Golden Warrior, The

by Lawrence, James

  During his few days in Faisal’s camp, Lawrence became completely immersed in the convoluted tribal politics of Arabia and Syria. He quickly recognised one essential truth: Arab success alone would generate support. Tribes now wobbling would be coaxed to throw in their lot with the insurgents only when they saw that the rebels were winning. The point was made plainly to Lawrence by an agent sent to Faisal by the Syrian sheik, Nuri Shalaan of the Rwallah. Nuri’s covert pro-British sentiments were well known to British intelligence, but his messenger told Lawrence that his master would remain ‘cautious and shy’ of open commitment to Hussain until he was ‘assured of armed support’ from either Arab or British forces.33 Murray was particularly pleased with this news, since the Rwallah’s lands abutted the Hejaz railway, which they could easily disrupt. Their co-operation was considered vital when British forces pushed northwards through Palestine and, in November, Murray prepared a plan to use them as guerrillas. The Rwallah would co-operate with a flight of aircraft which would operate from an airstrip in their territory deep in the Syrian desert and far behind Turkish lines.34 It was a daring stratagem which caught Lawrence’s imagination. Within eighteen months he would conduct a similar campaign against the Hejaz railway using Arab tribesmen and RFC bombers based in Aqaba.

  When he parted from Faisal, Lawrence promised that he would lay his demands before Murray on his return to Cairo and urge him to send the desperately needed artillery and instructors, a measure which he knew was already in hand. Inwardly, Lawrence was exhilarated. The ‘irregularity’ of the Arabs excited his imagination as much as it exasperated such professional soldiers as Parker, whose only experience of tribal armies had been as opponents in India and Africa where they were easily beaten by the discipline and firepower of regular troops. Lawrence had found an army whose concepts of warfare were akin to those of his chivalric heroes. Each Arab fought as a free individual seeking battle on his own terms, unlike the constrained modern soldier who waged war as part of a tightly controlled machine. What Lawrence perceived as the virtues of the Arab fighting man were the despair of his superiors, who would need to be convinced that Faisal’s army was not a rabble in arms. Lawrence believed that, correctly guided, adequately armed and allowed to fight in the way they knew best, they could beat the Turks.

  When Lawrence returned to Jiddah on 4 November, he found that Wemyss, perturbed by the crisis facing the Arabs, was about to consult with Wingate at Khartoum. He could not afford to wait on events so he persuaded the Admiral to let him go as well and report in person to Wingate. Wemyss was ready to overlook Lawrence’s recent peevishness and grant him this favour since he was in full agreement with his conclusions. He was convinced that British troops at Rabigh would create rather than solve problems and, if the Turks attacked, they could be repulsed easily by naval landing parties.35 Lawrence crossed the Red Sea aboard the Admiral’s flagship, HMS Euryalus, and in his dishevelled state no doubt relished the drollery of being welcomed at Port Sudan by a formal guard of honour of Sudanese askaris.

  The emergency conference with Wingate was held at the Khartoum Residency on the afternoon of 6 November. The effluxion of Lawrence’s opinions on Arab nationalism and guerrilla strategy took the pro–consul by surprise. He judged his effervescent guest ‘to be a visionary and his amateur soldiering has evidently given him an exaggerated idea on the soundness of his views on purely military matters’. Nevertheless, Wingate was left with the impression that Lawrence agreed with him that British troops should be landed at Rabigh once it was clear that the Arabs had their backs to the wall.36 This was not so: as in his conversations with Cox in Basra a few months before, Lawrence had revealed a knack for making his superiors think that he was of their mind when he was not.

