23 “one leading principle”: British government White Paper, “Notes on Zionism,” Part 3. The Zionist Commission in Palestine; February 6, 1919, pp. 16–17; PRO-FO 371/4171, f. 102.
24 Certainly there was no: British government White Paper, “Notes on Zionism,” Part 3. The Zionist Commission in Palestine; February 6, 1919, pp. 14–21; PRO-FO 371/4171, f. 100–104.
25 “it was his ambition”: Cornwallis to Symes, April 20, 1918; PRO-FO 882/14, f. 358–59.
26 “On the whole”: Yale to Harrison, April 8, 1918; YU, Box 2, Folder 25.
27 “cheap Arab labor”: Yale to Harrison, March 25, 1918; YU, Box 2, Folder 23.
28 “as in the [American]”: Yale to Harrison, June 10, 1918; YU, Box 2, Folder 34.
29 “once again, pearls”: Aaronsohn, Diary, April 1, 1918; ZY.
30 “It is to be hoped”: Yale to Harrison, April 8, 1918; YU, Box 2, Folder 25.
31 “The abstraction of”: Lawrence’s account of the expedition to Atatir, and of the deaths of “Daud” and “Farraj” (Ali and Othman), are drawn from Seven Pillars, book 8, chapters 112–113, pp. 507–17.
32 But then the news: Wavell, The Palestine Campaigns, pp. 173–84.
33 “He kept Abbas”: McKale, Curt Prüfer, p. 54.
34 A much better solution: Bernstorff to von Hertling, July 19, 1918; PAAA, Roll 22348, Turkei 47, Band 7.
35 Abbas clearly sensed: Oppenheim to Jagow, February 23, 1915; PAAA, Roll 21129, Der Weltkrieg no. 11g, Band 7.
36 “There was nothing to do”: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 520.
37 While British military communiqués: Dawnay to EEF Headquarters, May 1, 1918; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 277–86.
38 Now, with the proposed: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, pp. 526–27.
39 “a regal gift”: Ibid., p. 527.
40 “if I should seek revenge”: Aaronsohn, Diary, March 21, 1918; ZY.
41 “very little winter cereals”: Ibid., April 4, 1918.
42 “Well, Aaron”: Ibid., April 6, 1918.
43 “to bridge it over”: Ibid., April 20, 1918.
44 Ironically, that venture: Clayton to British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, June 16, 1918; PRO-FO 371/803, pp. 5–7.
45 “a small favor”: Ibid., pp. 4–5.
46 “all the Jews there”: Lawrence to Clayton, February 12, 1918; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 268.
47 “What arrangements”: Clayton to Lawrence, May 22, 1918; PRO-FO 141/688.
48 “Interview would take place”: General Headquarters to Commandant Akaba, May 24, 1918; PRO-WO 95/4370, App A.
49 “In my opinion, the interview”: Clayton to Foreign Office, June 12, 1918; PRO-FO 141/688.
50 “It is difficult to say”: Wingate to Foreign Office, March 23, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3403, f. 359.
51 Over the next several months: For the protracted debate within the Foreign Office on what medal to bestow on Faisal Hussein, see PRO-FO 371/3403, File 53608.
52 “to cement the Arab Alliance”: Clayton to Foreign Office, April 2, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3403, f. 364–66.
53 “At the present day”: Mehmet Djemal to Faisal (translator unknown), June 2, 1918; PRO-WO 158/634, f. 137.
54 “if the Arab and Turkish”: Hogarth, memorandum attached to “The Arab Question,” August 9, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3381, f. 113.
55 For the two days preceding: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, Appendix II.
56 “as soon as Faisal is in possession”: Lawrence, “Note,” June 16, 1918; PRO-FO 141/688.
57 “there might be some difficulty”: Yale to Harrison, March 25, 1918; YU, Box 2, Folder 23.
58 Really the only way to Palestine: Gary to U.S. Secretary of State, May 30, 1918; NARA RG59, Box 1047, 111.70Y.
59 “our government had no policy”: William Yale’s account of his intelligence-gathering activities in Cairo in the spring and summer of 1918 is drawn from Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 8.
60 “it is a well-known fact”: Yale to Harrison, July 1, 1918; YU, Box 2, Folder 35.
61 “Quietly these few men”: Yale to Harrison, April 29, 1918; YU, Box 2, Folder 28, pp. 10–11.
62 “Referring your report No. 28”: U.S. Secretary of State Lansing to Yale, July 9, 1918; NARA RG59, Box 1047, 111.70Y.
