Unfortunately, the version that I have heard from Lawrence is more plain in its truth, and lacks the undertones of truth that make the other version so apt. Foch said to him in a jocular way, “When I have the pacification of Syria, I’ll send Weygand.” To which Lawrence retorted: “Well be ail right then—so long as you don’t come yourself.” This subtle touch of flattery reminds one of the classical story of the meeting between the two Great Captains of the Punic Wars, when Hannibal, asked by Scipio whom he deemed the greatest of all commanders, put Alexander first, Pyrrhus second, and himself third; and when asked “What if you had defeated me?” replied “Then I should have put myself first.”
In making his analogous retort to Foch, Lawrence’s courtesy or his classical sense suppressed his real impression. For he had doubted the depth of Foch’s military knowledge ever since he had discovered, in his own far-reaching studies before the war, that much of the textbook that had made Foch’s reputation as a military thinker was an unacknowledged “crib” from a German writer. And personal contact with Foch had completed his disillusionment—“in 1919 he was only a frantic pair of moustaches.” Another comment which T.E. made when, a few years ago he heard I was engaged on a study of Foch’s career, is too good to be omitted—“He was rather a drab creature, surely, with more teeth than brains. It was irony that made him the successful general of the last phase.”
Among the highest military leaders Lawrence’s admiration was reserved for Allenby, a tribute to character even more than to ability—“He was so large-hearted and clean-judging a chief that all we varied devils worked hard for him, without hardly leisure to see what a rotten gang we were (or the other fellows were). For actual tactics he depended for success on his staff: Guy Dawnay, first; Bartholomew lastly.”
These like their chief had shown a capacity to profit by an experience of war such as no soldier in the standardized slaughter of the Western Front had enjoyed; there were several soldiers in Palestine who earned Lawrence’s respect by developing a pre-nineteenth century quality of military art expressed in modern terms. Contrary to the popular picture, he has no scorn of the professional soldier as such; he recognizes the value of a professional technique in regular warfare, although he sees that a commander should also be versed in the higher sphere of war. His contempt is reserved for the regular who professes a knowledge he does not possess—and does not apply himself to acquire it. This outlook gives point to another story, a true story, about Lawrence at the Peace Conference. A certain general who later commanded on the Rhine, and of whom it is fair to say that his bark is worse than his bite, was nettled by Lawrence’s assured manner in expressing his views, and burst out with the foolish rebuke—“You’re not a professional soldier.” Lawrence piercingly retorted—“No, I’m not, but if you had a division and I had a division I know which of us would be taken prisoner!”
The point is enhanced by the opinion that Allenby expressed when asked by Robert Graves if he thought Lawrence would have made a good general of regular forces—“A very bad general, but a good commander-in-chief, yes. There is no show that I would believe him incapable of running if he wanted to, but he would have to be given a free hand.”
In Palestine Lawrence had been allowed a free hand by Allenby; in Paris he had to watch others undoing his achievement. To make it worse the right and left hands of British policy were pulling against each other. These internal divergences produced ironical effects. The Foreign Office sincerely desired a settlement that should fulfil our undertakings to both Arabs and French, and still cherished hopes of satisfying both parties. But Mesopotamia, the inevitable bargain-counter, lay under the hand of the Indian Government, and Foreign Office attempts to prompt the setting up of an Arab administration in Mesopotamia met with little welcome and less response. Such indirect and long-range pressure was easy to resist by the man on the spot, especially when he was such a determined personality as Arnold Wilson. Yet he did not perhaps realize that, whatever the practical advantages of his policy on the spot, they could only be secured at the wider expense of England’s honour.
