T. E. Lawrence

Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British Army officer, archaeologist, diplomat and writer known for his role during the Arab Revolt and Sinai and Palestine campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and Lawrence's ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities.

Lawrence was born in Tremadog, Carnarvonshire, Wales, the illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Chapman, an Anglo-Irish landowner, and Sarah Lawrence (née Junner), a governess in the employ of Chapman. In 1896, Lawrence moved to Oxford, attending the City of Oxford High School for Boys, and read history at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1907 to 1910. Between 1910 and 1914, he worked as an archaeologist for the British Museum, chiefly at Carchemish in Ottoman Syria.

After the outbreak of war in 1914, Lawrence joined the British Army and was stationed at the Arab Bureau, a military intelligence unit in Egypt. In 1916, he travelled to Mesopotamia and Arabia on intelligence missions and became involved with the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule. Lawrence was ultimately assigned to the British Military Mission in the Hejaz as a liaison to Emir Faisal, a leader of the revolt. He participated in engagements with the Ottoman military culminating in the capture of Damascus in October 1918.

After the war's end, he joined the Foreign Office, working with Faisal. In 1922, Lawrence retreated from public life and served as an enlisted man in the Army and Royal Air Force (RAF) until 1935. He published the Seven Pillars of Wisdom in 1926, an autobiographical account of his participation in the Arab Revolt. Lawrence also translated books into English and wrote The Mint, which detailed his service in the RAF. He corresponded extensively with prominent artists, writers, and politicians, and also participated in the development of rescue motorboats for the RAF. Lawrence's public image resulted in part from the sensationalised reporting of the Arab Revolt by American journalist Lowell Thomas, as well as from Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In 1935, Lawrence died at the age of 46 after being injured in a motorcycle crash in Dorset.

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born on 16 August 1888 in Tremadog, Carnarvonshire, in a house named Gorphwysfa, now known as Snowdon Lodge. His Anglo-Irish father Thomas Chapman had left his wife Edith, after he fathered his first son with Lawrence's mother Sarah Junner, who had been governess to Chapman's daughters. Sarah was herself an illegitimate child, born in Sunderland to Elizabeth Junner, a servant employed by a family named Lawrence. She was dismissed four months before Sarah was born, and identified Sarah's father as "John Junner, Shipwright journeyman".

Lawrence's parents did not marry, but lived together under the pseudonym Lawrence. In 1914, his father inherited the Chapman baronetcy based at Killua Castle, the ancestral family home in County Westmeath, Ireland. The couple had five sons, Thomas, called "Ned" by his immediate family, being the second eldest. In 1889, the family moved from Wales to Kirkcudbright, Galloway, in southwestern Scotland, then to the Isle of Wight, then to the New Forest, then to Dinard in Brittany, and then to Jersey.

From 1894 to 1896, the family lived at Langley Lodge, set in private woods between the eastern borders of the New Forest and Southampton Water in Hampshire. At Langley Lodge (now demolished) young Lawrence had opportunities for outdoor activities and waterfront visits.

In the summer of 1896, the family moved to 2 Polstead Road in Oxford, where they lived until 1921. The wooden shed built in the garden for Lawrence to study when a schoolboy is still standing. From 1896 until 1907, Lawrence attended the City of Oxford High School for Boys, where one of the four houses was later named "Lawrence" in his honour. The school closed in 1966. Lawrence and one of his brothers became commissioned officers in the Church Lads' Brigade at St Aldate's Church.

Lawrence claimed that he ran away from home around 1905 and served for a few weeks as a boy soldier with the Royal Garrison Artillery at St Mawes Castle in Cornwall, from which he was bought out. However, no evidence of this appears in army records.

At the age of 15, Lawrence cycled with his schoolfriend Cyril Beeson around Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, visiting almost every village's parish church, studying their monuments and antiquities, and making rubbings of their monumental brasses. Lawrence and Beeson monitored building sites in Oxford and presented the Ashmolean Museum with anything that they found. The Ashmolean's Annual Report for 1906 said that the two teenage boys "by incessant watchfulness secured everything of antiquarian value which has been found." In the summers of 1906 and 1907, Lawrence toured France by bicycle, sometimes with Beeson, collecting photographs, drawings, and measurements of medieval castles. In August 1907, Lawrence wrote home: "the Chaignons and the Lamballe people complimented me on my wonderful French: I have been asked twice since what part of France I came from".

