Third, for the insurgent, warfare had to be offensive, never defensive; always protracted, swift but endless; a risk but never a gamble; determined but never obstinate. For the Turks, there was no horizon of time: instead, he would bleed time as much as blood.
Fourth, in the experiments the guerrillas always had to organize into the smallest possible—and most lethal—formations; this was the key to survival in the first place. All units were units of action; there was no hierarchy, no wiring diagram, for this ultimately flat organization. Hierarchy meant hesitation, hesitation meant habituation, habituation meant anticipation by the enemy.
Fifth, as Lawrence understood, the ratio of troops to space determined the essential character of military operations in the desert. The simple field-and-bench physics of his desert laboratory made the conventional regular force a mechanical solid under constant pressure from the corrosive, erosive mist of the raiders. The irregulars simply leaked into the mechanical gears of the Turkish army to leach and desiccate the iron out of its will and existence.
Sixth, because the guerrilla controls precision information regarding the location, organization, and status of his enemy, all offensive actions become precision strikes. There are no misses, no near misses; maximum effectiveness leads to maximum efficiency. Nothing is wasted, nothing is gambled. Where risk arises, it is simply the residue of bad planning, just as Branch Rickey had said.
Last, where the insurgent had the physical quality of a corrosive mist or fog, it had the organic character of a hive: a complex network of chaotic social nets cast broadly throughout the desert. Here the primitive clan and tribe structure proved invaluable. The insurgent hive is perhaps the most evolved of human networks. It could never become completely disorganized, because it thrived on its own and the enemy’s chaos; it could never be organized because it was in a constant state of be-coming. Lawrence never wholly controlled the rebellion any more than he commanded the wind; he could only influence it by the breathing presence of his leadership and will.
In the end, Lawrence’s experiment rested most heavily on his leadership skills, abilities, and personal character. This also became the insurgents’ greatest vulnerability: take away the leader and you have rendered the revolt impotent, ineffective, and incoherent. Lawrence was the tight fist that held close the rebellious bird shot; without his steady hand, all would have fallen away into the desert dust. His subversive leadership style, dominated as it was by his heretical genius, became a rare combination in a guerrilla leader that was unique in at least two ways. First, Lawrence combined wisdom, integrity, humanity, courage, and discipline with empathy: the ability to identify emotionally with all ranks. In an insurgency, empathy plays an especially crucial role; it places the leader inside the hearts and minds of his own men. He knows immediately and intuitively the physical and psychological limits of his troops. In guerrilla warfare, the insurgent must always operate at the limits of normal human endurance—and often beyond—to maintain a physical and moral advantage over his more powerful foe. Empathy also places the insurgent leader in the mind of his superior, a superior like Allenby. Often operating out of communications and at vast distances from his higher headquarters, Lawrence had to operate as if Allenby were at his side; as if Lawrence were his own supreme headquarters.
Second, insurgent leaders like Lawrence are successful because they are enablers: they provide their men with the requisite motivation, training, and skills necessary to accomplish a mission they otherwise could not accomplish alone. A leader who is an enabler makes his troops believe in themselves; they believe they can achieve goals they had never before imagined possible. Enablers operate much like catalysts in a chemical reaction as a factor that induces or precipitates action and change. Lawrence accomplished this in three ways as mentor, designer, and steward.
First, as teacher and mentor he taught his guerrillas the basic tactical skills of attack and defense, while imparting to them his new revolutionary theory of guerrilla warfare in an industrial context. Second, as designer he crafted tactical plans and operational concepts that were skillfully implemented within the overall strategic guidance handed down by Allenby. Finally, as steward he conserved, preserved, and invigorated the combat power of his lethal yet fragile guerrillas. At the same time, he was steward of the great Arab vision of revolution and statehood.
