Then too, history has brought Lawrence back into the minds of those who are concerned with events in the Middle East. Not only did Lawrence introduce the Arabs to a new kind of warfare; his determination to “give them,” as he saw it, an Arab state and his definition (and vision) of what that state should be are still at the center of every diplomatic dispute, war, insurrection, and political revolution throughout this vast area. Lawrence cannot be held responsible for the mess in the Middle East, any more than he was solely responsible for the Arab Revolt, which had already broken out before he arrived in Jidda, but everybody from Allenby down seems to agree that the revolt would never have succeeded to the extent it did without his vision and energy, and certainly he did his best throughout 1917-1918 and from 1919 to 1922 to give the Arabs the state they wanted. This, after all (despite lengthy Freudian explanations for his behavior), rather than his illegitimacy or the incident at Deraa,was the great moral crisis of his lifetime, which drove him to give up his name, his rank, and his decorations and join the RAF as a recruit under an assumed name.
Lawrence was at least partly responsible for the creation of present-day Iraq (with all its ethnic and religious contradictions) and Jordan, and he played a substantial role in the creation of Palestine as a separate entity. The British and French division of the immense Turkish empire that extended north and south from Syria to Yemen and east and west from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf—an area from which Lawrence had played a major, and admittedly flamboyant, role in driving out the Turks—was the primary guilt that Lawrence bore, and that explains much of his life from 1922 to his death in 1935.
He was partly instrumental in the creation of not one but three Middle Eastern kingdoms. Only one of these, Jordan, survives today in its original form; but much of the map of the Middle East was drawn by Lawrence, quite literally, as we have seen; and if he could not give the Arabs what they most wanted—a “greater Syria"—he at any rate helped to give them the states that now exist there, and, for better or worse, the dream of a larger, united Arab nation, which for a brief time led to the union of Egypt and Syria as the United Arab Republic, and which is still the motivating force behind much of the unrest and violence of Arab nationalism. Lawrence himself foresaw only too clearly what the price would be if the Allies failed to give the Arabs what they wanted—and had been promised—and the long-term consequences of letting the French take Lebanon and Syria as mandates—in effect, colonies—and letting the British take Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. He did his best to persuade a reluctant Feisal to accept the Balfour Declaration, which promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine, but he understood that this acceptance was dependent on the Arabs’ getting a meaningful state, and was unlikely to be achieved in the long run if the Middle East was carved up into small and mutually hostile units, under French or British colonial administration.
As it turned out, the brutal carving up of the Turkish empire was complicated by the fact that the great oil reserves were in the most backward areas, on the eastern fringe of the Middle East. These would have the effect of transforming remote desert “kingdoms” and “principalities” into oil-rich powers, while leaving the more highly developed, better educated, and more populous parts of the area—Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon—impoverished. British and French policy (as strongly as each differed from the other) ensured that there would be no unitary Arab state as a major power in which oil revenues might be used to improve the lives of ordinary Arabs, and thwarted just those ambitions which Lawrence had been at such pains to arouse, and which led Lowell Thomas, with his usual touch of hyperbole, to describe Lawrence as “the George Washington of a United States of Arabia.” Alas, after the Peace Conference, and the creation of Jordan and Iraq, Lawrence—knowing that he had done his best for the Arabs and that it was not good enough, and broken by shame and guilt at his own failure—resigned from public life and signed up as an airman, and the United States of Arabia was never born, with consequences that we are still facing today.
There is, therefore, every reason to examine objectively and clearly what Lawrence attempted to do, and to treat him not as an interesting neurotic with profound oedipal problems (though this may be true), but as both a visionary and a warrior; as a man who not only wrote an epic but lived one; and as a politician and diplomat, indeed a maker of nations, whose failure to get the Arabs what they had been promised had profound consequences for the world today, consequences that have not been played out yet, and whose outcome nobody can predict.
Few people have risen so high so quickly, or have voluntarily given up not only honors but power, and done so without regret or bitterness. Fewer still have been so famous and tried so hard to live obscurely. Lawrence found in the end peace of a kind in friendships, in literature, and in an unexpected gift for marine craftsmanship and engineering which has seldom been fully acknowledged, but to which many airmen in World War II would owe their lives.
However many books there have been about Lawrence, his is still a story worth telling, a life that needs to be described without prejudice and without a fixed agenda: a military “triumph,” as he himself called it with a combination of pride, bitterness, and irony; an extraordinary and heroic epic; and a political failure whose importance we can only begin to reckon today as we pick among the ruins of Lawrence’s hopes for the Middle East in search of a way forward.
Not surprisingly, Lawrence himself described his own genius best.
All men dream: but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their
Minds wake in the day to find that it was
vanity; but the dreamers of the day are
dangerous men, for they may act their dream
with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.
* Perhaps the most popular film the author’s Uncle Alex and his father ever made was That Hamilton Woman, starring Laurence olivier as Nelson and Vivien Leigh as Lady hamilton. Winston Churchill screened it innumerable times (it never failed to move him to tears), and took a print to Moscow as a gift to Stalin. As a result it was the only British film seen during World War ii by Soviet audiences, and extended Nelson’s heroic reputation to russia.
