Delphi Collected Works of T. E. Lawrence (Illustrated)

By T. E. Lawrence

The legendary ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, T. E. Lawrence was a British archaeological scholar, military strategist and author, best known for his war activities in the Middle East during World War I and for his revealing account of the conflict in his masterpiece ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ (1926). An action-packed narrative of the campaigns in the desert with the Arabs, the book features rich character portrayals, engaging incidents and a tense introspection, exploring the author’s own complex mental and spiritual transformation. This eBook presents Lawrence’s collected works, with numerous illustrations and rare texts. (Version 1)

* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Lawrence’s life and works
* Concise introductions to the major texts
* Almost all the published works, with individual contents tables
* Features rare texts appearing for the first time in digital publishing, including ‘Crusader Castles’
* Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
* Excellent formatting of the texts
* Famous works are fully illustrated with their original artwork
* Includes Lawrence’s rare posthumous works– available in no other collection
* Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres

Please note: three works ('The Mint'; 'Crusader Castles'; 'The Odyssey') remain in US copyright and cannot appear in this edition. When new texts enter the public domain, they will be added to the eBook as a free update.

CONTENTS:

The Non-Fiction
Preface to ‘The Wilderness of Zin’ (1914) by C. Leonard Woolley
Arab Memorandum to the Paris Peace Conference (1919)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926)
Revolt in the Desert (1927)
Guerrilla Warfare (1929)
Oriental Assembly (1939)

The Translations
The Forest Giant (1923)

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Delphi Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Dec 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781801700962

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The Collected Works of

T. E. LAWRENCE

(1888-1935)

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Contents

The Non-Fiction

Preface to ‘The Wilderness of Zin’ (1914) by C. Leonard Woolley

Arab Memorandum to the Paris Peace Conference (1919)

Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926)

Revolt in the Desert (1927)

Guerrilla Warfare (1929)

Oriental Assembly (1939)

The Translation

The Forest Giant (1923)

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The Collected Works of

T. E. LAWRENCE

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By Delphi Classics, 2022

COPYRIGHT

Collected Works of T. E. Lawrence

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First published in the United Kingdom in 2022 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2022.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 80170 096 2

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The Non-Fiction

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Tremadog, a village in Gwynedd, North West Wales — Lawrence’s birthplace

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Tremadog, c.1865

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Lawrence’s birthplace, Gorphwysfa, Tremadog

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Lawrence, aged five

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Lawrence attended the City of Oxford High School for Boys from 1896 until 1907

Preface to ‘The Wilderness of Zin’ (1914) by C. Leonard Woolley

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WE MUST BEGIN with apologies. Mr. Woolley and I are not Semitic specialists, and our hurried flight across the country did not give us either time or opportunity to collect place-names. We therefore deal simply with the archaeological remains in the desert, and even on these, from pressure of work elsewhere in Syria, we could only spend six weeks. When we went to Sinai we learnt for the first time the names of former travellers; and in our ignorance of how much they had done, we repeated a great deal of their work, especially on the later sites. French, German, American, and English travellers had recorded all these before us. What certain of those travellers have published is usually more than sufficient, and the limited public interested in Byzantine matters will naturally refer to their special articles. As a rule, we have avoided making infinitesimal corrections in their plans or notes, and have put forward only fresh information or criticisms which we think pertinent. If these latter are sometimes drastic, we must plead that our knowledge of pottery, acquired during some years of excavation in the neighbouring countries, and our experience of the allied remains in Egypt and Syria have enabled us to take a wider comparative view of the civilization of the Negeb than most of our predecessors could. We both speak Arabic easily.

On the whole, the work done by the French fathers in this country and published by them from time to time in the Revue Biblique, seems to us at once very sane, very interesting, and very exact. Their notes on Abda, so far as they go, are admirable. Their description of their ride from Nakhl to Kadeis and through Wady Jerafi to Petra could not be improved upon; and on more particular points, as in their description of Graye (Geziret Faraun), or in their historical and anthropological notes on the Arab tribes, they show the learning of specialists tempered with mercy. Musil, their Austrian competitor, has made wonderful collections of Arab songs, mostly from the Kerak district, and he has been over the whole country, surveying and photographing; but his field notes are sometimes both vague and heavy.

In English there is occasional work, of very varied quality, in the Quarterly Statements of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The field notes of Mr. Holland are of interest between the Canal and Jebel Muwcilleh, and he was a keen observer; but his excursions into archaeology are not successful. The really great man is Professor Edward Palmer, who, aided by Tyrwhitt Drake, made a journey in the Till and Negeb in 1869 and 1870. His book is a very carefully written, very lively and very complete summing up of the features of the country. Palmer was a great linguist, and therefore particularly interested in place-names. His zest for these sometimes led him astray. If he had had an archaeological instinct or training, our visit to the Desert would have been waste of time. As it was, he was afraid to be too definite in his judgments, and so laid himself open to misuse or misquotation by champions of private and particular theories upon the country and its occupation. His book should be read in conjunction with our own, for we have avoided, where possible, allusion to things which he has done once and for all.

Where we have had occasion to criticize his work or attack his theories we have done it vigorously; but we hope that people will not read into our attitude anything more than the respect due to a powerful opponent; for Palmer himself and for the journey that he and Tyrwhitt Drake, under great difficulties, made so vivid and fruitful for us, we have nothing but unqualified admiration.

