a sympathy for small or oppressed nations that matched his own,
and explained to him simply what the problem was. Arab independence
had begun in the Desert; as was to be expected, for the Desert is the
starting-off point of all great Arab movements. But as soon as it
reached the settled countries of Syria and Mesopotamia it had to be
stabilized there; the Desert has always made sudden magnificent efforts
that in the end tail off into nothing. He wanted Damascus as the
settled home of this new Arab independence and he wanted Feisal as the
first ruler of the new Syrian state with Damascus as his capital. The
French, in exact accordance with the terms of the Sykes-Picot treaty,
might be satisfied with having Beyrout and the Lebanon and the north
Syrian coast for their own, and with the privilege of assisting the
Damascus State with what advice its administrators needed.
Mesopotamia would form another Arab State, or perhaps two, even, and
eventually some generations hence when communications by road, rail and
air had drawn together the more civilized Arab provinces, there might
be a United States of Arabia. Lawrence advised that nothing should now
be done to promote early confederation; but that, particularly, nothing
should be done to hinder it. The Desert should be left alone to look
after itself in the old way without interference from the settled lands
of Arabia, or from the rest of the world.
Lloyd George might have agreed to this, but unfortunately the
Sykes-Picot Treaty had put Mosul into the sphere of French influence.
This did not distress Lawrence, but it threatened ruin to the military
occupation of Mesopotamia which the Imperial Government, Bagdad having
been won at such cost, intended to turn into a British administered
province. So when the case came up before the Council of Ten—present,
Clemenceau and Pichon (France), Lloyd George (England), Montagu
(Indian Government), Sonnino (Italy) and others—the French were allowed
to take the same equivocal attitude towards Syria as the British
were taking towards Mesopotamia. Lawrence was present as Feisal’s
interpreter at this most eventful meeting and spoke in Arabic, French
and English. An amusing incident was Pichon’s speech quoting St. Louis
and France’s claims on Syria during the Crusades. Feisal, a successor
of Saladin, replied, ‘But pardon me, M. Pichon, which of us won the
Crusades?’
The various contradictory pledges which Lawrence had first been shown
by the Emir Nuri were then discussed, and finally, after months of
intrigue, Feisal and Clemenceau appear to have come to a secret
working agreement. Feisal was, with French help, to rule the greater
part of inland Syria, from Damascus; the French took Beyrout and the
Syrian coast. The Jews were given a home in Palestine, under British
protection. But the British kept Mesopotamia and discouraged all
agitation there towards Arab independence. Nothing of this agreement,
if it was an agreement, was made public during the life of the Peace
Conference: but Feisal returned to Syria and the working arrangement
began to show itself.
Lord Riddell has kindly given me the following story: ‘After the
final debate at Versailles I had a talk with Feisal and Lawrence. The
latter ascribed to Feisal the following observation: “In the desert,
overtaking a long caravan of camels, you find each camel tied by his
nose-rope to the tail of the camel in front of him; but when you reach
the head of the string after a long walk you find that it is led by a
little donkey!” The implication was of course that the stately
ones were dull and lacking in brains, and that the leaders were artful
but not profound.’
This was how matters stood at the close of the Peace Conference and
Lawrence was not at all satisfied with them: as he clearly showed in
his letter to _The Times_ in 1920, printed in Appendix B. In England,
at his first coming, he had refused to accept his British decorations.
According to an account that he gave me a few months later, he
explained personally to his Sovereign that the part he had played in
the Arab Revolt was dishonourable to himself and to his country and
government. He had, by order, fed the Arabs with false hopes and would
now be obliged if he might be quietly relieved of the obligation to
accept honours for succeeding in his fraud. He said respectfully as
a subject, but firmly as an individual, that he intended to fight by
straight means or crooked until His Majesty’s ministers had conceded
to the Arabs a fair settlement of their claims. According to this
account, to which Lawrence had nothing to add when I submitted my
version of it to him recently, for verification, His Majesty, though
unwilling to believe that Ministers of the Crown were capable of
double-dealing, respected Lawrence’s scruples, permitting him to forgo
his decorations. Lawrence expressed his gratitude, and thereupon also
returned his foreign decorations to their donors with an account of the
circumstances.
