No amount of past insults, however, quite prepared Aaronsohn for those of July 1. Evidently irritated that Aaronsohn had complained of his shabby treatment to an officer in the Arab Bureau, Smith acidly told the NILI ringleader that his spies in Palestine “are no good. The work can be done much better by others.”
Making the episode especially galling was that it came at a time when the British were piling on NILI’s workload at every turn—and in ways that went far beyond intelligence gathering. In the wake of the sacking-of-Jaffa story in May, an international relief effort had gone up to raise funds for its Jewish victims. To the obvious question of how such funds might reach the needy within Palestine, someone in the British hierarchy hit on the just as obvious answer: the NILI network. And so long as the NILI operatives were distributing relief funds across Palestine, why not propaganda materials as well? And how about in their spare time, they also carry out sabotage attacks? At the beginning of June, plans had been drawn up to smuggle explosives ashore at Athlit so that a NILI team might blow up a crucial railroad bridge in the Jordan valley; toward that goal, Aaronsohn’s chief lieutenant in Egypt, Liova Schneersohn, was now undergoing demolition training at a British army testing ground on the Cairo outskirts.
Aaronsohn had reluctantly agreed to each of these new demands put on his organization, seeing it as the price to be paid for British favor, but it made the insult from Ian Smith simply too much to bear. As he informed his allies in the Arab Bureau the day after that confrontation, since EMSIB apparently now had other and better operatives in Palestine, “I no longer had the right to endanger my people in continuing the work.” Therefore, he was shutting down NILI.
Because it wasn’t as if Aaronsohn lacked other reasons to feel grossly underappreciated that summer. At the core was the continuing mystery of just what his status was in Cairo, of where he and his organization fit into the larger scheme of things. In his meetings with Mark Sykes in April and May, Aaronsohn had learned that the British politician was working closely with two leaders of the English Zionist Federation, Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, in London. In fact, during his time in Cairo, Sykes had urged Weizmann to come out to Egypt to spearhead the Zionist effort there but, in lieu of that, to appoint Aaronsohn as his local “representative.” Aaronsohn had gone along with the plan out of deference to Sykes, even though he was quite at odds with the milder brand of Zionism of Weizmann and Sokolow—but then he had received absolutely no communication from either man since. So vague had his status remained, and so futile his own efforts to receive guidance from the Zionist Federation that, just days before his run-in with Smith, he had asked Gilbert Clayton to take the matter up with Mark Sykes. Even this, though, had yielded nothing.
Thus out of the loop, Aaronsohn also remained quite unaware that his cherished Zionist cause was actually making great strides in London—and largely through the efforts of the tireless if uncommunicative Chaim Weizmann.
The campaign to prod the British government into a public declaration in support of a Jewish homeland had recently undergone a major overhaul. At one time, Weizmann had stressed the effect that such a declaration would have on American Zionists, causing them to add their influential voice to those calling for an end to American neutrality and intervention on the side of the Entente; obviously, that argument had lost much of its luster with the United States’ entry into the war. Also headed toward oblivion that summer was the parallel contention that such a declaration would spur Russian Jews to rally to the prowar government of Alexander Kerensky; with the chaos in Russia deepening by the day, Kerensky’s problems were now far beyond the point where Jewish support might make much difference. In early June, though, Weizmann had found a potent new argument courtesy of the Central Powers.
As Weizmann explained in a June 12 meeting with Robert Cecil, the British assistant secretary of state for foreign affairs, for many months he had been hearing rumors that the German government was trying to enlist leaders of the German Jewish community to act as intermediaries for a prospective peace deal. Weizmann had long dismissed these rumors, but recently they had gained great credence; in fact, he told Cecil, he had heard that German Jewish leaders were now actively considering such a role, provided the kaiser’s regime met their demand for a Jewish state in Palestine. This the German government was evidently contemplating, judging by the recent and unprecedented spate of articles in the German press in support of a Jewish homeland.