GIVEN LAWRENCE’S REVOLUTIONARY heresy of modern guerrilla warfare outlined above, was there any possible counterstrategy that the Turks could have employed? Assuming a Turkish version of T. E. Lawrence, one can make the following argument recognizing that conventional forces have confronted insurgents throughout the history of warfare and these challenges have been met with success on occasion with patience, creativity, diligence, and sound judgment. In the first place, the Turkish force had to think like an insurgent. Every move, plan, concept, and action had to be seen through the eyes of Lawrence. This demanded a level of imagination that the Turks apparently did not possess. Second, the Turkish army had to act with speed, shock, endurance, and initiative. And by endurance I mean especially moral endurance characterized by strength of will and logistical endurance as operations conducted independent of a continuous line of supply. Instead, time after time the Turks responded to Lawrence’s moves with torpor and malaise. Third, the Turkish commander had to cast an unblinking eye upon the irregular through constant surveillance and precise intelligence. Instead, he was confused and befuddled by Lawrence. Fourth, the Turks had to present the insurgent with no obvious pattern, shape, or structure. This was impossible for the Turks, who were shackled to the railroad and the Muslim holy places: their appearance was as apparent as muscle stretched over bone. Fifth, the only active strategy for the Turks to pursue was a strategy of inoculation: organizing Turkish conventional forces into small, cellular offensive “antibody” units that could “vaccinate” the local tribes against Lawrence and his guerrillas. Yet this had to fail simply because it demanded highly skilled and competent junior leadership, which the Turks, as a mass conscript army, never possessed. Sixth, the nature of Lawrence’s theory of guerrilla warfare required that the enemy isolate Lawrence and his irregulars physically, cybernetically, and psychologically from their bases of support and from any means of communication. Of course, this meant taking risk and decisive offensive action that increasingly became impossible. Seventh, the Turks could have simply bought off the rebellious tribes with gold. Of all the counteractions taken by the Turks, this had some measure of success; in the end, however, the bankrupt Ottoman Empire never possessed near as much gold as the British. Eighth, the Turks sought, though rather ineptly, to destroy the Arab uprising by destroying its leadership: despite numerous close calls, Lawrence was able to survive. Finally, the most decisive strategic act the Turks could deliver in defeating Lawrence and the Arab insurrection was to defeat Allenby’s main conventional army in Palestine; had these forces been defeated, it is almost certain that the fulminating revolt would have flickered out. Allied disasters on the western front would greatly weaken Allenby’s forces, but in the end the Turks were unable to exploit these weaknesses strategically or operationally. British forces eventually grew strong enough to triumph at Damascus.
Of course, the final outcome was not necessarily foreordained or predetermined. Certainly Lawrence had no such vision from his sickbed in the Arabian desert. Victory was still two years away, beyond a horizon obscured by doubt and uncertainty. Only by dint of imagination, determination, genius, and optimism could Lawrence glimpse shadows of triumph amid the fog of war. Intellectually, this meant the kind of commitment to the future usually reserved for the heretic, and this heresy would lead Lawrence to his triumph at Aqaba.
CHAPTERFOUR
Aqaba!
The same problem, two different value systems; therefore, two different criteria, different decisions, and different solutions. This is the problem of problems, the subjective element of problem solving and decision making. Man’s value system, his priorities, guide his behavior as
manifested in problem solving and decision making. Two people, using the same rational tools of problem solving, may arrive at different solutions because they operate from different frames of values and, therefore, their behavior is different. When society faces problems, consensus must be formed to establish a societal value system. The subject of values and value theory is indeed the problem of problems.…
—MOSHE F. RUBINSTEIN, Patterns of Problem Solving
The large tent was dark, save for a small brazier warming the pots of coffee and tea. A few lanterns flickered, casting dim silhouettes upon the sooted canvas walls. Around the brazier two men sat, cross-legged, speaking in low voices. The light and shadow danced in unison with their softly spoken words: brightening and darkening, rising and falling.
