When the delegates assembled in Paris, Emir Feisal took up his headquarters at the Hôtel Continental on the rue de Rivoli. Wherever the Emir went; whether to an informal meeting or to an official conference, he was usually accompanied by the slightly built, insignificant-looking youth in the uniform of a British colonel. Few people at the peace conference, however, were aware that this young man had virtually led the Arabian armies during the war and was almost as important a figure in the Arab delegation as Emir Feisal himself.
Prince Feisal was quite the most imposing figure at Paris. In his flowing robes he was the center of attention wherever he went and continually sought by artists, photographers, and writers. But publicity was almost as distasteful to Feisal as it was to Lawrence, and so they would get up at six o’clock in the morning, throughout the conference, in order to go rowing in the Bois de Boulogne and escape the curious crowd, which, attracted by the picturesque dress and stately figure of the Arabian emir, followed always at his heels.
Flattery he was quick to detect. A distinguished Frenchman, M. Dubost, eulogized him somewhat fulsomely in the course of an after-dinner speech at the Hôtel de Ville. When it was over a Moroccan interpreter asked the emir how he liked it. Feisal’s only reply was, “Has n’t he beautiful teeth?”
To induce the Arabs to fight in the World War, Britain had made certain promises which French interests made it extremely difficult to fulfil. But during the peace conference Feisal’s tact and personal charm did much to win friends for the Arabian cause in Paris. No one ever came away from him in an angry mood. On one occasion, at a meeting of the Council of Ten, M. Pichon referred to the claims of France in Syria, which he said were based on the Crusades. Emir Feisal listened respectfully, and when the French statesman had finished his address he turned toward him and inquired politely, “I am not a profound student of history, but would you kindly tell me just which one of us won the crusades?”
Lawrence’s personal attitude regarding the peace conference was straightforward and simple: if Great Britain was not going to guarantee independence to the Arabs and if she proposed to leave them in the hands of the French so far as their Syrian aspirations were concerned, for his part he intended to devote his energies and talents to helping his Arab comrades in arms contest France’s claims and obtain the rights for which they had so valiantly fought.
During the war the British had sponsored the Arabian movement for independence and made it possible for King Hussein and his sons to maintain their army against the Turks. The French, on the other hand, had merely sent a small detachment to Arabia, which could hardly even have survived had it not been for the supplies it received from Lawrence and his British colleagues. But the embarrassing fly in the ointment was the “you-take-this, and-I’ll-take-that” compact between the British and French in which it had previously been decided that France was to have Syria as her sphere of influence. Emir Feisal and Colonel Lawrence felt sure if that compact was adhered to in the face of Arab claims that Syria would become a French colony despite the fact that the bulk of her population wanted neither French control nor French cooperation.
In presenting the Arabian case and in coaching Emir Feisal to meet the delegates on their own ground, Lawrence was a match for any diplomat at the peace conference. He had the geography of Arabia, Syria, and Palestine at his finger-tips. He spoke many of the dialects of the Near East. He had lived with the Ansariya, the Yezedis, the Ismailia, the Metawileh, the Christian Maronites of the Lebanon. He had broken bread with the Druses and sat around the coffee-hearths of nearly every tribe of the desert. He could hold forth for hours on the intricate political relations, religions, and tribal feuds of the Arabs and their neighbors. The cities of Syria were as familiar to him as London and Oxford. Sitting in a hotel room overlooking the garden of the Tuileries in Paris, he made the ancient cities of the East live in vivid phrases for frock-coated gentlemen who had never deviated from the straight streets of continental capitals.
Lawrence admitted that Beyrouth, the foreign door of Syria, was French in feeling and in language, in spite of its Greek harbor and its great American university. But he insisted that Damascus, the historic city of Syria, long the seat of lay government and the religious center, was pure Arab, whose sheiks were orthodox “Meccan” in their opinions and exceedingly anxious to be free from alien rule. He also argued that the great industrial cities of Hamah and Homs were more jealously native than any other Syrian centers.
