Lawrence In Arabia Part 26

27 "I have lived among": Quoted in Gorni, Zionism and the Arabs, p. 56.

28 "Our worst enemy": Quoted in Engle, The Nili Spies, p. 47.

29 The trip down had: William Yale's account of his 1915 journey to Jerusalem and his meeting with Djemal Pasha is in Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 4.

30 "numerous humanitarian services": New York Times, July 29, 1915.

31 "I wonder when": Lawrence to Will Lawrence, July 7, 1915; Bodleian MS Eng C 6740.

32 His name was Mohammed al-Faroki: Due to the pivotal role he played in shaping British policy in the Near East in 191516, Mohammed al-Faroki remains one of the more enigmatic figures to emerge from the period. Since he is believed to have been killed in 1922 during a tribal war in Iraq, many of the questions surrounding him are likely to stay unanswered.

New attention was focused on Faroki by David Fromkin in his 1989 book A Peace to End All Peace, in which Fromkin repeatedly refers to the "hoax" that Faroki perpetrated, and the extraordinary effect his actions had on world events. To wit, "not only the McMahon letters, but also-and more importantly-the negotiations with France, Russia, and later Italy that ultimately resulted in the Sykes-Picot-Sazanov Agreement and subsequent Allied secret treaty understandings were among the results of Lieutenant al-Faruqi's [sic] hoax."

If this gives Faroki more credit than is probably his due, Fromkin also never specifies just what his alleged hoax consisted of. Instead, his charge appears to center on two broad points: that Faroki exaggerated his position in al-Ahd to both the British and Emir Hussein in order to maneuver himself into an intermediary role; and that he lied about the strength and ability of al-Ahd and al-Fatat to stage a large-scale revolt in Syria. In essence, Fromkin alleges, Faroki sold the British on a false bill of goods that he couldn't possibly deliver.

But when taking as a starting point that Faroki was an ardent Arab nationalist who was deeply suspicious of the Western colonial powers, it's hard to see how either of these accusations rise to the level of a "hoax." While Faroki almost certainly exaggerated the strength and capability of the Syrian would-be rebels in order to exact greater concessions from the British, in a time of war did this make him a fraud or a good negotiator?

This is much more than a question of labels or semantics, however. In Fromkin's view, because of Faroki's hoax, the agreement Hussein reached with the British via the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence was purchased with counterfeit coin (p. 186). To wit (p. 219), "The [British] Arab Bureau believed that the [Arab] uprising would draw support throughout the Moslem and Arabic-speaking worlds. Most important of all, it believed that the revolt would draw support from what the British believed to be a largely Arabic-speaking Ottoman army ... In the event, the Arab revolt for which Hussein hoped never took place. No Arabic units of the Ottoman army came over to Hussein. No political or military figures of the Ottoman Empire defected to him and the Allies. The powerful secret military organization that al-Faruqi [sic] had promised would rally to Hussein failed to make itself known."

The problem with Fromkin's thesis is that, by the time of the Arab revolt in June 1916, neither the British nor Hussein believed anything of the sort. As Hussein informed McMahon four months prior, the Syrian wing of the prospective revolt had been severely weakened due to "the tyrannies of the [Turkish] government there," which had left "only a few" of the "persons upon whom they [the conspirators] could depend." Not only does Fromkin make no mention of this famous warning from Hussein, he also fails to note that the British had fully taken this news into account. As Gilbert Clayton, the head of military intelligence in Egypt, wrote in an April 22, 1916, memorandum (PRO-FO 882/4, f. 923), "the Sherif [Hussein] allows that Syria is useless for revolutionary purposes." In light of this development, Clayton noted in the same memorandum, "High Commissioner [McMahon] feels very strongly that at present the Sherif should be advised to confine himself to securing the Railway, and clearing the Turks out of the Hedjaz."

In short, far from being blindsided by the limited scope of the Arab revolt, British authorities had known well ahead of time exactly what they were-and were not-getting by supporting it; in fact, it was they who had urged its limited scope.

33 Testament to the importance: Hamilton to Kitchener, August 25, 1915; PRO-FO 371/2490.

34 Once Gallipoli started: In addition to Ian Hamilton's report of August 25, Faroki's testimony is detailed in Clayton to McMahon, October 11, 1915; PRO-FO 371/2486, f. 22328; Faroki's own statement, ent.i.tled " 'A' Statement of Sherif El Ferugi"; PRO-FO 371/2486, f. 22938; and in "Notes on Captain X," and "Statement of Captain X," September 12, 1915, Intelligence Department, War Office, Cairo; PRO-FO 882/2.

35 "far more than he": Storrs, "Memorandum," August 19, 1915; PRO-FO 371/2486, f. 150.

36 "reserve to themselves": Cited in Antonius, The Arab Awakening, pp. 41415.

37 A week later: Florence, Lawrence and Aaronsohn, p. 172.

38 "There is going to be": Lawrence, The Home Letters, p. 310.

39 "Things are boiling": As quoted by Wilson, Lawrence, p. 223.

40 a French liaison officer: Ibid, p. 224.

41 "French public opinion": Panouse to Robertson, November 13, 1915; reprinted in PRO-WO 33/747, p. 811.

42 By acquiescing: Liddell Hart, Colonel Lawrence: The Man Behind the Legend, p. 38.

147 "I didn't go say goodbye": Lawrence to Sarah Lawrence, undated; Bodleian MS Eng C 6740.

