Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

by Michael Korda

  European diplomacy: A diminutive Lawrence tries to restrain Feisal from being tempted by France at the Peace Conference. Cartoon by Sir Mark Sykes.

  In this, he succeeded triumphantly. By November 21, when he attended the next Eastern Committee meeting, Feisal’s participation was now considered indispensable by most of the members. “You do not want to divide the loot,” Jan Smuts warned the committee; “that would be the wrong policy for the future.” What Smuts meant, of course, was that the British should not be seen to be dividing the loot, least of all in cooperation with the French. They should, in the words of Curzon, “play [Arab] self-determination for all it was worth … knowing in the bottom of [their] hearts that we are more likely to benefit from it than anybody else.” Lord Robert Cecil argued for the presence of a friendly Arab prince and felt “it was essential that Feisal and the British government have the same story.” This carried the implication that Lawrence, the only person who knew Feisal, should be present to coach his friend on a common “story,” one that would—it was hoped—satisfy the Americans without alarming the French.*

  From November 8 to November 21, Lawrence had not only looked after Feisal’s interests but also placed himself as one of the central figures at the forthcoming Peace Conference—for by now nobody could doubt that “Colonel Lawrence” would be part of the British delegation. For a man who denied altogether having any ambition, Lawrence had played his cards as adroitly as Machiavelli.

  In fact, Feisal and his exotic entourage, which included his personal slave and the newly promoted Brigadier-General Nuri as-Said, were already at sea, on board the cruiser HMS Gloucester. Just as Lawrence had been able, after Aqaba, to summon naval ships and airplanes when he needed them, now he had adroitly managed to have the Royal Navy deliver Feisal to Europe. This was not only proof of Lawrence’s prestige, but a very visible statement of British backing for the Hashemite family and its pretensions. Unfortunately, this move had not been announced to the French government, perhaps owing to a failure of communication, perhaps by an oversight, or more likely because nobody wanted to take responsibility for doing so. When the French were finally informed by their secret services that Feisal would be landing at any moment in Marseille from a British cruiser, they were predictably outraged.

  Lawrence was dispatched by the Foreign Office at once to extinguish the fire, and arrived in Marseille, via Paris, with orders to smooth things down and get Feisal to Paris, or, if necessary, to London, with as little fuss as possible. Although the French claimed that Lawrence wore his white robes to greet Feisal, this seems not to have been the case. In photographs of their meeting, Lawrence is in British uniform, but he had borrowed the Arab headdress and agal of a Meccan officer. He gave further offense to the French by not wearing the ribbons of a chevalier of the Legion of Honor or his two Croix de Guerre. He was regarded in Paris as Feisal’s “evil genius,” and as a sinister agent of the British secret services. Colonel Brémond—France’s former military representative in Jidda and Lawrence’s old bête noire—was ordered to intercept Feisal and Lawrence posthaste, and inform them of France’s displeasure. Regarding Lawrence, Brémond’s instructions were uncompromising: “You must be quite candid with Lawrence, and point out to him that he is in a false position. If he is in France as a British colonel in British uniform, we welcome him. But we don’t accept him as an Arab, and if he remains in fancy dress, he is not wanted here.”

  A brief tussle took place at Marseille; the British wanted Feisal to travel directly to Paris; but the French, playing for time, had quickly arranged a leisurely tour of the major battlefields, including Verdun—no doubt to show him how much greater France’s sacrifices had been in the war than those of the Hejaz—as well as a number of factories, to impress him with France’s wealth. Lawrence accompanied Feisal as far as Lyon, where Colonel Brémond finally caught up with them. The French warning regarding Lawrence was read to them, and Lawrence, possibly choosing this occasion to return his cross of the Legion of Honor to Brémond, bowed to French pressure and left Feisal to travel on to Paris alone. Throughout this trying episode Feisal behaved with a degree of dignity and patience that won him great admiration, but did nothing to change minds in Paris about Syria and Lebanon.

