Lawrence was also looking forward: his vision extended beyond military victory to its political aftermath. For him his Syrian mission offered an unequal chance to carry out a spectacular coup de main which would wreck French plans for the province, give Faisal a kingdom and Britain a naval base. He opened his mind to his friend and colleague George Lloyd, who at his own request had been assigned to accompany Lawrence on this mission. Lloyd heard the details of Lawrence’s secret plans at Aqaba while the final preparations for the expedition were being made.3
Once the Yarmuk Valley bridge had been demolished, Lawrence intended to return with his party to el Azraq, which would become the centre for pro-Faisal sedition in Syria and the Lebanon. First, the Syrian Abdul al Qadir and Sharif Hassan would foment uprisings in a region bounded by Saida, Acre, Nazareth and Hasbaiya. There would be simultaneous revolts by the Druze and Leja and further insurrections to the south between Karak and Amman and to the north in the Jebel Liban. Lawrence himself would ride northwards to Tadmor and contrive the seizure of Aleppo, which, once taken, would be the base for uprisings across northern Syria that would culminate in the capture of Alexandretta, the prize denied by the Cabinet and War Office in 1915.
If Lawrence failed to blow up the Yarmuk bridge, he would enter the al Leja district, mine the railway south of Dera and then return to el Azraq and carry out the plan he had outlined. The result of this astonishing sequence of popular insurrections was explained by Lawrence and noted by Lloyd:
Sharif’s [that is, Hussain’s] flag flies along coast from Acre northwards: French protests? Our attitude? Faisal’s attitude will be non negotiatory–‘What I have taken I keep’–L[awrence] not working for Allenby but for Sharif–Had no instruction except hamper communications–
Neither Faisal or Sharif [Hussain] ever seen text of S[ykes]-P[icot] agreement and claim never had its contents put before them–
Nothing in writing–anyway not parties to it–agreement at best between France and England for partition of a country in armed occupation of forces of sharif of Mecca -
Alexandretta must be obtained for G[reat] B[ritain]. This can be done but can only be done by Sharif’s goodwill–
Who gave Alexandretta to the French?
On what claims: no railways: no politics, not Syria -
Do we partition Arab countries without consulting the Arabs?
Lawrence ended his justification by arguing that McMahon had pledged Hussain Arab territory as far as Alexandretta and this ought to supersede the earlier Sykes–Picot agreement.
This was tantamount to a private policy concocted by Lawrence to deprive his country’s ally, France, of post–war territorial and political rewards that had been formally promised by the British government. On one level Lawrence was defying his government, on another he was following the principles of a strategy endorsed by his superiors, who wanted anti–Turkish uprisings to precede the British advance into Syria. Furthermore, although Lawrence takes the point for granted, the overall willingness of the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese to rebel would depend ultimately on how far the British advanced and the extent of Turco-German military collapse.
Clayton saw Lloyd’s report of Lawrence’s hidden programme of sharifian sedition and was ‘much interested’. No attempt appears to have been made to reprimand Lawrence, who remained convinced that his intended master-stroke had the stamp of genius. On 28 October 1918 he boasted to Lord Robert Cecil, the Assistant Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, that Damascus could easily have been taken by the Arabs in November 1917, presumably as a result of the local uprisings he had planned.4
In purely military terms what he had in mind could have been an immeasurable assistance to Allenby, even though the insurgents in the settled districts of the Lebanon, Syria and Palestine would have been dangerously exposed to Turkish retribution. Moreover, there was an influential anti-French lobby among senior officers and administrators in Cairo which would have privately applauded Lawrence’s coup. Their mood was detected by William Yale, who reported to the State Department on 12 November that there was a ‘general feeling, unsupported by any tangible evidence, that Great Britain would welcome any solution of the Syrian question which eliminated a French occupation or protectorate’.5
Clayton was certainly hostile towards post–war French claims to Syria. While he urged Sykes not to be perturbed by manifestations of ‘Fashodaism’ in Cairo, he added that he could not imagine how the French would actually achieve their political aspirations in Syria when the war ended.6 When Lawrence had tackled him in September about the precise terms of the Sykes–Picot agreement, Clayton deflected him with an assurance that changed political and military circumstances meant that it was now a dead-letter and could be ignored. He did, however, warn Lawrence against ‘any violent action, such as George Lloyd and those of his school had advocated’. The caution was unheeded, and instead Lawrence took heart from Clayton’s suggestion that Britain need not fear ‘an exhausted France whose veins have been bled white’.