To the degree that any of this was substantially true, the message was plain—that if the British didn’t play the Jewish-homeland card soon, the Germans surely would—and Robert Cecil was a quick pupil. The day after his meeting with Weizmann, he sent a confidential memorandum to his superior, Lord Charles Hardinge. “There can be no doubt that a complete change of front on the part of the German Government has taken place,” Cecil wrote, “and that orders have been given to treat Zionism as an important political factor in the policy of the Central Empires.” The purpose of that change, in his estimation, was to influence the opinion of international Jewry “and to utilize it in the interests of German propaganda against the Entente.”
In hopes of averting this potentially calamitous outcome, Cecil explained, his recent visitor had put forward a helpful suggestion. “Dr. Weizmann concluded by urging very strongly that it was desirable from every point of view that His Majesty’s Government should give an open expression of their sympathy with, and support of, Zionist aims, and should publicly recognize the justice of Jewish claims on Palestine.”
With alarm bells over a possible German-sponsored Jewish state reverberating through the British Foreign Office that June, this was a suggestion that an increasing number of senior British officials were ready to heed.
If all this remained unknown to Aaron Aaronsohn, it was also unknown to those Arab Bureau officials who scrambled to put out the fire sparked by Captain Smith’s comments of July 1. Instead, they were just trying to save Britain’s most important spy network in Palestine from shutting down.
As part of a renewed effort to show Aaronsohn respect, Smith was forced to apologize for his comments, and the agronomist was soon given an audience with the new EEF commander in chief, Edmund Allenby. Their meeting took place on the morning of July 17, just five days after Allenby’s discussions with T. E. Lawrence. In a leisurely conversation, Aaronsohn filled in the general on a variety of topics regarding Palestine, everything from its agricultural conditions to the fighting abilities of its Turkish garrison, and even provided character sketches of Djemal Pasha—“very much inclined to plot, and clever at it”—and the German commander in Syria. “The [commander in chief] listened with interest,” Aaronsohn noted, “and questioned me intelligently, ‘to the point.’ He made an excellent impression on me.”
In the afterglow of that meeting with Allenby, Aaronsohn may have felt he had at long last “arrived” with the British in Cairo. Then again, he’d felt that at various other times over the preceding seven months. The problem was, with the British forever striving to keep all options open, reluctant to ever give anyone either a positive or negative straight answer, there really was no such thing as having “arrived,” the hearty embrace avoided for the cautious pat on the back. This was compounded in Aaronsohn’s case by the new machinations in London over a possible declaration of support for a Jewish homeland, a generalized anxiety within much of the British government over where that might lead. As a result, the goal was to keep Aaronsohn happy but in limbo, to maintain that fine balance between encouraging his efforts and remaining circumspect as to their ultimate reward.
Fortunately, the British could rely on a man with considerable skill at such things, Reginald Wingate. “I gather,” Wingate wrote a senior Foreign Office diplomat on July 23 upon learning of the government’s latest tentative overture to the British Zionists, “that the matter is by no means decided, and that you wish me to keep Aaronsohn satisfied without telling him anything very definite. This has been done.”
ON JULY 16, t
he captain of the British troopship HMS Dufferin was told to stand by at Port Suez in order to transport an important official down the Red Sea coast to Jeddah. The next morning, the ship’s crew caught first sight of their distinguished guest when twenty-eight-year-old T. E. Lawrence sauntered up the gangway. It was a long way from the day, eight months earlier, when Lawrence had walked up another naval ship’s gangway in Yenbo harbor only to be soundly rebuked for his unkempt uniform and insolent manner.
One measure of how greatly his stock had risen in the wake of Aqaba was the mission he was undertaking to Jeddah. In his discussions with Generals Allenby and Clayton, Lawrence had emphatically—and perhaps quite exaggeratedly—told of the abiding esteem with which the Syrians held Faisal ibn Hussein; they saw him as the Arabs’ overall military commander, he had explained, and it was under his banner that they would rise in revolt. As with most everything else Lawrence stated in Cairo that July, his superiors had little way of either confirming or refuting this assertion, it simply becoming part of the narrative of what lay in store once the battle for Syria was joined.