The main objects that we had in view were four: to get some idea of the character of the country in successive periods; to trace the Darb el Shur, the old inland route of caravans from central Palestine to Egypt; to identify sites mentioned in the Bible and other historical writings; and, though this lay outside the limits of the new survey, to study the neighbourhood of Ain Kadeis, supposed to be the Kadesh-Barnea of the Israelite wanderings. In all these endeavours, except, perhaps, the third, we had some measure of success. If a disproportionate amount of our results is devoted to Byzantine instead of to earlier and more interesting remains, it is because we were obliged to deal with the actual rather than with the desirable. The identification of old sites of the Bible, so frequent in the former survey of Palestine, was there made possible by the careful collection of place-names. In our haste we could not enter upon this work. It has been very completely done, however, by the actual surveyors, and it is their opinion that in this desert country, subjected to the fluctuating waves of nomad invasions, old names are little likely to survive. Places are usually called after some temporary and recent inhabitant, or after some prominent but not always permanent natural feature.

In the beginnings of our journey, we were aided (in common with the other surveyors) by Erfan Bey, Kaimmakam of Beersheba. He was free from the widespread suspicion of map-makers, and was very friendly. With the Arabs we had the best relations throughout. Of course, each tribe has a vile opinion of the virtues and morals of its neighbours; but Captain Newcombe began work in the country by getting to know the chiefs, and so secured for himself and the other members of the survey without paying blackmail or giving presents - a toleration that became cordiality at times. The tribesmen we met were naturally inquisitive and sometimes distrustful, since we did not always follow the lines of the survey parties. But they were all very good-tempered, quite ready to act as guides or emergency helpers (of course, expecting a reward - a frame of mind not unknown in Europe), very hospitable, and most scrupulously honest. Near Ain Kadeis, where our riding camels strayed away, the Arabs brought them in, unasked, to the station at Kossaima. It will be obvious from this that we had no dragoman with us.

We must beg from our critics (if there are any critics in these busy days) more mercy than we ourselves have shown. The original scheme of this book has suffered many things in execution. It was to have been rounded off by some chapters from Captain Newcombe, to treat of place-names and of the histories of Arab tribes, and to explain the triangulation of the actual survey and its results. None of these chapters was written, but all were in preparation when the outbreak of war changed Captain Newcombe’s plans, and hurried him into France in the first days of the campaign.

As there is none of Captain Newcombe’s independent work in the following pages, I think we shall be justified in saying a few words about his leadership of our party. We were sent down in the midst of his work (which was being done against time) to bother him on a subject that furthered his own studies in no way. We had with us only a scratch outfit raked up in Gaza. Yet he welcomed us, stripped himself of what he called his ‘luxuries’ for us (and he was already living in the barest way), got us camels, and in Khalasa fed us till our stores arrived. Living with him we got a clear insight into his methods. I le had five parties under him, and yet in this unmapped wilderness always knew exactly where each party was, and how its work was going on. He established a regular post, and supply caravans from El Arish, Gaza, and Beersheba, to feed his men and animals. He was ambassador for all of us to Arab tribes and to Turkish officials, and managed both, leaving behind him a reputation which will smooth the way of any future English traveller in the desert. This labour of organization would have been enough for most men, living as roughly and uncomfortably as Newcombe did: yet in addition he contrived to map a larger district than any of his assistants. Off by dawn with guides and instruments, he would return to camp at dark, and work perhaps till midnight, arranging and calculating and recording for the benefit of the other parties. He was the prime begetter of the Survey, and thanks to his elaborate camel-contract, his skilful handling of his transport and supply columns, and the Spartan simplicity of life to which he also converted his subordinates, the expedition, in economy of money and time, beat all records of similar surveys in the East.

This book as it stands, therefore, is the work only of Mr. C. L. Woolley and myself. Mr. Woolley had written of the Byzantine towns, the Northern tells, and the journey, when the war sent him also into the Army, and forced him to transfer his materials to me. These included parts of the historical chapter, and parts of that on the Darb el Shur. It is, however, impossible for either of us to take sole responsibility for any part. Some of the book is a transcript of field notes, hammered out between us in the evening in the tents. Some of it was written in collaboration at Carchemish, before the excavations there began in the spring. In Mr. Woolley’s absence I have revised parts of his work where I was competent to do so, and have left it untouched elsewhere.

Dr. A. E. Cowley, of Magdalen College, Oxford, worked out such Hebrew and Nabatean fragments as we brought back. He is responsible here for the Nabatean inscription from Khalasa, printed in Chapter VI. Mr. M. N. Tod, of Oriel College, has done the Greek inscriptions, and has prepared for publication all those given in Chapter VI, and Professor D. S. Margoliouth, of Oxford, has translated the Arabic stone from the Nagb of Akaba given in the same chapter. I owe thanks also to Mr. D. G. Hogarth, who read the text, and improved it in many details, and to Professor A. S. Hunt, of Oxford.

T. E. L.

Please note: due to copyright restrictions, only the Preface of this work can appear in this collection.

Arab Memorandum to the Paris Peace Conference (1919)

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THE COUNTRY FROM a line Alexandretta - Persia southward to the Indian Ocean is inhabited by Arabs - by which we mean people of closely related Semitic stocks, all speaking the one language, Arabic. The non-Arabic-speaking elements in this area do not, I believe, exceed one per cent, of the whole.

The aim of the Arab nationalist movements (of which my father became the leader in war after combined appeals from the Syrian and Mesopotamian branches) is to unite the Arabs eventually into one nation. As an old member of the Syrian Committee I commanded the Syrian revolt, and had under me Syrians, Mesopotamians, and Arabians.

We believe that our ideal of Arab unity in Asia is justified beyond need of argument. If argument is required, we would point to the general principles accepted by the Allies when the United States joined them, to our splendid past, to the tenacity with which our race has for 600 years resisted Turkish attempts to absorb us, and, in a lesser degree, to what we tried our best to do in this war as one of the Allies.

My father has a privileged place among Arabs, as their successful leader, and as the head of their greatest family, and as Sherif of Mecca. He is convinced of the ultimate triumph of the ideal of unity, if no attempt is made now to force it, by imposing an artificial political unity on the whole, or to hinder it, by dividing the area as spoils of war among great Powers.