  Lawrence returned to Cairo on 11 November, where he presented his report against a Hejaz expeditionary force to Murray. The General was delighted and immediately passed it to the War Office, from where a copy was forwarded to Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary. Murray drew all readers’ attention to Lawrence’s ‘strongly expressed opinion that no British or foreign forces should be sent to Hejaz’, which was ‘strongly supported by soldier and civilian residents in this country’.37 Arab morale was good and they were capable of repelling any Turkish offensive against the coastal towns. This assessment pleased Robertson, whose views had been vindicated, and Hogarth was glad that Lawrence had squashed ‘a bad and uneconomical venture’.38 The judgements of Lawrence and Wemyss, both men with first–hand information, naturally carried weight with the Cabinet War Committee, although it was displeased that Lawrence’s memorandum had not been passed through the correct channel, which was Wingate. Wingate himself was piqued at Lawrence’s temerity and Murray’s opportunism, but was placated by Clayton, who pointed out that the report had accelerated the flow of equipment to the Arabs.39

  Some of Lawrence’s recommendations were already being acted on before his report reached Murray. On 2 November, Robertson approved the transfer of Egyptian and Sudanese troops to Hejaz if they were needed, and a day later Murray released additional artillery for deployment there. Both were reactions to a false intelligence report that the Turks were within three days’ march of Rabigh. Lawrence’s plea for aircraft was also accepted. On 13 November, six machines from 14 Squadron were unloaded at Rabigh and a makeshift runway was levelled. It was guarded by an Egyptian battalion and all RFC personnel were armed for fear of attacks by Muslim fanatics: Lawrence had not dispelled Cairo’s jumpiness about local religious zeal. The War Office also looked kindly on his request for armoured cars and offered Wingate two for the Hejaz Force.40

  For King and Empire: signals section of the Oxford University Officers Training Corps, c. 1910. Lawrence is seated at the far left.

  Eagle on the Crescent: Kaiser Wilhelm II (waving), Sultan Mehmed V (centre) and Enver Pasha (right); Constantinople 1917.

  Ready for action: Lawrence mounted on one of his racing camels, Aqaba 1917.

  Desert raiders: Colonel Stewart Newcombe (second left in Arab dress), Lieutenant Hornby (far right in British uniform), Major al Mizri (second right in Arab dress) with Arab irregulars, 1917.

  Brothers-in-arms: Three of Lawrence’s fellow officers attached to the Arab armies: from left to right, Major Davenport, Colonel Pierce Joyce (who commanded at Aqaba) and Colonel Cyril Wilson (in charge of the mission at Jiddah).

  Deutschland über Allah: General Liman von Sandars greets Turkish officers and officials while an Austro-Hungarian officer in gala uniform looks on; Palestine 1917.

  Intruder: Colonel Cadi of the French Military Mission wearing sharifian robes, 1917. Cadi angered Lawrence and others by hoisting the tricolour over the French quarters in Jiddah.

  Robes for a prince: Lawrence in 1917 in the white robes of a sharif with goldenhilted dagger, a costume which immediately suggested to the Arabs that he was a man of wealth and authority.

  The Terrible Turk: Lawrence blamed Turkish lancers for the massacres of civilians around Tafas in September 1918. Four years earlier, British propaganda had condemned German lancers for similar atrocities in Belgium.

  The Sultan’s Arabs: Fakhri Pasha, commander at Medina, (seated right) consults with Ibn Raschid of Hail (seated next to him); behind, Raschid’s Beduin and Turkish officers, dressed like their British counterparts in Arab head dresses.

  Intelligence briefing: Lawrence (left) consults Commander Hogarth while Colonel Alan Dawnay, who directed operations against Qalat al Mudawarrah in March 1918, listens; Army HQ, Cairo 1918.

  As Lawrence knew when he spoke with Faisal, a team of British specialist advisers was already being formed. Members of the British Military Mission had been selected by Wingate and were approved by the War Office on 11 November. They were Colonel Newcombe, Captains A.J. Ross of the RFC, A.G. Neill, C.E. Vickery and C.H.F. Cox, who were gunners and engineers and all Arabic speakers, and Major WE. Marshall, a medical officer. Others like Joyce and Major H. Garland were already on their way to Hejaz to take up posts as instructors.