From 1907 to 1910, Lawrence read history at Jesus College, Oxford. In July and August 1908, he cycled 2,200 miles (3,500 km) solo through France to the Mediterranean and back, researching French castles. In the summer of 1909, he set out alone on a three-month walking tour of crusader castles in Ottoman Syria, during which he travelled 1,000 miles (1,600 km) on foot. While at Jesus College he was a keen member of the University Officers' Training Corps (OTC).

He graduated with First Class Honours after submitting a thesis titled The Influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture—to the End of the 12th Century, partly based on his field research with Beeson in France, and his solo research in France and the Middle East. Lawrence was fascinated by the Middle Ages. His brother Arnold wrote in 1937 that "medieval researches" were a "dream way of escape from bourgeois England".

In 1910, Lawrence was offered the opportunity to become a practising archaeologist at Carchemish, in the expedition that D. G. Hogarth was setting up on behalf of the British Museum. Hogarth arranged a "Senior Demyship", a form of scholarship, for Lawrence at Magdalen College, Oxford, to fund his work at £100 a year. In December 1910, he sailed for Beirut, and went to Byblos in Lebanon, where he studied Arabic.

He then went to work on the excavations at Carchemish, near Jerablus in northern Syria, where he worked under Hogarth, R. Campbell Thompson of the British Museum, and Leonard Woolley until 1914. He later stated that everything that he had accomplished, he owed to Hogarth. Lawrence met Gertrude Bell while excavating at Carchemish. In 1912, he worked briefly with Flinders Petrie at Kafr Ammar in Egypt.

Following the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Lawrence did not immediately enlist in the British Army. He held back until October on the advice of S. F. Newcombe, when he was commissioned on the General List as temporary second lieutenant-interpreter. Before the end of the year, he was summoned by renowned archaeologist and historian Lieutenant Commander David Hogarth, his mentor at Carchemish, to the new Arab Bureau intelligence unit in Cairo, and he arrived in Cairo on 15 December 1914. The Bureau's chief was Brigadier-General Gilbert Clayton who reported to Egyptian High Commissioner Henry McMahon.

The situation was complex in 1915. There was a growing Arab nationalist movement within the Arabic-speaking Ottoman territories, including many Arabs serving in the Ottoman armed forces. They were in contact with Sharif Hussein, Emir of Mecca, who was negotiating with the British and offering to lead an Arab uprising against the Ottomans. In exchange, he wanted a British guarantee of an independent Arab state including the Hejaz, Syria, and Mesopotamia.

Such an uprising would have been helpful to Britain in its war against the Ottomans, lessening the threat against the Suez Canal. However, there was resistance from French diplomats who insisted that Syria's future was as a French colony, not an independent Arab state. There were also strong objections from the Government of India, which was nominally part of the British government but acted independently. Its vision was of Mesopotamia under British control serving as a granary for India; furthermore, it wanted to hold on to its Arabian outpost in Aden.

At the Arab Bureau, Lawrence supervised the preparation of maps, produced a daily bulletin for the British generals operating in the theatre, and interviewed prisoners. He was an advocate of a British landing at Alexandretta, now İskenderun in Turkey, that never came to pass. He was also a consistent advocate of an independent Arab Syria.

The situation came to a crisis in October 1915, as Sharif Hussein demanded an immediate commitment from Britain, with the threat that he would otherwise throw his weight behind the Ottomans. This would create a credible Pan-Islamic message that could have been dangerous for Britain, which was in severe difficulties in the Gallipoli Campaign. The British replied with a letter from High Commissioner McMahon that was generally agreeable while reserving commitments concerning the Mediterranean coastline and Holy Land.

The Arab Revolt began in June 1916, but it stalled after a few successes, with a real risk that the Ottoman forces would advance along the coast of the Red Sea and recapture Mecca. On 16 October 1916, Lawrence was sent to the Hejaz on an intelligence-gathering mission led by Ronald Storrs. He interviewed Sharif Hussein's sons Ali, Abdullah, and Faisal, and concluded that Faisal was the best candidate to lead the Revolt.