The unity of the Arabs in Asia has been made more easy of late years, since the development of railways, telegraphs, and air-roads. In old days the area was too huge, and in parts necessarily too thinly peopled, to communicate common ideas readily.

The various provinces of Arab Asia — Syria, Irak, Jezireh, Hedjaz, Nejd, Yemen — are very different economically and socially, and it is impossible to constrain them into one frame of government.

We believe that Syria, an agricultural and industrial area thickly peopled with sedentary classes, is sufficiently advanced politically to manage her own internal affairs. We feel also that foreign technical advice and help will be a most valuable factor in our national growth. We are willing to pay for this help in cash; we cannot sacrifice for it any part of the freedom we have just won for ourselves by force of arms.

Jezireh and Irak are two huge provinces, made up of three civilised towns, divided by large wastes thinly peopled by seminomadic tribes. The world wishes to exploit Mesopotamia rapidly, and we therefore believe that the system of government there will have to be buttressed by the men and material resources of a great foreign Power. We ask, however, that the Government be Arab, in principle and spirit, the selective rather than the elective principle being necessarily followed in the neglected districts, until time makes the broader basis possible. The main duty of the Arab Government there would be to oversee the educational processes which areto advance the tribes to the moral level of the towns.

The Hedjaz is mainly a tribal area, and the government will remain, as in the past, suited to patriarchal conditions. We appreciate these better than Europe, and propose therefore to retain our complete independence there.

The Yemen and Nejd are not likely to submit their cases to the Peace Conference. They look after themselves, and adjust their own relations with the Hedjaz and elsewhere.

In Palestine the enormous majority of the people are Arabs. The Jews are very close to the Arabs in blood, and there is no conflict of character between the two races. In principles we are absolutely at one. Nevertheless, the Arabs cannot risk assuming the responsibility of holding level the scales in the clash of races and religions that have, in this one province, so often involved the world in difficulties. They would wish for the effective super-position of a great trustee, so long as a representative local administration commended itself by actively promoting the material prosperity of the country.

In discussing our provinces in detail I do not lay claim to superior competence. The powers will, I hope, find better means to give fuller effect to the aims of our national movement. I came to Europe, on behalf of my father and the Arabs of Asia, to say that they are expecting the Powers at the Conference not to attach undue importance to superficial differences of condition, and not to consider them only from the low ground of existing European material interests and supposed spheres. They expect the powers to think of them as one potential people, jealous of their language and liberty, and ask that no step be taken inconsistent with the prospect of an eventual union of these areas under one sovereign government.

In laying stress on the difference in the social condition of our provinces, I do not wish to give the impression that there exists any real conflict of ideals, material interests, creeds, or character rendering our union impossible. The greatest obstacle we have to overcome is local ignorance, for which the Turkish Government is largely responsible.

In our opinion, if our independence be conceded and our local competence established, the natural influences of race, language, and interest will soon draw us together into one people; but for this the Great Powers will have to ensure us open internal frontiers, common railways and telegraphs, and uniform systems of education. To achieve this they must lay aside the thought of individual profits, and of their old jealousies. In a word, we ask you not to force your whole civilisation upon us, but to help us to pick out what serves us from your experience. In return we can offer you little but gratitude.

January 1st, 1919.

Territorial Claims of the Government of the Hedjaz, January 29th, 1919.

As representing my father, who, by request of Britain and France, led the Arabrebellion against the Turks, I have come to ask that the Arabic-speaking peoples ofAsia, from the line Alexandretta - Diarbekr southward to the Indian Ocean, berecognized as independent sovereign peoples, under the guarantee of the League ofNations. The Hedjaz, which is already a sovereign State, and Aden, which is aBritish dependency, are excluded from the Arab demand.The confirmation of the States already existing in the area, the adjustment oftheir boundaries with one another, with the Hedjaz, and with the British at Aden,and the formation of such new States as are required, and their boundaries, arematters for arrangement between us, after the wishes of their respective inhabitants have been ascertained. Detailed suggestions on these smaller points will be put forward by my Governmentwhen the time comes.I base my request on the principles enunciated by President Wilson (attached), andam confident that the Powers will attach more importance to the bodies and souls of the Arabic-speaking peoples than to their own material interests.

FEISAL.

January 29th, 1919.

Appendix: Second Point of President Wilson’s Address at Mount Vernon of July 4th, 1918

"The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, ofeconomic arrangement, or of political relationship, upon the basis of the freeacceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantages of any other nation or people whichmay desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence

Secretary’s Notes of a Conversation Held in M. Pichon’s Room at the Quai d’Orsay, Paris, on Thursday, 6 February, 1919, at 3p.m.

