WITH LAWRENCE IN ARABIA
COLONEL T. E. LAWRENCE, THE MYSTERY MAN OF ARABIA
WITH LAWRENCE IN ARABIA
BY
LOWELL THOMAS
ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY H. A. CHASE,
F. R. G. S., AND BY THE AUTHOR
THE CENTURY CO.
_New York & London_
Copyright, 1924, by
The Century Co.
printed in u.s.a.
To Eighteen Gentlemen of Chicago
this narrative of the adventures
of a modern Arabian knight
is gratefully dedicated
FOREWORD
Surely no one ever offered a volume to the public who was quite so
deeply indebted to others, and I have long looked forward to the
opportunity of expressing my gratitude. To do this I must turn back
the pages of time to the days when, accompanied by my photographic
colleague, Mr. Harry A. Chase, and two other assistants, I left
America to gather information and secure a pictorial record of the
various phases of the struggle that was then in progress all the
way from the North Sea to far-off Arabia.
We had set forth early in 1917 and were expected to return at the
end of a year or so to help in the work of stimulating enthusiasm
for the Allied cause. The late Mr. Franklin K. Lane, secretary of
the interior, suggested that I resign from the faculty of Princeton
University in order to undertake this. To Secretary Lane, Secretary
Daniels of the Navy Department, and Secretary Baker of the War
Department, who were responsible for our becoming attached
successively to the various Allied armies, I am indebted for the
opportunities which enabled me to obtain the material for this
volume. This was before a special appropriation had been set aside
for such work; as a result of Secretary Lane’s suggestion, eighteen
distinguished private citizens supplied the funds for the
undertaking.
Mr. Chase and I have just concluded a three-year tour of the world,
during which I have shown the pictorial record and narrated to
several million people the story which we brought back of Allenby’s
conquest of the Holy Land, and the hitherto unknown story of
Lawrence and the war in the Land of the Arabian Nights. The generous
praise and innumerable courtesies which have been extended to us
during this tour have been received by us on behalf of these
eighteen nameless gentlemen. For it is to them that the credit is
due. In Europe, Americans are commonly regarded as mere worshipers
of Mammon; yet these financiers are typical American business men,
and if this book proves to be a contribution of value because it
happens to be the only written fragmentary record of the most
romantic campaign in modern history, then the credit belongs to
these unselfish, anonymous gentlemen of Chicago. For had it not
been for them, the story of Colonel Lawrence’s achievements in
Arabia might never have been told, and might never have become
widely known even among his own countrymen.
To Colonel John Buchan, who in those days was one of the mysterious
high priests of the Ministry of Information, I am indebted for the
permit that got me out to Palestine at the time when other missions
were not allowed there, and at the time when Allenby, Britain’s
modern Cœur de Lion, was leading his army in the most brilliant
cavalry campaign of all time. I also am deeply indebted to the
great commander-in-chief himself, and likewise to the chief of his
intelligence staff, Brigadier-General Sir Gilbert F. Clayton. It
was they who were responsible for our being the only observers
attached to the Shereefian forces in Holy Arabia.
During the time that Mr. Chase and I were in Arabia, I found it
impossible to extract much information from Lawrence himself
regarding his own achievements. He insisted on giving the entire
credit to Emir Feisal and other Arab leaders, and to his
fellow-adventurers, Colonel Wilson, of the Sudan, Newcombe, Joyce,
Dawney, Bassett, Vickery, Cornwallis, Hogarth, Stirling, etc., all
of whom did magnificent work in Arabia. So to them I went for much
of my material, and I am indebted to various members of this group
of brilliant men whom General Clayton used in his Near Eastern
Secret Corps. Eager to tell me of the achievements of their quiet,
scholarly companion, they refused to say much about themselves,
although their own deeds rivaled those of the heroes of “The
Arabian Nights.”
To the Right Hon. Lord Riddell, and to Mr. Louis D. Froelick,
editor of “Asia,” I am grateful for the encouragement which led me
to believe that I should attempt the delightful task of recording
what little I know of this romance of real life. I owe a special
debt to Miss Elsie Weil, former managing editor of “Asia”; also to
Captain Alan Bott, M.C., R.A.F. (Contact); to my colleague, Mr.
