Golden Warrior, The

by Lawrence, James

  Gorringe’s admission of defeat was followed four hours later by a message from Townshend.26 In essence it repeated one sent on 13 March in which he outlined the terms he believed he could secure from Khalil, whom he ‘was delighted to find ... was a soldier and a gentleman’. Such a good fellow, Townshend thought, would accept the surrender of the town and all his artillery pieces, but would allow the garrison to withdraw to British lines. If, however, his 10,000 men became POWs, then a payment would have to be made.

  It will cost some money. I expect to get Khalil to agree, but it is well worth it, besides the Turks have no money to pay my force in captivity and cannot feed them. The force would all perish from weakness and be shot by the Arabs if they had to march to Baghdad and the Turks have not enough ships to take us there.

  He added that the fall of Kut would be a disaster, equal to that of Yorktown, and might bring down the government. It was regrettable that ‘No message has come from King and country’ in expression of sympathy for his army’s plight. He concluded that ‘money might easily settle the question’.

  Lake procrastinated. The débâcle could no longer be staved off; British prestige would be damaged and there would be scandal and sackings, including his own. ‘The interest of Empire ... demands another attempt at all costs,’ Lake trumpeted, and then proposed playing his ‘last card’, a dash upriver by the steamer Julnar crammed with a month’s provisions.27 Lake’s rhetoric was empty and the gesture futile. On 24 April, while brave men were volunteering to crew the Julnar, Lake wired Kitchener for permission to open talks with Khalil along the lines set out by Townshend.28

  Kitchener and Robertson had rejected Lake’s initial proposition in March, although it may have opened Robertson’s mind to the possibility that a Turkish general could be bribed. Kitchener was adamant and on 26 March warned Lake that Kut’s surrender ‘would be for ever a disgrace to our country’ and ‘our prestige in the East would undoubtedly be gravely prejudiced by such a disaster’.29 Faced with Lake’s telegram, both he and Robertson relented. In his version of the affair, Robertson said that after consultations with Kitchener and fearful that the garrison would starve, he wired Lake with permission to negotiate, all military alternatives being exhausted. Kitchener’s sanction reached Lake on the morning of 26 April with a reminder that ‘ample funds [are] at your disposal’. Robertson’s concurrence followed soon after.30 Both were uneasy and when they announced the decision to the Cabinet on the 28th, they distanced themselves from it. The ministers heard that Townshend was already in contact with Khalil ‘and the use of money in conducting these negotiations was quite possible, and the money was there’.31 There had been no time to call a special session of the Cabinet and the responsibility to negotiate rested ultimately with the men on the spot, who knew just what the military situation was. Although Robertson claimed to have secured Asquith’s approval beforehand, the Prime Minister expressed his disagreement with the proceedings. Not that this mattered now, for it was too late to stop them.32

  During the night of 24/25 April, the Julnar was intercepted and forced aground by Turkish shellfire after a gallant sally. Lake, certain of War Office approval for talks, sent Beach to Herbert in the morning with orders that he and Lawrence were to stand by in case they were needed as emissaries to Khalil.

  Talks began on the morning of the 27th, when Townshend offered Khalil all his artillery and £1 million in return for his men being allowed to leave Kut on parole. Khalil immediately referred the terms to his uncle, Enver Pasha. ‘Money is not wanted by us’ was the reply. Townshend then sought and got Lake’s permission to double the sum to £2 million on the ground that ‘The nation has certainly saved that amount by our defence of Kut.’ All along, Townshend had regarded the money as a payment to cover the costs of his men in captivity, but Enver and Khalil interpreted it as either a bribe or a gesture of contempt. For a moment Townshend contemplated letting Herbert, Beach and Lawrence take over the negotiations, but Lake thought that they would have had no more success. The Turks were resolved on unconditional surrender and on the evening of the 28th Townshend gave way and began destroying his guns.33

  The next morning, Herbert, Beach and Lawrence were ordered by Lake to go to Khalil’s HQ and ask his permission for the evacuation of over 3,000 sick and wounded men.34 They were empowered to offer Arab POWs in exchange, but only as a last resort since Robertson feared that the released men would be exploited later by Turco-German propagandists.35