  Lawrence, still inexperienced as a field intelligence officer, had not expected to be chosen either as a member of the mission or as a technical expert. He had told Faisal when he left al Hamra that it was unlikely that he would be back. Undoubtedly he wanted to return and had already emphasised in his report of 18 October the need for a ‘really reliable’ intelligence officer to be posted permanently at Rabigh and for another officer to remain with Faisal. Robertson, already alerted to these needs by Major N.N. Bray, an Indian officer who had served in Hejaz during the summer and was then in London, concurred. On 12 November he wired Murray with the suggestion that either Lawrence or George Lloyd be sent immediately to Rabigh to take over intelligence from Parker, who was needed in Sinai. Wingate accepted both and proposed that Lloyd be sent to Rabigh and Lawrence to Yanbu al Bahr, where, pending the arrival of Newcombe from France, he ‘would do the work excellently’. Clayton protested: Lawrence ought to stay in Cairo because ‘his great knowledge and experience’ of Arab affairs had made him ‘almost indispensable’ at Headquarters. His objection was overruled by Wingate since the needs of Hejaz were greater than those of Cairo. ‘It’s vitally important to have an officer of his exceptional knowledge of [the] Arabs in close contact with Faisal at this critical moment.’41

  Unwittingly, Wingate had offered Lawrence the chance to transform his visions into reality, even though in the Seven Pillars he admitted to an uncharacteristic diffidence about accepting the post. It was, as he knew, a temporary assignment since Newcombe would arrive from France within a few weeks. Still, it was an additional opportunity to enjoy close access to the man whom he believed was best qualified to inspire and regenerate the Arab movement. Lawrence’s reputation with the Arabs would have risen in his absence, since the first consignments of arms and aircraft which he had promised were not flowing into Rabigh. The credit was not wholly his, but his personal standing with Faisal would have been advanced.

  There was still much for Lawrence to do to win Faisal’s full confidence. He had already appreciated that any British officer attached to Faisal, Ali or Abdullah would have to urge them to act independently of their father Hussain, ‘of whom they are all respectfully afraid’. Financial liberation would have to come first, since Lawrence had noticed that ‘The old man is frightfully jealous of the purse strings and keeps his family annoyingly short.’ By offering himself as a conduit through which arms would flow directly from Egypt to Faisal’s army, Lawrence had begun the process of releasing him from paternal control which would end when he took over the distribution of cash to the Amir and his adherents.

  Just before he left Cairo on 25 November, Lawrence strengthened his position by the procurement of a wireless set, disdaining Wilson’s suggestion that he use carrier pigeons for his messages. When the set became available, Lawrence was a swift link with the Arab Bureau, which could facilitate the despatch of arms to Faisal. Moreover wireless contact gave him access to the Bureau’s intelligence which since mid-October included deciphered Turkish signals. He was therefore well placed to suggest how Faisal could anticipate his adversaries’ moves. In the end it was Lawrence’s tact and charm which won him Faisal’s trust and, in a letter of 17 January 1917, he counselled Newcombe to act the same way. ‘By effacing yourself for the first part and making friends with the headmen before you start pulling them about, you will find your way much easier.’ It must have been hard for Lawrence, since deference and diffidence were not part of his nature, but within three months he had made himself indispensable to Faisal.

  II

  Lawrence and the Arabs

  At this point it is useful to pause and examine Lawrence’s motives for plunging into the Arab movement, and the wider political considerations which dictated his actions and its course during 1917. He stayed with Faisal and his army from the end of November 1916 until the fall of Damascus at the beginning of October 1918. During this time he was Faisal’s political and military adviser and recruiting officer in Syria, as well as a commander of Arab guerrilla units. From July 1917 he served as liaison officer between Faisal and General Sir Edmund Allenby, the new Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Egypt, and was responsible for Anglo-Arab operational planning.

  Each duty required Lawrence to adopt a double identity since he was the servant of both the British government and one of its allies. The question of ultimate loyalty came to torment him, because he was well aware that his British masters had already agreed to deliver Syria to France once it had been conquered. ‘You know,’ he told Clayton in September 1917, ‘I’m strongly pro-British and also pro-Arab. France takes third place with me: but I quite recognise that we may have to sell our small friends to pay our big friends, or sell our future security in the Near East to pay for our present victory in Flanders.’1 Lawrence’s appreciation of this unpalatable truth did not mean acceptance and he did everything he could to render this policy unworkable, even to the point of undertaking anti-French subversion in Syria.