Dale Carnagey, the American novelist; and to my wife—for it was
their invaluable coöperation that finally enabled me to prepare
this volume.
There are others infinitely better qualified than I to give the
world a full account of the Arabian Revolution. For instance,
Commander D. G. Hogarth, the famous Arabian authority who played
a prominent advisory part, could easily do this. It is to be hoped
that his archæological work and duties as curator of the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford will not prevent him from preparing a final
official history. But it is to Lawrence himself that we must look
for the inside story of the war in the Land of the Arabian Nights.
Unhappily, no matter how much unselfish work a man does for his
country, and no matter how modest he is, there are always people
hovering about on the side-lines ready to tear his record to
pieces. For instance, there are those who say that Lawrence has
received altogether too much “publicity” through me. They piously
declare that this is not in accordance with military ethics. There
may be something in this, though I doubt it. But if there is, the
blame should _all_ be mine.
There is no question that the praise I have given him has
embarrassed him exceedingly. Indeed, had he realized when I was in
Arabia that I one day would be going up and down the world shouting
his praises, I haven’t the slightest doubt that he would have
planted one of his nitroglycerine tulips under me, instead of under
a Turkish train! However, not only did Lawrence little dream that
I might one day be “booming him,” as he describes it, but it had
never even occurred to me that I should be so doing. The conspirators
who were largely responsible for my coming to England were Sir
William Jury, formerly of the Ministry of Information, and Major
Evelyn Wrench, of the English Speaking Union, and, more particularly,
Mr. Percy Burton, the London impresario formerly associated with
Sir Henry Irving, and Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson. It was Mr.
Burton who came to me in New York and inveigled me into agreeing
to appear for a season at Covent Garden Royal Opera-House, London,
with my production, “With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in
Arabia.”
Another “bazaar rumor” that has been going the rounds is to the
effect that Colonel Lawrence has renounced Christianity and turned
Mohammedan. This also is the offspring of some feverish imagination!
From what I saw of Lawrence I rather believe that he is a better
Christian than the most of us. In his introduction to a new edition
of Doughty’s classic “Arabia Deserta” he says of that great Arabian
traveler: “He was book-learned, but simple in the arts of living,
trustful of every man, very silent. He was the first Englishman
they had met. He predisposed them to give a chance to other men of
his race, because they found him honourable and good. So he broke
a road for his religion. They say that he seemed proud only of
being Christian, and yet never crossed their faith.” The tribute
he pays to Doughty might be applied equally appropriately to
himself.
L. T.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I A Modern Arabian Knight
II In Search of a Lost Civilization
III The Archaeologist Turned Soldier
IV The Cult of the Blood of Mohammed
V The Fall of Jeddah and Mecca
VI The Gathering of the Desert Tribes
VII The Battle at the Wells of Abu El Lissal
VIII The Capture of King Solomon’s Ancient Seaport
IX Across the Red Sea to Join Lawrence and Feisal
X The Battle of Seil El Hasa
XI Lawrence the Train-Wrecker
XII Drinkers of the Milk of War
XIII Auda Abu Tayi, the Bedouin Robin Hood
XIV Knights of the Black Tents
XV My Lord the Camel
XVI Abdullah the Pock-Marked, and the Story of Ferraj and Daoud
XVII An Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth
XVIII A Rose-Red City Half as Old as Time
XIX A Bedouin Battle in a City of Ghosts
XX The Relative in My House
XXI Through the Turkish Lines in Disguise
XXII The Greatest Hoax Since the Trojan Horse
XXIII A Cavalry Naval Engagement and Lawrence’s Last Great Raid
XXIV The Downfall of the Ottoman Empire
XXV Lawrence Rules in Damascus, and the Treachery of the Algerian Emir
XXVI Tales of the Secret Corps
XXVII Joyce & Co., and the Arabian Knights of the Air
XXVIII Feisal and Lawrence at the Battle of Paris
XXIX Lawrence Narrowly Escapes Death; Adventures of Feisal and Hussein
XXX Lawrence Flees from London, and Feisal becomes King in Bagdad
XXXI The Secret of Lawrence’s Success
XXXII The Art of Handling Arabs
XXXIII Lawrence the Man
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Colonel T. E. Lawrence, the Mystery Man of Arabia.
