264, 268, 412
Geneva Convention, The, 404
George V., H.M. King, 93, 392, 393
German Detachments, 354, 356, 364, 367, 368, 374, 379, 412
Ghazala (camel), 221, 225, 236, 246, 338
Ghazale (place), 363
Goslett, Captain R., 327
Grey, Sir Edward, 37
Gurkhas, 348, 358
Guweira (place), 195, 209, 213, 220–2, 227, 231, 293, 294, 335, 341, 347
Haifa (town), 18, 359
Hama (town), 188, 223
Hamoudi (headman), 33–5
Hamra (place), 112
Handley-Page (aeroplane), 359–60, 393
Harb, The (tribe), 92, 94–6, 116, 119, 121, 130–3
_Hardinge_, H.M.S., 135–40
Hardy, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, 421, 423
Harith (clan), 97, 122, 232, 239
Hassan Shah, Jemadar, 260, 276
Hauran, The (district), 224, 237, 257, 286, 354, 359, 360, 364
Hedley, Colonel, 81
Herbert, Aubrey, Colonel, 87
Hermon, Mount, 277
Hesa (place), 323, 347
Hoffmann, Herr, 32–3
Hogarth, Dr. D. G., 18, 22, 23, 26, 28, 38, 81, 90, 313
Homs (town), 223
Hornby, Captain, 154, 168, 169, 320, 323, 348, 350
Howeimil (Sheikh), 240, 246, 247
Howeitat (tribe), _see also_ ‘Abu Tayi’ and ‘Jazi,’ 146, 161, 224, 310,
341, 342, 364
Huber (traveller), 94
Hussein (Sherif), 66, 70–80, 91–3, 107, 129, 185, 220, 221, 344–7, 375,
388–401
Ibn Saud, Emir of Nejd, 71, 146, 172, 296, 397, 400
Indians, Barrow’s, 359, 370, 374
Irak, _see_ Mesopotamia
Ismailia (place), 89, 216
Jaafar, Pasha, 145, 220, 226, 227, 298, 315, 318, 327, 328, 345, 350
Jaffa (port), 290, 321
Jane, Mr. Cecil, 16
Janissaries, The, 83
James, St., 235
Jauf (place), 176, 400
Jazi (clan), 194–95, 288
Jebel Rudhwa (mountain), 112
Jefer (place), 193, 201–3, 263, 289, 290, 299, 335, 338, 341, 440
Jemal, Pasha, 73–6, 158, 259, 287, 365, 375
Jerablus (place), 28
Jericho, 293, 312, 314, 324, 348
Jerusalem, 223, 290, 321, 351, 383, 403
Jiddah, 78, 88, 91–3, 102, 113, 125, 130, 220, 261, 324, 401
Jordan, The, 300, 351
Joyce, Colonel, 113, 291, 326, 327, 345–54, 361, 444
Juheina (tribe), 109, 112, 117, 118, 125–31, 133, 135, 138, 142, 153
Junor, Lieut., 352, 353, 358, 359
Jurf (place), 298, 329, 438, 439
Kaaba, The, 78
Kadesh Barnea, 39
Kemal, Pasha, 340
Kennington, Eric, 308, 408
Kerak (place), 293, 300, 306, 312, 328
Kethera (place), 209
Khartoum, 113
Kirkbride, Lieut., 384, 385
Kissir or Kissela (place), 335, 343, 438–9
Kiswe (place), 374
Kitchener, Earl, 36, 40, 81, 86
Kuneitra (place), 359
Kut, 73, 85–8
Kuweit, 60
Lawrence, Mr. (father), 12, 17
Lawrence, Mrs. (mother), 12, 16, 265, 331
Lebanon, 29, 188, 385, 390
Lenin, N., 52
‘Lewis’ Sergeant, 229–49
Lloyd George, Right Hon. D., 389, 390, 391, 396
Lloyd, Lord, 90, 262, 263
Lucian, 25
Maan (place), 39, 143, 147, 149, 152, 157, 177, 195, 201, 203, 204,
208, 210, 220, 221, 227, 231, 252, 254, 255, 293, 294, 310, 314–18,
