T. E. LAWRENCE
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
1888-1935
The name Lawrence of Arabia conjures up a white man dressed in Arab robes riding a camel through desert sands to help both the British and the Arabs during the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918. This hero and supporter of independence for the Arab nations was the illegitimate son of an Anglo-Irish landowner and his governess. He was born in 1888 in Wales and went to school in Oxford, first to the City of Oxford High School for Boys and later on to Jesus College at Oxford where he majored in history. His thesis was on the influence of the crusades on European military architecture which won him a first class honor’s degree.
Archeology was his first love. From 1911-1914 he happily worked in his profession at a dig in Syria. It was here that he became fluent in Arabic and that his sympathy for the Arabs began. He adapted many local Arab customs and was known for riding a camel and wearing Arab robes.
In 1914, he undertook his first mission for Britain when his archeological expedition to the Negev Desert served as a smokescreen for a British military survey of the area. During World War I, it was his service to his country that contributed to his greatness.
His mission of convincing the Arab leaders to coordinate their revolt against the Ottoman Empire to coincide with British interests was successful, thereby tying up Ottoman troops and making them vulnerable to British attacks. His aid was instrumental in helping the British reach the Red Sea port of Akaba in 1917 and capturing the city of Damascus in Syria in 1918. He received decorations from both the British and French governments.
A bitter disappointment for Lawrence was how the British, after the war, went back on their word to the Arabs. In return for helping the British defeat the Ottomans, the British promised the Arabs their independence “in vast parts of the Ottoman Empire” in the Middle East. Unbeknown to the Arabs, based in the Sykes – Picot agreement of 1916, Britain had already agreed with the French to divide the Middle East between them.
This betrayal undermined Lawrence’s little known peace initiative between the Zionist and the Arabs. In 1919 a conscience stricken Lawrence, who had constantly assured the Arabs that Britain would grant them independence, brought together Emir Faisal I ibn Hussein, representing the Arab Kingdom of Hedjaj – and Dr. Chaim Weizmann representing the Zionists.