  Lawrence had hitherto been a spectator during these events. He had travelled independently of Beach and Herbert, whom he met at the HQ of Lieutenant-General Younghusband’s 7th Division near Sanniyat just before they set off to the front-line trenches. What followed was set down by Lawrence in a letter to his parents and a report to the Arab Bureau. In this he reported what he had heard about Arab morale in the Turkish army during negotiations with Khalil. This was a breach of military etiquette, so he ended his report with a statement that its details had been obtained ‘under privilege from the Turks’ and could not be disclosed.

  A white flag was raised over the trench parapet and the three stepped into no-man’s land, where they were met by Turkish officers who agreed a local truce. Early in the afternoon, they were taken, blindfolded, to Khalil’s HQ, a journey of ten miles. Khalil was, Lawrence surmised, in his early thirties, ‘very keen and energetic but not clever or intelligent’. Herbert later told Wemyss that Khalil had a mouth ‘like a steel trap’. It was Herbert who began the talks since he had met Khalil before the war at an Embassy ball in Constantinople. As Lawrence realised, ‘the cards were all in his hands’ and it was, he regretted afterwards, impossible to save all the wounded and sick men in Kut. As it was, 1,000 Indian invalids were exchanged for Turkish POWs.

  Lawrence probed circumspectly for gossip about the morale of Arab soldiers. His cue came when discussions turned on the exchange of Indian wounded for Arab POWs, of whom there were over 3,000 in Indian camps, already segregated in case a deal was made.36 Khalil seemed interested at first, but then changed his mind. Nine out of ten Arab soldiers were worthless since ‘their desire was only to get taken prisoner, and ... the whole lot of them were unreliable’. Lawrence fenced delicately by pointing out that in campaigns against the Russians in the last century the Arabs had proved their fighting qualities. Khalil reconsidered his judgement and admitted that the ‘Turkised’ Arabs from Mosul and Syria were better material. Lawrence found that Khalil’s views were shared by his Chief of Staff and several junior officers present, one of whom branded the Kurds lack-lustre fighters. It was a neat exercise in discreet but effective intelligence-gathering and striking proof that Lawrence knew his job.

  Before dinner, the three British officers withdrew to the tents which Khalil had put at their disposal, wrote their reports and ‘sat and smoked’–even Lawrence, it appears. Then they were entertained by Khalil and his staff, who had laid on ‘a most excellent dinner in Turkish style’ which Herbert and Lawrence relished. Beach was less happy with the unfamiliar cuisine. For all Khalil’s courtesy there was an acerbic moment which Lawrence described to Robert Graves. Khalil remarked with great percipience that Britain and Turkey ought not to be enemies, ‘after all, gentlemen, our interests as Empire builders are much the same as yours. There is nothing that need stand between us.’ ‘Only a million dead Armenians,’ Herbert riposted. Graves suspected with good reason that the answer had been Lawrence’s.37

  On the morning of 30 April, Lawrence and Beach returned to their lines, leaving Herbert behind to clear up outstanding details. Kut was already in Turkish hands and Lawrence heard that in spite of his pleas Arabs were being hanged by the Turks as collaborators. Lawrence was told how one condemned man had thrown his musbah (Muslim rosary) to a nearby British medical officer. The gesture seemed full of political and religious significance for Lawrence, who thought it might be exploited as propaganda.

  Lawrence left Wadi for Basra, where he had further discussions with Cox and his staff. The sombre
events he had just lived through made him prickly and he spoke frankly in the political officers’ mess. Hubert Young, once a visitor to Karkamis and now serving with a Mahratta regiment, met him there and recalled that ‘Lawrence was already suffering from that passion of contempt for the regular army which was to attract certain politicians in later years ... but the time for its sublimation into glorious irregularity had yet to come.’ It was a strange observation, since Young was equally biting in his censure of the staff in Iraq and their utter ignorance of local conditions. Herbert, who followed Lawrence to Basra, was burning with rage. He spoke in the Commons debate on the catastrophe at Kut on 26 July, drawing on what he had seen for himself of the haphazard commissariat and slack staff work. ‘This expedition has been starved,’ he claimed, and called for the ‘judgement of Byng’ (court martial and execution) to be delivered on those Indian government officials responsible. In the same vein, Kipling wrote:

  They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,

  The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:

  But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,

  Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

  Of course they did, and with their pensions too.