In November, S. F. Newcombe was assigned to lead a permanent British liaison to Faisal's staff. Newcombe had not yet arrived in the area and the matter was of some urgency, so Lawrence was sent in his place. In late December 1916, Faisal and Lawrence worked out a plan for repositioning the Arab forces to put the railway from Syria under threat while preventing the Ottoman forces around Medina from threatening Arab positions. Newcombe arrived while Lawrence was preparing to leave Arabia, but Faisal intervened urgently, asking that Lawrence's assignment become permanent.

Lawrence's most important contributions to the Arab Revolt were in the area of strategy and liaison with British Armed Forces, but he also participated personally in several military engagements between January 1917 and September 1918. These included attacks on Ottoman communications: the railways at Aba el Naam, and Mudawara; and the destruction of a railway engine; the bridges at Ras Baalbek; and at Yarmuk, during which attack he suffered several wounds in the explosion and subsequent combat; and that at Aqaba, and the bridge which connected Amman and Dera'a. There were also assaults on Ottoman garrisons: in the Hejaz; at Tell Shahm using British armoured cars; and on retreating Ottomans and Germans near the village of Tafas, where the Ottoman forces massacred the villagers and the Arabs retaliated by killing their prisoners, with Lawrence's encouragement. In June 1917 Lawrence made a 300-mile (480 km) journey north towards Aqaba, visiting Ras Baalbek, the outskirts of Damascus, and Azraq, Jordan. He met with Arab nationalists, counselling them to avoid revolt until the arrival of Faisal's forces, and he attacked a bridge to create the impression of guerrilla activity. His findings were regarded by the British as extremely valuable and there was serious consideration of awarding him a Victoria Cross; in the end, he was invested as a Companion of the Order of the Bath and promoted to major.

He also saw action in larger-scale engagements: the defeat of the Ottoman forces at Aba el Lissan as part of the Battle of Aqaba; and in January 1918, the Battle of Tafilah, in a region southeast of the Dead Sea, where Arab regulars were engaged under the command of Jafar Pasha al-Askari. Tafilah began as a defensive engagement that turned into an offensive rout, and was described in the official history of the war as a "brilliant feat of arms". Lawrence was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his leadership and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Lawrence continued to travel regularly between British headquarters and Faisal, co-ordinating military action but by early 1918 he had been replaced as Faisal's chief British liaison by Lieutenant Colonel Pierce Charles Joyce, and his efforts were devoted chiefly to raiding and intelligence-gathering.

The chief elements of the Arab strategy that Faisal and Lawrence developed were to avoid capturing Medina, and to extend northward through Maan and Dera'a to Damascus and beyond. Faisal wanted to lead regular attacks against the Ottomans, but Lawrence persuaded him to drop that tactic. Lawrence wrote about the Bedouin as a fighting force:

The value of the tribes is defensive only and their real sphere is guerilla warfare. They are intelligent, and very lively, almost reckless, but too individualistic to endure commands, or fight in line, or to help each other. It would, I think, be impossible to make an organized force out of them.… The Hejaz war is one of dervishes against regular forces—and we are on the side of the dervishes. Our text-books do not apply to its conditions at all.

Medina was an attractive target for the revolt as Islam's second-holiest site, and because its Ottoman garrison was weakened by disease and isolation. It became clear that it was advantageous to leave it there rather than try to capture it, while attacking the Hejaz railway south from Damascus without permanently destroying it. This prevented the Ottomans from making effective use of their troops at Medina, and forced them to dedicate many resources to defending and repairing the railway line.

It is not known when Lawrence learned the details of the Sykes–Picot Agreement, nor if or when he briefed Faisal on what he knew, however, there is good reason to think that both these things happened, and earlier rather than later. In particular, the Arab strategy of northward extension makes perfect sense given the Sykes–Picot language that spoke of an independent Arab entity in Syria, which would be granted only if the Arabs liberated the territory themselves. The French and some of their British Liaison officers were specifically uncomfortable about the northward movement, as it would weaken French colonial claims.

In 1917, Lawrence proposed a joint action with the Arab irregulars and forces including Auda Abu Tayi, who had previously been in the employ of the Ottomans, against the strategically located but lightly defended town of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Aqaba could have been attacked from the sea but, assuming it were captured, the narrow defiles leading inland through the mountains were strongly defended and would have been very difficult to assault. The expedition was led by Sharif Nasir of Medina.