He maintained that the Arabian case rested on four important documents, which he described as follows:
“First: The British promise to King Hussein of October, 1915, which undertook, conditional on an Arabian revolt, to recognize the ‘independence of the Aarbs’ south of latitude 37 degrees, except in the Mesopotamian provinces of Bagdad and Basra, and except where Great Britain might not consider herself ‘free to act without detriment to the interests of France.’
“Second: The Sykes-Picot Agreement made between England and France in May, 1916, which divided the Arabian provinces of Turkey into five zones; roughly, (a) Palestine from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, to be ‘international’; (b) Haifa and Mesopotamia from near Tekrit to the Gulf, to be ‘British’; (c) the Syrian coast from Tyre to Alex-andretta, Cilicia, and almost all southern Armenia from Sivas to Diarbekir, to be ‘French’; (d) the interior (mainly the provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, Urfa, Deir, and Mosul) to be ‘independent Arab’ under two shades of influence: (l) between the lines Akaba-Kuweit and Haifa-Tekrit, the French to seek no ‘political influence’ and the British to have economic and political priority, and the right to supply ‘such advisors as the Arabs desire’; (2) between the line Haifa-Tekrit and the southern edge of French Armenia or Kurdistan, Great Britain to seek ‘no political influence’ and the French to have economic and political priority and the right to supply ‘such advisors as the Arabs desire.’
“Third: The British statement to the seven Syrians of Cairo dated June 11, 1917. This assured the Syrians that pre-war Arabian states, and Arabian areas freed by military action of their inhabitants during the war, should remain entirely independent.
“Fourth: The Anglo-French Declaration of November 9, 1918, in which Great Britain and France agreed to encourage native governments in Syria and Mesopotamia, and without imposition to assure the normal working of such governments as the people themselves should adopt.
“All these documents were produced under stress of military urgency to induce the Arabs to fight on our side.
“I can find no inconsistencies or incompatibilities in these four documents,” said Lawrence, “and I know nobody else who can. It may then be asked what is the cause of the difficulties among the British, French, and Arabs. It is mainly because the agreement of 1916, second document, is unworkable and no longer satisfies the British and French Governments. As, however, it is, in a sense, the ‘charter’ of the Arabs, giving them Damascus, Homs, Hamah, Aleppo, and Mosul for their own, with such advisors as they themselves judge they need, the necessary revision of this agreement is a delicate matter and can hardly be made satisfactorily by England and France without giving weight and expression also to the opinion of the third interest—the Arabs—which it created.”
The problem was, indeed, a delicate and intricate one to handle. Great Britain had entered into certain agreements with France and had made definite promises to the Arabs and other promises to the Zionists. Emir Feisal was frankly opposed to France. He claimed that the new Arabian Kingdom should include all of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. France, by all the etiquette of old diplomacy, considered that she had special and incontestable rights in Syria, dating from the Cru-saders. The French had founded educational institutions throughout the country, financed railways, and engaged in other forms of peaceful penetration. They considered themselves the historical protectors of the Christians in Syria. The Zionists were looking forward to a cultural state in Palestine under the protection of the British. All these varied and in some cases conflictin
g interests had to be considered and, if possible, satisfied.
Emir Feisal, backed up by Lawrence’s advice, insisted that the new Arabian state should include, not only the Hedjaz, but all Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine as well. Feisal would not listen to any proposal that Palestine should ever become a Jewish state. From his point of view, and in this he represented the opinion of the whole Arab world, Palestine could not be looked upon as a separate country, but as a province which should remain part and parcel of Syria. He maintained that, as there was no natural boundary and no frontier between the two countries, what affected one must affect the other, and that both from a geographical and racial standpoint Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia were inseparable. At the same time he raised no objection to the Zionist proposal to encourage the immigration of the Jews into the country, and to allow the Jews to have full control of their own schools, establish a Jewish cultural center, and participate in the government of Palestine.