Lord Stamfordham, His Majesty’s Private Secretary, to whom I wrote for
permission to print this paragraph, has been good enough to get His
Majesty’s own recollections of the interview: ‘His Majesty does not
remember that Colonel Lawrence’s statement was what you have recorded:
but that, in asking permission to decline the proffered decorations,
Colonel Lawrence explained in a few words that he had made
certain promises to King Feisal: that these promises had not been
fulfilled, and consequently, it was quite possible that he might find
himself fighting against the British Forces, in which case it would be
obviously impossible and wrong to be wearing British Decorations. The
King has no recollection of Colonel Lawrence’s saying that the part he
had played in the Arab Revolt was dishonourable to himself and to his
Country and Government.’
He returned to Cairo during the tail-end of the Peace Conference to
collect his diaries and photographs of the war-period and on his way by
Handley-Page was in a bad crash at Rome. Both the pilots were killed
and Lawrence had three ribs and a collar-bone broken, with other
injuries. It was at Paris that he began writing his book _Seven Pillars
of Wisdom_, of which the next chapter will treat. In July 1919 he was
demobilized and at the conclusion of the Peace Conference returned to
London and lived there until November 1919, when he was elected to a
seven-year research fellowship at All Souls’ College, Oxford. 1920 he
again spent in London.
Meanwhile things were developing politically. After Clemenceau retired,
the French Government’s attitude to Syria became stiffer, and the
working agreement that had apparently existed was replaced by a veiled
state of war. This soon gave an excuse for open hostilities, and
Feisal, not himself resisting, was turned out of Damascus. He withdrew
to Palestine and thence to Italy and England, where he pleaded to the
British Government for help. Nothing could be done for him and he
returned to Mecca. Here he lived for some while until he received an
invitation, through his father, from influential elements in Bagdad
to visit Mesopotamia as their nominee for the now vacant throne of
that country. He obtained assurances from the British Government
that his acceptance of the throne would be welcome to it; and was duly
crowned in Bagdad with the assistance of Sir Percy Cox, the British
High Commissioner.
It had seemed after Feisal’s expulsion from Damascus that Lawrence’s
worst fears were realized, that having duped the Arabs with false hopes
he had been unable even to win them a small degree of independence.
But he did not give up hope. Finally, in February 1921, the crisis
in Mesopotamia became so acute that Middle Eastern affairs were
transferred to the sphere of the Colonial Office and the appointment
was made of Mr. Winston Churchill as Colonial Minister. He sent for
Lawrence and offered him the post of adviser to himself, with the
promise of a fair deal if he would help to put things straight in the
East. Lawrence consented on one condition, that the war-time pledges
given to the Arabs should at last be honoured. His ‘straight means or
crooked’ are plainly given in the following letter which he wrote to me
in reply to certain queries of mine as to his motives and intentions
during this very obscure period:
‘Events in Mecca had changed much between June 1919, when I found
the Coalition Ministry very reluctant to take a liberal line in the
Middle East, and March 1921, when Mr. Winston Churchill took over. The
slump had come in the City. The Press, with help from many quarters,
including mine, was attacking the expense of our war-time commitments
in Asia. Lord Curzon’s lack of suppleness and subtlety had enflamed
a situation already made difficult by revolt in Mesopotamia, bad
feeling in Palestine, disorder in Egypt and the continuing break
with Nationalist Turkey. So the Cabinet was half persuaded to make
a clean cut of our Middle East responsibilities; to evacuate
Mesopotamia, “Milnerize Egypt,” and perhaps give Palestine to a third
party. Mr. Churchill was determined to find ways and means of avoiding
so complete a reversal of the traditional British attitude. I was at
one with him in this attitude: indeed I fancy I went beyond him in my
desire to see as many “brown” dominions in the British Empire as there
are “white.” It will be a sorry day when our estate stops growing.’
(The Lawrence who wrote that last sentence is difficult to reconcile
with the nihilistic Lawrence without national predilections, but both
are Lawrence—or rather Shaw—and you can take your choice.)
* * * * *
The War Office (under Sir Henry Wilson) was a strong advocate of
Mesopotamian withdrawal, since the minimum cost of military occupation
was twenty million pounds a year. Winston Churchill persuaded Sir Hugh
Trenchard, the Air Chief of Staff, to undertake military responsibility
there for less than a quarter that cost. The Royal Air Force was to
be used instead of troops and the Senior Air Officer would command
all forces in Irak. This was a new departure in Air history: but Sir
Hugh Trenchard was confident in the quality of the men and officers
under his command. And Lawrence, who advocated the change with all his
powers, believed that such early responsibility would be the making of
the young Service. (Lawrence again in a purposeful mood!)