French officers in Cairo, Hejaz and later Aqaba had long known about Lawrence’s opposition to their country’s post-war occupation of Syria. With the opening of the Aqaba front and the prospect of Arab forces undertaking operations in Syria, French suspicions turned to alarm. St Quentin believed Lawrence ‘wholly loyal to his superiors’ and therefore willing to accept Anglo–French co–operation in spite of his passionate adherence to what he conceived as the ‘higher interests of the Arab race’. Even so, it was considered prudent to keep an eye on Lawrence, especially since his missions north of Maan were taking him into areas set aside for France. This need to supervise him became urgent when, at the end of September, French officers heard rumours of British plans to engineer anti–Turkish uprising in Syria. On 13 October, St Quentin formally asked Allenby for Lawrence to be joined by a French officer. He was refused.7
In explanation, St Quentin was told, ‘Lawrence must not be hampered while engaged on delicate and dangerous tasks which are purely tactical, which may be of great importance to the success of any operations, and which he alone can carry through.’ Wingate was pleased and congratulated Allenby on his firmness, adding, ‘I should like to say a great deal more about my views in regard of some of our Ally’s methods, but I had better refrain.’8 The War Office also approved Allenby’s stance. The French drew their own conclusions and pressed ahead with plans to raise and train their own Syrian army, largely drawn from Armenian refugees.
Lawrence’s dreams of a sequence of Arab coups were utterly unrealistic and doomed to failure. As a historian he knew that small groups of single-minded men could make revolutions in the face of mass inertia and indifference, but the odds against this happening in Syria were very long. Only when it was clear that Turkish power was on the verge of extinction would the Syrian nationalists show their hand, and this moment would come when a British army overran the province. This is what happened in October 1918. Furthermore, as many Syrians realised, there was no reason why they should risk their lives and property to replace a Turkish governor in Damascus with a prince from Mecca.
In political terms, Lawrence’s scheme was wildly irresponsible. Even if attempted, let alone carried through, it might easily have created a rift between Britain and France and jeopardised the alliance when absolute solidarity was essential. It was easy at the end of 1917 to consider France a spent force, especially after the disastrous Nivelle offensive of the spring and its sequel, the army mutinies of April and May. This view of a crippled France which prevailed in some quarters in Cairo was deceptive. French assistance was still vital to meet and throw back the German offensive expected in the spring of 1918. Lawrence was dimly aware of this, recalling in September 1917 how he and his colleagues ‘were told unofficially that the need of bolstering up French courage and determination in the war made it necessary to surrender to her part of our own birthright’.9 For him this birthright encompassed the right to take over the Ottoman empire and dispose of its provinces as Britain
wished.
Lawrence’s manic enthusiasm for the Arab cause and his obsession about Syria had impaired his judgement to a point where nothing else mattered. He knew he was right and his overpowering sense of rectitude made him forget that he was the servant of the British government and obliged to implement its policies even when he believed them mistaken. A man in Lawrence’s place had the right to persuade his superiors that they were wrong, which he did, but he went further. By planning a campaign of subversion in Syria, paid for by British gold and backed by his authority as a British officer, Lawrence was using his position to indulge his private passion and thwart the wishes of his government. His revelations to Lloyd revealed a man who obeyed orders only when they suited him and who was therefore temperamentally unfitted to act as an agent of his country.
