As history relates, Churchill accepted the office and attained both goals. The old division of responsibility between the Foreign Office, India Office and War Office was superseded by a single control of Middle East affairs, centred in the new Middle East Department of the Colonial Office. Here Churchill gathered round him a picked band of assistants, drawn both from within the Civil Service and from outside. Among them were two prominent participants in Allenby’s campaign—Meinertzhagen and Young. And Lawrence was made Political Adviser.
He accepted the post on the understanding that the wartime pledges made to the Arabs on Britain’s behalf would now be honoured as far as lay within Britain’s power. He also asked and was promised free access to the Secretary of State, with permission to give up his post when he wished. When the question of salary was raised, he suggested £1,000 for a year, at which Churchill remarked that it was the most modest thing he had ever been asked, and made it £1,600—Lawrence, however, did not spend it on himself.
The agreement was completely fulfilled, and the unity of action attained. Only once was there even a surface breeze—when Churchill’s cherished bust of Napoleon provoked T.E. to a laudation of Lenin’s supreme greatness that successfully “drew” his master. The happiness of their personal relations, the keenness of intellect that was common to both, and Lawrence’s freedom from all personal ambition, helped to make their official relationship a partnership. And in little more than a year, the partnership achieved their public ambition.
Syria had been swallowed by the French, but Trans-Jordan remained, and more important, Mesopotamia. Even before the war, Lawrence had come to the conclusion that the ultimate focus of Arab nationality, and its future, lay in Mesopotamia, potentially richer and greater than Syria. He could thus more easily adjust his immediate aims to his long view.
The new Department came into existence in February, 1921, and in March, Churchill, Lawrence and Young went out to Cairo for a conference which was attended by the principal political and military officers of the Middle East territories, as well as by prominent representatives of the War Office and Air Ministry. The vital issues, however, were all arranged before the conference was staged. Under Churchil’s masterly handling, the conference served to confirm the decisions, and fill in details.
Feisal, thrown out of one kingdom by the French, was given another in Iraq by the British. His election by the people was as free as elections in England. He arrived in Iraq in June, and was crowned in August, his own charm and Sir Percy Cox’s tact smoothing the passage. The British Government gave formal recognition to what they had privately decided. It had previously been settled that after Feisal’s enthronement, a treaty should be framed, by which Iraq’s sovereignty should be reconciled with Britain’s mandate.
This treaty, duly negotiated, paved the way for Iraq to attain a state of independence friendly to the interests of Britain and fulfilling the conditions of civilized government as stipulated by the League of Nations. The wisdom of Sir Percy Cox in placing himself from the outset in the position of an adviser instead of a controller, smoothed the way for theory to become fact in the progressive transfer of administration from British to Arab hands. And Feisal’s honourable observance of the spirit of the original agreement made possible the progressive realization of the bold conception. If there have been losses in the process they are outweighed by the solid fact that Britain has been enabled to redeem her honour and to give a shining proof that the idea underlying a mandate could be fulfilled both in spirit and letter.
Lawrence’s honour was also redeemed and his sense of failure replaced by a sense of fulfilment. He had gained for the Arabs more than he had originally hoped—then he had scarcely expected that the British would part with Baghdad, still less Basra. He had gained the Arabs the chance to stand on their feet; to use their opportunity according to their lights and their talents. He could do no more. Only responsibility could develop a sense of responsibility—so profound a psychologist had no need to learn by experience this elementary truth.
His satisfaction was not due to an anticipation of early perfection. He expected that the new-born Arab State would have to suffer its growing pains. Indeed, he knew so well the essential individualism of the Arab that he had no great confidence in the ultimate issue, although he saw possibilities that encouraged him in forwarding them. Twelve years’ experience had at least gone further to justify his hopes than the prophecies of early disaster in which others indulged. But, above all, there was “a promise to be kept.” if there was a risk in fulfilling it, there would be more lasting evil for Britain in dishonouring her bond.
