Great Bastards of History

by Juré Fiorillo

  In the late 1870s, a young Scottish woman, Sarah Junner, joined the household as the girls’ nanny. Sarah herself was illegitimate, had been brought up by a Scottish Episcopal clergyman uncle, and later lived in the household of one John Lawrence before moving to Ireland. A troubled Sir Thomas fell in love with Sarah, who was fifteen years younger. When Sarah became pregnant in 1885, she moved from the Chapman estate to Dublin, using the name “Miss Lawrence.” Three months after Sarah’s child was born, Sir Thomas moved in with her. The newborn was given the name Montagu Robert Lawrence, although he was known as Robert, and the four brothers who followed also carried the name Lawrence. The couple never married.

  It was a peripatetic family. From Ireland, the Lawrences moved to Tremadoc, in Caernarvonshire in north Wales, where Thomas Edward was born August 16, 1888. When Ned was thirteen months old, the family moved across the English Channel to Dinard, a summer resort in Brittany. They remained in France until Ned was almost seven, then moved back to Britain to an estate near Southampton, and then finally to Oxford, for the boys’ education, where Ned attended the Oxford High School for Boys.

  Ned was sixteen before he had any whisper of the circumstances of his birth. Even then it was only suspicion from a few chance remarks or fragments of letters, not incontrovertible evidence. At one point it was rumored around Westmeath that Sir Robert was not the boys’ father. Ned half-believed it at first, then discarded the rumor as impossible. He was close to his mother, although in his teens, like many adolescents, he complained she was too controlling. Sarah was an educated, thoughtful woman with strong ambitions for her sons. His father, a large, strong man and heavy drinker, was distant. He left management of the family estates to the two cousins who preceded him as baronet, occupying himself with what he called his “pastimes.” He was a camera enthusiast, purchasing always the latest and most advanced models, and an ardent bicyclist, with a new up-to-date model every year.

  LAWRENCE WAS SIXTEEN BEFORE HE HEARD ANY WHISPERS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS BIRTH.

  But although father and son were not close, Sir Robert’s example apparently was a significant influence on young Ned’s life. Like his father before him, the boy became an ardent cyclist and hobbyist photographer, given to long, solitary bike trips with a camera slung around his neck. After returning to England, the family continued to maintain their house in Brittany; at age eleven, Ned set out from there on his bicycle, carrying only a blanket and backpack, to pedal around northern France alone. He spoke fluent French from his early school days; his early childhood playmates had been French, as had been his governess. He intended to blend into the landscape as inconspicuously as possible. He didn’t want to be seen as an English visitor observing the natives. His goal was to be part of the environment, to be absorbed in it—to be, as he said later in following the same policy in Arabia, “like a fish in the water, like a bird in the sky.”

  ON THE TRAIL OF THE CRUSADERS

  Ned’s bicycle took him past the castles of northern France, and they fascinated him. He climbed over fortifications, turrets, towers, walls, and moats, photographing them all with his trusty camera, usually rolling out his blanket and sleeping under the stars. He became particularly interested in the role of the Crusaders in building and occupying the massive structures. He made several follow-up trips, and when he entered Jesus College at Oxford, in October 1907, he wrote a thesis, The Influence of the Crusades on the Medieval Military Architecture of Europe. The paper brought him to the attention of D. C. Hogarth, newly appointed keeper of the Ashmolean Museum of Antiquities at Oxford. With Hogarth’s guidance, given reluctantly at first, because of the older man’s fear of the potential dangers of such a solitary trip in unknown territory, and after a crash course in Arabic languages, Ned set off on a walking tour, alone, of the Holy Land to inspect the Crusaders’ castles there.

  It was a long trek, starting from Sidon, in what is now Lebanon, continuing to the fabled city of Damascus, then and now the capital of Syria, and on to places whose names still resound in the troubled Middle East—Beirut, Aleppo, Antioch. The second stage of Ned’s journey took him through northern Syria almost into Turkey itself and as far as the headwaters of the Euphrates River.