* Leslie howard, whose original name was Leslie howard Steiner, was the son of an english-Jewish mother, Lillian Blumberg, and a hungarian-Jewish father, Ferdinand Steiner.
* Although Mack’s book on Lawrence is in many respects fascinating—he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for it in 1977—it suffered retroactively from his subsequent notoriety as a believer in and proselytizer for the personal stories of people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens and to have returned to tell the tale.
Notes
CHAPTER ONE “Who Is This Extraordinary Pip-Squeak?”
5 “a most excellent dinner”: Lawrence, Letters, Garnett (ed.), 206.
6 “an odd gnome”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 174.
6 “Who is this extraordinary pip-squeak?”: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 127.
8 “Into friendship with T. E. Lawrence”: Storrs, Orientations, 218.
8 “The first of us was Ronald Storrs”: Lawrence, Seven Pillars, 37. Hereafter abbreviated SP.
9 “revolverpractice on deck”: Storrs, Orientations, 200.
9 “quite intolerable to the Staff”: Lawrence, SP, 43.
9 “But when at last we anchored”: Ibid., 47.
10 “Till now we have defended”: Brown and Cave, Touch of Genius, 55.
11 “Lawrence wants kicking and kicking hard”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 331.
11 “a holiday and a joy-ride”: Lawrence, SP, 43.
12 “like water, or permeating oil”: Ibid., 37.
13 “incoherent and spasmodic”: Storrs, Orientations, 218.
13 “None of us realized”: Ibid.
14 “a yellow silk kuffiya”: Ibid., 201.
15 “When Abdallah quoted”: Ibid., 221.
15 “was short, strong”: Lawrence, SP, 48, 49.
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17 “Meeting today: Wilson”: Storrs, Orientations, 221.
18 “took a great fancy”: Lawrence, SP, 59. 18 “force of character”: Ibid.
18 “prophet”: Ibid., 60.
18 ”staggered”: Ibid., 59.
18 “waving grateful hands”: Storrs, Orientations, 221.
22 Zeid, still a “beardless” young man: Lawrence, SP, 60.
25 “shelters of branches and palm leaves”: Ibid., 64.
26 “two inches thick”: Ibid., 68.
28 “dinner to the examiners to celebrate it”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 67.
28 “astonishingly wide”: Liddell Hart, Lawrence of Arabia, 75.
28 “schoolboy stuff”: Ibid., 128.
30 “a garrulous old man”: Lawrence, SP, 70.
30 “had been beaten out of Kheif”: Ibid.
32 “standing framed between the posts”: Ibid., 75.
32 “almost regal in appearance”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 312.
33 “Ifelt at the glance”: Lawrence, SP, 75-76. 33 “which were twisting slowly”: Ibid., 76.
33 “And do you like our place”: Ibid.
33 “like a sword into their midst”: Ibid.
36 “a desperate measure”: Ibid., 77.
37 “if their villages were spared”: Ibid., 78.
38 “They hunger… for desolate lands”: Ibid.
39 “view with favour the establishment”: Knightley and Simpson,Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, 117.
42 “huge crags”: Lawrence, SP, 95.
42 “glassy sand mixed”: Ibid., 96.
43 “a salt wind”: Ibid.
43 “picturesque, rambling house”: Ibid., 97.
43 “travel-stained”: Ibid.
45 “cool and comfortable”: Ibid., 99.
45 spent his time reading Malory’s Morte d’Arthur: Ibid.
48 hope “to biff the French:” Knightley and Simpson, Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, 81.
49 was much against my grain”: Lawrence, SP, 103.
chapter two Aqaba, 1917: The Making of a Hero
51 “sacrament”: Lawrence, SP, 104.
53 “that invariable magnet of Arab good will”: Ibid., 112.
54 “to slip in and out”: Ibid., 114.
55 “Part of our booty”: Journal of the T. E. Lawrence Society, Vols. 10-12, 9 (2000).
56 “Twenty-Seven Articles”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 670.
56 “a magnificent bay camel”: Lawrence, SP, 117.
56 “as a mass they are notformidable”: Lawrence, Letters, Garnett (ed.), 217.
57 “Guerrilla warfare is what the regular armies”: Callwell, Small Wars, 105.
57 “old rubbish”: Lawrence, SP, 118.
58 “quiet, but in no other way mortified”: Ibid., 117.
58 “While all goes well”: Callwell, Small Wars, 66.
59 “and stamp out Feisal’s army”: Lawrence, SP, 121.
60 “the military art was one”: Liddell Hart, Lawrence of Arabia, 370.
62 “It looked like a river of camels”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 349.
66 “Our men were not materials”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 211.
68 “a tall, strong figure”: Lawrence, SP, 229.
72 “feeling that this need not”: Ibid., 184.
72 “and gave him a few moments’ delay”: Ibid., 185.
73 “with the reckless equality”: Ibid., 188.
74 “suffering a bodily weakness”: Ibid., 191.
