Lieutenant Colonel C. E. Vickery, C.M.G., D.S.O., etc., another able officer of the regular army who played a prominent part in the campaign and afterward acted as British agent at Jeddah, gives us a vivid glimpse into the formality of a shereef’s daily life. Colonel Vickery is one of the few Europeans who have ever visited Taif, the summer capital of the Hedjaz, a city that is not nearly so sacred as Mecca or Medina, but nevertheless a place about which the outside world knows nothing.
“It was quite dark when we arrived, very cold and stiff,” relates Colonel Vickery. “We were asked into the guest-chamber—a fine apartment, its floors covered with priceless Persian carpets, and round the walls cushions and pillows. Courteously our host turned to us and, embracing us on each cheek, prayed Allah to bless us and murmured the graceful compliment that we were now in our own home. For an hour we sat in that room drinking coffee and highly sugared tea and smoking, while we watched an Eastern scene that centuries have not changed. The shereef had only been absent a day, but such is the etiquette of the East that it behooved all to pay their respects to him on his safe return from a journey. To the threshold of the door from time to time came relatives, friends, and slaves. All removed their slippers and entered the room—the door was open—according to their station. The slaves came in quickly bent with due humility, and hastily kissed the two fingers extended to them and as hastily withdrew. Dependents entered more leisurely and kissed the back of the shereef’s hand. Turning it over, they then kissed the part between the first finger and thumb and withdrew quietly.
“Friends came in, and for these the shereef rose, showed a faint reluctance at having his hand kissed, and embraced them on one cheek with murmured salutations. For his relatives he rose, allowed his hand to he kissed with seeming reluctance, and then saluted them warmly on each cheek, straining them to his breast and murmuring many and heartfelt wishes for their long life and happiness.”
The special deference paid to shereefs by the townsmen and villagers, in particular, had long ago developed in the city Arabs a sense of their own superior responsibility and honor. That, of course, was of great assistance to Lawrence in creating his Arabian aristocracy. In fact, it was by the sagacious use of this personal responsibility that Lawrence and his associates were able to unify the rival tribes and develop men capable of acting as subordinate leaders under King Hussein, Prince Feisal, and his brothers. In order to carry out his plans for widening the influence of the shereefs and making Hussein the recognized ruler of the Hedjaz, Lawrence had first to win the confidence of all the rival tribes. Then, quietly, in such a manner as to make them think the idea entirely their own, he induced them to forget past tribal differences and unite under the leadership of Hussein and his sons and the other shereefs, in order to drive out the hated Turk in the hope of helping bring the war to a victorious conclusion for the Allies, and in the hope of restoring the califate and the former splendor of their ancient empire.
King Hussein had to rely entirely on tribal loyalty for his military strength. His personal Bedouin following was drawn principally from two of the most numerous tribes of the desert, the Harb and the Ateibah, together with one tribe of inferior rank, the Juheinah. These three tribes occupy a great block of territory embracing three quarters of the Hedjaz and a strip of western Nejd. South and west of this block, but within the limits of the Hedjaz, dwell half a dozen small tribes, the Hudheil, Beni, Saad, Buqum, Muteir, Thaqif, and Juhadlah. Still further south is a group of powerful tribes, the Dhaur, Hasan, Ghamid, Zahran, and Shahran, whose adhesion meant the favorable disposal of stouter fighting material than the Hedjaz itself could supply. All of them sent contingents to assist King Hussein. From the country north of the central group he drew reinforcements from three of the smaller Anazeh tribes. The Billi, immediately north of the Juheinah, enrolled to a man, and they were followed by the Atiyah and Howeitat. The great Howeitat tribe, which roams the country between the head of the Gulf of Akaba and the lower end of the Dead Sea and Central Arabia, has more enemies, causes more trouble, and takes part in more blood-feuds than any other group of tent-dwellers. One can meet no more obstinate, unruly, and quarrelsome people. They seem to have no fear. The Howeitats find it