  The French hoped that by keeping Feisal away from Paris they could persuade the British to confirm the Sykes-Picot agreement before the American delegation arrived in Paris. The two European powers could then present President Wilson with a fait accompli on the subject of the Middle East: a British Mesopotamia, a French Syria (including Lebanon), and some sort of face-saving arrangement in Palestine that would satisfy Britain, France, and American Zionists, for in Paris and London the Jews were—mistakenly—thought to have great influence over the American delegation. In large part because of Lawrence’s skillful propaganda, the British still felt themselves under obligation to Feisal, and deeply uncom fortable with the Sykes-Picot agreement. British troops were still occupying Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, and were stubbornly (and perhaps unrealistically) prepared to play what would turn out to be a losing hand, supporting Feisal and his father against the French.

  As is so often the case in politics, unforeseeable events conspired to make Feisal’s case for an independent Arab government in Syria even less promising than it had been. While Feisal was still being kept busy touring French factories (displaying a dignified, polite, but remote smile of interest), the French prime minister, Georges Clemenceau, arrived in London on what was supposed to be a ceremonial visit. At seventy-eight, the oldest of the Allied leaders, Clemenceau was a man of great intelligence, biting wit, and ferocious energy, nicknamed le tigre for his savage and unforgiving political skill, whose uncompromising leadership had saved France from defeat. Stocky, powerful, speaking excellent English (in his youth he had taught French and riding for a time at a girls’ school in Connecticut), with piercing eyes and a bristling walrus mustache, his hands always clad in gray cotton gloves to hide his eczema, Clemenceau was an imposing figure, perhaps the most feared politician in France. Only the prolonged bloodletting of Verdun, the disaster of General Nivelle’s offensive, and the widespread mutinies in the French army that followed it could have brought Clemenceau back to power in 1917. Now, after victory, he was faced with making a peace that would justify or repay France’s sacrifices. Among the Allies, the only leader whom he considered his equal was David Lloyd George, but the two men loathed and distrusted each other, perhaps because they were cut from the same cloth.

  Lawrence at the Paris Peace Conference, as part of Feisal’s delegation. Feisal’s Sudanese slave and bodyguard, towering over everbody else, is on the right.

  As the two leaders stood together in the French embassy in London Clemenceau, who had no gift for polite small talk, and was determined to cement good relations between France and Britain before Wilson arrived, bluntly asked Lloyd George what he wanted. Lloyd George quickly replied that he wanted Mesopotamia, and all of Palestine, “from Beersheba to Dan,” as well as Jerusalem. “What else?” Clemenceau asked. “I want Mosul.” “You shall have it,” Clemenceau replied. This appeared to be a burst of generosity, but it was followed by a request for Britain’s agreement, in return, to “a unified French administration in the whole of Syria, including the inland area reserved for an independent Arab administration.”

  Lloyd George knew his Old Testament—"from Beersheba to Dan” was the territory granted by Abimelech to Abraham, and claimed by David as the southern and northern limits of his kingdom—but “Dan” was to provide numerous difficulties for the lawyers and mapmakers at the Peace Conference, since it had vanished altogether from modern maps of Palestine. (It was just north of the Sea of Galilee, and just southeast of the Litani River and the present border between Israel and Lebanon. From the point of view of Lloyd George, the important thing was that this area included Jerusalem.)

  South Hill, in Delvin, County Westmeath, Ireland, the home Thomas Chapman abandoned when he left his family for Sarah.

 
; Sarah, about 1895, at Langley Lodge, Hampshire,

  Janet Laurie, at about the time Ned proposed to her.

  Gertrude Bell, in her desert riding costume.

  Cairo, 1917. At left, Lawrence, for once in uniform; center, Hogarth; right, Alan Dawnay.

  Aqaba, as it was when Lawrence captured it.

  Photograph by Lawrence of Feisal’s camp at dawn

  The vanguard of the Arab army arrives in Yenbo. Feisal is the figure on the black horse with a white blaze, to the right, in the lead, preceded by his slaves on foot. The figure behind him in white, mounted on a camel, is Lawrence.