It was the end of April 1917. Lawrence and Feisal were discussing the new hit-and-run strategy Lawrence had devised on his sickbed in Wadi Ais the previous month. But now the conversation turned to leadership. Lawrence frankly admitted to Feisal that he was a reluctant leader: more of an Odysseus than an Achilles, more of a Xenophon than an Alexander, maybe even more a Saladin than a Richard the Lion-Hearted. He continued to describe the heavy burdens of leadership and responsibility. Feisal listened quietly and nodded in knowing sympathy.
Suddenly, the entrance of the tent flew open and lancing shafts of light stabbed the dazzled eyes of Lawrence and Feisal. At the threshold stood a dark figure, yet luminous in the radiant, blinding sunlight. “Ho, Feisal!” it called out in a powerful voice. Feisal knew the voice immediately. Auda, of the abu Tayi—the great eastern Howeitat tribe—had come to pay homage and help raise the intensity of the Arab Revolt to a new level.
This was the first time Lawrence had ever laid eyes on Auda abu Tayi. He saw a strong, tall, impressive figure with a haggard visage, at once passionate and compassionate, sad yet hopeful. He was dressed plainly in the northern manner of white cotton with a red Mosul head scarf. His age was an enigma; he might be at least fifty, with black hair trying to hide its gray. He was well built, straight like a ramrod: lithe and supple, with the energy of a much younger man. His face evoked tales of an epic life, rich in shadow and light and most recently etched in sorrow with the death of his beloved son, Annad. Auda’s eyes were black and shiny like marbles; they could flash and glitter in anger. They were set beneath a broad and sloping forehead and above a sharp-beaked hook of a nose. His mouth was perpetually locked in a determined grimace that also carried a haughty whiff of disdain. A beard and mustache were clipped and trimmed to a point in Howeitat fashion and offered an exclamation to Auda’s whole face.
Centuries earlier the Howeitat arrived from the Hejaz, and now their clans prided themselves on being true nomads in the Bedouin manner. Auda was the tribal archetype: a heroic leader and warrior in the tradition of Cochise, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull. His generosity made him poor as his growing legend made him ever richer in reputation. He had taken twenty-eight wives during his adult life; his body bore the scars of thirteen wounds; he had seen most of his relations slain in countless raids. Auda had slain seventy-five Arabs with his own hand. How many Turks? Auda did not tally them: they simply didn’t count. His retinue comprised the fiercest men of the tribe, fighting beside Auda with a relentless courage. He had known them all since boyhood, when they numbered twelve hundred, but now only five hundred fighters remained; the rest lay scattered across thirty years and many more miles of desert.
Auda was a robber baron, a desert pirate: no need to put a fine point on the fact. His corsairs raided from Aleppo, Wejh, Wadi Gawasir, and even as far east as Basra and Baghdad. There was scarce a tribe in the desert that did not fear and even despise Auda, which was fine with him: fewer friends meant all the more to steal. He leavened his hot passion with an unusual calculated cunning. His recklessness was only a facade that covered many days of planning and rational consideration. He had the stalking patience of a jaguar, and when Auda was ready to act, his strike was just as swift and deadly. He took counsel of no one but himself: he was autonomous, autarkic. In his tactical craft he was without equal. Who could give Auda advice? Who else had thirty years of constant raiding experience? Who had the temerity to give advice to a legend?
As a cultural artifact, Auda was also a latter-day Homer who saw his life as a long epic struggle. Yet this heroic conceit only reflected his powerful imagination. He could conjure poems of himself in epic Homeric fashion: saga-sung in his own deep, stentorian voice. At each rendition the story changed in subtle refinement, always a work in progress, like his own life. He even referred to himself in the detached third person. He loved his own self-made legend more than his real self. At a personal level, he was able to detach himself from his mind-forged epics to remain a humble, modest, and charismatic leader. To those close to him, he more often hurt with his sharp tongue than with his well-honed sword: he was direct, honest, and warmhearted.
Auda was just the tactical leader Lawrence required to help implement his new strategy of exhaustion that would grind down the Turks into powder. And Lawrence himself was leader enough to recognize that he would need Auda in the long months ahead. He knew the Bedouin tribesmen would rather follow an animated legend like Auda than some sublime cause—or pale Englishman.