_Frontispiece_
The “Uncrowned King” of the Arabs on the Governor’s balcony in Jerusalem
General Ronald Storrs, Governor of the Holy City, and
modern successor to Pontius Pilate
Date-palms along the coral shore of Araby
Lawrence at headquarters in Cairo
The archaeologist and poet who turned soldier
Map of the region covered by this narrative
A Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer
Hussein I
Emir Feisal, now King of Mesopotamia (Irak)
In his white robes Lawrence looked like a prophet
The dreamer whose dreams came true
A Sheik of Araby
Shore-line at the head of the Gulf of Akaba
Sunset over the fort at Akaba
Sand storm rolling down on Khartoum
The last resting-place of the mother of us all
The Waldorf-Astoria of Arabia
The mosque of the Holy Kaaba
Colonel Lawrence and the author
Panorama of Akaba
Colonel Joyce
Lawrence’s mountain guns in action
Lawrence confers with Arab Nationalist leaders from Bagdad and Damascus
The author, with Lawrence in Arabia
Sheik Auda Abu Tayi, the Bedouin Robin Hood
A Bedouin encampment
Colonel Lawrence conferring with Commander D. G.
Hogarth, one of his advisers at the Arab Bureau in
Cairo
Colonel Joyce, Commander of the Arab “regulars”
Armored cars in Holy Arabia
A racing dromedary from India
A baby dromedary two hours old
An Arab thoroughbred
“Sidi” Lawrence and his “sons”
“Drinkers of the milk of war”
Feisal and Lawrence conferring with Bedouin sheiks
Sunset over the mountain of Edom
Our caravan approaching the “Lost City”
The narrow defile that leads to the “Lost City”
A rose-red temple carved like a cameo from the face of the
mountain
We rode into the auditorium on our camels
“Pharaoh’s Treasury” or the “Temple of Isis”
Looking out through the doorway of the temple, in the distance
we see the narrow defile through which we came
in entering the “Lost City”
An amphitheater hewn out of the mountain
The rock seemed to swirl like watered silk
The “Three-storied Temple”
Emir Feisal, center, with General Nuri to the left and
Colonel Lawrence to the right; Captain Pisani of the
French Mission standing directly behind the Emir
Field-Marshall Viscount Allenby of Jerusalem and King
Feisal of Bagdad
Malud Bey and his Arab cavalry
“The Tomb of the Roman soldiers”
The author sketched by James McBey, official artist for
Allenby’s forces in the Holy Land
An Arab Apollo
A peasant woman of Syria
Types of city head-dress for women
Where the hosts of Israel are said to have terminated the
passage of the Red Sea
A brigand from Jebel Druz
Lawrence would occasionally disguise himself as a gypsy
woman of Syria
“Shereef” Lawrence
A camel caravan in the Wadi Arabia
Bedouin “irregulars” ready for a raid on the Turks
Mr. Chase opening fire with his cinema camera from the
turret of an armored car
General Jafaar Pasha from Bagdad
Druses from the Hauran
Tallal El-Hareidhin of Tafas
A Syrian villager
Col. T. E. Lawrence
General Fakri Pasha, the Turkish Tiger who defended
Medina
The king-maker
Sunset in the land of the Arabian Knights
WITH LAWRENCE IN ARABIA
WITH LAWRENCE IN ARABIA
CHAPTER I
A MODERN ARABIAN KNIGHT
One day not long after Allenby had captured Jerusalem, I happened
to be in front of a bazaar stall on Christian Street, remonstrating
with a fat old Turkish shopkeeper who was attempting to relieve me
of twenty piasters for a handful of dates. My attention was suddenly
drawn to a group of Arabs walking in the direction of the Damascus
Gate. The fact that they were Arabs was not what caused me to drop
my tirade against the high cost of dates, for Palestine, as all
men know, is inhabited by a far greater number of Arabs than Jews.
