The episode was described in gruesome detail in the Seven Pillars: ‘In madness born of the horror of Tafas we killed and killed, even blowing in the heads of the fallen and of the animals; as though their death and running blood could slake our agony.’ These words were taken at their face value by David Lean in his film Lawrence of Arabia when Lawrence is portrayed as being infected by the Arabs’ dementia. He runs amok among the fleeing Turks, wildly firing his revolver and slashing with his dagger.
The massacres at Tafas and Turas did occur, but they were exceptional to judge by the war diaries of British units which were following up the Turkish retreat. Weary and under constant pressure from their aerial and mounted pursuers, most Turkish soldiers were solely concerned with saving themselves. Prisoners captured during the fighting around Tafas were killed in the manner set down by Lawrence, but he did not give the order or approve its execution. At this stage, as Kirkbride noticed, ‘the Arab side could not be said to be under control’. This was confirmed by Peake who, fifty years later, recalled his arrival at Tafas where he found Lawrence vainly trying to stop the murder of prisoners. Immediately and at Lawrence’s request, Peake sent 100 dismounted Egyptian camelry into the village with fixed bayonets. This halted the killings, for the Beduin, unwilling as ever to tangle with disciplined soldiers, rode off in pursuit of fugitives who had escaped northwards. Then, on Lawrence’s orders, Peake and his troopers rounded up the surviving prisoners and put them under guard.23 These were probably the cavalrymen taken near Dera who became prisoners of Indian units and whose commander was later entertained in the officers’ mess of the 14th Cavalry Brigade.24
Young, while not present at Tafas, heard afterwards that Lawrence had attempted to save prisoners. He also revealed that the slaughter of Turkish prisoners had become promiscuous, and that he and Kirkbride pleaded with Nuri to order his regulars to protect men captured before the Tafas incident.25 Pisani, present at the Tafas engagement, and Captain Lord Winterton officially protested to Nuri on behalf of their governments. Lawrence shared their revulsion, but as his exchange with Barrow, his official report and remarks to Allenby suggest, his loyalty to the Arabs impelled him to defend them. To have done otherwise, then and later, would have played into the hands of the enemies of the Arab movement.
All the British eyewitnesses agreed that by the 28 September if not earlier the Arabs were randomly killing prisoners and the wounded. Many who died had no connection with the outrages at Tafas and Turas. As he suggests in the Seven Pillars, Lawrence may have shared the rage of the Arabs, an understandable human reaction. Peake’s testimony indicates that his vengeful anger quickly subsided, but his compassion was equally fickle, for a day later he was justifying the unspeakable to Barrow in the smouldering ruins of Dera. According to Young, he sidestepped the issue on 28 September when asked to intervene to save 200 POWs captured at Sheik Saad.26 Lawrence proposed that the men’s fate be discussed in the traditional Arab manner in a public debate. Young spoke eloquently in favour of mercy and was followed by Winterton for whom Lawrence translated. The earl’s statement that he was an MP amused the Arabs and Lawrence explained their laughter as the consequence of pre-war visits by MPs, whom they considered comic figures. Winterton agreed and added that they were also bores, as he knew from having had to listen to them. This caused further amusement and comedy averted tragedy, for the Turks were spared.
This and other similar episodes were evidence that Arab discipline had utterly broken down. From 26 September until order was restored by the Australians in Damascus, Arabs killed and robbed prisoners indiscriminately and against the rules of war. Their conduct was, quite simply, a war crime and equal to any that had been committed by the Turks during the war. Tafas was revenge for a specific atrocity, but this excuse could not be applied everywhere. The Arabs were out of control, but to have admitted this publicly, then or later, would have dented Lawrence’s self-esteem. He glossed over or ignored horrific incidents which had no place in a narrative of the fortunes of heroic servants of a noble cause.