PRESENT AMERICA, UNITED STATES OF President Wilson Mr. R. Lansing Mr. L. Harrison Colonel U. S. Grant BRITISH EMPIRE The Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd George, M. P. The Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, M. P. Gen. The Rt. Hon. Louis Botha Captain E. Abraham Mr. H. Norman FRANCE M. Clemenceau M. Pichon M. Dutasta M. Berthelot M. de Bearn Capt. Portier ITALY M. Orlando Baron Sonnino Count Aldrovandi Major Jones JAPAN Baron Makino H. E. M. Matsui M. Saburi PRESENT DURING DISCUSSION OF ARAB QUESTION AMERICA, UNITED STATES OF Major Bonsal Mr. Westermann BRITISH EMPIRE Mr. Montagu Sir A. Hirtzel Sir Mark Sykes Mr. Toynbee FRANCE M. Gout M. de Caix M. Coulondre Ben Ghabrit HEDJAZ Emir Felsal Colonel Lawrence Rustum Haider Amir Abdul Hadi Nuri Said ITALY M. de Martino M. Galli M. Piacentini Interpreter: Professor P. J. Mantoux. [Agenda Item] 2. (At this stage the Delegates for the Hedjaz and their technical advisers entered the room.) EMIR FEISAL said that In his memorandum of January 29th to the Peace Conference, he had asked for the independence of all the Arabic speaking peoples in Asia, from the line Alexandretta-Diarbekir southward. He based his request on the following points: (i) This area was once the home of important civilisations, and its people still have the capacity to play their part in the world. (ii) All its inhabitants speak one language-Arabic. (iii) The area has natural frontiers which ensure its unity and its future. (iv) Its inhabitants are of one stock-the Semitic. Foreigners do not number 1% among them. (v) Socially and economically it forms a unit. With each improvement of the means of communication its unity becomes more evident. There are few nations in the world as homogeneous as this. (vi) The Arabic speaking peoples fought on the side of the Allies in their time of greatest stress, and fulfilled their promises. (vii) At the end of the war the Allies promised them independence. The Allies had now won the war, and the Arabic speaking peoples thought themselves entitled to independence and worthy of it. It was in accord with the principles laid down by President Wilson and accepted by all the Allies. (viii) The Arab army fought to win its freedom. It lost heavily: some 20,000 men were killed. Allenby acknowledged its services in his despatches. The army was representative of Arab ideals and was composed of young Syrians, Lebanese, Hejazis, Mesopotamians, Palestinians, and Yemenis. (ix) The blood of Arab soldiers, the massacres among the civil populations, the economic ruin of the country in the war, deserved recognition. (x) In Damascus, Beyrout, Tripoli, Aleppo, Latakia, and the other districts of Syria, the civil population declared their independence and hoisted the Arab flag before the Allied troops arrived. The Allied Commander in Chief afterwards insisted that the flag be lowered to install temporary Military Governors. This he explained to the Arabs was provisional, till the Peace Conference settled the future of the country. Had the Arabs known it was in compliance with a secret treaty they would not have permitted it. (xi) The Syrians who joined the Northern Army were recognized by the Allies as Belligerents. They demand through this delegation their independence. His Father did not risk his life and his Kingdom by joining in the war at its most critical time to further any personal ambitions. He was not looking for an Empire. He rose up to free all the Arabic provinces from their Turkish Masters. He did not wish to extend the boundaries of the Hedjaz Kingdom a single inch. His ideal was the ideal of all Arabic patriots. He could not believe that the Allies would run counter to their wishes. If they did so the consequences would be grave. The Arabs were most grateful to England and France for the help given them to free their country. The Arabs now asked them to fulfil their promises of November 1918. It was a momentous decision the Conference had to take, since on it depended the life of a nation inhabiting a country of great strategic importance between Europe and Asia. The greatest difficulty would be over Syria. Syria claimed her unity and her independence, and the rest of the Arabic liberated areas wished Syria to take her natural place in the future confederation of liberated Arabic speaking Asia, the object of all Arab hopes and fears.

Some of the people of the present province of Lebanon were asking for French guarantees. Some of them did not wish to sever their connection with Syria. He was willing to admit their independence, but thought it essential to maintain some form of economic union in the interest of mutual development. He hoped nothing would be done now to render the admission of the Lebanon to the future confederation impossible, if it desired admission. For the moment also the inhabitants of the rest of Syria hoped that the Lebanon people would of their own accord decide for federal union with themselves in Syria. The Arabs realised how much their country lacked development. They wanted it to be the link between the East and West, to hand on Western civilisation to Asia. They did not wish to close their doors to civilised people; on the contrary, as rulers of their own country, in their zeal for their country’s betterment, they wanted to seek help from everyone who wished them well; but they could not sacrifice for this help any of the independence for which they had fought, since they regard it as a necessary basis of future prosperity. They must also guard their economic interests, as part of their duty as Governors. He hoped no Power imagined that it had the right to limit the independence of a people because it had material interests in their country. Arab religious differences were being exploited. These had been triumphed over in the Hedjaz army, in which all creeds co-operated to free their country. The first efforts of the Arab Government would be to maintain this welding of the faiths, in their common service of the principle of nationality. Palestine, for its universal character, he left on one side for the mutual consideration of all parties interested. With this exception he asked for the independence of the Arabic areas enumerated in his memorandum. When this principle was admitted, he asked that the various Provinces, on the principle of self-determination, should be allowed to indicate to the League of Nations the nature of the assistance they required. If the indications before the Conference in any one case were not conclusive as to their wishes for their complete independence or for their mandatory power, he suggested that an international inquiry, made in the area concerned, might be a quick, easy, sure and just way of determining their wishes. 3. MR. LLOYD GEORGE asked how many troops the Hedjaz had put into the field. EMIR FEISAL replied that it was impossible to give the exact figure; but, including the Hedjaz Army, the Arabs had put about 100,000 men into the field. There was, in addition, a considerable number of Irregulars who were not on his registers. He thought he could assert that every man of fighting age in possession of a rifle between Mecca and Aleppo had joined the Arab standards. How many that might have been it was difficult to say, as he had no figures of the population. There remained four Divisions of Regulars as the standing army: the Irregulars had dispersed to their own homes. He wished to explain that the Arab Government had been organised, as it were, in the firing line. It had been born after the outbreak of war and was not yet regularly constituted. Hence the difficulty of producing exact figures. Medina had only surrendered a few days ago. MR. LLOYD GEORGE asked whether the Arab troops had taken any part on the Mesopotamian front. EMIR FEISAL replied that all their operations outside the Hedjaz had been in Syria. In Mesopotamia there had been no need for an independent Arab movement and no scope for one in that region. Five of his Commanding Officers, however, and many of his men came from Mesopotamia. They had fought in his army to vindicate their rights to self-government.