The creation of an Arab state in Iraq, sympathetically linked with Britain, was his main aim, but not the only achievement. It was an additional satisfaction that the same stroke of the pen which secured the Arabs their opportunity, presented the Air Force with its opportunity. Political wisdom is best produced when historical and psychological knowledge are blended—as they were in Lawrence. If responsibility was the way to maturity for a person or a people, so it might be for the service with which he believed the future lay.
Another achievement was unpremeditated—the establishment of Abdulla in Trans-Jordan. The Arabs there were already restive, and a looming threat to Palestine, when a further complication was introduced by Abdulla’s initiative in moving up to Amman with a view to repaying the French for his brother’s expulsion. The news caused alarm in Jerusalem and Cairo. The difficulties of turning him out by force were manifest—the Trans-Jordan tribes might rise in his aid, and the British had no troops to spare. Yet if he were allowed to pursue his purpose, and to conduct operations against the French from the British Zone, the French would have serious grounds for complaint. A solution was found by improvising a principality—a solution that reversed the decision of the Cairo Conference.
From past knowledge of Abdulla, Lawrence judged that he could easily be persuaded into the paths of peace if it was obviously expedient. With Churchill’s approval, Lawrence flew to Amman and brought Abdulla back by car to Jerusalem, whither Churchill had come to meet Sir Herbert Samuel. In half an hour’s talk on the Mount of Olives Churchill received so clear an impression of Abdulla’s good sense and political sagacity that he forthwith took the momentous decision to leave Abdulla in Trans-Jordan, as head of a semi-independent Arab State, on condition that he refrained, and restrained his future subjects, from interfering with the French in Syria. Thereby, yet another plank in Lawrence’s original platform was put in place, if in a different order to the original plan.
That same summer of 1921, Lawrence also made an effort to keep in place the parental trunk. In June he went to Jidda to offer Hussein a treaty that would serve as a life-buoy, to secure him the Hejaz, on condition that he renounced his perilously provocative claim to overlordship of the other Arab lands. But Hussein clung obstinately to his self-conferred prerogatives and thereby sealed his own fate. Lawrence relieved the tedium of indefinite arguments in Jidda’s summer heat by occasional cables phrased with a Shakespearean pungency that shocked Curzon’s highly developed sense of diplomatic dignity.
A story has been published that when Hussein failed to get his own way he threatened a drastic solution of the deadlock by calling for his sword and saying—“In these circumstances, Colonel Lawrence, there is only one thing for an honourable man to do.” To which Lawrence is supposed to have replied, with a bow of profound respect: “In that case, Your Majesty, I shall carry on these negotiations with your successor.” Unfortunately it is another of the many stories that are apt without being true. The truth is less extreme as well as less picturesque. Lawrence has told me—“King Hussein used to threaten to abdicate. I wished he would, but was never funny about it. The old man was a tragic figure in his way: brave, obstinate, hopelessly out of date: exasperating.”
Hussein’s politically suicidal self-determination to interfere with other Arabs was the one blemish on Lawrence’s satisfaction. Otherwise, he felt that the utmost had been secur
ed, not only for the Arabs in general, but for those Arabs who had been his comrades in war. He had, too, the conviction that what had been settled would free his own country from the millstone that shortsighted ambitions had hung round her neck. In salvaging her honour, her money also was saved—sixteen million pounds in the first year.
In gaining for the Arabs the free disposal of their future, Lawrence had gained this also for himself. The settlement was his “outlet”—there is significance in the term which he habitually uses. It let him out of public affairs and out of the life of “Lawrence.”
By early 1922, it seemed to his clear sight that the critical stage was safely passed. So, on completing a year of service in February, he asked for his release. Churchill protested strongly, and in grateful deference to his wishes, Lawrence agreed to stay on until he could be spared, and in the meantime, declined any further salary. At last, in June, tired of waiting for the word that would release him, he announced his definite decision to leave, telling Churchill—“There’ll be no more serious trouble for at least seven years.” The prophecy caused scornful laughter in several quarters when reported, but time justified it.
