Lawrence

by Michael Asher

2. Philip Graves later asserted that Lawrence could himself perform this act. It is picture which smacks more of red Indians or the heroic world of Malory than of Arabia Deserta. The average camel stands about six feet at the shoulder, and perhaps nine feet at the withers. For a man to ‘leap into the saddle’ one-handed would require something more than the ability of an Olympic high-jump champion. More probably, ‘Ali mounted his camel by stepping on the animal’s neck and swarming on to its withers – a customary way of mounting, yet one so ungainly and vulnerable in its lack of control as to be scarcely worthy of the expression ‘leaping into the saddle’.

  3. SPW, 1935, p. 397.

  4. ibid., p. 415.

  5. Garnett Letters, p. 239.

  6. SPW, 1935, p. 545.

  7. ibid.

  8. ibid.

  9. SPW, 1935, p. 454.

  10. ibid., p. 456.

  11. ibid.

  12. Brown Letters, p. 166.

  13. Friends, p. 124.

  14. SPW, 1935, pp. 445–8.

  15. Brown Letters, p, 132.

  16. Mack, Prince, p. 233.

  17. Wilson, Authorised, p. 1084.

  18. Friends, p. 124.

  19. It is, of course, possible, that both the Artillery and Khalfati incidents were mere figments of Lawrence’s masochistic fantasy also – no independent corroboration exists for either.

  20. SPW, Oxford text, p. 38.

  21. British Library, Add MSS., 45903, Charlotte Shaw Letters.

  22. SPW, 1935, p. 581.

  23. Cowan, Masochism, p. 248.

  24. Brown Letters, p. 299.

  25. See Lockman, Scattered Tracks, pp. 139ff.

  26. ibid.

  27. H. Montgomery-Hyde, Solitary in the Ranks – Lawrence of Arabia as Airman and Private Soldier, London, 1977, p. 40.

  28. Wilson, Authorised, p. 1084.

  29. SPW, Oxford text, 1926, p. 78.

  30. Winterton recalled that Lawrence’s bodyguard consisted of about sixty men during the Dara’a operation, but it may be that Lawrence’s own guard was combined with Sharif Nasir’s larger ‘Agayl bodyguard at this point, or that Winterton’s memory was influenced by SPW. In any case, if Lawrence’s bodyguard exceeded the fifteen or so listed in his diary as having been paid, presumably the extra hands worked for him for nothing!

  31. Wilson, Authorised, p. 1084.

  32. SPW, 1935, p. 28.

  33. MS. Res., 55/2.

  34. Friends, p. 147.

  18. The Most Ghastly Material to Build into a Design

  1. PRO, 882/4 251.

  2. Falls, Cyril, et al., Military Operations in Egypt and Palestine, Vol. 1, 1928, Parts 1 and 2 (Official War History), p. 404.

  3. SPW, 1935, p. 492.

  4. Brown Letters, p. 434.

  5. ibid., p. 435.

  6. LH, p. 105.

  7. ibid.

  8. RG, p. 97.

  9. Brown Letters, p. 434.

  10. PRO FO, 882/4.

  11. SPW, Oxford text, 1926, p. 99.

  12. S. C. Rolls, Steel Chariots in the Desert, London, 1937, p. 221.

  13. SPW, 1935, p. 535.

  14. Brown Letters, p. 260.

  15. Rolls, Steel Chariots, p. 230.

  16. SPW, 1935, p. 499.

  19. My Dreams Puffed out Like Candles in the Strong Wind of Success

  1. SPW, 1935, p. 653.

  2. Hubert Young, The Independent Arab, London, 1933, p. 142.

  3. ibid., p. 203.

  4. SPW, 1935, p. 555.

  5. Young, The Independent Arab, p. 199.

  6. ibid.

  7. SPW, 1935, p. 543.

  8. Young, The Independent Arab, p. 211.

  9. Knightley and Simpson, Secret Lives, p. 162.

  10. Young, The Independent Arab, p. 219.

  11. Rolls, Steel Chariots in the Desert, p. 264.

  12. ibid., p. 288.

  13. SPW, 1935, p. 620.

  14. Young, The Independent Arab, p. 228.

  15. SPW, 1935, p. 620.

  16. Lord Winterton, ‘Arabian Nights and Days’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 207 (1920), p. 754.

  17. Lord Winterton, Fifty Tumultuous Years, 1955, p. 70.

  18. ibid.

  19. SPW, 1935, p. 653.

  20. ibid., p. 654.

  21. Richards, A Portrait of T. E. Lawrence, p. 97.

  22. Mack, Prince, p. 239.

  23. Peake evidently believed, probably incorrectly, that all these Bedu belonged to Lawrence’s bodyguard. (See ch. 17, n. 30.)