impossible to unite even among themselves when attacked from without. About the only thing they possess in common are wounds and the same tribal marks on their camels. This great tribe has two subdivisions, the Ibn Jazi and the Abu Tayi, of which old Audu Abu Tayi, the Bedouin Robin Hood, is the chieftain. But Auda is chieftain only by virtue of his daring and prowess, for no man in that spirited group cares to bow down before the authority of any sheik. For fifteen years the two sections of the Howeitat waged relentless war upon each other until the mild-voiced Shereef Lawrence succeeded in getting them both to unite with Hussein and Feisal to drive out the Turks. But even then Lawrence found it advisable to keep the two sections attached to different parts of his army so that they could not leap at each other’s throats. Both were willing to obey Lawrence’s orders so long as they were kept apart, but in the event of their meeting they regarded themselves in honor bound to start a row. Audu Abu Tayi and his people consider the Druses, who wage the most merciless war in the desert, among their most bitter blood-enemies, and Lawrence more than had his hands full to prevent them from killing each other instead of the Turks. In 1912, fifty of Auda’s fighting men, mounted on camels, captured eighty Druse cavalrymen in battle. This is striking evidence of the fighting ability of the Howeitat warriors, because one horseman is usually worth two camelmen in a fight, because of the fact a horse can be manœuvered so much more rapidly. Since that engagement the Druses have been continually on the alert, hoping to take the Howeitat by surprise and annihilate them. In spite of these minor insurgencies, the Howeitat, under Auda’s leadership, became the finest fighting force in Western Arabia, regarded by Colonel Lawrence as the backbone of his wild desert army.
Perhaps train-wrecking was Lawrence’s most spectacular pastime, but nothing he did was more significant or remarkable than this consolidation of the Arab tribes. With them, raiding hostile neighbors was both their amusement and their business. To invite two enemy chief tans into Emir Feisal’s tent to swear friendship and loyalty over the ghosts of stolen horses and camels was like asking a Wall Street Magnate to turn over his fortune to Communists.
In order to illustrate the delicacy of the problem that Lawrence manipulated, let me cite a particular instance. In June, 1917, we were attending a conference in the courtyard of Emir Feisal’s palace at Akaba, a one-story structure resembling, with its extensive interior courtyard, a Spanish hacienda. The palace is situated in the little town back of a fringe of waving palm-trees, the only green splash of color in this stretch of sand, where once was located the great seaport of King Solomon. In a circle around the emir were seated thirty shereefs and sheiks, all heads of prominent tribes, and among them six sheiks of the Ibn Jazi Howeitat. All of a sudden I saw a swift change come over the unusually impassive countenance of the young Englishman. Jumping to his feet, Lawrence slipped noiselessly to the door-way of the courtyard. I saw him speak to a group of Arabs who were about to enter and then lead them off in another direction. Later, when I asked him the reason for his speedy exit, he informed me that the warriors at the entrance were none other than the renowned Auda, his cousin, Mohammed, and some of the other leading fighting men of the Abu Tayi. He added that if Auda and his companions had come on through into the palace courtyard, a bloody battle might have been fought right in front of Emir Feisal, possibly resulting in the total disruption of the Arabian forces.
Until he became an undisputed leader, Lawrence kept in constant touch with the king of the Hedjaz and his four sons, principally Emir Feisal. He lived with the leaders that he might be with them when they were dining or holding audiences in their tents. It was his theory that giving direct and formal advice was not nearly so effective as the constant dropping of ideas in casual talk. At his meals the Arab is off guard and at his ease, engaging in small talk and gen
eral conversation. Whenever Lawrence wanted to make a new move, start a raid, or capture a town, he would bring up the question casually and indirectly, and before half an hour had passed he usually succeeded in inspiring one of the prominent sheiks to suggest the plan. Lawrence would then seize his advantage, and before the sheik’s enthusiasm had time to wane he would push him on to the execution of the plan.