74 “woke out of a hot sleep”: Ibid., 192.
78 “The cold was intense”: Ibid., 212.
80 “I was about to take my leave”: Ibid., 229.
82 “venture… in the true Elizabethan tradition”: Liddell Hart, Lawrence of Arabia, 143.
82 “to capture a trench”: Ibid.
83 “The weight is bearing me down now”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 406.
86 “surly… stranger from Maan”: Liddell Hart, Lawrence of Arabia, 146.
90 “Clayton, I’ve decided to go off alone”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 410.
90 “Hideously green, unbearable”: Ibid.
91 “he was very old, livid”: Ibid., 413.
92 “quarrelling”: Liddell Hart, Lawrence of Arabia, 154.
95 “A man who gives himself”: Lawrence, SP, 11
98 “Our hot bread”: Ibid., 323.
99 “By God indeed”: Ibid., 325.
100 “Work, work, where are words?”: Ibid., 328.
100 “when it became clear”: Ibid., 330.
101 “The dead men”: Ibid., 331.
109 He walked past the sleeping sentry: Ibid., 347.
110 “Allenby was physically large”: Ibid., 348.
110 “He [Lawrence] thinks himself”: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 34.
110 “offering to hobble the enemy”: Lawrence, SP, 348.
112 “a bumptious young ass”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 331.
112 Wingate praised Lawrence: Ibid., 424.
113 “Tell Mother”: Lawrence, Home Letters, 340.
chapter three “The Family Romance”
115 “To my sons”: Item MS English C6741, Special Collections and Western Manuscripts, Thomas E. Lawrence Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford University; Orlans, Harold, “Ways of Transgressors,” Journal of the T. E. Lawrence Society, Vol. 6, 120-33.
120 Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman: See Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 5-8; and Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 30-31, 941-944.
121 “the Vinegar Queen”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 4.
122 Sarah Lawrence: Ibid., 8-11; and Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 31-32, 942-943.
123 Sometime in 1885: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 943.
123 “so gay and pretty”: Journal of T. E. Lawrence Society, Vols. 10-12, 29.
123 “was the sort of woman”: Asher, Lawrence, 7.
124 “T. E. got his firm chin”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 33.
124 “No trust ever existed”: Ibid., 32.
128 “a real love match”: Ibid., 13.
129 “overpowering and terrifying”: Ibid., 8.
135 As in most English families: Ibid., 19.
135 “quiet authority”: Ibid., 13.
138 “he knew no fear”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 25.
Lawrence claimed to have overheard: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 27.
“a playground scuffle”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 27.
141 “was placed in the First Class”: Ibid.
141 Oxford was a good place: Ibid., 28.
144 His father—whose closest friend: Ibid., 30.
147 “a house telephone”: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 44.
152 “When… I suddenly went to Oxford”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 41.
chapter four Oxford, 1907-1910
155 “as if he descended”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 62.
157 “Quite frankly, for me”: Knightley and Simpson, Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, 29.
158 At the time he met Richards: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 60.
159 His youngest brother, Arnold: Ibid., 67.
159 “I’m not a boy”: Ibid., 20.
159 “We could never be bothered”: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 36.
160 “He is illuminated from inside”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 14.
160 She saw him as a beloved: Ibid., 64.
161 “worshipped Janet from afar”: Ibid., 66.
162 His mother vigorously denied: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 46.
162 One friend told of Lawrence’s: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 44.
162 Lawrence’s nearly drowning: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 48.
162 A famous feat of Lawrence’s: Ibid., 49.
163 It was also clear to Lawrence: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 44.
166 In Doughty’s opinion: Ibid., 54.
167 “a lightweight suit”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 69.
167 “a revolver”
: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 62.
171 “From Dan we passed”: Lawrence, Home Letters, 97.
172 “quite cool”: Ibid., 89.
172 “Nothing in life is more exhilarating”: Churchill, Story of the Malakind Field Force, 172.
173 “a person with nothing”: Lawrence, Home Letters, 107.
174 “Sir John does not like”: Ibid., 109.
174 “village elders”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 74.
174 The robbery has caused: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 76.
175 he apologized for the bloodstain: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 74.
176 “a cry (if not from the housetops)”: Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 14.
176 “thinned to the bone”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 75.
177 “in no way diminished”: Ibid.
177 Lawrence did not seem: Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia, 68.
177 “took a most brilliant First Class”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 68.
177 busy reading Petit Jehan: Lawrence, Home Letters, 10.
178 “a research fellowship”: Wilson, Lawrence, 69.
178 “The two occupations fit into one another”: Ibid.
178 “The dangerous crises”: Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 8.
chapter five Carchemish: 1911-1914
181 “a man of action”: Knightley and Simpson, Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, 20.
181 It comes as no surprise: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 102.
182 When Lawrence went up to Jesus College: Knightley and Simpson, Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia, 21.
182 “a cynical and highly-educated baboon”: Ibid., 20.
182 “a boy of extraordinary”: Ibid., 30.
183 “the only man I had never”: Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder, 369.
184 “a dreary and desolate waste”: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, 71.
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