Art Of The Possible: T. E. Lawrence And Coalition Liaison [Illustrated Edition]

By Major Curtis S. Milam

Includes World War One In The Desert Illustration Pack- 115 photos/illustrations and 19 maps spanning the Desert campaigns 1914-1918.
Coalition warfare has been, and will continue to be, a matter of course for the U.S. military. Developing and maintaining coalitions of politically and militarily diverse members is, at its most elemental level, a matter of human relationships--the person-to-person give and take that characterizes all human endeavor. It is often complex, inexact, and tedious, perhaps more art than science. The frustration encountered by policymakers and military professionals alike argues strongly for an earnest examination of the personal characteristics and professional principles used by successful coalition builders, liaisons, and advisors. This paper examines the contributions made by T.E. Lawrence to the art of coalition liaison during his service as the British advisor to the Arabs during World War I. Specifically, it identifies the personal characteristics that helped Lawrence work so effectively with the Arabs, as well as the professional principles that guided his actions as he helped form the coalition of Arab tribes and the alliance between those tribes and Britain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verdun Press
• Release date: Aug 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781782894346

Major Curtis S. Milam

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Text originally published in 2001 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2013, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE: T. E. LAWRENCE AND COALITION LIAISON

by

CURTIS S. MILAM, MAJ, USAF

B.B.A., University of Texas at San Antonio, 1987

M.B.A., University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 1996

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

ABSTRACT 7

CHAPTER 1 — INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 8

Intended Research 8

The Relevance of Lawrence’s Story 8

Coalitions, Alliances, and Liaison 9

Background: T. E. Lawrence 10

Early Years 10

Oxford 10

Mr. Lawrence: Archaeologist, Mapmaker, Soldier 13

A Man in Full 16

Background: Arabia, Islam, and World War I 18

I Hashemite, or I Hashemite Not 19

Sowing the Seeds 20

Betwixt and Between 21

Rebellion Revealed 22

The Elements of Success 23

CHAPTER 2 — THE RIGHT STUFF 24

A Liaison Dialectic: Carl Plus One 24

Know the Affairs of State: Political and Military Intelligence 24

Know the Character of Your Men: Personal, Cultural, Language, and Religion 26

Judging Personal Character 26

Cultural Literacy 28

Linguistic Skills 29

Religious Sensitivity 30

Know the Capabilities of Your Forces: Strengths, Weaknesses, and a Plan 31

Terrain, Geography, Time, and Space 32

The Armies 33

Mobility Overmatch 33

Build Relationships: Mutual Trust and Respect 34

Loyalty and Perceptions 34

Goal Congruency 34

Finding the Mutual Interests (Aligning the End States) 35

The Right Stuff is a Moving Target 36

CHAPTER 3 — PRINCIPIA LAWRENCIA: RULES FOR LIAISON 38

Article One: Make a Good Start 39

Article Two: Walk a Mile in Their Sandals 40

Article Three: Accept Their Chain (and Style) of Command 41

Article Eight: You are Most Effective When Unnoticed 42

Article Fourteen: Pull Rather Than Push 44

Article Fifteen: It is Their War, Let Them Fight It 45

Article Twenty-two: Let Them Fight as They Fight Best 46

Article Twenty-three: See Beneath the Veil 48

For What It Is Worth 50

CHAPTER 4 — THE FIRST MODERN LIAISON OFFICER 51

The Prism 51

The Tangible Intangibles 52

Principia Revisited 53

Past as Prologue 54

APPENDIX — TWENTY-SEVEN ARTICLES 55

GLOSSARY 60

Terms 60

People 60

Places 61

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 62

BIBLIOGRAPHY 63

Books 63

Monographs and Thesis 64

WORLD WAR ONE IN THE DESERT ILLUSTRATION PACK 65

ILLUSTRATIONS 65

MAPS 155

AEROPLANES OF THE DESERT WAR 176

Phase I: August 1914 to February 1916 176

British Aircraft 176

German Aircraft 178

Phase II: March 1916 April 1917 180

Machine Guns 180

British Aeroplanes 182

German Aeroplanes 183

Phase III: April 1917 to November 1918 186

British Aircraft 186

German Aircraft 188

SOURCES 190

ABSTRACT

THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE: T. E. LAWRENCE AND COALITION LIAISON by Major Curtis S. Milam, USAF.

Coalition warfare has been, and will continue to be, a matter of course for the U.S. military. Developing and maintaining coalitions of politically and militarily diverse members is, at its most elemental level, a matter of human relationships—the person-to-person give and take that characterizes all human endeavor. It is often complex, inexact, and tedious, perhaps more art than science.

The frustration encountered by policymakers and military professionals alike argues strongly for an earnest examination of the personal characteristics and professional principles used by successful coalition builders, liaisons, and advisors. This paper examines the contributions made by T. E. Lawrence to the art of coalition liaison during his service as the British advisor to the Arabs during World War I. Specifically, it identifies the personal characteristics that helped Lawrence work so effectively with the Arabs, as well as the professional principles that guided his actions as he helped form the coalition of Arab tribes and the alliance between those tribes and Britain.