“The Jews, like ourselves, are Semites,” agreed Emir Feisal. “And instead of relying upon any of the great powers, we should like to have the cooperation of the Jewish people for assistance in building up a great Semitic state. I appreciate fully Zionist aspirations, even extreme Zionist aspirations. I understand the desire of Jews to acquire a home-land. But so far as Palestine is concerned, if they have made up their minds that it is to be Palestine or nothing, then it must be Palestine subject to the rights and aspirations of the present possessors of the land. Palestine is still in effect the land of the Arabs and must remain an integral part of the Arabian state.”
Feisal, quite naturally, took an immediate and intimate view of the territorial rights and political aspirations of the Arabs. He was personally concerned in the establishment of an Arabian state and in all the problems that might threaten its success. But Lawrence, with his sixth sense and his imaginative understanding of the rise and fall of empires, appraised events in terms of rounded periods rather than of years. The Arabian question, the Palestine question, the Syrian question, must all sift and change with the sands of time.
In spite of all the diplomatic circumlocution, red tape, and super-politeness that veneered the proceedings in Paris, Emir Feisal was under no delusion as to the true spirit that permeated the peace conference, and before he and Lawrence would start out to attend one of the meetings Feisal would playfully unsheathe his gold dagger and whet it a few times on his boot.
The emir is a keen wit and many stories are told of his clever retorts in Paris. After he had been at the conference for a few weeks some one asked him to give his opinion of modern statesmen as a result of what he had thus far seen of them. He replied: “They are like modern paintings. They should be hung in a gallery and viewed from a distance!”
The final outcome of the battle of the peace conference was a partial victory for Emir Feisal and Colonel Lawrence. They did not get all that they had asked for, nor did they expect to. France was given control of Beyrouth and the Syrian coast; Britian accepted a mandate over Palestine; but the Arabs were allowed to retain control of the interior of Syria and to make their beloved Damascus the capital of their new state.
CHAPTER XXIX
LAWRENCE NARROWLY ESCAPES DEATH; ADYENTURES OF FEISAL AND HUSSEIN
DURING a lull in the long siege in the council-chambers at Paris, Lawrence had one more adventure. He had left his diaries and nearly all of his important papers relating to the campaign in a vault in Cairo, because the Mediterranean was still infested with German U-boats when the Turkish armistice was signed and when he returned from the Near East. So after the preliminary work of the peace conference had been completed, Lawrence found himself in need of his notes and papers.
He heard that ten British machines—giant Handley-Page planes, with Rolls-Royce engines, that had seen service in many a night raid over Germany—were leaving for Egypt to blaze a new air-route from London to Cairo. Lawrence promptly arranged to accompany them. But the machines were old and nearly worn out, and the pilots were daredevil chaps who literally ran their planes to pieces. In fact, some of the pilots had never flown a Handley-Page, and some of their mechanics had never even worked on a Rolls-Royce engine. On the way from Cologne to Lyons five forced landings were made. Nearly all the planes had to be rebuilt several times during the journey to Egypt.
The Air Ministry in London had vaguely directed the squadron to an aërodrome at Rome. When the pilots reached the Eternal City, they flew back and forth across the Tiber, over St. Peter’s, the Colosseum, the Forum, and up and down the Appian Way, but nowhere on any of the Seven Hills could they spot a landing-ground. Finally the pilot of Lawrence’s plane saw what he thought might be an aërodrome. But when he swooped down it turned out to be a stone-quarry. Just before reaching the quarry he saw his mistake, switched on the engine, and tried to ascend again. Unluckily he was unable to get up sufficient flying speed. The machine raced along the ground, then bolted over the edge of the quarry, and crashed down into a tree-top.