  24. ibid.

  25. Lord Birdwood, Nuri As Said. A Study in Arab Leadership, London, 1959, p. 199.

  26. Kirkbride to Liddell Hart, 8 November 1962 in MS. Res., b. 56.

  27. Mack, Prince, p. 239.

  28. George Staples, interviewed in the Toronto Telegraph, 31 January 1963. Staples’s testimony has been challenged. Lawrence himself says that he rode in search of Barrow with only his lieutenant Ahmad az-Za’aqi.

  29. SPW, 1935, p. 657.

  30. SPW, 1935, p. 660.

  31. SPW, 1935, p. 662.

  32. ibid., p. 666.

  33. W. F. Stirling, ‘Tales of Lawrence of Arabia’, pp. 494ff.

  34. Brown Letters, p. 275.

  35. ibid.

  36. SPW, 1935, p. 682.

  37. ibid., p. 659.

  20. Colonel Lawrence Still Goes On; Only I Have Stepped Out of the Way

  1. Young, The Independent Arab, p. 142.

  2. LH, 20 May 1935.

  3. Wilson, Authorised, p. 603.

  4. Wilson, Authorised, p. 620.

  5. RG, p. 36.

  6. Brown Letters, p. 332.

  7. Wilson, Authorised, p. 630.

  8. Friends, p. 245.

  9. ibid., p. 199.

  10. Brown Letters, p. 223.

  11. ibid., p. 219.

  12. Orlans, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 26.

  13. Brown Letters, p. 172.

  14. Friends, p. 208.

  15. ibid., p. 214.

  16. ibid.

  17. ibid.

  18. Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia.

  19. SPW, 1935, p. 580.

  20. Cowan, Masochism, p. 124.

  21. RG, p. 20.

  22. Mack, Prince, p. 525.

  23. Friends, p. 197.

  24. SPW, 1935, p. 276.

  25. Antonius, The Arab Awakening, p. 319.

  21. In Speed We Hurl Ourselves Beyond the Body

  1. J. N. Lockman reports having read Lawrence’s RAF medical record, and though this was not available for publication concludes that the evidence suggests his scars were voluntarily acquired after the war. Lockman discounts Johns’s later testimony to the Sunday Times, 1968. See Lockman, Scattered Tracks, pp. 139ff.

  2. Montgomery-Hyde, Solitary in the Ranks, p. 52.

  3. RG, p. 97.

  4. Montgomery-Hyde, Solitary in the Ranks, p. 48.

  5. Garnett Letters, p. 379.

  6. British Library, Add. Mss. 45903, Charlotte Shaw Letters.

  7. Brown Letters, p. 221.

  8. Garnett Letters, p. 379.

  9. Friends, p. 379.

  10. Brown Letters, p. 210.

  11. ibid., p. 216.

  12. ibid., p. 215.

  13. Wilson, Authorised, p. 687.

  14. Garnett Letters, p. 375.

  15. Brown Letters, p. 209.

  16. Montgomery-Hyde, Solitary in the Ranks, p. 48.

  17. John Bruce, sworn testimony, Knightley and Simpson Papers, Imperial War Museum, p. 17.

  18. ibid.

  19. Wilson, Authorised, p. 704.

  20. Bruce, sworn testimony, p. 17.

  21. Knighdey and Simpson, Secret Lives, p. 193.

  22. ibid., p. 194.

  23. Mack, Prince, p. 525.

  24. John Bruce, sworn testimony, p. 74.

  25. Mack, Prince, p. 525.

  26. Bruce, sworn testimony.

  27. Brown Letters, p. 488.

  28. ibid., p. 462.

  29. ibid., p. 468.
r />   30. Wilson, Authorised, p. 928.

  31. Brown Letters, p. 408.

  32. ibid., p. 486.

  33. Brown Letters, p. 526.

  34. ibid., p. 537.

  35. ibid., p. 486.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Archives

  The Bodleian Library, Oxford: Reserve Manuscript Collection (embargoed material on T. E. Lawrence).

  The National Library of Scotland, Manuscripts Collection: Various files, rare books and manuscripts.

  The Public Record Office, Kew: Foreign Office and War Office Files; Arab Bureau Files; Intelligence Files.

  The British Library Additional Manuscripts Collection: Robertson–McMahon Correspondence; T. E. Lawrence – Letters to Charlotte Shaw; T. E. Lawrence – War Diaries and Pocket Diaries.

  King’s College, University of London, Basil Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives: Joyce Pierce Akaba Papers.

  Imperial War Museum, London: Knightley and Simpson Papers.

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br />
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