Faisal’s army, if not the nationalist ideal, was now drawing more and more Arab adherents, mainly Syrian. British victories, the Turkish army’s disintegration and the prospect of the fall of Damascus attracted new recruits daily. There were some convinced Syrian nationalists but they were outnumbered by looters, camp followers and the fellahin of the Hawran villages. The Times’s correspondent, Massey, watched them and had no illusions about their motives. They were ‘like vultures which hover about a dying animal’ and stole from friend and foe. Their activities alarmed British commanders who had to detach small units to suppress brigandage behind the lines.27
Lawrence’s mind was focused on the political gain which was now within Faisal’s reach. He had ridden from Tafas to Dera with a ‘fixed look’ and confided to Kirkbride, ‘We must get there before the [Indian] cavalry.’ He felt sure that Dera’s occupation by Faisal would give him the right to establish political control of the Syrian town. Both he and Faisal were seeking to exploit recent shifts in British Middle Eastern policy which made a Hashemite kingdom in Syria more than a remote possibility. In June the War Cabinet’s Middle Eastern Committee had recommended that changes in the circumstances of the war demanded a revision of the Sykes–Picot agreement. As Lawrence had rightly guessed, American participation in the war was encouraging a fundamental change in Allied war aims, which were being injected with fresh idealism. Out went the old-world imperialist principle that Turkey should be partitioned as Africa had been, and in came policies based upon granting measures of self-determination to former subject races such as the Arabs. But British policy-makers were extremely cautious: any post-war Arab state would have to accept a measure of European supervision.
Britain’s new line was announced to Syrian exiles in Cairo on 8 June. They understood that henceforward the Arabs would be allowed to set up administration in areas which they had liberated, save Palestine. The French had yet to concur and the matter was still being debated as Allenby’s forward units approached Damascus. On 22 September he had decided to invest the city and three days later he was informed of French anxieties by General Sir Henry Wilson, who had replaced Robertson as Chief of Imperial General Staff. He confirmed that in all things Allenby enjoyed ‘supreme authority’ but advised him to heed French suggestions when it came to setting up a temporary administration in Syria. General Macdonogh’s cable of the same day reminded Allenby that, pending further negotiations between governments, France would have a sphere of influence in Syria and that French officers were to be given civil posts. Allenby answered that he would appoint French officers who would be under his orders.28 An interim, skeletal French administration was feasible, for Allenby’s army now included 9,000 French troops, among them the Armenian Legion d’Orient and colourful regiments of spahis and Chasseurs d’Afrique attached to Chauvel’s division.
Allenby expected no difficulties from Faisal. On 25 September he told Lawrence that he had no objections to an Arab advance on Damascus and their entering the city.29 This message had been dropped by aeroplane and gave Lawrence the opportunity he had long hoped for. Taking an over-simple view of international diplomacy, he imagined that if Hashemite partisans within Damascus combined with Faisal’s forces and occupied the city, the French would be forestalled and their plans for a Syrian protectorate would be in ruins. Possession and the creation of a makeshift Arab government would somehow endorse Faisal’s right to the city and the rest of Syria. Morever, and this became clear after Damascus had fallen, Faisal could extend his authority towards the coast and Lebanon, where Turkish resistance was disintegrating. This was a daring, ambitious but hopelessly unrealistic stratagem. It assumed that the British government had already ditched the Sykes—Picot arrangement for ever, which it had not, and that the French could somehow be persuaded to forfeit all claims to Syria.
Allenby was ignorant of what Lawrence and Faisal were planning. His plans for taking Damascus, which he explained on the 25 September at
Jenin, involved a pincer movement by the largely ANZAC Desert Mounted Column and Barrow’s 4th Cavalry Division, to which Faisal’s Arabs were attached. This unit was to take Dera and then approach Damascus from the south via the old pilgrim road. Simultaneously, the Desert Mounted Column would ride north towards Quneitra and then advance on Damascus from the east and sweeping north of the city to cut off the retreat of its Turco-German garrison. Overall command was given to an Australian general, Sir Harry Chauvel, a resourceful and brave officer whom Meinertzhagen had found somewhat slow-witted on occasions.