4. PRESIDENT WILSON asked the Emir whether, seeing that the plan of mandatories on behalf of the League of Nations had been adopted, he would prefer for his people a single mandatory, or several. EMIR FEISAL said that he would not like to assume towards his people the responsibility of giving an answer to this question. It must be for the Arab people to declare their wishes in respect to a mandatory authority. Neither he, nor his father, nor, he thought, any person now living, would be ready to assume the responsibility of deciding this question on behalf of the people. He was here to ask for the independence of his people and for their right to choose their own mandatory. PRESIDENT WILSON said that he understood this perfectly, but would like to know the Emir’s personal opinion. EMIR FEISAL said that personally he was afraid of partition. His principle was Arab unity. It was for this that the Arabs had fought. Any other solution would be regarded by the Arabs in the light of a division of spoils after a battle. The Arabs had fought a hard fight to achieve unity. He hoped the Conference would regard them as an oppressed nation which had risen against its masters. The Arabs asked for freedom only and would take nothing less. He thought the Conference would be of the opinion that the Arab revolt had been as well conducted as any rebellion of an oppressed people in recent memory. The Arabs were an ancient people, civilised and organised at a time when the nations represented in this room were unformed. They had suffered centuries of slavery and had now seized the chance of emancipation. He hoped that the Conference would not thrust them back into the condition from which they had now emerged. The Arabs had tasted slavery: none of the nations gathered in the room knew what that meant. For 400 years the Arabs had suffered under a violent military oppression, and as long as life remained in them, they meant never to return to it. 5. MR. LLOYD GEORGE said that he would like the Emir to give a short account of the services rendered by the Arab forces in the defeat of the Turkish Armies. EMIR FEISAL said, when his father rebelled against the Turks, he was hereditary Governor of Mecca - a position held by the family for 800 years. He had no arms, machineguns, guns, ammunition or supplies, and only took Mecca with difficulty. He was unable to take Medina. The Turks then sent 35,000 men to retake Mecca. God helped the Arabs, and the English also sent them material assistance. Officers and volunteers from the old Turkish army joined them and formed the nucleus of a regular force. In 14 months the Arab forces advanced 800 miles to the North and cut the Hedjaz railway South of Maan. This was an important military achievement as the Turkish army at Medina threatened the rear of the Arab forces. He had then attacked Maan by a frontal attack without any hope of success, in order to cover General Allenby’s preparations and to prevent a Turkish concentration. He had placed his army voluntarily under General Allenby’s command and did this to co-operate with him. General Allenby then asked the Arab forces to attack the three railways at Derat. The Arab army did its duty and cut these lines two days before General Allenby’s attack which eventually led him to Damascus. The Arab army entered Damascus together with General Allenby’s forces. From that point the Arab revolt spread like a flame and in one bound reached Latakia, which was entered by the Arabs the day before the French entered Beyrout. His forces were the first to enter Aleppo. Throughout these operations the Arab plan had been subordinated to General Allenby’s. They had abandoned all ambition to shine by themselves, or to do anything spectacular. They took 40,000 prisoners, who were delivered to the Allies. He need add nothing to the praise bestowed on the Arab troops in General Allenby’s despatches. M. PICHON asked whether the French had taken any part in the Arab operations on this front, and asked Emir Feisal to describe it. EMIR FEISAL said that with him there had been a French contingent with four 65 mm. guns and two 85 mm. guns. This contingent had done wonderful work, and the help rendered by the French detachment placed upon the Arabs a debt of perpetual gratitude. There had also been with him a British detachment to whom he was equally grateful. He did not wish to praise them as their actions were beyond praise, as were those of his own troops which he had also abstained from praising. Besides the military effort made by the Arabs, he wished to draw attention to the civil losses incurred. The Allied Officers who had witnessed the destroyed villages of Tafaz and Ahwali, could testify to the extent of the massacres perpetrated on the Arab population. 6. MR. LLOYD GEORGE asked whether the Emir could say whether there was any Arab population in Turkey outside Arabia and Syria: for instance in Anatolia. EMIR FEISAL replied that there were a few in the Adana district; a few in the Tarsus and Mersina area; but none in Anatolia. In all these regions they were a small minority and the Arabs were not claiming minority rights anywhere. Part of the population in the Diarbekir area spoke Arabic. There were also Arabs living across the Persian border. But no other considerable portions of the Arab population lived in isolated enclaves at a distance from the bulk of the race. MR. LLOYD GEORGE asked whether there was any affinity between the Arabs and the Kurds. EMIR FEISAL said that he would be delighted to claim all the Kurds as Arabs; but he felt he would ruin his case if he made even one questionable statement. Finally he begged that he should not be penalised because he only spoke Arabic, an ancient and honourable tongue and the language of an ancient and honourable people. (The Emir Feisal then retired and the meeting adjourned.)

Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926)

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1935 TEXT

This famous autobiographical account of Lawrence’s experiences as a British Army Colonel, when serving as a military advisor to Bedouin forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire of 1916 to 1918, was first published in December 1926. The book’s title comes from the Book of Proverbs; Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars (Proverbs 9:1). Prior to the First World War, Lawrence had begun work on a scholarly book about seven great cities of the Middle East, to be titled Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It was unfinished when the war broke out in 1914 and Lawrence destroyed the manuscript. He would use the same title for a later work, which was rewritten three times, including one time when he lost a manuscript on a train.

Speculation surrounds the book’s dedication, a poem written by Lawrence and edited by Robert Graves, as to whether it is addressed to an individual or to the whole Arab race. It begins, To S.A., possibly meaning Selim Ahmed, a young Arab boy from Syria of whom Lawrence was very fond. Ahmed died, probably from typhus, aged 19, a few weeks before the offensive to liberate Damascus. Lawrence received the news of his death some days before he entered Damascus.