My curiosity was excited by a single Bedouin, who stood out in
sharp relief from all his companions. He was wearing an agal,
kuffieh, and aba such as are worn only by Near Eastern potentates.
In his belt was fastened the short curved sword of a prince of
Mecca, insignia worn by descendants of the Prophet.
Christian Street is one of the most picturesque and kaleidoscopic
thoroughfares in the Near East. Russian Jews, with their corkscrew
curls, Greek priests in tall black hats and flowing robes, fierce
desert nomads in goatskin coats reminiscent of the days of Abraham,
Turks in balloon-like trousers, Arab merchants lending a brilliant
note with their gay turbans and gowns—all rub elbows in that narrow
lane of bazaars, shops, and coffee-houses that leads to the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher. Jerusalem is not a melting-pot. It is an
uncompromising meeting-place of East and West. Here are accentuated,
as if sharply outlined in black and white by the desert sun, the
racial peculiarities of Christian, Jewish, and Mohammedan peoples.
A stranger must, indeed, have something extraordinary about him to
attract attention in the streets of the Holy City. But as this
young Bedouin passed by in his magnificent royal robes, the crowds
in front of the bazaars turned to look at him.
It was not merely his costume, nor yet the dignity with which he
carried his five feet three, marking him every inch a king or
perhaps a caliph in disguise who had stepped out of the pages of
“The Arabian Nights.” The striking fact was that this mysterious
prince of Mecca looked no more like a son of Ishmael than an
Abyssinian looks like one of Stefansson’s red-haired Eskimos.
Bedouins, although of the Caucasian race, have had their skins
scorched by the relentless desert sun until their complexions are
the color of lava. But this young man was as blond as a Scandinavian,
in whose veins flow viking blood and the cool traditions of fiords
and sagas. The nomadic sons of Ishmael all wear flowing beards, as
their ancestors did in the time of Esau. This youth, with the
curved gold sword, was clean-shaven. He walked rapidly with his
hands folded, his blue eyes oblivious to his surroundings, and he
seemed wrapped in some inner contemplation. My first thought as I
glanced at his face was that he might be one of the younger apostles
returned to life. His expression was serene, almost saintly, in
its selflessness and repose.
“Who is he?” I turned eagerly to the Turk profiteer, who could only
manipulate a little tourist English. He merely shrugged his
shoulders.
“Who could he be?” I was certain I could obtain some information
about him from General Storrs, governor of the Holy City, and so
I strolled over in the direction of his palace beyond the old wall,
near Solomon’s Quarries. General Ronald Storrs, British successor
to Pontius Pilate, had been Oriental secretary to the high
commissioner of Egypt before the fall of Jerusalem and for years
had kept in intimate touch with the peoples of Palestine. He spoke
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic with the same fluency with which
he spoke English. I knew he could tell me something about the
mysterious blond Bedouin.
“Who is this blue-eyed, fair-haired fellow wandering about the
bazaars wearing the curved sword of a prince of——?”
The general did not even let me finish the question but quietly
opened the door of an adjoining room. There, seated at the same
table where von Falkenhayn had worked out his unsuccessful plan
for defeating Allenby, was the Bedouin prince, deeply absorbed in
a ponderous tome on archæology.
In introducing us the governor said, “I want you to meet Colonel
Lawrence, the Uncrowned King of Arabia.”
He shook hands shyly and with a certain air of aloofness, as if
his mind were on buried treasure and not on the affairs of this
immediate world of campaigns and warfare. And that was how I first
made the acquaintance of one of the most picturesque personalities
of modern times, a man who will be blazoned on the romantic pages
of history with Raleigh, Drake, Clive, and Gordon.
During the period of the World War, years crammed with epic events,
among others two remarkable figures appeared. The dashing adventures
and anecdotes of their careers will furnish golden themes to the
writers of the future, as the lives of Ulysses, King Arthur, and
Richard the Lion-Hearted did to the poets, troubadours, and
chroniclers of other days. One is a massive, towering, square-jawed
six-footer, that smashing British cavalry leader, Field-Marshal
Viscount Allenby, commander of the twentieth-century crusaders,
who gained world fame because of his exploits in driving the Turks
from the Holy Land and bringing to realization the dream of
centuries. The other is the undersized, beardless youth whom I
first saw absorbed in a technical treatise on the cuneiform
inscriptions discovered on the bricks of ancient Babylon, and whose
chief interests in life were poetry and archæology.