  Hogarth had warned Ned of the intense heat and blinding sun reflected on the sands—“almost more than an Englishman can bear”—but within a few days of being “a fish in the water, a bird in the sky” he recognized the protective advantages of the Arabs’ flowing robes and headdress, and chose them as his standard garb. He wanted to be seen as just another Arab, and accepted that way—even though he was an unlikely Arab with his short stature (he was only five feet six [168 cm]), blue eyes, and fair if sunburned complexion. He adopted other Arab habits, such as eating with his fingers and limiting food and water intake. He often stayed overnight in Arab homes, to better polish his command of the colloquial language.

  After nearly four months of walking 20 to 25 miles (32 to 40 km) a day, and having been beaten and robbed of his precious camera plus some artifacts he was bringing for Hogarth’s museum, Ned returned to Oxford for his final examination. He was just twenty-one. Hogarth immediately recruited him to return to Carchemish in the area he had just covered, for an archeological dig near the Euphrates, the site of an ancient Hittite civilization. Hogarth—“Every job I ever had, except the RAF, I owe to him,” Lawrence was to say later—also arranged for a four-year Oxford demyship, a kind of junior fellowship, which would cover his expenses and travel. Lawrence became an assistant to Leonard Woolley, head of the expedition. Lawrence’s major duty was as liaison to the two hundred Arab workmen. He ate, chatted, joked, and spent evenings with them.

  The work went on for three years, and Lawrence was accepted as one of them. Then, as it was winding down, the two men received a cable from London, asking them to undertake an archeological expedition in the Sinai Peninsula, under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF). They were to trace the route of the Israelites in the Wilderness of Zin described in the Old Testament, and particularly to look for the spot where Moses supposedly smote a rock and brought forth a rushing spring.

  Arriving in the Sinai, however, they were met by Captain Francis Newcombe, a British intelligence officer. Newcombe discreetly explained that the archeological expedition, for which PEF had received approval from Turkish authorities, was merely a cover story. The true purpose of the expedition was intelligence-gathering. Newcombe, himself an archeologist, would accompany them, mapping the territory and pinpointing sites of possible military importance in the event of war—roads, trails, and particularly water sources. The fiction that they were seeking Moses’s spring and the Israelites’ route was pure camouflage.

  THE GUNS OF AUGUST BARK

  By 1913, political and economic rivalry between Britain and a rising Germany was approaching a crescendo. Much of it centered on the Middle East. “The jewel in the crown” of the British empire was India; its possession was key to the empire’s wealth. The route to India lay across Ottoman lands, bisected by the British-controlled Suez Canal, and British-administered Egypt. Thus Suez and Egypt were of prime importance. In 1909, Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had switched Britain’s battle fleet from coal to oil. The Ottoman Middle Eastern lands had a chokehold on the world’s oil supply. The Middle East was the fleet’s lifeline.

  The Arabia of Lawrence: The long tongue of the Sinai Peninsula, shown in an early map, was fought over by Ottoman Turks and Lawrence’s Arab irregulars in 1916–1918. The Gulf of Aqaba at right was the site of Lawrence’ most famous battle. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

  Imperial Germany saw no reason why it should be shut out of the region and its potential wealth. Courting impoverished Turkey, known as the “sick man of Europe” for its backward government and medieval economy, Germany financed and built railways and communications facilities linking the disparate parts of the Ottoman empire. Its prime project was a Berlin-to-Baghdad railway, which would bring German locomotives wit
hin a few hundred miles of India. Encouraged by the Sultan, Germany began construction of the Hejaz Railway, stretching across the Arabian Desert to Mecca and Medina. Faithful Muslims were supposed to visit the holy cities at least once in a lifetime; thanks to German engineers and financing, that trip would be easier. Of course, the railway, when completed, would also allow Germany access to the vast oil supply of the peninsula. Moreover, after the “Young Turks” revolt by the Turkish military took over the government, their strongman Enver Pasha had signed a secret treaty with Germany requiring the two countries to come to each other’s aid in the event of war. He brought in German officers to modernize the Turkish army. None of this went down well in London.

  LAWRENCE WANTED TO BE SEEN AS JUST ANOTHER ARAB, AND ACCEPTED THAT WAY—EVEN THOUGH HE WAS AN UNLIKELY ARAB WITH HIS SHORT STATURE (HE WAS ONLY FIVE FEET SIX [168 CM]), BLUE EYES, AND FAIR IF SUNBURNED COMPLEXION.