From 1916 to 1918 Lawrence was based in Wadi Rum in Jordan. With the support of Emir Faisal and his tribesmen, he helped organise and carry out attacks on the Ottoman forces from Aqaba in the south to Damascus in the north.  Lawrence kept extensive notes throughout the course of his involvement in the Revolt. He began work on a clean narrative in the first half of 1919 while in Paris for the Peace Conference and, later that summer, on his return to Egypt. By December 1919, he had a fair draft of most of the ten books that make up Seven Pillars of Wisdom, but he lost it when he misplaced his briefcase while changing trains at Reading railway station. National newspapers alerted the public to the loss of the hero’s manuscript, but the draft was never recovered. Lawrence refers to this version as Text I and says that had it been published, it would have been some 250,000 words in length.

In early 1920, Lawrence set about the daunting task of rewriting as much as he could remember of the first version. Working from memory alone (he had destroyed many of his wartime notes upon completion of the corresponding parts of Text I), he was able to complete Text II, 400,000 words long, after three months. Lawrence described this version as hopelessly bad, but historically it was substantially complete and accurate. This manuscript, titled by Lawrence The Arab Revolt, is held by the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas with a letter from the author’s brother authenticating it as the earliest surviving manuscript of what would become Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

With Text II in front of him, Lawrence began working on a polished version (Text III) in London, Jeddah and Amman during 1921. He completed this text comprising 335,000 words in February 1922. To eliminate any risk of losing the manuscript again and to have copies that he could show privately to critics, he considered having the book typed out. However, he discovered that it would be more cost effective to have the text typeset and printed on a proofing press at the Oxford Times printing works. Only eight copies were produced, of which six survive. In bibliographical terms the result was the first edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom (since the text was reproduced on a printing press).

By mid-1922, Lawrence was in a state of mental turmoil: the psychological after-effects of war were taking their toll. Other factors troubled him: his exhaustion from the literary endeavours of the past three years; his disillusionment with the settlement given to his Arab comrades-in-arms; and he never enjoyed being in the public eye as a perceived ‘national hero’. It was at this time that he re-enlisted in the armed forces under an assumed name, for the most part in the Royal Air Force, as described in The Mint. Concerned over his mental state and eager for his story to be read by a wider public, his friends persuaded him to produce an abridged version of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, to serve as both intellectual stimulation and a source of much-needed income. In his off-duty evenings, he set to trimming the 1922 text down to 250,000 words for a subscribers’ edition.

The Subscribers’ Edition — in a limited print run of about 200 copies, each with a unique, costly, hand-crafted binding — was published in late 1926, with the subtitle A Triumph. It was printed in London by Roy Manning Pike and Herbert John Hodgson, with illustrations by Eric Kennington, Augustus John, Paul Nash, Blair Hughes-Stanton and his wife Gertrude Hermes. Unfortunately, each copy cost Lawrence three times the thirty guineas the subscribers had paid. This Subscribers’ Edition was a quarter shorter than the Oxford Text, but Lawrence did not abridge uniformly. Critics differed in their opinions of the two editions: Robert Graves, E. M. Forster, and George Bernard Shaw preferred the 1922 text, although, from a legal standpoint, they appreciated the removal of certain passages that could have been considered libellous or indiscreet, while Edward Garnett preferred the 1926 version.

Literary merits aside, producing the Subscribers’ Edition had left Lawrence facing bankruptcy. He was forced to undertake an even more stringent pruning to produce a version for sale to the general public: this would be the 1927 version, Revolt in the Desert, a work of some 130,000 words: An abridgement of an abridgement, remarked Shaw, not without disdain. Still, it received wide acclaim by the public and critics alike, the vast majority of whom had never seen or read the less-abridged Subscribers’ Edition.

After the 1926 release of the Subscribers’ Edition, Lawrence stated that no more versions of the text would be made in his lifetime. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in May 1935, at the age of 46. Within weeks of his death, the 1926 abridgement, as well as the first unabridged American edition by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., were released to the general public in a limited run of 750 copies, with a standard run released afterward.

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Portrait of Lawrence by Augustus John, Tate Modern, London, 1919

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King Faisal I of Iraq and Syria, who fostered unity between Sunni and Shiite Muslims to encourage common loyalty and promote pan-Arabism in the goal of creating an Arab state that would include Iraq, Syria and the rest of the Fertile Crescent.

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Faisal I with Lawrence after the eruption of the Arab revolt, c. 1917

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The first trade edition, 1935