On one occasion Lawrence was dining with Emir Feisal and some of his leaders, not far from Akaba. The Arab chieftains thought it would be a splendid plan to take Deraa, the important railway junction hundreds of miles farther north, just south of Damascus. Lawrence knew that Deraa could be captured, but he also realized that at that stage of the campaign it could not be held for any length of time; so he said: “Oh, yes, that ’s a fine idea! But first, let ’s work out the details.” A great council of war was held, but somehow the longer the matter was discussed the less enthusiasm manifested itself. In fact, the Arab leaders became so disheartened that they even suggested retreating from the position that they occupied at that moment. Then Lawrence delicately suggested that such a retreat would greatly anger King Hussein, and little by little he prevailed upon them to go through with the original plan for capturing Akaba, which was his first objective.
As Lawrence once remarked to me under his breath when we were attending a consultation of Arab leaders: “Everybody is a general in the Arab army. In British circles a general is allowed to make a mess of things by himself, whereas here in Arabia every man wants a hand in making the mess complete.”
The Arab Shereefs and sheiks are strong-minded and obstinate men. Nothing hurts them more than to have some one point out their mistakes. If you say “rubbish” to an Arab, it is sure to put his back up, and he will ever afterward decline to help you. Lawrence never refused to consider any scheme that was put forward, even though he had the actual power to do so. Instead, he always approved a plan and then skilfully directed the conversation so that the Arab himself modified it to suit Lawrence, who would then announce it publicly to the other Arab leaders before the originator of the scheme had time to change his point of view. All this would be manipulated in such a delicate way that the Arab would not for a moment be aware that he was acting under pressure. If Lawrence and his British associates had acted behind the shereef’s back they might have attained certain of their objectives in half the time, but until Lawrence actually had been raised to supreme command by the voluntary act of the Arabs themselves and was regarded by them as a sort of superman he was wise enough never to give direct orders. Even his suggestions and advice to Emir Feisal he reserved until they were alone. From the beginning of the campaign Lawrence adopted the policy of trying not to do too much himself, always remembering that it was the Arab’s war. At times, when it seemed necessary, he would even strengthen the prestige of the Arab leaders with their subordinates at the expense of his own position. The failure of the Turks and Germans, on the other hand, was partly due to the fact that they rushed at the Arabs blindly and attempted to deal with them in a brutally direct manner.
Whenever a new shereef or sheik came for the first time to offer his services to King Hussein, Lawrence and any other British officer present made it a point to leave the emir’s tent until the formality of swearing allegiance on the Koran and touching Feisal’s hand was over. They did this because the strange sheik might easily become suspicious if his first impression revealed foreigners in Feisal’s confidence. At the same time it was Lawrence’s policy always to have his name associated with those of the shereefs. Everywhere he went he was regarded as Feisal’s mouthpiece. “Wave a shereef in front of you like a banner and hide your own mind and person,” was the maxim of this student of Bedouin tactics. But Lawrence was careful not to identify himself too long or too often with any one tribal sheik, for he did not want to lose prestige by being associated with any particular tribe and its inevitable feuds. The Bedouins are extremely jealous. When going on an expedition Lawrence would ride with every one up and down the line, so that no one could criticize him for showing favoritism.
In every way Lawrence used his knowledge of desert psychology to the best possible advantage. For instance, he was constantly in need of detailed information regarding the topography of the country over which the Arabian forces were campaigning; hut the Bedouins are always reluctant to reveal the location of wells, springs, and points of vantage. Lawrence convinced them that making maps was an accomplishment of every educated man. Auda Abu Tayi and many of the other sheiks became so keenly interested in maps that they often kept Lawrence up to all hours of the night helping them with maps that were not of the slightest military value and in which he was not in the least interested.
CHAPTER XXXIII
LAWRENCE THE MAN
ALTHOUGH he had been cited for nearly every decoration that the British and French Governments had to offer, Lawrence sedulously ran away from them by camel, aëroplane, or any available method of swift transportation.