  Britain and Turkey had had mixed relations for nearly a century. The two had stood together against Napoleon and in the Crimean War from 1864–1856, split when Britain supported Greek rebels against Ottoman rule, then divided again in the Balkan wars that ousted Turkey from southeastern Europe. Turkey’s pact with Germany and Britain’s lining up with Russia drove in the final wedge.

  In the hot summer of 1914, while Lawrence was back in Oxford compiling a final report on Carchemish, the guns of August sounded. German troops hurtled into France, Britain and Russia joined France, and the world plunged into the Great War of 1914–1918. In November, Turkey joined the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and war came to the Middle East.

  Like many young Britons, Lawrence’s brothers immediately volunteered. (Both were lost in the early fighting in Flanders; Will, who had joined the Royal Flying Corps, died in a crash, and Frank was listed as missing after a heavy bombardment of his unit. His body was never found.) T. E., as he now styled himself, waited until November, when the Carchemish report was finished. Then he joined the geographical section of the Imperial General Staff as a civilian. Within a few weeks, he was put into an army uniform as a Special Lists officer, not attached to any unit. By January 1, 1915, Lieutenant Lawrence was in Cairo, where the British were assembling officers with Middle Eastern experience as a specialized intelligence unit, later named the Arab Bureau.

  Youthful archeologist Lawrence and expedition leader Leonard Woodley unearthed a massive Hittite bas-relief in diggings near the Euphrates River, 1913. Rue des Archives / The Granger Collection, New York

  Lawrence spent nearly two years in a desk job, eventually wearing the bars of a captain, and he chafed at it. He considered the Middle East a vital theater of war, but the higher-ups did not. The main event for them was the bloody, brutal trench warfare of the Western Front, and anything else was merely a sideshow. Lawrence protested that the Arabian tribes were ready to revolt, which should be encouraged; an Arab uprising would force the Turks to send troops to Arabia, relieving pressure on the Russians or causing Germany to send troops from the Western Front in their support. That kind of misguided thinking, he was firmly told, had led to the disaster at Gallipoli.

  THE ARAB REVOLT

  Then, in June 1916, the Arabs took matters into their own hands. Confident that British support would be forthcoming, Grand Sherif Hussein, emir of Mecca, called on all Arabs in Hejaz, the vast desert east of the Red Sea, to rise up against their fellow Muslims, the Turks. His four sons, Ali, Abdullah, Faişal, and Zeid, each had a small private army. They would lead the way and rally other sheiks to join in a generalized Arab Revolt.

  The rebels enjoyed some success at first, overwhelming small Turkish garrisons. But they were untrained and under-equipped, without cannon or machine guns, and with only ten thousand rifles, many of them antiques, for a potential force of fifty thousand. And there was no unified command or central strategy, even for such mundane matters as feeding or paying the troops. It was a case of every tribe for itself. After three months, the revolt was falling apart.

  The British sent a three-man mission down the Red Sea to Hussein at Jiddah hoping to shake things up. The mission was headed by Sir Ronald Storrs, a senior official in the Egyptian administration, and Colonel C. E. Wilson. Lawrence accompanied them as a combination note taker and linguist. Hussein was courteous but vague. The trio called on Ali, Hussein’s eldest son, and his second son, Abdullah. The meetings were full of bombast but with little result. Then they traveled 100 miles (161 km) deep into the desert where the third son, Faişal, was already fighting. Lawrence, whose words were being more and more listened to by Storrs and Wilson, immediately sized up Faişal as the most capable leader. Lawrence returned briefly to Cairo, then back to Faişal’s camp as Britain’s designated adviser to the revolt. One of his first moves was to shed his uniform and again adopt Arab dress; Faişal said he did not want a uniformed British officer seen at his camp, and Lawrence was only too willing to oblige. Thereafter the two men were full partners, with Lawrence developing strategy and Faişal directing the fighting on the ground, usually through subordinates.

  Lawrence had neither military training nor experience, but he recognized that the tribesmen could not hope to stand up in a set-piece battle against the superior firepower and organization of the German-trained and disciplined Turks. Instead, he preached hit-and-run raiding against Turkish supplies and installations, the kind of fast-moving in-and-out guerrilla warfare the tribesmen had long practiced. Defeating the Turkish army on the battlefield was not the objective. The body count was unimportant.