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION. Foundations of Revolt

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

BOOK ONE. The Discovery of Feisal

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

BOOK TWO. Opening the Arab Offensive

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

BOOK THREE. A Railway Diversion

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

BOOK FOUR. Extending to Akaba

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER XLIV

CHAPTER XLV

CHAPTER XLVI

CHAPTER XLVII

CHAPTER XLVIII

CHAPTER XLIX

CHAPTER L

CHAPTER LI

CHAPTER LII

CHAPTER LIII

CHAPTER LIV

BOOK FIVE. Marking Time

CHAPTER LV

CHAPTER LVI

CHAPTER LVII

CHAPTER LVIII

CHAPTER LIX

CHAPTER LX

CHAPTER LXI

CHAPTER LXII

CHAPTER LXIII

CHAPTER LXIV

CHAPTER LXV

CHAPTER LXVI

CHAPTER LXVII

CHAPTER LXVIII

BOOK SIX. The Raid upon the Bridges

CHAPTER LXIX

CHAPTER LXX

CHAPTER LXXI

CHAPTER LXXII

CHAPTER LXXIII

CHAPTER LXXIV

CHAPTER LXXV

CHAPTER LXXVI

CHAPTER LXXVII

CHAPTER LXXVIII

CHAPTER LXXIX

CHAPTER LXXX

CHAPTER LXXXI

BOOK SEVEN. The Dead Sea Campaign

CHAPTER LXXXII

CHAPTER LXXXIII

CHAPTER LXXXIV

CHAPTER LXXXV

CHAPTER LXXXVI

CHAPTER LXXXVII

CHAPTER LXXXVIII

CHAPTER LXXXIX

CHAPTER XC

CHAPTER XCI

BOOK EIGHT. The Ruin of High Hope

CHAPTER XCII

CHAPTER XCIII

CHAPTER XCIV

CHAPTER XCV

CHAPTER XCVI

CHAPTER XCVII

BOOK NINE. Balancing for a Last Effort

CHAPTER XCVIII

CHAPTER XCIX

CHAPTER C

CHAPTER CI

CHAPTER CII

CHAPTER CIII

CHAPTER CIV

CHAPTER CV

CHAPTER CVI

BOOK TEN. The House is Perfected

CHAPTER CVII

CHAPTER CVIII

CHAPTER CIX

CHAPTER CX

CHAPTER CXI

CHAPTER CXII

CHAPTER CXIII

CHAPTER CXIV

CHAPTER CXV

CHAPTER CXVI

CHAPTER CXVII

CHAPTER CXVIII

CHAPTER CXIX

CHAPTER CXX

CHAPTER CXXI

CHAPTER CXXII

EPILOGUE

APPENDICES

PHOTOGRAPHS

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The original frontispiece

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The first edition’s title page

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14 Barton Street, south-west London, where Lawrence lived while writing ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’

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The Seven Pillars rock formation in Wadi Rum

To S.A.

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands

  and wrote my will across the sky in stars

To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,

  that your eyes might be shining for me

                                             When we came.

Death seemed my servant on the road, till we were near

  and saw you waiting:

When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me

  and took you apart:

                                       Into his quietness.

Love, the way-weary, groped to your body, our brief wage

  ours for the moment

Before earth’s soft hand explored your shape, and the blind

  worms grew fat upon

                                           Your substance.

Men prayed me that I set our work, the inviolate house,

  as a menory of you.

But for fit monument I shattered it, unfinished: and now

The little things creep out to patch themselves hovels

  in the marred shadow

                                             Of your gift.

Mr Geoffrey Dawson persuaded All Souls College to give me leisure, in 1919-1920, to write about the Arab Revolt. Sir Herbert Baker let me live and work in his Westminster houses.

The book so written passed in 1921 into proof; where it was fortunate in the friends who criticized it. Particularly it owes its thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Shaw for countless suggestions of great value and diversity: and for all the present semicolons.

It does not pretend to be impartial. I was fighting for my hand, upon my own midden. Please take it as a personal narrative piece out of memory. I could not make proper notes: indeed it would have been a breach of my duty to the Arabs if I had picked such flowers while they fought. My superior officers, Wilson, Joyce, Dawnay, Newcombe and Davenport could each tell a like tale. The same is true of Stirling, Young, Lloyd and Maynard: of Buxton and Winterton: of Ross, Stent and Siddons: of Peake, Homby, Scott-Higgins and Garland: of Wordie, Bennett and MacIndoe: of Bassett, Scott, Goslett, Wood and Gray: of Hinde, Spence and Bright: of Brodie and Pascoe, Gilman and Grisenthwaite, Greenhill, Dowsett and Wade: of Henderson, Leeson, Makins and Nunan.

And there were many other leaders or lonely fighters to whom this self-regardant picture is not fair. It is still less fair, of course, like all war-stories, to the un-named rank and file: who miss their share of credit, as they must do, until they can write the despatches.

T. E. S.

Cranwell, 15.8.26

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

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THE STORY WHICH follows was first written out in Paris during the Peace Conference, from notes jotted daily on the march, strengthened by some reports sent to my chiefs in Cairo. Afterwards, in the autumn of 1919, this first draft and some of the notes were lost. It seemed to me historically needful to reproduce the tale, as perhaps no one but myself in Feisal’s army had thought of writing down at the time what we felt, what we hoped, what we tried. So it was built again with heavy repugnance in London in the winter of 1919-20 from memory and my surviving notes. The record of events was not dulled in me and perhaps few actual mistakes crept in — except in details of dates or numbers — but the outlines and significance of things had lost edge in the haze of new interests.

Dates and places are correct, so far as my notes preserved them: but the personal names are not. Since the adventure some of those who worked with me have buried themselves in the shallow grave of public duty. Free use has been made of their names. Others still possess themselves, and here keep their secrecy. Sometimes one man carried various names. This may hide individuality and make the book a scatter of featureless puppets, rather than a group of living people: but once good is told of a man, and again evil, and some would not thank me for either blame or praise.

This isolated picture throwing the main light upon myself is unfair to my British colleagues. Especially I am most sorry that I have not told what the non-commissioned of us did. They were but wonderful, especially when it is taken into account that they had not the motive, the imaginative vision of the end, which sustained officers. Unfortunately my concern was limited to this end, and the book is just a designed procession of Arab freedom from Mecca to Damascus. It is intended to rationalize the campaign, that everyone may see how natural the success was and how inevitable, how little dependent on direction or brain, how much less on the outside assistance of the few British. It was an Arab war waged and led by Arabs for an Arab aim in Arabia.

My proper share was a minor one, but because of a fluent pen, a free speech, and a certain adroitess of brain, I took upon myself, as I describe it, a mock primacy. In reality I never had any office among the Arabs: was never in charge of the British mission with them. Wilson, Joyce, Newcombe, Dawnay and Davenport were all over my head. I flattered myself that I was too young, not that they had more heart or mind in the work, I did my best. Wilson, Newcombe, Dawnay, Davenport, Buxton, Marshall, Stirling, Young, Maynard, Ross, Scott, Winterton, Lloyd, Wordie, Siddons, Goslett, Stent Henderson, Spence, Gilman, Garland, Brodie, Makins, Nunan, Leeson, Hornby, Peake, Scott-Higgins, Ramsay, Wood, Hinde, Bright, MacIndoe, Greenhill, Grisenthwaite, Dowsett, Bennett, Wade, Gray, Pascoe and the others also did their best.