After the ritual dinner with Feisal, Auda, and the other guests, Lawrence carefully laid out his strategy. He began with an admission that his initial assessment of the campaign was wrong. First, he said, since the Arab irregulars were incapable of attacking places and defending fixed positions, they must change their strategy to one of maneuver. Second, since they were incapable of conventional attack or defense, they could not impose a decision on the Turks. Yet a tactical decision was unnecessary. As long as they did not lose, they were winning, even if it meant never fighting another battle. Finally, their real strength resided in their ability to strike deep into the enemy’s territory and into his rear.
Lawrence rose from his discarded meal and continued, padding softly on the outstretched rug: “This Arab war is geographical, and the Turkish Army an accident. We must seek the enemy’s weakest material link and bear only on that till the rest is moved and dislocated. Our largest resources, the Bedouin on whom our war must be built, are unused to conventional operations. But”—he paused in midstride on the colorful carpet—“they have the assets of mobility, toughness, self-assurance, knowledge of the country, intelligent courage. With them dispersal will be our strength. Thus it seems we must extend our front to its maximum, to impose on the Turks the longest possible passive defense, which is to them the costliest form of war.”
To Feisal, Lawrence’s new strategy was becoming clearer; he nodded toward Lawrence to continue. “My lord Feisal, we must remember that our duty is to achieve our end with greatest economy of life, since life is more precious to us than money or even time. But think of it: in relative terms we are stronger than the Turks in transport, machine guns, cars and high explosives—at the decisive point. We can deploy a highly mobile, lightly equipped striking force of the smallest size, and use it successively at distributed points along the Turkish line, to force them to strengthen their posts beyond the usual twenty men. This will be our shortcut to success.”
Lawrence now stopped his peripatetic monologue in front of Auda. He looked up at the Englishman with a curious twinkle in his black eyes that slowly softened to a dark velvet: yes, Auda understood, too. Still, Feisal was not completely convinced. All the plans had been made—the troops deployed, the supplies prepared—to support operations toward Medina in the south. Why change now? Wasn’t it too late? Lawrence turned to Feisal: “We must not take Medina. The Turks are harmless there. If we imprisoned them all—say, in Egypt—they would cost us in food, water and guards. We want them right where they are, at Medina and at every other distant place in the largest numbers. Our goal must be to keep the railroad working, but just barely while inflicting maximum loss and discomfort on the Turks. That simple factor and water will confine him to the railways; and let hi
m have them all: the Hejaz Railway, the Trans-Jordan and the Palestine and Syrian lines. He can have them for the whole war, while we take the rest of the Arab world. His stupidity will be our ally, for he believes that his success depends on holding as many of the older provinces as possible. This pride in his imperial heritage will keep him in his present absurd position: all flanks and no front.”
Feisal nodded, almost imperceptibly falling slightly toward Lawrence, seeming to understand fully at last. Yet the fact remained that plans were afoot, troops in motion. And of course Lawrence was cognizant of all this. He had had his fair hearing with Feisal and his advisers and had at least made a strong case that a possible raid on Aqaba could be a useful diversion to aid Feisal’s designs against the Turkish supply lines. At length, Feisal gave his consent to the raid on the port.
Lawrence next turned to Auda: “We should be able to march to the Howeitat in their spring pastures in the Syrian desert. From there we can raise a mobile camel force and rush Aqaba from the north into their naked back where they have neither guns nor machine guns.” The whole landward side of the Turkish defenses at Aqaba was unguarded. Auda’s considered response was plain and direct: “All things are possible with dynamite and English gold; the smaller clans of the Howeitat will join us, definitely.”
Auda looked at the curious Englishman, seemingly for the first time. Truly there was a touch of genius upon this smallish man. At that instant, Auda realized here was a man who would help his legend grow even greater.
Lawrence turned away from Auda and brushed close to Feisal and in a low voice said: “You know, I have no official sanction to conduct this operation. This is completely on my own.”
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