  Sir Ronald Storrs headed a special British mission to Arab tribal leaders, with Lawrence as an aide. Library of Congress

  Sheik Faişal teamed up with Lawrence to lead successful Arab revolt of 1916–1918. Faisal later became king of newly-established Iraq. Library of Congress

  “The death of a Turkish bridge or rail, or machine or gun or charge of high explosive is more profitable to us than the death of a single Turk,” he declared. Moreover, attacks on the railway or supply depots would compel the Turks to transfer combat troops to guard duty and thus reduce their battle effectiveness. He made the Hejaz Railway, the Turkish main supply route, the primary target. Almost every day, a stretch of track was booby-trapped and wrecked. Lawrence himself planted some of the pressure-sensitive explosives and watched delightedly as locomotives smashed into the torn-up rails and careened into the desert, sabotaging a load of supplies for the large Turkish stronghold at Medina.

  But the Turks in Hejaz could still be supplied by sea, so he led Faişal’s force in an attack on the small Red Sea port of Wejh, and after three days of fighting the garrison capitulated. That left only one key port in Turkish hands: Aqaba. Aqaba must be neutralized if the British were to push north to Gaza, Jerusalem, and Damascus in Syria. It could not be left behind as a potential dagger in the British back. And Aqaba was protected from land attack by the intolerable heat and emptiness of the Nefudh Desert.

  LEARNING FROM THE MASTERS

  But Rome had felt secure from land invasion, too, behind the bulwark of the Alps, before Hannibal and his elephants disabused them of the idea. At Oxford Lawrence had studied military thinkers such as Clausewitz, Saxe, and Hannibal. Lying in his tent one night slowly recovering from an attack of dysentery, he tried to apply their lessons to a strategy for Aqaba. The revolt had recently been joined by a tenacious warrior from the north named Auda Abu Tayi of the Howeitat tribe. Auda had come to Faişal to complain that fighting had been going on, and he hadn’t been invited to the party. After all, in his desert-fighting career, he had personally killed twenty-eight men and captured countless others. Lawrence bonded with him immediately, seeing in the large, bearlike Auda a figure out of medieval romance.

  “His mind is packed (and generally overflowing) with stories of old raids and epic poems,” Lawrence described him later. And he knew the desert, having fought over virtually every square meter. He could identify every oasis and water source. With Faişal, the two developed a strategy. They would make a giant loop ar
ound Aqaba, feigning a northward assault toward Damascus, and then swoop down the narrow Wadi Sirhan toward the sea, approaching Aqaba from behind.

  Nearly two months passed before the fighters were in place on the arid terrain above the port, the time spent in rallying other tribes to the revolt. They were joined by another legendary warrior, Sherif Nasir of Medina, who now shared command with Lawrence and Auda. After repeated stops for feasting designed to enlist other tribes, Lawrence grew edgy over the seemingly slow pace. One day in early July 1917, he and Nasir were resting near a muddy pool when Auda rode up. The big man smiled, scanned the position, and asked Lawrence, who had criticized his tribe earlier, “What do you think of the Howeitat now?” Annoyed, Lawrence shot back, “By God, indeed they shoot a lot and hit a little.” Auda was enraged at the insult. He tore off his headdress, threw it to the ground, and raced off toward his men. “Get your camel if you want to see an old man’s work,” he flung back over his shoulder. Lawrence reached the hilltop just in time to see Auda’s fifty Howeitat horsemen pounding down the valley toward the Turkish position. Minutes later, the four hundred men of the camelry followed, racing (according to Lawrence’s estimate) at 30 miles (48 km) an hour.

  In the David Lean Academy Award–winning film Lawrence of Arabia, the majestic charge is mistakenly shown to have been directed at Aqaba itself. In fact, the assault targeted Abu el Lissal, halfway down the slope, where the Turks had built a blockhouse and entrenchments against attack from the sea. Abu el Lissal was actually stronger than usual, a Turkish relief column having come that day to replace the garrison. Nonetheless, the combination of fifty horsemen in front and four hundred camels on their flank overwhelmed the Turks, especially since their entrenchments protected them only from the front, not the flank or rear. Opposition crumpled in a few minutes. It was a complete slaughter by the vengeance-seeking Arabs. Three hundred Turks were killed and another 150 taken prisoner, most of them wounded. The next day the Aqaba garrison troops emerged, hands upraised in surrender.