But this policy would only be practicable if it were joined with a
liberal measure of Arab self-government controlled by a treaty between
Irak (the Arabic name for Mesopotamia) and Great Britain, instead of a
Mandate. The Cabinet agreed after an eventful discussion and the new
policy brought peace.
‘British and native casualties in the five years since the treaty
was made with Irak have only been a few tens, whereas before the
treaty they had run to thousands. The Arab Government in Irak, while
not wholly free from the diseases of childhood, is steadily improving
in competence and self-confidence. There is a progressive reduction in
the British personnel there. The country has financial independence
in sight. Our aim is its early admission to the responsibility of
membership of the League of Nations. Our hope is that it will continue
its treaty relations with Great Britain in return for the manifest
advantages of intimate connection with so large a firm as the British
Empire.
‘I told Lloyd George at Paris that the centre of Arab Independence
will eventually be Bagdad, not Damascus, since the future of
Mesopotamia is great and the possible development of Syria is small.
Syria now has 5,000,000 inhabitants, Irak only 3,000,000. Syria will
only have 7,000,000 when Irak has 40,000,000. But I envisaged Damascus
as the capital of an Arab State for perhaps twenty years. When the
French took it after two years, we had to transfer the focus of Arab
nationalism at once to Bagdad; which was difficult, since during
the war and armistice period British local policy had been sternly
repressive of all nationalist feeling.
‘I take to myself credit for some of Mr. Churchill’s pacification of
the Middle East, for while he was carrying it out he had the help of
such knowledge and energy as I possess. His was the imagination and
courage to take a fresh departure and enough skill and knowledge of
political procedure to put his political revolution into operation in
the Middle East, and in London, peacefully. When it was in working
order, in March 1922, I felt that I had gained every point I
wanted. The Arabs had their chance and it was up to them, if they were
good enough, to make their own mistakes and profit by them. My object
with the Arabs was always to make them stand on their own feet. The
period of leading-strings could now come to an end. That’s why I was
at last able to abandon politics and enlist. My job was done, as I
wrote to Winston Churchill at the time, when leaving an employer who
had been for me so considerate as sometimes to seem more like a senior
partner than a master. The work I did constructively for him in 1921
and 1922 seems to me, in retrospect, the best I ever did. It somewhat
redresses, to my mind, the immoral and unwarrantable risks I took with
others’ lives and happiness in 1917–1918.
‘Of course Irak was the main point, since there could not be more than
one centre of Arab national feeling; or rather need not be: and it
was fit that it should be in the British and not in the French area.
But during those years we also decided to stop the subsidies to the
Arabian chiefs and put a ring-wall around Arabia, a country which must
be reserved as an area of Arabic individualism. So long as our fleet
keeps its coasts, Arabia should be at leisure to fight out its own
complex and fatal destiny.
‘Incidentally, of course, we sealed the doom of King Hussein. I
offered him a treaty in the summer of 1921 which would have saved him
the Hejaz had he renounced his pretensions to hegemony over all other
Arabic areas: but he clung to his self-assumed title of ‘King of the
Arabic Countries.’ So Ibn Saud of Nejd outed him and rules in Hejaz.
Ibn Saud is not a system but a despot, ruling by virtue of a dogma.
Therefore I approve of him, as I would approve of anything in Arabia
which was individualistic, unorganized, unsystematic.
‘Mr. Churchill took a moderate line in Palestine to obtain peace
while the Zionist experiment is tried. And in Transjordania he kept
our promises to the Arab Revolt and assisted the home-rulers to form a
buffer-principality, under the nominal presidency of Feisal’s brother
Abdulla, between Palestine and the Desert.
‘So as I say, I got all I wanted (for other people)—the Churchill
solution exceeded my one-time hopes—and quitted the game. Whether
the Arab national spirit is permanent and dour enough to make itself
into a modern state in Irak I don’t know. I think it may, at least.
We were in honour bound to give it a sporting chance. Its success
would involve the people of Syria in a similar experiment. Arabia will
always, I hope, stand out of the movements of the settled parts, as
will Palestine too if the Zionists make good. Their problem is the
problem of the third generation. Zionist success would enormously
reinforce the material development of Arab Syria and Irak.