Lawrence was seated in the gun-pit. The occupants had a vague impression of a tree coming toward them at amazing speed. Suddenly there was a noise like the crack of a machine-gun. In the flash of a second the great plane toppled over on its nose and right wing and splintered into match-wood. Both pilots were killed outright. The two mechanics, who were seated with Lawrence in the rear in the machine-gunner’s compartment, were pitched out on their heads. One suffered concussion of the brain; the other was merely stunned. As soon as the second recovered consciousness he began to dig Lawrence out of the débris. The colonel’s shoulder-blade, collarbone, and three ribs were broken. In the excavating process, which took ten minutes, the mechanic kept sputtering excitedly that the plane might catch fire any minute. Lawrence replied, “Well, if she does, when I arrive in the other world I may find it chilly.”
In spite of the accident, however, Lawrence jumped into another plane a few days later and continued his flight to Egypt. “Our strangest sensation,” he afterward told me in Paris, “was breakfasting on the isle of Crete and dining the same day in Cairo, seven hundred miles away.” After he had gathered up his papers, and still somewhat shaken up as a result of his aërial interlude, he returned to the seats of the mighty in Paris.
At the conclusion of the peace conference, Emir Feisal and staff visited London and then made a tour of the British Isles. Colonel Lawrence took delight in showing his Arab friends around. Everything was new to several of the sheiks who had just arrived from Arabia, and one would have expected them to be tremendously impressed by the subways, the automobiles, and the thousand and one wonders of the capital of the British Empire. But these things merely excited a supercilious, sheik-like smile. They were too proud ever to show any signs of surprise, except on one occasion in their room at the Ritz. They were dumfounded when they turned on the water-faucets and found that one ran hot and the other cold. In the holy Koran, they said, they had been told of the fountains of paradise, which flow with milk or with honey at will; but they had never heard of earthly fountains such as these in the Ritz. After alternating them a bit and making quite sure that they themselves were not dreaming, they told Lawrence they wanted to take some of those magic faucets back to Arabia so that they could carry them in their camel-bags to supply them with hot and cold water while trekking across the desert!
On one occasion Emir Feisal visited Glasgow and was entertained at a great civic banquet. He had been so busy seeing the sights along the Clyde that when it came time to respond to the toast in his honor he was unprepared. The only other person present who could understand Arabic was Colonel Lawrence, who sat beside him to act as his interpreter; and Emir Feisal leaned over and whispered in his ear: “I have n’t a thing to say, so I am going to repeat the passage from the Koran on the cow. When you get up to interpret you can tell them anything you like!” It happens that the passage on the cow is one of the most sonorous and euphonious parts of the Koran, and the business men of Glasgow were tremendously impressed by the marvelous flow o
f eloquence that rolled like Niagara from the lips of the Oriental monarch, never dreaming that he was simply reeling off the Prophet Mohammed’s dissertation on the cow.
Shortly before he returned to the Near East the emir was entertained at a banquet in London, and Lord Balfour during the course of a conversation tried to find out what Emir Feisal thought of the British Government. He succeeded. “It reminds me of a caravan in the desert,” replied the George Washington of Arabia. “If you see a caravan from afar off, when you are approaching it from the rear, it looks like one camel. But, riding on, you see that camel tied to the tail of the next, and that one to the tail of the next, and so on until you come to the head of the caravan, where you find a little donkey leading the whole string of camels.” Lord Balfour wondered to just whom the emir was referring!
When Feisal returned to Syria the people again welcomed him as their liberator, and after a few weeks they proclaimed him King of Syria, with Damascus as his capital. But this new state was shortlived, for without foreign cooperation to help him finance his government his position soon became impossible. After using up his own private fortune in a vain attempt to develop order out of chaos, he was obliged to leave Damascus, and the French at once arbitrarily occupied the whole of Syria. For the moment it seemed as though Feisal’s hopes were shattered. But Lawrence and the other British leaders who had been associated with the Arabian Revolution still had another card to play.
All through these turbulent days Emir Feisal’s father had continued to strengthen his position in the Hedjaz. Galloping out of Mecca in the gorgeous Arabian twilight, a slight, lean figure was often seen by the Bedouins of the desert; it was Hussein, their King, on a night journey to Jeddah, forty miles away. No music precedes him, nor stately pageantry; he rides alone and a-muleback.
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