From this, Lawrence saw the opening to go one better: to fully coordinate the joint Arab-British offensive in Syria—and, not coincidentally, to permanently weld the fortunes of the Arab cause to those of the British army—why not place Faisal and his forces directly under Allenby’s military command? Lawrence had gained quick approval of this idea in Cairo, but there remained a huge potential roadblock: King Hussein. With his reputation for irascibility, along with his jealous efforts to control the rebel movement, it seemed highly likely the Hejazi king would reject the suggestion out of hand. Then again, he might just listen to Faisal’s most trusted British advisor and the “hero of Aqaba.” In short order, Lawrence found himself aboard the Dufferin bound for a meeting with Hussein.
But the mission to Jeddah was only the most visible sign of the young captain’s new and profound influence over British policy in the region. Behind the scenes, Lawrence had already laid the groundwork for a dramatic restructuring of the British military presence in Arabia, one tailored to his specifications. As he rather immodestly explained in Seven Pillars, he had put the argument to Gilbert Clayton thus: “Aqaba had been taken on my plan by my effort. There was much more I felt inclined to do—and capable of doing—if he thought I had earned the right to be my own master.”
During their week together in Cairo, Clayton had agreed to most of his subordinate’s suggestions. With the war in the Hejaz essentially over—though the Turks still controlled Medina, they had now lost all offensive capability—the long and futile campaign to block the Hejaz Railway at El Ula could be brought to a merciful end. For the same reason, the main rebel base at Wejh was now to be virtually shuttered, with both its Arab forces and British logistics officers brought up to Aqaba. Assuming the role of de facto general, Lawrence plotted out the future deployments of those Arab armies to remain in the Hejaz, and worked up a list of the British army personnel to be retained, reassigned, or let go. Clayton had drawn the line, however, on Lawrence’s bold proposal that he be given overall command at Aqaba, pointing out that having a junior officer order about his superiors just wasn’t the British way. Instead, they jointly settled on one of Cyril Wilson’s deputies, Major Pierce Joyce, for the Aqaba post, an easygoing and unambitious officer unlikely to get in Lawrence’s way.
Nothing, however, more exemplified Lawrence’s changed status than his reunion with Colonel Wilson in Jeddah. After Lawrence’s first visit to Arabia eight months earlier, Wilson had angrily commented to Clayton that the arrogant junior officer “wants kicking, and kicking hard,” and had tried to prevent his return to Arabia on even a temporary basis. By July 1917, however, the colonel had come to see Lawrence, now in the process of being promoted to major, as both an ally and probably the most important British field officer operating in the Hejaz.
Just prior to Lawrence’s arrival in Jeddah, Wilson had received a memorandum from Clayton outlining the sweeping personnel changes being contemplated for the region, pointedly noting that he had come to these ideas in consultation with Captain Lawrence. This detail made one feature of the memorandum all the more striking: pushed aside was Stewart Newcombe, still the officially designated head of the British military mission to the Hejaz.
Far more than to anyone else, it was to Stewart Newcombe that Lawrence owed his position in the Middle East. But in Lawrence’s cold-eyed view, war was war, and whatever sense of gratitude he felt for his mentor couldn’t stand in the way of its conduct. Newcombe had endured a contentious tenure in the Hejaz, never quite adjusting to the Arabs’ mysterious approach to war-making, and in myriad reports had complained bitterly of their lack of discipline and reliability. As Lawrence explained to Cyril Wilson upon his arrival in Jeddah, it had been decided that Newcombe would now be taken off the front and relegated to a rearguard role, effectively demoted. A surprised Wilson quickly acquiesced.
That same evening, Lawrence and Wilson met with King Hussein. It was Lawrence’s first audience with the king, and he found him both charming and personable. That assessment may have been helped by Hussein’s quick acceptance of the proposal to place Faisal and his army under Allenby’s direct command.
A very different matter arose the following morning when Hussein summoned Lawrence to his Jeddah palace for a private meeting. With uncharacteristic bluntness, the king brought the conversation to a topic that had become something of a personal obsession: his meetings back in May with Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot.