Lawrence avoided informing his British superiors about the details of the planned inland attack, due to concern that it would be blocked as contrary to French interests. The expedition departed from Wejh on 9 May, and Aqaba fell to the Arab forces on 6 July, after a surprise overland attack that took the Turkish defences from behind. After Aqaba, General Sir Edmund Allenby, the new commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, agreed to Lawrence's strategy for the revolt. Lawrence now held a powerful position as an adviser to Faisal and a person who had Allenby's confidence, as Allenby acknowledged after the war:

I gave him a free hand. His cooperation was marked by the utmost loyalty, and I never had anything but praise for his work, which, indeed, was invaluable throughout the campaign. He was the mainspring of the Arab movement and knew their language, their manners and their mentality.

Lawrence describes an episode on 20 November 1917 while reconnoitring Dera'a in disguise, when he was captured by the Ottoman military, beaten, and sexually assaulted by the local bey and his guardsmen, though he does not specify the nature of the sexual contact. Some scholars have stated that he exaggerated the severity of the injuries that he suffered, or alleged that the episode never happened. There is no independent testimony, but the multiple consistent reports and the absence of evidence for outright invention in Lawrence's works make the account believable to some of his biographers. Malcolm Brown, John E. Mack, and Jeremy Wilson have argued that this episode had strong psychological effects on Lawrence, which may explain some of his unconventional behaviour in later life. Lawrence ended his account of the episode in Seven Pillars of Wisdom with the statement: "In Dera'a that night the citadel of my integrity had been irrevocably lost."

The son of the Governor resident in Dera'a at the time has been quoted as saying the narrative must be false, because Lawrence describes the Bey's hair, while in fact his father was bald. In fact, Lawrence describes (in the 1922 text) the Bey's head as shaven, with stubble standing up. There is also uncertainty about the identity of the individual that Lawrence refers to as "the Bey".

Lawrence was involved in the build-up to the capture of Damascus in the final weeks of the war, but he was not present at the city's formal surrender. He arrived several hours after the city had fallen, entering Damascus around 9 am on 1 October 1918; the first to arrive was the 10th Light Horse Regiment led by Major A. C. N. "Harry" Olden, who accepted the formal surrender of the city from acting Governor Emir Said. Lawrence was instrumental in establishing a provisional Arab government under Faisal in newly liberated Damascus, which he had envisioned as the capital of an Arab state. Faisal's rule as king, however, came to an abrupt end in 1920, after the battle of Maysaloun when the French Forces of General Henri Gouraud entered Damascus under the command of General Mariano Goybet, destroying Lawrence's dream of an independent Arabia.

During the closing years of the war, Lawrence sought to convince his superiors in the British government that Arab independence was in their interests, but his success was mixed. The secret Sykes–Picot Agreement between France and Britain contradicted the promises of independence that he had made to the Arabs and frustrated his work.

Lawrence returned to the United Kingdom as a full colonel. Immediately after the war, he worked for the Foreign Office, attending the Paris Peace Conference between January and May as a member of Faisal's delegation. On 17 May 1919, a Handley Page Type O/400 taking Lawrence to Egypt crashed at the airport of Roma-Centocelle. The pilot and co-pilot were killed; Lawrence survived with a broken shoulder blade and two broken ribs. During his brief hospitalisation, he was visited by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.

In 1918, Lowell Thomas went to Jerusalem where he met Lawrence, "whose enigmatic figure in Arab uniform fired his imagination", in the words of author Rex Hall. Thomas and his cameraman Harry Chase shot a great deal of film and many photographs involving Lawrence. Thomas produced a stage presentation entitled With Allenby in Palestine which included a lecture, dancing, and music and depicted the Middle East as exotic, mysterious, sensuous, and violent. The show premiered in New York in March 1919. He was invited to take his show to England, and he agreed to do so provided that he was personally invited by the King and provided the use of either Drury Lane or Covent Garden. He opened at Covent Garden on 14 August 1919 and continued for hundreds of lectures, "attended by the highest in the land".