  Photograph by Lawrence of the Arab army on the move. Note the furled banners

  December 1917:

  Allenby enters Jerusalem on foot.

  British and French officers congratulate each other after the entry into Jerusalem. Lawrence, in a borrowed uniform, is the short figure, third from left.

  A Turkish train and railway station after Lawrence wrecked them both.

  FRAMES FROM THE FILM FOOTAGE LOWELL THOMAS AND HARRY CHASE SHOT IN AQABA, 1918:

  Arab cavalry deploying.

  Lawrence’s armored cars, attacking the railway line between Maan and Medina

  The bridge at Yarmuk.

  Emir Abdulla, the future king of Jordan, reviews troops. The figure between the two British officers may be Lawrence; the tall officer on the right is Allenby

  Lawrence, in 1918. The dagger is the one he bought in Mecca, and later sold to put a new roof on his cottage.

  T. E. Lawrence and Lowell Thomas pose together in Arab dress for Harry Chase. This photograph was probably taken after the war, in England (note the grass and the shrubbery in the background).

  March 20, 1921: the imperial conference at Cairo. Figures immediately below the Sphinx’s head are, left to right, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Bell, and Lawrence

  Two of England’s most famous and celebrated figures: Nancy Astor and Bernard Shaw, surrounded by admirers.

  Bernard and Charlotte Shaw a rare glimpse of them together, and apparently at leisure

  Nancy Astor, in a characteristically energetic and combative pose.

  Lawrence, barefoot, standing on a float of a seaplane

  Clare Sydney Smith

  Lawrence in RAF uniform, at Cattewater, about the time he became a friend of both Smiths.

  Lawrence relaxes with Clare (seated, far right), with two of her friends, and dogs.

  Clare and Lawrence, then Aircraftman Shaw, in the Biscuit. Clare is at the wheel.

  Lawrence, at the wheel, puts the Biscuit through its paces at high speed, towing a water-skier

  Front page of the Daily Sketch, announcing Lawrence’s death.

  Eric Kennington’s bust of Lawrence for the memorial in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London.

  Eric Kennington works on his effigy of Lawrence.

  Eric Kennington’s effigy of Lawrence, in St. Martin’s Church, Warcham, Dorset.

  Lloyd George did not immediately inform the cabinet of his spur-of-the-moment gentleman’s agreement with Clemenceau, no doubt because he knew that some cabinet members would object. Nor was Clemenceau anxious to let his foreign minister, Pichon, know that he had just given away the oil of Mosul and the city of Jerusalem to the man who was known in Britain, not for nothing, as the “Welsh wizard.” Clemenceau soon came under attack from French imperialists and rightists for having betrayed France; and Lloyd George had inadvertently agreed to keep in place just those clauses of the Sykes-Picot agreement that most of his cabinet thought should be dropped or modified.

  The day after this extraordinary example of impulsive personal diplomacy, Lawrence arrived back in Britain from France and went straight to see Lord Robert Cecil, to tell him about Feisal’s unfortunate reception in France. Cecil, as always sympathetic to Lawrence, immediately sent a note to Lloyd George asking him to meet with “Colonel Lawrence (the Arabian)” [sic], who wished to warn him of Clemenceau’s plans to undercut British and Arab aspirations in the Middle East. Because Lloyd George, unbeknownst to Cecil, had already agreed to those plans, the prime minister carefully avoided meeting with Lawrence, who was instead fobbed off with an invitation to attend his third session of the Eastern Committee, three days later. The opinion of the members was still strongly against the Sykes-Picot agreement—even Lawrence’s old opponent Lord Curzon spoke scathingly about the arrangements for Syria, describing them as “fantastic” and predicting (correctly) that they would be a source of “incessant friction between the French and ourselves, and the Arabs as third parties.”