‘I want you to make it quite clear in your book, if you use all this
letter, how from 1916 onwards and especially in Paris I worked against
the idea of an Arab Confederation being formed politically before it
had become a reality commercially, economically and geographically by
the slow pressure of many generations; how I worked to give the Arabs
a chance to set up their provincial governments whether in Syria or
in Irak; and how in my opinion Winston Churchill’s settlement has
honourably fulfilled our war-obligations and my hopes.’
There is little to add to this account. The French have had great
trouble in Syria since Feisal left and their repressive methods have
involved them in war with the Druses and a destructive bombardment
of Damascus; and in heavy expenses in running the province.
Feisal, ruling securely in Bagdad, has sent his son to an English
Public School, so that when he succeeds his father relations between
England and Irak may continue cordial. Zeid was not too old to become
an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford. He rowed in the ‘2nd
Torpids’ boat, and the next term wired apologies to the Master of
Balliol for coming back late: Feisal was ill and Zeid thought that it
was his duty to act as Regent in Irak until he recovered. Abdulla in
Transjordania, the country east of the Jordan and south of the Yarmuk,
with an opening to the Red Sea at Akaba, still enjoys his practical
joking and blindman’s buff; he manages his kingdom well enough (his
first prime minister was Ali Riza), though the townsmen and villagers
complain that he is too lenient to the semi-nomadic tribes in letting
them off taxes. However, it is not want of firmness on Abdulla’s part:
when old Auda, from the edge of his dominions, refused to pay his
taxes, sending an insolent message, Abdulla caught him and put him into
gaol at Amman. Of course Auda, being Auda, escaped, but the old man
then thought better of it and paid the taxes. Auda died this year of
cancer; his amulet protected him to the end from death in battle; and,
as Lawrence once prophesied, the Middle-Ages of the Desert Border have
died with him.
Abdulla originally came to Transjordania with the idea of making war
on the French to avenge his brother’s expulsion, but has suspended his
hostile intentions. An amusing incident occurred in 1921 when he found
two French Catholic priests stirring up anti-British propaganda. He
dismissed them from his kingdom and put in their places two American
Presbyterian missionaries. When a furious protest came from the
Vatican, Abdulla replied innocently, pleading his ignorance of the
difference between the various Christian sects; however, as Lawrence
happened to be with him at the time, we may doubt this.
Certainly the extraordinary disappearance of a steam-roller, from the
Palestine Border, which later after much useful work in road-making
across in Transjordania was found again abandoned near the border, may
be safely put down to Lawrence’s magic; and perhaps also Abdulla’s
official letter to the Palestine Government, saying that among their
hosts of steam-rollers the Transjordanians have great difficulty in
identifying any deserting machines from Palestine, suggests Lawrence’s
style.
Abdulla’s most dangerous neighbour is Ibn Saud, who now rules
practically the whole of the Arabian peninsula. Ibn Saud has the
support of a puritan sect of Arabs known as the Brothers, founded over
a hundred years ago by a prophet called Wahab; hence they are sometimes
called the Wahabis. Arabia under him is going through a period not
unlike the Commonwealth in England under Cromwell, except that Ibn Saud
is far more strict than Cromwell in keeping religious virtue among his
followers. Smoking a cigarette, even, is an abominable offence. He has
stopped inter-tribal raiding throughout his dominions, but permits
raiding across the borders. He has spread his influence as far north
as Jauf, from which he has expelled the Ruwalla—old Nuri the Emir is
dead—and across Sirhan.
The worst thing about the Brethren is that they have learned Turkish
methods of war and employ them even against Arabs who are not Brethren.
A body of about a thousand of these fanatics came marching up in
1922 from the Central Oases in an eight-hundred-mile raid on Amman.
They surprised a little village close to the railway, twenty miles
south of Amman, and massacred every man, woman and child. The chief
of the Faiz Beni Sakhr, however, caught them a day or two later and
few escaped back to Arabia to tell the tale: no prisoners were taken.
The Faiz victory was accidentally helped by a British aeroplane which
happened to be flying over: the Brethren thought that it was going to
bomb them and threw down their arms.