The spectacular achievements of Thomas Edward Lawrence, the young
Oxford graduate, were unknown to the public at the end of the World
War. Yet, quietly, without any theatrical head-lines or fanfare of
trumpets, he brought the disunited nomadic tribes of Holy and
Forbidden Arabia into a unified campaign against their Turkish
oppressors, a difficult and splendid stroke of policy, which
caliphs, statesmen, and sultans had been unable to accomplish in
centuries of effort! Lawrence placed himself at the head of the
Bedouin army of the shereef of Mecca, who was afterward proclaimed
king of the Hedjaz. He united the wandering tribes of the desert,
restored the sacred places of Islam to the descendants of the
Prophet, and drove the Turks from Arabia forever. Allenby liberated
Palestine, the Holy Land of the Jews and Christians. Lawrence freed
Arabia, the Holy Land of millions of Mohammedans.
I had heard of this mystery man many times during the months I was
in Palestine with Allenby. The first rumor about Lawrence reached
me when I was on the way from Italy to Egypt. An Australian naval
officer confided to me that an Englishman was supposed to be in
command of an army of wild Bedouins somewhere in the trackless
desert of the far-off land of Omar and Abu-Bekr. When I landed in
Egypt I heard fantastic tales of his exploits. His name was always
mentioned in hushed tones, because at that time the full facts
regarding the war in the Land of the Arabian Nights were being kept
secret.
Until the day I met him in the palace of the governor of Jerusalem
I was unable to picture him as a real person. He was to me merely
a new Oriental legend. Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, Bagdad—in fact,
all the cities of the Near East—are so full of color and romance
that the mere mention of them is sufficient to stimulate the
imagination of matter-of-fact Westerners, who are suddenly spirited
away on the magic carpet of memory to childhood scenes familiar
through the tales of “The Thousand and One Nights.” So I had come
to the conclusion that Lawrence was the product of Western
imagination over-heated by exuberant contact with the East. But
the myth turned out to be very much of a reality.
The five-foot-three Englishman standing before me wore a kuffieh
of white silk and gold embroidery held in place over his hair by
an agal, two black woolen cords wrapped with silver and gold
thread. His heavy black camel’s-hair robe or aba covered a
snow-white undergarment fastened at the waist by a wide gold-brocaded
belt in which he carried the curved sword of a prince of Mecca.
This youth had virtually become the ruler of the Holy Land of the
Mohammedans and commander-in-chief of many thousands of Bedouins
mounted on racing camels and fleet Arabian horses. He was the
terror of the Turks.
Through his discovery that archæology held a fascination for me,
we became better acquainted during the following days in Jerusalem
before he returned to his Arabian army. We spent many hours
together, although I did not suspect that it might possibly be my
good fortune to join him later in the desert. When we were in the
company of officers whom he had just met he usually sat in one
corner, listening intently to everything that was being said but
contributing little to the conversation. When we were alone he
would get up from his chair and squat on the floor in Bedouin
fashion. The first time he did this he blushed in his peculiar way
and excused himself, saying that he had been in the desert so long
that he found it uncomfortable sitting in a chair.
I made many unsuccessful attempts to induce him to tell me something
of his life and adventures in the desert, where few Europeans
except Sir Richard Burton and Charles Doughty ever dared venture
before him. But he always adroitly changed the subject to
archæology, comparative religion, Greek literature, or Near Eastern
politics. Even concerning his connection with the Arabian army he
would say nothing, except to give the credit for everything that
happened in the desert campaign to the Arab leaders, or to Newcombe,
Joyce, Cornwallis, Dawney, Marshall, Stirling, Hornby, and his
other British associates.
Surely Destiny never played a stranger prank than when it selected,
as the man to play the major rôle in the liberation of Arabia, this
Oxford graduate whose life-ambition was to dig in the ruins of
antiquity, and to uncover and study long-forgotten cities.