It would be impertinent in me to praise them. When I wish to say ill of one outside our number, I do it: though there is less of this than was in my diary, since the passage of time seems to have bleached out men’s stains. When I wish to praise outsiders, I do it: bur our family affairs are our own. We did what we set out to do, and have the satisfaction of that knowledge. The others have liberty some day to put on record their story, one parallel to mine but not mentioning more of me than I of them, for each of us did his job by himself and as he pleased, hardly seeing his friends.

In these pages the history is not of the Arab movement, but of me in it. It is a narrative of daily life, mean happenings, little people. Here are no lessons for the world, no disclosures to shock peoples. It is filled with trivial things, partly that no one mistake for history the bones from which some day a man may make history, and partly for the pleasure it gave me to recall the fellowship of the revolt. We were fond together, because of the sweep of the open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The moral freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up in ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.

All men dream: but nor equally, Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses oftheir minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did. I meant to make a new nation, to restore! a lost influence, to give twenty millions of Semites the foundations on which to build an inspired dream-palace of their national thoughts. So high an aim called out the inherent nobility of their minds, and made them play a generous part in events: but when we won, it was charged against me that the British petrol royalties in Mesopotamia were become dubious, and French Colonial policy ruined in the Levant.

I am afraid that I hope so. We pay for these things too much in honour and in innocent lives. I went up the Tigris with one hundred Devon Territorials, young, clean, delightful fellows, full of the power of happiness and of making women and children glad. By them one saw vividly how great it was to be their kin, and English. And we were casting them by thousands into the fire to the worst of deaths, not to win the war but that the corn and rice and oil of Mesopotamia might be ours. The only need was to defeat our enemies (Turkey among them), and this was at last done in the wisdom of Allenby with less than four hundred killed, by turning to our uses the hands of the oppressed in Turkey. I am proudest of my thirty fights in that I did not have any of our own blood shed. All our subject provinces to me were not worth one dead Englishman.

We were three years over this effort and I have had to hold back many things which may not yet be said. Even so, parts of this book will be new to nearly all who see it, and many will look for familiar things and not find them. Once I reported fully to my chiefs, but learnt that they were rewarding me on my own evidence. This was not as it should be. Honours may be necessary in a professional army, as so many emphatic mentions in despatches, and by enlisting we had put ourselves, willingly or not, in the position of regular soldiers.

For my work on the Arab front I had determined to accept nothing. The Cabinet raised the Arabs to fight for us by definite promises of self-government afterwards. Arabs believe in persons, not in institutions. They saw in me a free agent of the British Government, and demanded from me an endorsement of its written promises. So I had to join the conspiracy, and, for what my word was worth, assured the men of their reward. In our two years’ partnership under fire they grew accustomed to believing me and to think my Government, like myself, sincere. In this hope they performed some fine things, but, of course, instead of being proud of what we did together, I was bitterly ashamed.

It was evident from the beginning that if we won the war these promises would be dead paper, and had I been an honest adviser of the Arabs I would have advised them to go home and not risk their lives fighting for such stuff: but I salved myself with the hope that, by leading these Arabs madly in the final victory I would establish them, with arms in their hands, in a position so assured (if not dominant) that expediency would counsel to the Great Powers a fair settlement of their claims. In other words, I presumed (seeing no other leader with the will and power) that I would survive the campaigns, and be able to defeat not merely the Turks on the battlefield, but my own country and its allies in the council-chamber. It was an immodest presumption: it is not yet: clear if I succeeded: but it is clear that I had no shadow of leave to engage the Arabs, unknowing, in such hazard. I risked the fraud, on my conviction that Arab help was necessary to our cheap and speedy victory in the East, and that better we win and break our word than lose.

The dismissal of Sir Henry McMahon confirmed my belief in our essential insincerity: but I could not so explain myself to General Wingate while the war lasted, since I was nominally under his orders, and he did not seem sensible of how false his own standing was. The only thing remaining was to refuse rewards for being a successful trickster and, to prevent this unpleasantness arising, I began in my reports to conceal the true stories of things, and to persuade the few Arabs who knew to an equal reticence. In this book also, for the last time, I mean to be my own judge of what to say.

INTRODUCTION. Foundations of Revolt

CHAPTERS I TO VII

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SOME ENGLISHMEN, OF whom Kitchener was chief, believed that a rebellion of Arabs against Turks would enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat her ally Turkey.

Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method.

So they allowed it to begin, having obtained for it formal assurances of help from the British Government. yet none the less the rebellion of the Sherif of Mecca came to most as a surprise, and found the allies unready. It aroused mixed feelings and made strong friends and strong enemies, amid whose clashing jealousies its affairs began to miscarry.

CHAPTER I

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SOME OF THE evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars. We were a self-centred army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man’s creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all our strength, a hope so transcendent that our earlier ambitions faded in its glare.

As time went by our need to fight for the ideal increased to an unquestioning possession, riding with spur and rein over our doubts. Willy-nilly it became a faith. We had sold ourselves into its slavery, manacled ourselves together in its chain-gang, bowed ourselves to serve its holiness with all our good and ill content. The mentality of ordinary human slaves is terrible — they have lost the world — and we had surrendered, not body alone, but soul to the overmastering greed of victory. By our own act we were drained of morality, of volition, of responsibility, like dead leaves in the wind.

The everlasting battle stripped from us care of our own lives or of others’. We had ropes about our necks, and on our heads prices which showed that the enemy intended hideous tortures for us if we were caught. Each day some of us passed; and the living knew themselves just sentient puppets on God’s stage: indeed, our taskmaster was merciless, merciless, so long as our bruised