While the controversy over what had or had not been agreed to at those meetings continued to find small echo in certain branches of the British government, its import had been diminished by the pace and urgency of other events. Surely adding to its waning effect was the polite tone adopted by dissident eyewitnesses like Cyril Wilson, with his couched language alluding to “possible misunderstandings.” It was not at all the tone Lawrence would adopt, and what had taken Wilson many discursive pages to relate, he did in less than one: “The main points,” he cabled Clayton after his second meeting with Hussein, “are that he had altogether refused to permit any French annexation of Beirut and the Lebanon.… He is extremely pleased to have trapped M. Picot into the admission that France will be satisfied in Syria with the [same] position Great Britain desires in Iraq.… In conclusion the Sherif remarked on the shortness and informality of conversations, the absence of written documents and the fact that the only change in the situation caused by the meeting was the French renunciation of the ideas of annexation, permanent occupation, or suzerainty of any part of Syria.”
Whether due to its brevity or the new celebrity of its author, within days that report was finding its way onto the desks of the seniormost officials of the British government. It had the effect of instantly resurrecting the debate over Britain’s web of conflicting promises in the Middle East—as well as Mark Sykes’s singular role in spinning that web.
But Lawrence’s mission to Arabia was not quite done. While he was still in Jeddah, word came from Cairo that according to a reliable informant, Lawrence’s chief partner in the Aqaba campaign, Auda Abu Tayi, was now secretly negotiating with the Turks to switch sides. Lawrence’s immediate reaction was defensive—he suggested that perhaps it was actually a ruse on Auda’s part to lull the Turks into inaction—but he evidently had less confidence in that theory than he let on. Within hours, he was on board a ship bound for Aqaba and a face-to-face confrontation with Auda.
Trekking inland on a fast camel, Lawrence found the Howeitat chieftain along with his two chief lieutenants, both also named by the informant as prospective traitors, in a tent outside the village of Guweira. For many hours they passed as reunited friends, until Lawrence invited Auda and one of the other conspirators to join him for a walk. Once they were alone, he challenged the two men with what he had been told. “They were anxious to know how I had learnt of their secret dealings,” Lawrence recounted, “and how much more I knew. We were on a slippery ledge.”
Indeed, a ledge that conceivably could have been fatal for Lawrence. Instead, drawing on his extraordinary skill in knowing how to converse with Arabs in even these minefield circumstances, he put on an elaborate performance—sympathy, flattery, and ridicule all fused into one—to first disarm and then win the men back to the rebel side. Once returned to Aqaba, Lawrence cabled Cairo that the business with Auda amounted to little more than a misunderstanding, that all was now “absolutely satisfactory.”
As Lawrence later admitted, he frequently shaved the facts in what he passed on to Cairo about the Arab Revolt and its leaders, but suggested it was really to everyone’s benefit. “Since [British] Egypt kept us alive by stinting herself, we must reduce impolitic truth to keep her confident and ourselves a legend. The crowd wanted book-heroes.”
And like any good performer, Lawrence gave the crowd what they wanted.
ONCE THE MATTER of his Welsh ancestry got sorted out, William Yale and the British ambassador to the United States settled down to business.
In all likelihood, Yale had rather low expectations of what Cecil Spring-Rice might be able to provide him by way of job prospects. After all, the British already had an extensive intelligence apparatus devoted to the Middle East. But William Yale was canny enough to realize he had something to offer that very few others did: an oil connection. Over the previous four years, he had canvassed vast stretches of Palestine looking for potential oil deposits for Standard Oil of New York. Through office memoranda, he also knew where else across the Ottoman Empire his company had sought or obtained concessions. In the postwar world, who was to know if the occupying power in these regions would recognize the Socony concessions? Certainly if that occupying power had already publicly stated that future oil exploration and extraction was to be regarded as a matter of national security—a power like Great Britain, for instance—it seemed entirely possible it might toss out Socony’s claims in favor of development by one of its own national syndicates. If so, having someone on board who had seen the preexisting maps and geological surveys could save a lot of time and trouble.
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