On leaving the Colonial Office, T.E. spent a few weeks in doing “nothing at all except tramp London.” Then he took the step that has amazed the public more than his war achievement.
For in August he enlisted in the ranks of the Royal Air Force. And for this purpose he took the name of Ross—it was casually suggested by an officer in the Air Ministry, who was in his confidence. It had the practical convenience of being late in alphabetical order, so that he did not have to hurry for pay parade!
There is a palpable irony in the fact that, after such determination to free himself from government service, he should have promptly re-entered it. But it may seem less strange if we remember that he had left a position of high responsibility to return in a status of irresponsibility. Low-grade employment in civil life may offer equal freedom from ruling other men’s fate, but not from material cares. Nor does it offer the same interest that Lawrence found in Air Force work. The monastic life may offer equal freedom from both material cares and mental decisions, but it circumscribes the freedom of the critical spirit. Allowing, however, for the difference between the modern and the mediæval mind, it may be near the truth to say that T.E. went into the Air Force for the same reason that some of the most thoughtful men of the Middle Ages went into a monastery. It was not a sudden decision, but had been his intention since the last year of the war. He had been delayed in fulfilling it because of the three years’ delay in settling Arab affairs. Back in 1919 he had told Sir Geoffrey Salmond of his desire to join the Air Force, whereupon Salmond had suggested that he should become his assistant in Egypt. To this, T.E. had quietly but emphatically replied, “I mean to enlist.”
His mediæval forerunners went into a monastery, not only in search of a refuge, but in support of a faith. T.E. had the same dual motive in entering his modern monastery. In his belief, the utilization of the air was “the one big thing left for our generation to do.” Thus everyone “should either take to the air themselves or help it forward.”
At first glance, this attitude is not easy to reconcile with his constant refusal to accept any promotion. “Why doesn’t he take a commission?”—is a frequent question. The answer he once gave me was that he did not mind obeying foolish orders, but that he had an objection to handing them on to other men, as he would have to do if he took any commissioned or non-commissioned rank. The remark despite its flippant ring had a serious basis. In war such orders often result in the useless sacrifice of men’s lives. In peace, they often contribute to the sterilization of men’s reason. And they inevitably make the man who transmits the order an accomplice in the crime, however unwillingly. Fortunately, few of the transmitters have the sensitiveness of perception to feel their responsibility. But T.E. has. Thus for him there are only two suitable posts—the topmost or the bottom-most. Of the two, he prefers the latter, because of his strong dislike of interfering with other men’s freedom. There is, however, a third position—that of counsellor unseen, and this, I think, he has a reviving readiness to fill, now that he has recovered from the exhausting strain from which he was suffering at the time of his enlistment. But how far he is used in this capacity depends on those who hold power, for he will never force his advice on them.
I think there is no doubt that he welcomes, and enjoys, the opportunity of influencing the course of events, of deciding policy and directing action without the appearance. His dislike of the pomp of power is due not only to its waste of time, but to its hypocrisy. He has a horror of the conscious sham that outward authority entails on all its holders who are sufficiently intelligent to realize their hollow insincerity. He perceives how much of the time of the rulers of mankind is consumed in social and ceremonial exercises, time which might be spent in gaining the knowledge on which to take their fateful decisions. Also the subtle poison that such exercises spread through their systems. Ceremony may be a necessity in dealing with the ignorant and superstitious masses, but it is a moral cancer in the man who performs it. The rites of civilized authority differ only in degree from the witch-doctor’s incantations.
Lawrence had the chance of filling one of the most important posts in the British Empire. He did not refuse outright, but proposed a condition that made his appointment officially impossible—a freedom from living in formal state. He would have left his official residence empty and, taking a quiet room somewhere, would have run to and fro on his motor cycle, circulating among the people as much as possible. In his opinion the value of pomp is greatly overrated in our imperial system—Haroun al Raschid is a better guide than Curzon.