In his brief to Chauvel, Allenby outlined the political procedures that would follow the fall of Damascus, which were based on those followed when Jerusalem had been captured. ‘Send for the Turkish Vali [Governor] and tell him to carry on, giving him what extra police he requires.’ ‘What about the Arabs?’ enquired Chauvel. ‘There is a rumour that they are to have the administration of Syria.’ ‘Yes, I believe so,’ Allenby answered, ‘but you must wait until I come and, if Faisal gives you any trouble, deal with him through Lawrence, who will be your liaison officer.’30 Both generals assumed that Lawrence would conduct himself correctly as a British officer carrying out his government’s wishes. Neither had any inkling of his real intentions, although back in Cairo Osmond Walrond was aware that Wingate, Sykes and Clayton would be more than happy to use Faisal as an instrument against the French.31
Lawrence’s plan misfired. By the evening of 30 September, both Chauvel’s Desert Mounted Corps and Barrow’s 4th Cavalry Division were on the outskirts of Damascus and the former were preparing to encircle the city. Brigadier-General Lachland Wilson of the Australian 3rd Light Horse, under orders to close the Homs road and unable to find a way round the city’s northern boundary, decided to cut through its centre. He did so with the permission of his commander, General MacAndrew, although the latter was nervous about having strayed from Allenby’s original instructions.32 Unopposed, save by a handful of snipers, the horsemen encountered passive Turkish soldiers and thousands of excited and welcoming Damascenes who offered them food and cigars.33 At the town hall, Major Olden, the commander of the advance guard, found authority in the hands of Lawrence’s former adversary, Abd al Qadir, and his brother Muhammad Said. Al Qadir gave the formal surrender of the city, gave Olden a guide, and the Australian horsemen rode off towards the Homs road amid enthusiastic crowds. ‘They clung to the horses’ necks, they kissed our men’s stirrups; they showered confetti and rosewater over them; they shouted, laughed, cried, sang and clapped hands,’ Olden recalled.34 By seven, the Australians were out of the city in pursuit of fleeing Turks. When the news reached Cairo, Osmond Walrond wrote, ‘We won Syria ourselves for the Arabs and they will always remember us as their saviours from the Turks.’35
Nothing of this and much of what followed is found in the Seven Pillars. Lawrence’s version of events on 30 September—1 October is a mixture of fudge and fabrication concocted to give the impression that the Arabs and not the Australians liberated Damascus. According to him, 4,000 Beduin infiltrated the city during the night, but, overcome by an inexplicable shyness, they did not reveal themselves to al Qadir, the Australian horsemen or the remnants of the Turkish garrison.
Lawrence was now officially attached to Barrow’s HQ, and heard that Damascus was undefended early on the morning of 1 October when the pro-Hashemite Aziz al Ridha Rikabi presented himself to Barrow’s staff, having failed to find Faisal’s army. This ‘cheery old boy’ ate a good breakfast with Barrow and told him that the city’s southern perimeter was unguarded.36 Then, according to Major White of Barrow’s staff, ‘Colonel Lawrence went on to the 14th Cavalry Brigade and was given an escort from them to Damascus. This was about the same time as the Australians were entering Damascus from the North West [i.e. shortly after dawn].’37 White followed and was at Meidan station in the city just after nine where he met General MacAndrew, who was anxious that not too many knew about his infraction of Allenby’s orders, no doubt well aware of the Commander-in-Chief’s notorious outbursts of rage.
According to Lawrence, who had no love for Indian cavalrymen, he had been mistakenly detained and delayed by one of their patrols during his drive to the city. Once there he found the town hall in pandemonium. He had been preceded by Nuri Shalaan and Nasir who had discovered, like Major Olden, that al Qadir and his brother had thrown in their lot with the Allies and were in alliance with a local pro-Hashemite, Shukri al Ayyubi. Soon after, Chauvel appeared and Lawrence explained his peremptory departure from Barrow’s HQ with the excuse that he wished to find out exactly what was happening in the city. Lawrence then presented Ayyubi as the new governor of Damascus, elected by a majority of citizens, which was a lie.38 Chauvel was, however, taken in, but he turned down Lawrence’s suggestion that he set up his HQ in the former British consulate. Chauvel disliked what he had seen of the city (nearly all Australians were appalled by Middle Eastern living conditions) and set up his camp in ‘a clean orchard’.