63 “capable of a general”: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 534.
64 “emancipated from Turkish”: Foreign Office to Wingate, June 11, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3381, f. 35–36. In fact, this was a rare case of Lawrence’s cynicism failing him. As would be revealed at the Paris Peace Conference, Mark Sykes had very carefully phrased his “Seven Syrians” letter so that the promise of independence for lands freed by the “Arabs themselves during the present war” could be interpreted as only applying to those lands freed at the time of writing. By this sleight-of-hand construction, most of greater Syria could be excluded.
65 The cover story Lawrence: Hogarth, memorandum attached to “The Arab Question,” August 9, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3381, f. 113. Either this did not end Faisal’s overtures to the Ottoman government, or the Germans were not informed of the severing; even into early September 1918, senior German diplomats and military officers wrote of the urgent need to make peace with Faisal.
66 In doing so, all had ignored: Clayton to Foreign Office, May 3, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3403, f. 384.
67 “So for the last time we mustered”: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 544.
68 “I request that you see me”: Prüfer, Diary, July 31, 1918; HO.
Chapter 18: Damascus
1 “We ordered ‘no prisoners’ ”: Lawrence, “The Destruction of the 4th. Army,” October 1918; PRO-WO 882/7, f. 360.
2 British prime minister: Gilbert, First World War, p. 452.
3 “Growing intimacy with”: Prüfer, Diary, August 30, 1918; HO.
4 It was surely an indication: Prüfer to AA, September 3, 1918; NARA T137, Roll 138, Frames 329–30.
5 “I’ll tell you, Yale”: Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 8, p. 30.
6 “[I] lay there all day”: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 586.
7 “I have been so violently”: Garnett, The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, p. 244.
8 If exactly why remains: As in Seven Pillars, Lawrence was peculiarly circumspect with both Robert Graves and Basil Liddell Hart about his meeting with Nuri Shalaan in August 1918, only allowing that it tormented him deeply. When Graves pressed on the matter, Lawrence replied, “There was a particular and very horrible reason (not published) for my distress at this moment” (Graves and Liddell Hart, T. E. Lawrence: Letters to His Biographers, Pt. 1, p. 103). Similarly, when Liddell Hart asked the nature of the pledge that Lawrence apparently made to Shalaan, Lawrence replied, “Prefer not to reveal.” (UT Folder 1, File 1.)
9 Lawrence had finally patched: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 579.
10 “today it came to me”: Ibid., p. 586.
11 “It is reported that the Syrians”: Yale to U.S. Director of Military Intelligence, September 12, 1918; YU, Box 2, Folder 39.
12 “a pleasant little work”: Lawrence’s account of the September 1918 offensive in Syria is drawn from Seven Pillars, book 10, chapters 107–12, pp. 581–660.
13 “I was irritated”: William Yale’s recollections of the September 1918 British offensive in Syria are drawn from Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 9.
14 “Already the Turkish Army”: As quoted by Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 549.
15 “The whole Turkish army”: Ibid.
16 To forestall that: Bartholomew to Joyce, September 21, 1918; PRO-WO 157/738.
17 During Lawrence’s brief: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 555.
18 Indeed, so rapid was: Lawrence to Dawnay, September 25, 1918; PRO-WO 157/738.
19 “hopeless but carefree”: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, pp. 628–29.
20 “gave a horrible cry”: Lawrence, “The Destruction of the 4th. Army,” October 1918; PRO-WO 882/7, f. 360.
21 “then we turned our Hotchkiss”: Ibid.
22 “The whole place was indescribably”: Barrow, The Fire o
f Life, pp. 209–12.
23 To add a different wrinkle: An interesting discussion of the Tafas incident, and of the attempt by some of Lawrence’s army colleagues to defend his reputation against Lawrence himself, can be found in Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, pp. 234–40.
24 “we were on the eve”: Stirling, Safety Last, pp. 93–94.
25 “I understood that”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 563.
26 “agrees with my carrying on”: Lawrence to General Headquarters, October 1, 1918; PRO-WO 157/738.
27 “We called out the Arab”: Lawrence, “The Destruction of the 4th. Army,” October 1918; PRO-WO 882/7, f. 364.
28 “wet red galleries”: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 656.
29 “Triumphal entry”: Chauvel, “Notes,” as cited by Hill, Chauvel of the Light Horse, p. 184.
30 “the British Government”: CIGS to Allenby, September 25, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3383, f. 489–92.
31 “the belligerent status”: War Office to General Headquarters, Egypt, October 1, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3383, f. 498–99.