320, 323, 344, 347, 401, 445
Mahmas (camel-boy), 308
Malory, Sir Thomas, 159, 160, 295
Marshall, Major, 442
Masturah (place), 95
Maulud, Pasha, 104, 119, 132, 136, 137, 164, 165, 255, 309, 310, 315,
318
Maxwell, General, 82
McMahon, Sir A. H. (High Commissioner of Egypt), 79, 87, 88, 185, 186,
389
Mecca, 61–80, 91–131, 151, 219, 220, 296, 324, 345, 346, 388, 394
Medina, 36, 61–80, 91–4, 105, 149–54, 162–3, 219, 254, 294, 296, 298,
299, 320, 324, 350
Mesopotamia, 60, 62, 69, 85–8, 97, 388–400, Appendix B
Mezerib (place), 352–4, 356, 365, 369, 370
Minifer (place), 197, 199, 281, 415, 419
Moahib (tribe), 146
Mohammed (peasant), 173
Mohammed el Dheilan (Sheikh), 165, 177, 191–3, 208, 220, 222, 263, 320,
348, 376
Mohammed Said (Algerian), 266, 375, 378
Moor, A, 150
Morris, W., 159, 437
Motalga (clan), 194, 300–04
Mozart, 437
Mudowwara (place), 228, 233, 237, 238, 240, 241, 243, 249, 263, 293,
294, 315, 318, 320, 324, 335, 341, 438–45
Nablus (place), 351, 359
Nakhl Nubarak (place), 118, 130, 304
Napoleon, 50
Nasir (Sherif), 139, 163–84, 188–213, 219–21, 259, 298, 299, 323, 337,
355, 356, 363, 364, 368–79, 415
Nazareth, 351, 354
Nebk (place), 182, 185, 190, 191, 201
Nefudh (district), 171
Nejd (province), 146, 397
Nesib (the Syrian), 163–87, 196, 362
Newcombe, Colonel, 39, 139, 144, 154, 168, 169, 196
New Zealanders, 359, 361
Niebuhr (traveller), 35
Nisib (place), 356, 358
Nuri Said (Arab regular officer), 298, 299, 318, 351, 352, 354, 356,
357, 362, 364, 365, 368, 369, 377–9
Nuri (the Emir of the Ruwalla), 146, 175–86, 195, 201, 338–41, 348,
360–4, 371, 372, 375, 377–9, 382
Oxford, 11–20, 44, 49, 81, 114, 137, 165, 319, 334, 393, 399
_Oxford Book of English Verse_, 160, 161, 295
Oxford Street, London, 292
Owen, Wilfred, 417
Palgrave, William Gifford, 35
Palmer, Pte., 423, 424
Peace Conference, The, 187, 388–94, 397, 404
Peake, Captain, 442
Petra (place), 39
Petrie, Sir Flinders, 23
Pichon, M„ 391
Pisani, Capitame, 250–3, 348, 350, 351, 353, 356, 362, 365
Poole, R. L., 16, 20
_Proverbs, Book of_, 409
Pugh, Sergeant, 426
Quarter-Master General, 322
Rabegh (port), 78, 91–116, 120, 129–31, 154, 224, 415
Rahail (of the bodyguard), 285, 288–90, 340
Rasim Bey (Gunner officer), 126, 132, 164, 304, 347
Rayak (place), 190
Read, Mr. Herbert, 226
Reading, 406
Remthe (place), 279, 368, 369
_Revolt in the Desert_, 153, 381, 408, 410, 413, 415
Rheims, 45
Richards, Mr. V. W., 15, 329
Riddell, Lord, 391
Rolls, Pte., 349
Ross, Major, 155
Royal Air Force (Lawrence’s service in), 25, 294, Chapters 2 and 31
Royal Tank Corps (Lawrence’s service in), 25, 294, Chapters 2 and 31
Rumm (place), 232–7, 249, 250, 262, 290, 335–7, 440, 443
Ruwalla (tribe), 86, 146, 182, 188, 350, 359, 364, 365, 368, 371, 374.