With the mill-stone of Mesopotamia round its neck, British statesmanship was hopelessly handicapped in trying to obtain a modification of the provisions of the Sykes-Picot treaty. The French insisted on their full pound of flesh not only because of their hunger for new colonies but because they feared the repercussion on their old colonies in Africa if they conceded Syrian independence. The scales were weighted with dishonoured bonds when Feisal made his appeal to the Council of Ten, and he obtained no satisfaction beyond carrying off the honours of debate. For when Pichon, the French Foreign Minister, discoursed on the Crusading pedigree of France’s claim to Syria, Feisal pricked his eloquence with the quiet retort—“Pardon me, Monsieur Pichon, but which of us won the Crusades?” it was on this occasion that Lawrence, present officially as Feisal’s interpreter, performed a tour de force by addressing the meeting in English, French, and Arabic by turns.
As the French stood fast, the British gave way. The urgency of greater issues afforded a convenient excuse for purposeful procrastination over the Middle East, whilst the new device of “mandates,” which the more cynical Arabs spelt “protectorates” served to put a polish on the purpose.
Thus abandoned to his own devices, Feisal postponed the end by coming to an arrangement with the French, or at least with Clemenceau—contrary to popular belief in England the “Tiger” was less rapacious than many of his jackals. In achieving this provisional agreement Feisal was momentarily helped by the difficulties of the French in Syria. They had become engaged in a veiled war with the undemobilized Turks, who were trying to repeat their Balkan war trick of stealing back during the Armistice the territory they had lost in war. And while the French were thus entangled on the Cilician border their position in Syria was becoming more and more uneasy. Even Picot was brought to realize the unpalatable fact, conveyed in a significant telegram to Paris, that “the absence of Feisal is encouraging the extremists.” This confession reinforced the arguments which Lawrence had already put to Clemenceau, and produced the turn about by which Clemenceau, after having first repudiated Feisal, now offered to recognize the independence of Syria on condition that Feisal supported the interests of France.
Convinced that British support was no more than a reed, Feisal was constrained to accept this offer, much to the disgust of his father who, when he heard the news, regarded him as having bartered his soul for a mess of pottage.
It was partly in revulsion from this bargain with the infidel that Hussein took the fateful, and eventually fatal, step of proclaiming himself Commander of the Faithful, an act which immediately hardened the Imam and the Idrissi against him, and cause an explosion of wrath among the fanatical Wahabis which Ibn Sa‘ud skilfully directed to Hussein’s ultimate overthrow. Towards the end of May there was a foretaste of this disaster when Abdulla, reluctantly urged forward by his pride-blinded parent across the borders of Nejd, was taken by surprise at Turabah during the night. Out of a Sherifian force of some 4,000 men, only a handful escaped with Abdulla. The remainder were massacred with a ferocity which at least testified to the superior savagery of the Wahabis, and won them the respect which so many Englishmen are always ready to pay the “noble savage.” Henceforth Hussein’s tenure of Mecca was but a precarious survival, kept in existence only by Britain’s dubious protection of an ally who was no longer an asset, and by Ibn Sa‘ud’s shrewd restraint. When the moment was ripe and the stem had withered, he would reach out for the apple.
There is a dignity which commands respect, if it leaves a sting, in the address which Hussein delivered to the Bedouin sheikhs at Mecca at the end of the year—“I have come to remark a great change-round of the Allies, and especially of France in favour of Turkey. Asia Minor, comprising Armenia, will remain Turkish, Syria is given to France in spite of our protests; our possession of Damascus is strongly disputed.” “I listened to the faithless English, I let myself be tempted and won over by them. I have contributed to pres
erve their Moslem empire. Thanks to us, the route to India has remained open during the war. Egypt, which was watching our lead, restrained its aspirations and remained quiet. Thanks to us, the region of Damascus abandoned the cause of the Turks. Alas! I have always believed that I was working for the grandeur and unity of Islam. Things have turned out differently. Let us resign ourselves and not lose confidence in the most high God.” “Let us unite our efforts and continue to work in common for the peace and security of the Hejaz.”
That hope was virtually extinguished when the British discontinued the subsidies that had restrained Ibn Sa‘ud from interference. Whatever his. errors of judgment, Hussein had set an example of honesty which shines out in contrast with his environment. Perhaps the verdict of history may be that he was too honest to be a successful statesman.