32 “who would work for”: Chauvel, “Notes,” as cited by Hill, Chauvel of the Light Horse, p. 184.
33 “I feverishly wrote report”: Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 10, p. 3.
34 “that he would not work”: Chauvel, “Notes,” as cited by Hill, Chauvel of the Light Horse, p. 185.
Epilogue: Paris
1 “Blast the Lawrence”: Lawrence to Armstrong, October 6, 1914; UT, Folder 2, File 6.
2 “a malign influence”: Arthur Hirtzel to Curzon, June 19, 1919; PRO-FO 371/4149, f. 149A.
3 “to a large extent responsible”: Clark-Kerr, quoted by Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 617.
4 “All necessary measures”: The Weizmann-Faisal Agreement, January 3, 1919, as reproduced in Friedman, Tension in Palestine, pp. 157–61.
5 “The establishment of a National”: Weizmann, “Proposals Relating to the Establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine,” November 19, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3385.
6 Instead, they included: Gelfand, The Inquiry, pp. 60–62.
7 The Report on the Desires: E. H. Byrne, Report on the Desires of the Syrians, October 7, 1918; YU Box 4, Folder 23.
8 “We fought over boundary”: Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 10, p. 6.
9 “extreme depression”: Garnett, The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, p. 294.
10 “the racial kinship”: The Weizmann-Faisal Agreement, January 3, 1919, as reproduced in Friedman, Tension in Palestine, pp. 157–61.
11 “not only [the] questions”: Lawrence to Liddell Hart, Graves and Liddell Hart, T. E. Lawrence: Letters to His Biographers, Pt. 2, p. 143.
12 “assist in promoting”: Sykes, memorandum, October 15, 1918; PRO-FO 371/3413.
13 “Don’t take Mark”: Hogarth to Clayton, quoted by Adelson, Mark Sykes, p. 281.
14 “whoever takes over Syria”: Sykes, as quoted by Adelson, Ibid., p. 289.
15 “I said something to him”: Lloyd George, as quoted by Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 609.
16 “Chaim [Weizmann] said”: Aaronsohn, Diary, January 16, 1919; ZY.
17 “I hate the way”: Aaronsohn, as quoted by Florence, Lawrence and Aaronsohn, p. 406.
18 In a series of memoranda: For details on the U.S.-UK oil concession controversy of 1919–1924, see DeNovo, American Interests and Policies in the Middle East, pp. 167–209; Fanning, Foreign Oil and the Free World, chapter 5; Shwadran, The Middle East, Oil and the Great Powers, pp. 403–9; and PRO-FO 141/456, File 6522.
19 Scurrying into the breach: Suleiman Nassif to Yale, March 24, 1924; BU Box 15, Folder 6.
20 As he told a senior: Yale to Birch Helms (Socony), May 5, 1922; BU Box 15, Folder 5.
21 “smash the debasing tyranny”: Yale, “Islam Versus Christianity,” North American Review, February 1923; BU Box 11.
22 “the exploitive nature”: Yale, letter to Free World, August 1942; BU Box 1, Folder 9.
23 It was a myth: McKale, Curt Prüfer, p. 59.
24 “Our propaganda suffered”: Prüfer to Otto Gunther von Wesendonck, German Foreign Ministry, November 2, 1918; NARA T136, Roll 94, Frame 21.
25 For these and other activities: PRO-KV 2/3114.
26 “All this is terrible”: Prüfer, as quoted by McKale, Curt Prüfer, p. 177.
27 “Students will be”: From Prüfer’s MI5 Security Service file, PRO-KV 2/3114.
28 “the Arabs are like a page”: Lawrence to Graves, May 21, 1912; Graves and Liddell Hart, T. E. Lawrence: Letters to His Biographers, Pt. 1, p. 15.
29 “walled its bearers”: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 641.
30 “made straight all”: Ibid., p. 276.
31 “is more often praised”: Meyers, The Wounded Spirit, p. 11.
32 “Please apologize”: Lawrence to Newcombe, February 28, 1929; UT Folder 5, File 2.
33 “I’ve changed”: Lawrence to Charlotte Shaw, as cited in Brown, The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, p. 290.
34 “at present”: Lawrence to Rogers, as cited in Brown, The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, p. 536.
35 “Your brother’s name”: King George V to A. W. Lawrence, Times (London), May 21, 1935.
36 “I deem him”: Churchill, quoted in A. W. Lawrence, T. E. Lawrence by His Friends (1954 edition), p. 202.
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