CHAPTER 1 — INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

All men dream: but not equally. — T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Intended Research

Coalition warfare has been, and will continue to be, a matter of course for the U.S. military. Developing and maintaining coalitions of politically and militarily diverse members is, at its most elemental level, a matter of human relationships—the person-to-person give and take that characterizes all human endeavor. It is often complex, inexact, and tedious, perhaps more art than science. The frustration encountered by policymakers and military professionals alike argues strongly for an earnest examination of the personal characteristics and professional principles used by, successful coalition builders, liaisons, and advisors. This paper examines the contributions of T. E. Lawrence to the art of liaison during his service as the British advisor to the Arabs during World War I. Specifically, it identifies the personal characteristics that helped Lawrence work so effectively with the Arabs, as well as the professional principles that guided his actions as he helped form the coalition of Arab tribes and the alliance between those tribes and Britain.

The Relevance of Lawrence’s Story

At the dawn of the twentieth century, a young Englishman, T. E. Lawrence, acting as liaison for the British Expeditionary Force headquartered in Cairo, helped a group of nascent Arab nationalists cobble together a daunting array of tribes and clans to fight a rebellion amidst the backdrop of World War I. The lessons Lawrence learned and the truths he uncovered are as relevant today as they were eighty years ago.

The politico-military situation Lawrence found himself in was at once complex and sublime. Its roots ran 500 years into the past and involved the intertwined histories of Islam, the Ottoman and British Empires, and the Arab-speaking world. Lawrence’s story is worthy of study for two main reasons. First, as the British Army liaison and military advisor to the Arab Army, the literal history of Lawrence’s story offers insight into the personal characteristics of a successful liaison officer when confronted with vast cultural, political, and military (technical) differences. Second, Lawrence’s Twenty-seven Articles provide a codification of the principles Lawrence used when dealing with the Arabs. Though intended for use only with the Arabs, when these principles are stripped of their cultural specifics they provide timeless advice about cross-cultural communication and relationship building.

Today, the U.S. military finds itself ever more dependent on both formal and informal relationships with other nations and their militaries. The increasing use of foreign area officers (FAO), liaison officers (LNO), officer exchange programs, and other programs emphasizing cultural awareness is testament to this need. Lawrence’s story is well known, yet it has been viewed almost exclusively as an example of the appropriate and successful prosecution of irregular (asymmetric) warfare. Though certainly relevant in this respect, it has led to a somewhat myopic view of his story. A compelling, yet largely ignored aspect of Lawrence’s story is his activities as liaison and military advisor to the Arabs. When considered in context, it becomes apparent that Lawrence was essentially an early, composite version of the contemporary U.S. military foreign area officer and liaison officer. More than this, Lawrence became one of the most successful LNOs in modern history and arguably the most literate. Lawrence wrote extensively about his experiences, yet his work has usually been considered almost exclusively in terms of adventure writing (due in no small part to Lawrence’s carefully cultivated reputation and mythology). A rigorous examination of Lawrence as a liaison officer and advisor has never been undertaken.

Coalitions, Alliances, and Liaison

The history of armed conflict is, to a large degree, the history of coalitions and alliances: Athens against Sparta, Rome against Carthage, Byzantium against Persia, the Thirty Years’ War, the War of Spanish Succession, the wars of Frederick and Napoleon, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the two world wars, and countless others. Each of these well-known (and essentially Western) conflicts is characterized by coalitions and alliances.

Often, the distinction between the terms alliance and coalition is unclear. For this discussion an alliance is a relatively long-lived, formal agreement (treaty) between two or more nations (or political or ethnic groups) against a perceived or implied threat. Though economic alliances exist, this discussion focuses only on the military type. In contrast, a coalition is normally a short-lived, informal (or ad hoc) agreement of a political or military nature to confront a specific threat which, when defeated, will also usually mean the end of the coalition. Defined in such a way, coalitions become essentially temporary alliances, though they can (and have) formed the basis for more prolonged cooperation.

The distinction is significant to the discussion at hand—the Arab Revolt as a part of World War I—because Lawrence had to work simultaneously with a coalition within an alliance. The coalition involved the various Arabs chiefdoms in Syria, Mesopotamia, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. It had been a thousand years since Arabic-speaking peoples had fought in such numbers under a unified Arab command against a common enemy. Subsequently, this Arab coalition entered into an alliance with Britain for military and logistical support. The Ottoman Turks were a common enemy for the Arabs and the British, though for different reasons. Although the Turks were also Muslim, the Arabs considered them oppressors and occupiers. For the British, the Turks (allied with Germany) were their World War I adversaries. In the geostrategic sense both Britain and Turkey were at war (principally) for influence and control over the Near and Middle East, including control of the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal was both a lifeline for Britain’s colonial trade (mainly with India), and a critical line of communication and supply for the Turkish garrison in Arabia. Additionally, the recently discovered oil reserves in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf played into the calculus of both nations.{1}

Background: T. E. Lawrence

T. E. Lawrence is a complex and controversial character and countless pages have been penned in an