  It was left to Lawrence to spend his last days in Iraq explaining to Cox and his political staff the responsibilities of the Arab Bureau and what was expected from the forthcoming revolt of Hussain. On a personal level, Lawrence soon got to like Cox, whom he found ‘delightful to work with’, and Cox was impressed by Lawrence’s talents as an intelligence officer and hoped he would stay. Lawrence found that Cox was well served by a staff of experts who were doing ‘magnificent work’ winning respect for the new administration and keeping in touch with local Arab opinion.38

  The sticky business was convincing officials who were laying the grounds for an Indian administration in Iraq that there was no conflict between their interests and British support for Arab nationalism. Cox was hostile to the Arab Bureau and was unwilling to accept one of its officials on his permanent staff. He feared that the Bureau wanted unfettered control over every aspect of British policy in the Middle East. Lawrence eased his mind somewhat by emphasising that the Bureau was the creature of the Director of Military Intelligence. Cox then assumed that it was purely a wartime measure and would have no say in the management of post-war affairs in the Middle East, and he was persuaded by Lawrence to take Gertrude Bell on to his staff as the Bureau’s corresponding officer.39

  Lawrence was faced with the task of reconciling Cairo’s alliance with Arab nationalism to the Indian government’s plans for the colonisation of Iraq. Cox was deeply suspicious both of the Arab Bureau, which he feared was an anti-Indian clique dominated by Sykes, and of its plans to foster Arab national feeling. Mandarin politeness and natural reserve prevented him from revealing his apprehension to Lawrence. As a consequence of this and perhaps because Lawrence paid attention only to what he wanted to hear, Lawrence misunderstood the attitudes of Cox and his staff. He left confident that they were almost in step with Cairo. Cox ‘does not know how Cairene he is’, he concluded, in the belief that the pro-consul would co-operate with attempts to convince Iraq’s Arabs that Britain was their ally. Lawrence imagined him willing to allow British and Arab flags to fly side by side over Baghdad when it was occupied and a joint Anglo-Arab city government afterwards. Moreover, Lawrence told Clayton, Cox welcomed Cairo’s programme for the creation of a ‘united Arabia’, presumably the cluster of petty states which Lawrence had described in his memorandum on Hussain.40

  It was all wishful thinking on Lawrence’s part; fundamental differences of approach and policy remained. Nevertheless he had achieved something, even if it was not the harmony he imagined. George Lloyd, who arrived in Basra soon after Lawrence’s departure, had known Cox for some years and was able to uncover his actual feelings. Distrust of the Arab Bureau lingered, but Lloyd wrote, ‘Lawrence’s visit did something to allay it.’ Good reports of his activities reached Clayton, who told Wingate, ‘Lawrence was evidently of the greatest assistance and I have had great appreciations of his services.’ 41 Not from General Lake though, who wrote in June in condemnation of ‘the experiment made in attempting to handle [the] affairs of Iraq through Cairo without previously consulting us’.42 This referred to Lawrence’s mission to foment Arab mutinies and uprisings. Still, Lake hoped he had learned something in Iraq, which he had–how not to run a war.

  Lawrence was a collector of information and he drew on local officials and files for details of Iraq’s Arabs which were delivered to Clayton. It was largely routine stuff but racily written with occasional private asides. The Marsh Arabs of the Lower Tigris ‘are impure savages, without any code of manners or morals to restrain them’, which no doubt reflected local hostility to tribes of marauders and murderers.43 The Arabs of the Shatt al Hai were natural anarchists who loathed all forms of government. They were Lawrence’s kindred spirits–‘only conquest they are afraid of. I rather sympathize with them.’ Still, the local British authorities were just in their dealings with these people and Lawrence heard no serious complaints about the administration. It would be well, he thought, if the British explained that they were not invaders.