His original spell of service in the Royal Air Force was spent at the Oxbridge depot. For months he hid his identity successfully—if he had to use his wits and his wit to throw questioners off the scent without actually violating the truth. Thus at the first inspection by the Commanding Officer he was asked what he had been doing before enlistment; he replied that he had been working in an architect’s office. He had, at Barton Street. Then came the more awkward question as to why he had joined the Air Force; to this he replied—“I think I must have had a mental breakdown, sir.” This was not so adroit, for he had some difficulty in persuading an offended superior that he was not implying that enlistment in the Air Force was an act of insanity. But as an explanation, it contained a profound truth, although not the whole truth.
In accounting for his proficiency with a rifle his sense of humour came to his aid, when he stated that he had done some big-game shooting. Turkish officers of high rank, such as Jemal Pasha’s Staff, might reasonably be so described. The educational test was another fence, and here he took the instructor into his confidence—up to a point. T.E. was not the first man of University education to be driven by circumstances to enlist later.
To this Education Officer’s consideration, T.E. owed some of his more pleasant hours at Uxbridge.
It was not a pleasant place at the time. The note that was sounded at the top, echoing downwards, did not tend to produce a good state of morale, as he emphasized at the time in a diary which he maintained throughout the experience. These notes were added to later, at Cranwell, where the atmosphere was happy; but they remained notes without any attempt at formal composition. Incidentally, in reproducing barrack-room conversations they “out-joyce” James Joyce.
Mr. Jonathan Cape years later learnt of the existence of this manuscript diary, which T.E. prefers to the Seven Pillars of Wisdom as writing, and suggested that it might fulfil a clause in his contract for Revolt in the Desert, giving the firm an option on the next book. The author agreed immediately and submitted the notes for approval, with a statement that his terms for them were a million pounds down in advance, and a 75 per cent royalty. Mr. Cape was not able to raise the million before his option expired.
Despite the difficult conditions at Oxbridge in those days, T.E. succeeded in keeping free of trouble and
earned a good character by his unhesitating submission to discipline, as well as by his readiness to do any job, however distasteful, for which he was detailed. But this did not save him, when, after half a year’s service, an officer who had known him during the war sold the news to the press. The price paid for this information is said to have been thirty pounds—the figure looks almost too apt for it to be true.
But the effect was serious. For the subsequent publicity caused disquiet as well as distaste in the Air Ministry, so strongly assailed in its fight for existence as to be apprehensive of anything that might give rise to criticism. Thus T.E. was turned out of the Air Force in February, 1923, despite his strenuous protests. They might have availed if the decision had been left with the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Hugh Trenchard, who became a second Allenby in his relationship to T.E. With him T.E. discussed the situation and received the hint, which he regarded as a promise, that his readmission to the Air Force might be arranged if he obtained a good character after service in the Army.
Through friends in the War Office the way was smoothed for T.E.’s enlistment in the Tank Corps. He now assumed the name of Shaw. Contrary to rumour, the choice was not due to his friendship and admiration for Bernard Shaw; he took it at random from the Army List Index while waiting in a room at the War Office. It had the same convenience for pay parade as “Ross.”
In March he joined the Tank Corps Depot at Bovington Camp in Dorset. After completing his recruit training and “passing off the square” he was employed in the quartermaster’s stores, where his work was mainly to mark and fit clothing. It was, on the whole, “a cushy job” and had the advantage of giving him the privacy of an office in which he could work at night on the final revision of the Seven Pillars. He fulfilled his allotted tasks so punctually and effacingly that he was rarely troubled by the myrmidons of authority, although on one occasion he was punished by three days “confinement to barracks” for leaving his overalls on his bed. On another occasion he punished a pompous corporal for unjust treatment of another man by throwing the corporal’s suitcase in the dustbin, but escaped the consequence of this act of insubordination.
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