_See also_ Nuri, Emir
Saladin, 391
Salem (negro), 240, 242, 248, 249
Salem (Sheikh), 253
Salmond, Air-Marshal Sir G., 51, 328
Salonica, 73
Salt (place), 325
Samuel, Sir H., 157, 158
Sassoon, Siegfried, 417
Scott-Higgins, Captain, 442
Semites, The, 60
Semna (hill), 318
Senussi, The, 84, 146, 328
Serahin (tribe), 259, 271–83
_Seven Pillars of Wisdom_, 36, 160, 185, 189, 219, 226, 381, 393,
406–15, 423
Shaalan (tribe), 183
Shakir (Sherif), 152
Shammar (tribe), 146, 169, 176, 342
Sharraf (Sherif), 119, 164, 167, 169, 296
Shaw, G. B., 53
Shedia (place), 262
Sheikh Saad (place), 362, 363, 365
Shelley, 44
Sherarat (tribe), 147, 199, 200, 243, 265, 269
Shobek (place), 350
Shukri Pasha, 374–9
Sinai, 38, 81, 95, 213, 321
Sirhan, 147, 175–83, 196, 201, 270
Sleaford, 435
Smith’s Crisps, 433
Smyrna, 36
Somali camels, 342
Stamfordham, Lord, 392
Stirling, Colonel, 442
Stokes (Sergeant), 229–49
Storrs, Sir R., 90, 91
Sudan, 107, 113
Suez (town and canal), 59, 63, 83, 84, 114, 143–5, 162, 214, 215, 219,
325
Swift, Jonathan, 47
_Sykes-Picot Treaty_, 129, 185, 339, 390
Tafas (place), 286, 365–8, 371, 412
Tafileh (group of villages), 298–308, 311–14, 335, 347, 348, 350,
384, 416, 417
Taif (place), 91, 93, 116
Tallal (Sheikh), 257, 286–7, 353, 354, 356, 359, 361, 363, 364, 366, 367
Taranto (place), 291
Taurus Mountains, 18
Tebuk (place), 149
Tell Arar (place), 350, 352
Tell el Shehab (place), 271, 274–9, 355, 356
Themed (place), 213, 328
Thomas, Mr. Lowell, 11, 21, 65, 102, 188, 189, 326, 403
Thompson, Mr. Campbell, 22, 35
Tigris (river), 60, 85–8
Tremadoc (place), 12
Trenchard, Sir Hugh, 395
Tripoli (port), 385
Trotsky, 52
Turki (boy), 268, 270, 283, 284
Umtaiye (place), 348, 349, 350, 356, 357, 358, 359
Urfa (place), 18
Uxbridge, 26, 419, 420
Vickery, Major, 136–7, 141
Victoria Cross, The, 291
Von Moltke, 151
Wadi Safra, 102
Wahabi, The (sect), 400, 401
Wahid (of Carchemish), 29–31
War Correspondents, 383
Wejh (port), 117, 129–50, 154, 156, 162, 183, 188, 191, 208, 211, 215,
253, 260, 296, 385
Wemyss, Admiral Sir Rosslyn, 113, 216
Wilde, Jimmy, 81
Wilson, Colonel C. E., 130, 220, 224
Wilson, Sir Henry, 395
Wilson, Woodrow, 389
Wodheiha (camel), 311, 312
Wood, Captain, 260, 276–80
Woolley, Mr. C. Leonard, 26, 27, 38–40
World’s End, The, 194, 331
Yarmuk (river), 190, 258, 259, 263, 277, 290, 343, 351, 352, 375
Yasin (patriot), 189
Yemen, 61, 62, 136
Yenbo (port), 79, 112, 116, 117, 120, 125–35, 138, 154, 155, 215, 224,
294
Young, Major, 325, 328, 352, 354, 355
Ypres, 416
Yusuf (Sheikh), 261–2
Zaal (Sheikh), 171, 191–205, 220, 233–48, 260, 263, 268, 323, 364, 376,
415
Zeid, Emir, 66, 78, 79, 94, 116, 119, 121, 122, 125, 130, 133, 300–5,
309–13, 345–50, 358, 399
Zeki (the Syrian), 163–87
Zerakiye (place), 373
Ziza (place), 190
Transcriber’s Notes
1. Misspelled words have been corrected. Obsolete and alternative
spellings have been left unchanged. Spelling and hyphenation have
otherwise not been standardised. Grammar has not been altered.
2. Punctuation has been silently corrected.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. “* * * * *” indicates a larger gap between paragraphs at that point.
5. Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to after the paragraph.
6. Illustrations are indicated by: [Illustration: caption and/or
descriptive text]. They have been moved to be outside of text
paragraphs.
7. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
8. “Edit Distance” in Corrections table below refers to the
Levenshtein Distance.
9. “Lawrence and the Arabs” was released in the United States under
the title “Lawrence and the Arabian Adventure” in 1928. The
book incorporated the corrections listed below. The maps were not
included and some of the illustrations were different.
Corrections:
pg(s) Source Correction Edit
Distance
90 departmen department 1
97 shurbs shrubs 2
128 stand sand 1
141 comany company 1
376 pospone postpone 1
427 Sermous Sermons 1
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