Although Feisal had made his compact with the French from a sense of practical statesmanship that his father lacked, he seems to have had no illusions, when he returned to Syria in May, of the slenderness of his prospects or the strength of the desire which the French privily cherished. He told their representatives frankly, “I will accept your aid, but I will never accept enslavement.”
After a year’s uneasy grace his forebodings were fulfilled. In September, 1919, on a fresh visit to London, he was notified that the Government had arranged with the French to withdraw the British troops from Syria in November. He was advised to come to terms direct with the French—a course he had already anticipated. Nevertheless, he now realized better than ever the frailty of that arrangement and made one more desperate appeal to the British not to abandon him. It made an impression but produced no satisfaction. Mesopotamia was not only a barrier across the British path but a beam in the eye of Lord Curzon whose imperialism, had long been irked by the policy which his own subordinates in the Foreign Office, as well as Lawrence, were advocating for Mesopotamia.
Thus when Lawrence, in a renewed effort on Feisal’s behalf, suggested that the British Government should disclose their intentions regarding Mesopotamia, Curzon objected, and diverted attention by pointing out a mote in Feisal’s eye—the surreptitious visit paid by certain Sherifian officers from Damascus to the tribes in Mesopotamia. The military authorities there suspected them of attempting to foment anti-British feeling. Whatever the truth in this charge, which Nuri Said warmly denied when questioned, there was palpable truth in the Sherifian officers’ counter-complaint that the attitude of the British officers in Mesopotamia was utterly different from that of those they had known on the road to Damascus—the difference between distrustful rulers and friendly advisers.
Affairs drifted on to their sombre conclusion. The question of Mesopotamia’s future government was referred to the Interdepartmental Conference in November which agreed that something must be done to meet Arab aspirations and that Sir Percy Cox was the right man to take over the reins from the existing military administration. But the War Office considered that this must continue until the question of a mandate was settled and peace with Turkey ratified. The latter, one may remark, took four years and nine months to conclude—nine months longer than the war had lasted. Sir Percy Cox, for his part, was naturally unwilling to assume charge until he had a free hand. More delays ensued.
In March, 1920, the Allied dovecots were fluttered by the news that an Arab Congress, meeting at Damascus, had proclaimed Feisal as King of Syria and Abdulla as King of Iraq. This move seems to have been inspired by a too flattering attempt to imitate the success of d’Annunzio’s coup at Fiume. But the Arabs were soon taught that they were in another category from that of the Great Powers. Curzon promptly responded to the French request for concerted action, and a message was sent sharply repudiating the decisions of the Congress, and inviting Feisal to attend the Franco-British discussions that were to settle the Issue. The sop had an unpalatable flavour.
The San Remo Conference in April sewed as the occasion for what a cynic might term “The Inter-Allied prize-distribution.” The mandate for Syria was awarded to the French; those for Palestine and Mesopotamia to the British. The French formally relinquished their claim to Mosul.
There was an essential difference between the recipients in that the British Government was now moving, if all too slowly, towards giving the Mesopotamian Arabs a real share in the government of Iraq, while the new French Government, replacing Clemenceau’s, was moving swiftly towards ousting the Syrian Arabs from control of Damascus.
In Iraq the British paid the penalty of delay when early in July the tribes on the Euphrates rose in revolt. The widespread outbreaks were not suppressed until late in the year, and they required the dispatch of large reinforcements from India. In that and the following year the British military expenditure in Iraq amounted to sixty million pounds. There Is an Interesting reflection in the fact that it cost us roughly six times as much to hold down the Arabs in Iraq during these two years as it had cost us to sustain the Arab Revolt against Turkey during a similar period.