  Service to and with the Arabs presented further moral problems.

  In the broadest terms, Lawrence portrayed himself in the Seven Pillars as an almost messianic liberator of the Arabs, who awakened and fostered their sense of national identity and guided them towards a goal which he had set. As an outsider he considered himself peculiarly fitted for these tasks, although he believed that their accomplishment diminished his own national identity. While he was the Arabs’ saviour, he was never one of them:

  A man who gives himself to the possession of aliens leads a Yahoo life, having bartered his soul to a brute master. He is not of them. He may stand against them, persuade them of a mission, batter and twist them into something which they, of their own accord, would not have been. Then he is exploiting his old environment to press them out of theirs.

  This life, Lawrence claimed, deprived him of his Englishness and left him with nothing to put in its place, for ‘I could not sincerely take on an Arab skin.’

  Yet without Lawrence the Arabs were helpless, unable to coalesce or secure their own freedom.

  Arabs could be swung on an idea as on a cord; for the unpledged allegiance of their minds made them obedient servants. None of them would escape the bond till success had come, and with it responsibility and duty and engagement. Then the idea was gone and the work ended in ruins.... They were as unstable as water, and like water would perhaps finally prevail. Since the dawn of life, in successive waves they had been dashing themselves against the coasts of the flesh. Each wave was broken.... One such wave (and not the least) I raised and rolled before the breath of an idea, till it reached its crest, and toppled over and fell at Damascus.

  Lawrence had surrendered himself to the service of a volatile race in order to make them do what was beyond them or their leaders. He would make himself the motor force of the Arab Revolt, generating its impulses and driving it towards ultimate victory at Damascus.

  Like many intellectuals who enter politics, he was driven by an overwhelming urge to control, simply because he knew what was best for the Arabs. Without him the Arabs could neither understand what they wanted nor summon up the necessary mental and physical energy to achieve it.

  Their mind was strange and dark, full of depressions and exaltations, lacking in rule, but with more ardour and more fertile than any other in the world. They were a people of starts, for whom the abstract was the strongest motive, a process of infinite courage and variety, and the end nothing.

  The Arabs could not make their own history. The inadequacies of the collective Arab mind required continual injections of Lawrence’s vision.

  Up to a point, Lawrence’s programme for Arab regeneration coincided with his government’s policies, which enabled him to accommodate both. Through his association with the Arab movement he was helping to break Islamic unity and prepare the way for a new Middle East, which he hoped would be made up of a ‘mosaic’ of petty client states watched over by Britain. In Lawrence’s mind France had no right to play any part in this process or to expect an
y reward when it had been completed. On this issue he was out of step with his government’s policy, although many of his superiors privately endorsed his views.

  When, in May 1917, Lawrence undertook his first excursion into Turkish–held Syria he faced a crisis of conscience and became convinced that he was procuring future allies for Faisal with false claims. Putting on one side what he actually promised and what the Arabs knew about Anglo–French plans for Syria, he convinced himself that he was guilty of gross deception. From then on he became increasingly acerbic in his dealings with his superiors, who he believed were exploiting the Arabs’ simple faith. More and more, Lawrence revealed a high degree of intolerance towards anyone whose views on the Arab question disagreed with his own. There was a strong flavour of evangelical self–righteousness in the expression of his opinions, combined with academic quarrelsomeness which made him dismiss opponents as obtuse fools.

  The same vein of all–knowing dogmatism coloured his thinking about the Arabs. Accepting the common prejudice of his time, he took for granted the existence of closely defined racial stereotypes. His ‘Arab’ was a cipher, conditioned to behave in a predictable manner and constrained by deeply rooted patterns of thought and morality which made him psychologically incapable of joining with his fellows in pursuit of a common purpose. Steadfastness, Lawrence believed, could only be understood by one group of Arabs, the nomadic desert Beduin. They alone could carry out what he required of their race because of their ability to grasp an abstract principle, and, tempered by the rigours of desert life and imbued with a fierce Puritanism, they would accept the necessary suffering and self-sacrifice.