The French Government sent word to its contingent in Arabia to bestow upon the dashing colonel the Croix de Guerre with palms. Captain Pisani, commandant of the French force at Akaba, was anxious to make the ceremony an impressive affair. He wanted to have all of the British, French, and Arab troops out on parade so that he could deliver an appropriate eulogistic address, present the decoration to Lawrence, and then kiss him on both cheeks. But Lawrence heard of the plan and vanished into the desert. Several times he gave the persistent Pisani the slip. In despair the commandant went to Major Marshall, Lawrence’s tent-mate, who advised him to surround the mess-tent some morning when Lawrence happened to be in Akaba and take him by surprise. So Pisani and his detachment waited until he returned; then turned up in full regalia, surrounded him just as he had reached the marmalade course, and read an impressive document relating how he had gone for days without food or water and how he had outwitted and defeated the Turks.
At the end of the campaign, when Lawrence returned to Europe and left Marshall behind in Arabia, the colonel wrote asking his tent-mate to ship his things from Akaba to Cairo. Lawrence neither drank nor smoked but was inordinately fond of chocolate, and there were dozens of empty tins piled in the corner of his tent, together with books, bits of theodolites, a camel-saddle, cartridge-drums, and odds and ends from machine-guns. In one of the empty chocolate-tins the major found the French decoration which Pisani had presented. He put it in his own bag, and when Lawrence came to meet Emir Feisal and the Arab delegates at Marseilles, Major Marshall “pulled his leg” by making another speech reminding the colonel of his splendid work for France, and then represented him with the Croix de Guerre with palms.
When the Duke of Connaught visited Palestine to confer the Grand Cross of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem on General Allenby, he intended to present a decoration to Lawrence as well. The young leader of the Arabian forces happened at the time to be out “in the blue,” busily blowing up Turkish trains. Aëroplanes were sent to scour, the desert for him. Messages were dropped on various Arab camps requesting any one who saw Shereef Lawrence to tell him to report to Jerusalem. One fine day Lawrence came strolling in on foot through the Turkish lines, to show his indifference of the enemy. In the meantime the ceremony in Jerusalem had already taken place, and the Duke of Connaught had gone to Egypt. Knowing Lawrence’s peculiar aversion to the acceptance of medals or military honors of any kind, his associates of the intelligence staff succeeded in seducing him to Cairo only by inventing some other plausible pretext. Upon his arrival, a subaltern who was not acquainted with Lawrence’s eccentricities inadvertently tipped him off to the fine affair that was to be staged for his benefit. Without stopping to pick up his uniform and kit at Shepheard’s Hotel, Lawrence hurried out to the headquarters of the Flying Corps at Helipolis, an oasis a few miles from Cairo, jumped into an aëroplane, and taxied back to Arabia.
Not only did he care nothing for decorations, but he avoided wearing what ribbons he possessed. Captain Ferdinand Tuohy, i
n his exploits of “The Secret Corps,” says of him: “Colonel Lawrence was given the Companionship of the Bath for his services. He was actually recommended for the Victoria Cross, but was not granted that supreme decoration because there had never been a senior officer witness of his exploits—a lame enough excuse, seeing that there was ample proof in a dozen ways that those exploits had well and truly been carried out.” As a matter of fact, although Lawrence was posted for the “C. B.,” he never attended any ceremony in connection with receiving it, and he asked his friends to side track the recommendation for the Victoria Cross. He also stood aside when he had an opportunity to become a general at the time when his force was actually the right wing of Allenby’s army and when he was practically filling the rôle of a lieutenant-general. He even declined knighthood. When I asked him why he didn’t want to be knighted, he replied: “Well, if I become a knight my tailor will hear about it and double my bills. I have trouble enough paying them as it is.”
So far as I know there was only one thing that Lawrence wanted out of the war, and that was something that he did n’t get. I asked him once if there was anything to be bought with money that he could n’t afford but would like to have. His answer, which he gave unhesitatingly, showed how human and simple he is. He replied, “I should like to have a Rolls-Royce car with enough tires and petrol to last me all my life.” The particular car that he would have liked to have had was the Rolls-Royce tender called the “Blue Mist” which he used during some of his railway demolition raids around Damascus. But after the war it was overhauled and became Allenby’s personal car at the Residency in Cairo.
With Lawrence in Arabia Page 29