Initially, Lawrence played only a supporting role in the show, as the main focus was on Allenby's campaigns; but then Thomas realised that it was the photos of Lawrence dressed as a Bedouin which had captured the public's imagination, so he had Lawrence photographed again in London in Arab dress. With the new photos, Thomas re-launched his show under the new title With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia in early 1920, which proved to be extremely popular. The new title elevated Lawrence from a supporting role to a co-star of the Near Eastern campaign and reflected a changed emphasis. Thomas' shows made the previously obscure Lawrence into a household name. Lawrence worked with Thomas on the creation of the presentation, answering many questions and posing for many photographs. After its success, however, he expressed regret about having been featured in it.

Lawrence served as an adviser to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office for just over a year starting in February 1920. He hated bureaucratic work, writing on 21 May 1921 to Robert Graves: "I wish I hadn't gone out there: the Arabs are like a page I have turned over; and sequels are rotten things. I'm locked up here: office every day and much of it". He travelled to the Middle East on multiple occasions during this period, at one time holding the title of "chief political officer for Trans-Jordania". He campaigned for his and Churchill's vision of the Middle East, publishing pieces in multiple newspapers, including The Times, The Observer, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Express.

Lawrence had a sinister reputation in France during his lifetime and even today as an implacable "enemy of France", the man who was constantly stirring up the Syrians to rebel against French rule throughout the 1920s. However, French historian Maurice Larès wrote that the real reason for France's problems in Syria was that the Syrians did not want to be ruled by France, and the French needed a scapegoat to blame for their difficulties in ruling the country. Larès wrote that Lawrence is usually pictured in France as a Francophobe, but he was really a Francophile.

Lawrence was a keen motorcyclist and owned eight Brough Superior motorcycles at different times. His last SS100 (Registration GW 2275) is privately owned but has been on loan to the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu and the Imperial War Museum in London. In 1934, he rode his motorcycle over 200 miles from Manchester to Winchester to meet Eugène Vinaver, editor of the Winchester Manuscript of Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a book that he admired and carried on his campaigns.

On 13 May 1935, Lawrence was fatally injured in a crash on his SS100 in Dorset close to his cottage Clouds Hill, near Bovington Camp, just two months after leaving military service. A dip in the road obscured his view of two boys on their bicycles; he swerved to avoid them, lost control, and was thrown over the handlebars. He died six days later on 19 May 1935, aged 46. The location of the crash is marked by a small memorial at the roadside. One of the doctors attending him was neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns, who consequently began a long study of the loss of life by motorcycle dispatch riders through head injuries. His research led to the use of crash helmets by both military and civilian motorcyclists.

The Moreton estate borders Bovington Camp, and Lawrence bought Clouds Hill from his cousins, the Frampton family. He had been a frequent visitor to their home, Oakers Wood House, and had corresponded with Louisa Frampton for years. Lawrence's mother arranged with the Framptons to have his body buried in their family plot in the separate burial ground of St Nicholas' Church, Moreton. The coffin was transported on the Frampton estate's bier. Mourners included Winston Churchill, E. M. Forster, Lady Astor, and Lawrence's youngest brother, Arnold. Churchill described him thus: "Lawrence was one of those beings whose pace of life was faster and more intense than what is normal."

The inquest into Lawrence's death was conducted hurriedly and there was conflicting testimony, particularly in the report of a "black car" which may or may not have been present at the scene of the accident, and the behaviour of the bicycling boys. Some have speculated that Lawrence was assassinated but, owing to a lack of supporting evidence, it is generally accepted that his death was an accident.

Lawrence was a prolific writer throughout his life. A large portion of his writing was epistolary; he often sent several letters a day, and a number of collections of his letters have been published. He corresponded with many notable figures, including George Bernard Shaw, Edward Elgar, Winston Churchill, Robert Graves, Noël Coward, E. M. Forster, Siegfried Sassoon, John Buchan, Augustus John, and Henry Williamson. He met Joseph Conrad and commented perceptively on his works. Lawrence sent many letters to Shaw's wife, Charlotte.

Lawrence was a competent speaker of French and Arabic, and reader of Latin and Ancient Greek. Lawrence published three major texts in his lifetime. The most significant was his account of the Arab Revolt in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Homer's Odyssey and The Forest Giant were translations, the latter an otherwise forgotten work of French fiction. He received a flat fee for the second translation, and negotiated a generous fee plus royalties for the first.