Here the Australian general was found by a disturbed Major Young. He had been an eyewitness to the political charade which Lawrence had created to mislead Chauvel. Young explained that Shukri had not been elected by a majority of the Damascenes but had been chosen by the small Hashemite faction in a bid to instal Hussain as Syria’s ruler. Local Hashemites, Young continued, ‘are out to make as little as possible of the British and make the populace think that it is the Arabs who have driven out the Turk. That is why Lawrence asked you to keep men out of the city and they have no intention of asking you for any police.’ He added that the Hashemite faction were preparing the British consulate for Chauvel and the Jamal Pasha’s official residence for Faisal. Local support for the Hashemites was thin, especially among the wealthier citizens, and Faisal’s adherents were already plundering a city which was dissolving into anarchy.39 Prompted by Young, Chauvel decided to hold a formal parade the next day in the knowledge that the artillery, armoured cars and troops would leave the Damascenes in no doubt as to who had emancipated them and where power lay. He also moved into Jamal Pasha’s house.
Young had exposed both Lawrence’s conspiracy and Faisal’s weakness. While it was possible to edge out those untrustworthy trimmers, al Qadir and his brother, Lawrence could not disguise the inability of Faisal’s troops to keep order inside Damascus. During 1 October a city of 300,000 slipped into chaos and Arab regular troops lacked either the numbers or inclination to impose order. Faced with a deteriorating situation, Lawrence borrowed a scrap of paper and asked Chauvel for troops.40 Australian horse under Colonel Bourchier had been on standby for such an eventuality and they entered the city and set guards on public buildings and utilities. Indian forces were ordered to repel Beduin and Druze looters from the outskirts and shoot any who resisted.41 Within twenty-four hours Damascus passed from Turkish to Arab and then to British government, although Lawrence later alleged to Allenby that he had restored order.42
Medical services had fallen apart and there were at least 1,800 wounded Turks languishing in various hospitals. Alerted to their plight by an Australian medical officer, Lawrence made a tour of inspection, accompanied by Kirkbride. It was a grim excursion, vividly remembered by Kirkbride:
When we found anyone butchering Turks he [Lawrence] went up and asked them in a gentle voice to stop, while I stood by and brandished my firearm. Occasionally, someone turned nasty and I shot them at once before the trouble could spread. Lawrence got quite cross and said, ‘For God’s sake stop being so bloody-minded.’43
Lawrence was irritated by the Australian sentries which, with amazing naivete, he thought were an unnecessary precaution based upon ‘a misapprehension of the Arab fashion of making war’. At one hospital Lawrence, still in Arab costume, had an altercation with an Australian doctor, Colonel Clive Single. Lawrence had been ‘screaming at’ the doctor and, as he worked himself ‘into a fit of hysterics’, Single slapped him twice across the face, which calmed him down.44
Lawrence remembered the incident and wove i
t into the Seven Pillars, where Single is downgraded to a ‘medical major’. Lawrence used the assault as a vehicle for his self-pity, confessing that after having been struck he felt ‘more ashamed than angry, for in my heart I felt he was right, and that anyone who pushed through to success a rebellion of the weak against the strong must come out of it so stained in estimation that afterward nothing in the world would make him feel clean’. Meanwhile, the wretched Turkish wounded were being cleaned. All hospitals were placed in the hands of Colonel Rupert Downes of the Australian Medical Services and with a team of Australian, British and Syrian doctors the lot of the remaining wounded began to improve.
Damascus returned to normal thanks to the Australians’ supervision. One of their officers noted how the sight of the big horses impressed the Damascenes and another noted approvingly how the sound of the cavalrymen drawing their sabres ‘had a very stifling effect’ on the mob outside the town hall. The task of running the city had been too much for Faisal’s makeshift administration of dubious legality. On 2 October the march past of British, Indian, Australian and French troops with their cannon and armoured cars was a reminder of whose efforts had liberated Damascus and where real power lay. In deference to Lawrence, Chauvel permitted an Arab detachment to head the parade.
In the meantime, Allenby had been engaging the problem of Syria’s political future. He arrived in Damascus at one in the afternoon of 3 October, two hours before Faisal was due to make a ceremonial entry. His first job was to clarify local administrative arrangements which were to be in accordance with the Sykes–Picot agreement. On 30 September he had wired the War Office with his intentions which were to recognise whatever Arab administration he found and to see that it worked with a French liaison officer. British administrators would assist the Arabs to the east of the Jordan.45 Just before he left for Damascus, Allenby received a telegram from Arthur Balfour in which the Foreign Secretary informed him that Hejaz now enjoyed full belligerent rights as an ally and could be allowed to hoist its flag over Amman and Damascus.46
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