  Clearly, Curzon, like Cecil, had not yet been told of the prime minister’s bargain with Clemenceau; but A. J. Balfour apparently had, for to everyone’s surprise, since he seldom appeared at the committee, he spoke at length, emphasizing that Britain could not possibly repudiate the Sykes-Picot agreement, and that France’s claim to Syria and Lebanon must be respected to the letter. Balfour’s manner was famously languid and aloof, and even his friends complained that while he seemed urbane, he was ice-cold, but on this occasion he was unusually frank. If the Americans “chose to step in and cut the knot,” that was their business, “but we must not put the knife into their hand.” Balfour was foreign secretary, and while it could not be said that he enjoyed Lloyd George’s confidence, he was the senior Conservative member of the coalition government, and Lloyd George would almost certainly have revealed to Balfour what he still regarded as a coup, a triumph that gave the British everything they wanted in exchange for Syria and Lebanon, where they had nothing to gain. Those whose political instincts were sharp (and Lawrence was certainly among them) must have guessed that the government had in effect abandoned Feisal to make the best deal it could with the French.

  On the other hand, the British, being British, were anxious to put a good face on things, and with that in mind the Foreign Office hastened to add Lawrence’s name to the members of the British delegation to the Peace Conference as an “advisor on special subjects,” in addition to being “a member of Feisal’s staff.” Thus Lawrence was placed in much the same ambiguous position at the Peace Conference as he had been in Arabia in 1917. Once again he was called on to manage Feisal on behalf of the British government, while at the same time attempting to secure for Feisal what he already knew Feisal wouldn’t get.

  Lawrence himself would describe the postwar experience hauntingly in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, speaking for many of his generation who shared his bitterness: “We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.”

  Feisal arrived in Britain on December 10. It is not certain whether

  Lawrence went to Paris to meet him, in uniform, or met him on the dock at Boulogne in his white robes, looking—according to Colonel Bré-mond—"like a choir boy” as he came down the gangplank of a British destroyer under gray skies. Since Brémond’s job, as long as Feisal was on French soil, was to stick as close to him as a watchdog on behalf of the French, it seems likely Brémond was correct.

  Lawrence stayed with Feisal and his entourage at the Carlton Hotel in London, acting as Feisal’s interpreter, and dressed in a British officer’s khaki uniform, with an Arab headdress. Two days after Feisal arrived, he and Lawrence called on the foreign secretary, A. J. Balfour, to whom Feisal expressed his determination to fight the French if they tried to take control of Syria—a threat that failed to shake Balfour’s majestic calm. Later in the day Feisal had a cordial meeting at the Carlton Hotel with Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader who had journeyed to Aqaba to meet with Feisal in June 1918. This time Lawrence was the interpreter, and he made sure to impress on Feisal the importance of good relationships with the Zionists, especia
lly because of American public opinion. Feisal was very conscious of this. One of the formal dinner parties in his honor was given by Lord Rothschild; and the Jewish Chronicle commented favorably on his meeting with Weizmann. During that meeting, Feisal had stressed his belief that there was plenty of land for Jewish settlement in Palestine, and Weizmann had said that the Jews would finance and carry out large-scale public works and agricultural improvement to the benefit of both peoples, and that as many as 4 million or 5 million Jews could settle there without encroaching on Arab land.

  Lawrence and Feisal would be together in Britain for almost three weeks, during which time the government did its best to keep Feisal busy. The activities included a journey to Scotland to attend a number of “civic functions,” among them a formal visit on board the British battleship HMS Orion, where Feisal and Lawrence were photographed seated glumly on the deck, Feisal looking bored and dejected, and Lawrence, a tiny figure in British uniform beside him, appearing cold, and also furious at what must have seemed to him an irrelevant waste of time. The two of them are flanked and dwarfed by the ship’s captain and a rear-admiral smiling for the camera, the admiral apparently the only happy person in the group. Efforts to keep Feisal amused seem to have been no more successful in Britain than they had been in France, especially since it cannot have escaped his attention that he was being excluded from substantive discussions. The visit to Scotland was no doubt primarily intended to keep him out of London and away from the attention of journalists; this perhaps explains why he and Lawrence look more like the victims of a hijacking than honored guests.