Against further inroads Abdulla has an efficient defence force with
British advisers. It is unlikely that the Wahabi faith will spread to
the settled country from the desert. The new prosperity in the north
of the Arabic-speaking area since the departure of the Turks will
discourage this. The railway south from Damascus is working again, but
only as far as Maan and not very busily; a branch-line is, however,
planned to Akaba.
Of Lawrence during this political period there are many stories which
one day will be collected, true and false together, in a full-length
‘Life and Letters’ which this book does not, of course, pretend to
be. I can, however, vouch for the truth of two or three typical ones.
Lawrence went to Jiddah in June 1921 and tried to make the treaty with
Hussein to which he refers in the letter that I have quoted. Hussein
kept him arguing for two months in the heat, hoping to break down
British opposition to his claim for a paramount position above other
Arab princes, and finally put him off altogether, suggesting that
he should continue the negotiations with his son Abdulla in Amman.
Lawrence sent a cipher cable to Lord Curzon, the Foreign Minister.
‘Can do nothing with Hussein. Are you fed up or shall I carry on with
Abdulla?’ Curzon, who was a stickler for the diplomatic phrasing
of official despatches, asked his secretary: ‘Pray, what does this
term _fed up_ signify?’ The secretary, who had a sense of humour,
replied, ‘I believe, my lord, that it is equivalent to “disgruntled.”’
‘Ah,’ said Curzon, ‘I suppose that it is a term in use among the middle
classes.’ When ‘carry on’ had also been explained, Curzon gave consent
to the Abdulla negotiations and Lawrence carried them on. Meanwhile the
secretary, a friend, had told him in a private letter of the ‘fed-up’
episode. So Lawrence, having successfully concluded his negotiations
with Abdulla, again cabled to Curzon in cipher: ‘Have wangled things
with Abdulla. Details follow by letter. Note, the necessary verb
“wangle” is absent from the diplomatic cipher. I submit that a
letter-group be allotted to it to save spelling it each time.’ The word
is now in the cipher book.
A late member of the Foreign Office staff, who wishes to remain
anonymous, has told me an even odder story of Lawrence and Lord Curzon.
‘It was at the first meeting of the British Cabinet held to discuss
the Middle-Eastern situation. Curzon made a well-turned speech in
Lawrence’s praise, introducing him. I could see Lawrence squirming
at the praise, which he seemed to think was misplaced, and at the
patronage. Lawrence already knew most of the ministers present. It was
a very long speech and when it ended Curzon turned to Lawrence and
asked him if he wished to say anything. Lawrence answered sharply,
“Yes, let’s get to business. You people” (imagine Curzon addressed
as “you people”!) “don’t understand yet the hole you have put us all
into!” Then a remarkable thing happened. Curzon burst into tears, great
drops running down his cheeks, to an accompaniment of slow sobs.
[Illustration:
description: Portrait drawing 3⁄4 view chest up of a Lawrence
in Arab dress
caption: LAWRENCE AT VERSAILLES
_Copyright_
]
‘It was horribly like a mediæval miracle, the weeping of a church
image. I felt dreadful; probably Lawrence did too. However,
Lord Robert Cecil, who seemed to be hardened to such scenes, of
which hitherto I only knew by hearsay, interposed roughly: “Now, old
man, none of that!” Curzon wiped his eyes, blew his nose in a silk
pocket-handkerchief, and dried up. And business proceeded.’
At Paris Lawrence had several rows with politicians and soldiers.
The most sensational was in the hall of the Hotel Majestic, the
headquarters of the British delegation. A major-general began treating
him as an interfering young fellow who had no business to be poking his
nose into matters that did not concern him. Lawrence retorted warmly.
The general barked out, ‘Don’t dare to speak to me in that tone. You’re
not a professional soldier.’ This stirred Lawrence. ‘No,’ said he,
‘perhaps I’m not; but if you had a division and I had a division, I
know which of us would be taken prisoner.’
Throughout these years Lawrence lived in great retirement. The
advertising of his Arabian adventure both by the Press and by Mr.
Lowell Thomas’s cinema lecture-tour proved most unwelcome to him. He
received an enormous mail, including, it is said, over fifty offers of
marriage from unknown women, and was relentlessly and unsuccessfully
pursued by lion-hunting hostesses. Most of the time that he was not
writing his book or engaged in politics he spent reading, catching
up with modern literature after a four years’ break, and looking at
pictures and sculpture.