  Lawrence produced a further report on D Force’s intelligence services which was for Clayton alone.44 Beach and his staff were all ‘good men’ although, not unlike Cairo in the early days, they were ‘all beginners or amateurs at intelligence work’. They suffered from a lack of linguists and their local topographical knowledge was thin. The Indian government cartographers were good and flattered Lawrence by seeking his advice on lithography, but their technical services were poor and they had not begun aerial surveys. There was a shortage of aircraft in Iraq; at Wadi the Germans and Turks had air supremacy and, as Lawrence saw, there were too few machines to supply the garrison at Kut. In all, he concluded, Iraqi field intelligence was manned by ‘very excellent’ officers struggling under intolerable conditions which were the fault of their superiors. Clayton found that Lawrence wrote ‘very good and interesting’ and forwarded a copy to Wingate.

  When Lawrence got back to Cairo a story went the rounds that this very fair, professional and diligent report was an excoriating indictment of the Anglo-Indian army in Iraq and its management of the campaign; it was so savage that staff officers had to censor it before it was passed to Murray. The tale was circulated by another staff officer, Captain Walter Stirling, and was repeated by Liddell Hart, who used it to embellish his picture of Lawrence as an unorthodox soldier at loggerheads with the establishment.

  The explanation for this canard is probably Lawrence’s shipboard meeting with Lieutenant General Sir Webb Gilmann, whose congenial company he enjoyed on the steamer between Basra and Port Said. Gilman had been sent out to Iraq by Robertson in March to discover the extent of local incompetence and draw up a report for the War Office. Like Lawrence, he had been coolly received at Wadi and may have drawn on his companion’s experiences for his report. Back in Cairo, Lawrence told Clayton what he had seen in Iraq. Clayton wrote to Wingate that Lawrence’s saga of ‘mismanagement on all sides and muddle of the worst’ was ‘sad hearing’.45

  In retrospect, Lawrence felt bitter about his experiences in Iraq. His mission to foster Arab national feeling there had failed. Cox had bluntly told him that the plan to employ al Mizri and al Faruqi was no more than a device to get a couple of ‘gas bags’ out of Cairo.46 He and the generals at Wadi were wrong and their obstinate refusal to listen to Lawrence and act on his advice lost Kut. Or so he argued in the Seven Pillars:

  The conditions were ideal for an Arab movement. The people of Nejef and Kerbela, far in the rear of Halil Pasha’s army, were in revolt against him. The surviving Arabs in Halil’s army were, on his own confession, openly disloyal to Turkey. The tribes of the Hai [the anarchists of Lawrence’s report to Clayton] and Euphrates would have turned our way had they seen signs of grace in the British. Had we published the promises made to
the Sharif, or even the proclamation afterwards posted in captured Baghdad, and followed it up, enough local fighting men would have joined us to harry the Turkish line of communication between Baghdad and Kut. A week of that, and the enemy would either have been forced to raise the siege and retire, or have themselves suffered investment outside Kut.

  Such a prediction would have stunned officials in Basra and staff officers in Wadi. They had discovered no evidence that the Iraqi tribes were prepared to throw in their lot with the British, rather the contrary. Up to 5,000 Muntafiqs joined Turkish forces blocking the advance towards Hayy in January 1916. They continued, with other tribes, to hamper British operations until February 1917, when the scale of British successes made their sheiks switch sides. Until then, Sheik Ajaimi of the Muntafiq had been taking German money. Like his countrymen elsewhere in Iraq, he saw the war as an opportunity for his people to prosper either from the combatants’ subsidies or by looting. It was an attitude which Lawrence would soon discover, but never reveal, among the Arabs of the Hejaz and Syria. A reconnaissance and intelligence unit was created, manned by Arabs from the Nasiriya district, and some irregular tribal units sold their services, but their combat value was negligible.47