Lawrence’s mission to Yarmuk was foredoomed. It ran into unforeseen difficulties, not least of which was the presence in his party of a Turkish agent, Abdul al Qadir. Al Qadir had arrived at Aqaba with a small party of Syrian nationalist refugees on 5 September. Lawrence reported to HQ that he had escaped from house arrest at Bursa, south of Constantinople and, keen to promote Faisal’s cause in Syria, had made his way to Aqaba. Al Qadir’s family had been expelled from Algeria by the French sixty years before and were influential in Syrian political life. His nationalist credentials appeared beyond question; he had refused to participate in a Turco-German propaganda campaign and his uncle had been hanged in 1916 for treason. Lawrence was no doubt pleased with his forthright anti-French views. These were muted when al Qadir visited Jiddah on 6 October and told Brémond that he would co-operate with the French in Syria with promises to do all in his power to suppress anti-French propaganda there. He also boasted that there would be 40,000 Arabs at the gates of Damascus within a month, which probably amused Brémond, who had heard much talk of this kind over the past few months. Less diverting was al Qadir’s insistence that he had the right to pillage Christian villages when fighting the Turks. 10
Faisal and Lawrence were completely fooled by al Qadir. He was selected for Lawrence’s party and was entrusted with winning support for Faisal among the Druze and in northern Palestine. Al Qadir was also expected to use his contacts in the villages of the Yarmuk Valley to assist the passage of Lawrence and the sabotage party. He played his part remarkably well, although Clayton was aware that Turkish intelligence had placed an agent inside Faisal’s immediate circle. ‘There seems little doubt,’ he wrote to Lloyd on 25 October, ‘that Faisal has a traitor in his councils and one who is well informed, as the enemy seem to get excellent information on Arab plans.’11 This must have been al Qadir, although von Sandars admitted that his intelligence staff had broken British wireless codes.12
Lawrence realised al Qadir’s real purpose on the morning of 4 November when it was discovered that he had fled from el Azraq. He rode to Dera and alerted local commanders to the presence of Lawrence’s party and its purpose. A month later French intelligence had word that he was back with the Turks.13 In the Seven Pillars Lawrence recalled him as a quarrelsome companion and religious fanatic. George Lloyd’s reaction to him was that of the Englishman: ‘He is a soft Syrian. I never met a good one yet. How suitable the French and Syrian dispositions will be to one another. Both look futile on a horse and wear extravagant gaiters.’ His instinct was right and it is surprising that al Qadir never aroused suspicions even though his brother, Muhammad Said, had been identified as a German agent by Lawrence’s own section in January 1916.14
The party for the Yarmuk Valley raid comprised Lawrence; his servant boys Farraj and Dawd; Lloyd; Lloyd’s batman, Trooper Thorne of the Warwickshire Yeomanry; and Captain Wood of the Royal Engineers, who was to undertake the demolition if Lawrence suffered a mishap. Ahead were a party of Indian sappers, all veterans of railway raids and equipped with two Vickers and two Lewis machine-guns. The operational base was to be el Azraq and en route the parties met up with Sharif Ali, the overall commander, al Qadir and various tribal forces.
Lawrence’s section left Aqaba on 24 October, two days later than he had planned. Wood soon got lost on the journey up the Wadi Yutm and was discovered the following morning ‘grousing and refusing to eat’ after having been frightened by some Arabs. Some of Lloyd’s Scotch bucked him up but he remained sulky for some time. Lawrence was in a sombre mood, oppressed by the responsibility placed on him and by the dangers ahead. Lloyd was a cheerful and attentive companion who did all in his power to raise Lawrence’s spirits. ‘I had a conspicuous success in making Lawrence eat a real European breakfast, tea, bully beef and biscuits,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘He is only too ready to behave like a Christian–gastronomically at all events–if he is taken in the right way.’ The pair talked as they rode; Lawrence described his parents, undergraduate days and diggings at Karkamis and the two pledged themselves to make a post-war crossing of the Arabian Desert. ‘We would defy Victorian sentiment and have a retinue of slaves and would take one camel to carry books only.’
Beyond Abu al Lasan they got lost. ‘Lawrence who had professed to know the way was in reality completely ignorant of it,’ Lloyd observed. After a supper of Maconochie (tinned meat and vegetables), which he relished, Lawrence set off in the dark to find the railway line. This would be easy, he assured his companions, so long as they kept the constellation Orion in front of them. An hour’s fruitless march followed. By midnight and with the help of Lloyd’s compass, the track was found and Lawrence ran off to find a kilometre post which would fix their position. Meanwhile Lloyd climbed a telegraph pole to cut the wires, fell off and passed the job to Thorne, who discovered that the cutters were blunt.