In Syria, Feisal paid the penalty of French haste, when the possessors of the newly awarded mandate seized the first chance of repudiating the agreement that Clemenceau had made, and of Installing themselves in Damascus. Even by the admission of the French High Commissioner’s staff, Feisal had striven to moderate the bellicosity of the Arab extremists. Yet he was made the target of the ultimatum which the French dispatched on July 14th, at the appearance of armed resistance. It was in vain that he dispatched a message accepting the demands of the ultimatum—another fact confirmed by French evidence. The French forces had been set in motion by Gouraud, whose soldierly simplicity made him an easy lever for political schemers to handle. Once released they could not be retarded—history was given one more example of the familiar plea of military necessity. Gouraud’s troops continued their advance, occupying Damascus on the 25th, and Feisal lost his throne. He took refuge in Palestine and thence made his way eventually to England on one more fruitless attempt to seek British Intervention on his behalf. But the French soon had cause to regret his overthrow, for they involved themselves in troubles far more costly and prolonged than the British experienced in Iraq.
The expulsion of Feisal was the final draught of Lawrence’s cup of bitterness, although long anticipation had in a sense diluted it. That anticipation, blended with his consciousness of personal dishonesty in the past, was the motive that had led him, when he saw the King after his return from the war, to ask that he might be relieved of his British decorations. All his own achievements, indeed, had but woven a crown of thorns that now pressed harder than ever upon his brow.
The fervour with which he fought the Arabs’ battle in the Peace Conference was an effort to relieve that pressure. So was the writing of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the narrative of his physical and mental experiences during the Arab Revolt. Thereby he seems to have hoped to discharge from his mind the gases of his thought, while at the same time raising a memorial to a cause that seemed lost. But the relief from the discharge came later, and in their passage the gases caused a dangerous overheating.
CHAPTER XXI
THE “SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM”
HOGARTH had insisted that it was Lawrences duty to history to compile a worthy memorial of the Arab Revolt. Lawrence yielded reluctantly, but, having once accepted the charge, he carried it through with the same terrific driving force he had generated in the campaign.
Rarely has a great piece of literature been produced under stress of so many distractions. It suffered also two narrow escapes from complete interruption. The first was at Rome, in an aeroplane disaster; the second at Reading, when merely changing trains. One came at the outset, the other when the end seemed in sight.
He had barely sketched the outline when he found the need of referring to his diaries and other papers, all of which had been left with his kit in Cairo. As by this time, the spring of 1919, Feisal’s case had been heard and laid aside, Lawrence felt that he might take the opportunity of collecting his belongings from Cairo. General Groves, the Br
itish air delegate, offered him a passage in a squadron of Handley-Pages which was about to blaze the trail for future airways of Empire by flying out to the Middle East. Unfortunately the giant machines were in bad condition, suffering from hard usage and unskilled attention. In consequence they left a blazing trail—of casualties. Lawrence wrote the introduction to the Seven Pillars “while flying down the Rhône valley, but had progressed no further when the advance machine in which he was travelling crashed at Rome, killing both pilots. Lawrence was more lucky than them in having a seat behind the engines, and he had firmly declined invitations to sit in front with them; through this prudence he escaped with three ribs and his collarbone broken. One of his ribs pierced a lung, which has ever since been liable to hurt him after heavy exertion.
It was by no means his only narrow escape from death in the air—he has told me that he was altogether in seven “write-off” crashes in two thousand hours’ flying. This was his sixth; the seventh was in Palestine in 1921.
After two or three days in an Italian hospital he rang up his wartime comrade Francis Rodd, who was then at Rome where his father. Sir Rennell Rodd, was British Ambassador. Francis Rodd promptly arranged for Lawrence to be moved to the embassy, but after a few days in these comfortable surroundings he insisted on continuing the light to Egypt with the remainder of the squadron. He was still encased in plaster when he left Rome, but the many further delays that the squadron suffered before it at last reached Egypt gave him ample time to recuperate.
Midsummer was past when he returned to Paris. Soon after his arrival he transferred his residence to the headquarters of the Arab delegation in a villa near the Bois de Boulogne and here settled down to his task. He has told me that he wrote in great bursts that lasted as long as twenty-four hours, with only a single break for food. During these sittings he averaged from a thousand to fifteen hundred words an hour, and in the longest wrote over thirty thousand words. Between the bursts there were long intervals, employed in revision.
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