By now, Sharif Ali had joined the party. Lloyd described him as a ‘young Meccan, very eager for adventure and a pleasant and good type of Arab’. He thought that as he rode ahead of the party he ‘looked like some modern Saladin out to meet the Crusaders’. More Arab horsemen appeared on the morning of the 28th and at a distance were mistaken for Turkish cavalry and fired on. Later in the day the expedition reached the Arab camp, which had been moved some way from el Jawf, now attracting the attentions of Turkish aircraft flying from Maan. Here Awda was waiting, full of gratitude for the new set of false teeth which Lawrence had procured for him in Cairo. Lawrence immediately got down to work selecting men for the mission, collecting intelligence and dealing with the usual rows about cash. This completed, he kindly but firmly suggested that Lloyd went back to Aqaba. ‘He would like me best to go home to England for he felt that there was a risk that all his work would be mined politically in Whitehall and he thought I could save this.’ If Lloyd chose not to support the Arabs in the House of Commons (Faisal, who had been an MP in the pre-war Ottoman parliament, had considered it bad form for Lloyd, a British MP, to blow up trains), he was welcome to join Lawrence further north or in Karak once the bridge had been destroyed. Lloyd returned to Aqaba, proud to have ridden a camel 300 miles in seven days.
On 31 October Lawrence, Wood, the Indians and Arabs set off for el Azraq, where they arrived on 4 November. The defection of al Qadir ruled out the use of his well-wishers at Wadi Khalid and Umm Keis. Lawrence chose to go for the Tell el Shehab bridge, which was reached by the 8th. As he was preparing to lay charges, the noise of a dropped rifle alerted a Turkish sentry, who called out the picket. After a short exchange of fire the party drew off.
Acutely aware that he had failed in his mission, a feeling which extended to the rest of his men, Lawrence looked for a small consolation prize. While Wood and the Indians returned to el Azraq, he and the sixty or so Arabs turned their attentions towards the main Hejaz line. On 11 November they derailed a train travelling from Dera to Amman which was carrying Jamal Pasha, the Governor of Syria and commander of the 4th Army corps, and his staff. Lawrence was wounded in the arm by metal splinters from the exploding boiler. He had also suffered five or six grazes from bullets and a broken toe. On 12 November he and his party were back at el Azraq.
III
Dera: Degradation or D
eception?
By 21 November 1917 Lawrence had returned to Aqaba. On that day he and Colonel Joyce went on a motor reconnaissance into the Wadi Yutm. They travelled in one of the cars of the 10th Motor Section of the Royal Field Artillery which had been landed the day before.1 This unit had lately been shipped from Egypt and one of its officers, Lieutenant Samuel Brodie, recalled that after coming ashore ‘the previous evening’ he went to HQ where he met Joyce and Lawrence.2 The gunners’ disembarkation is also recorded in the log of the Aqaba guardship, HMS Humber, which mentions the arrival of their transport ship during the afternoon of the 20th.3 It would have been well within the capabilities of a well–trained formation to have some of their vehicles ashore within twenty–four hours and ready for action.
These minor incidents in a sideshow of the war have a strange significance for Lawrence since they occurred on 21-22 November. He later insisted that on the night of 21-22 November he had been taken prisoner in Dera where he had been interrogated, manhandled, whipped and buggered by Turkish soldiers, at the bidding of one of their officers. Badly injured, he managed to escape, returned to el Azraq and then travelled by camel to Aqaba.
Lawrence said nothing about this appalling incident for over eighteen months. His first admission of what had occurred was in a letter written on 28 June 1919 to his friend Colonel Walter Stirling, then Chief Political Officer attached to GHQ Cairo.4 His purpose was the exposure of Abdul al Qadir’s treachery at el Azraq and his subsequent duplicity when Damascus had been liberated. Al Qadir’s career of double-dealing had ended on 7 November 1918 when he had been shot dead by Faisal’s police, an incident which the French had tried to link with Lawrence, even though he had then been in London.
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