44 "I'm writing": Lawrence, The Home Letters, pp. 31011.

Chapter 7: Treachery.

1 "It seems to me": Macdonogh to Nicolson, January 7, 1916; PRO-FO 882/16.

2 "and partly because": Lawrence to Leeds, November 16, 1915, in Brown, The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, pp. 7879.

3 A few smaller points: The precise nature of the agreement reached between Emir Hussein and the British government in the so-called McMahon-Hussein Correspondence remains one of the most contentious points of Middle Eastern history. Through countless books on the subject, historians of all stripes have managed to squeeze from these brief letters an interpretation neatly suited to their thesis or political bias.

For many, a chief starting point has been to emphasize the often awkward grammatical structure of the letters-an archaic floridness on the part of Emir Hussein, a carefully calculated obtuseness on the part of Henry McMahon-to suggest that radically divergent interpretations can be drawn, and that no deliberate deception was committed by the British. Indeed, by focusing on McMahon's carefully inserted modifiers, a number of historians, most notably Isaiah Friedman, Elie Kedourie, and David Fromkin, have put forward the a.s.sertion that the British didn't actually promise Hussein anything at all. Without such a promise, so this line of argument goes, Britain was at perfect liberty to enter into its subsequent compact on the Middle East with its European allies through the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement.

This argument, however, falters under the weight of both common sense and contemporary evidence. For any impartial observer supplied with a map of the region and the few minutes necessary to read the full McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, it becomes manifestly obvious just what Emir Hussein believed he was agreeing to. What's more, the actions of the British government at the time make clear that it too believed promises had been made to Hussein, and that those promises were undercut by Sykes-Picot. That is evidenced by their zealous efforts to keep the Sykes-Picot Agreement a secret from Hussein for nearly two years, a conspiracy of silence that undoubtedly would have continued if the agreement's existence hadn't been revealed by Russia's Bolshevik government.

4 That estimate was initially: Sykes to c.o.x, undated but late November 1915; PRO-FO 882/2.

5 It was not a pretty: Sykes to General E. C. Callwell, Director of Military Operations, War Office, August 2, 1915; PRO-FO 882/13, f. 36771.

6 "the imaginative advocate": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 58.

7 "apt.i.tude for treason": Prfer to Djemal Pasha, December 5, 1915; PAAA, Roll 21138, Der Weltkrieg no. 11g, Band 16.

8 "At the slightest indiscretion": Metternich to Bethmann-Hollweg, December 23, 1915; PAAA, Roll 21138, Der Weltkrieg no. 11g, Band 16.

9 Sarah fainted away: Aaronsohn, "Addendum to 'Report of an inhabitant of Athlit, Mount Carmel, Syria,' " undated but November 1916; PRO-FO 371/2783.

10 The one precondition: Engle, The Nili Spies, pp. 6264; Florence, Lawrence and Aaronsohn, p. 205. Engle, Florence, and other Aaronsohn biographers have rendered this incident in rather more dire terms, alleging that Feinberg was tortured in Beersheva and faced imminent threat of execution in Jerusalem. Aaronsohn's diary for the period would seem to contradict this, however, considering that he noted learning of Feinberg's detention from a telegram Feinberg himself sent from Beersheva on December 29. Further, Aaronsohn's subsequent diary entries indicate little sense of urgency in resolving Feinberg's predicament, nor does the fact that Aaronsohn waited for two weeks after learning of it to make his appeal to Djemal Pasha.

11 It wasn't until a reply: Chamberlain to Hardinge, October 22, 1915; PRO-FO 371/2486, f. 254.

12 In other words: The French "escape clause" in McMahon's October 24 letter to Hussein was carefully constructed at the senior levels of the British government, as evidenced by correspondence between McMahon and the Foreign Office in PRO-FO 371/2486, f. 2048.

13 That the French: Tanenbaum, France and the Arab Middle East, p. 8.

14 British officials expressed: "Results of second meeting of Committee to discuss Arab question and Syria," November 23, 1915; PRO-FO 882/2, f. 15660.

15 Rather than be part: Sykes and Picot joint memorandum, "Arab Question," January 5, 1916; PRO-FO 371/2767. Of all the controversies that continue to surround the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, perhaps the most specious is the a.s.sertion that the territory of Palestine was specifically excluded from the proposed independent Arab nation, and that Hussein was fully aware of this. The chief proponent of this a.s.sertion has been Isaiah Friedman in his frequently cited books The Question of Palestine and Palestine: A Twice-Promised Land?, with his claims echoed by Fromkin in A Peace to End All Peace.

The foundation for this a.s.sertion rests with one of the "modifications" McMahon proposed in his crucial letter of October 24, 1915, to Hussein, in which he wrote that the "portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should be excluded from the limits demanded [for an independent Arab nation]." With that as a starting point, Friedman goes on to list the many opportunities Hussein had after October 24 to raise an objection to the exclusion of Palestine, but consistently failed to do so. As he writes in The Question of Palestine (p. 90), "On receipt of McMahon's letter of 24 October, Hussein argued that Mesopotamia and the vilayets of Beirut and Aleppo 'are Arab and should therefore be under Muslim Government,' though significantly he refrained from placing Palestine in the same category. Again on 1 January 1916 he reminded the High Commissioner that after the conclusion of the war he would claim 'Beirut and its coastal regions' but made no mention of the sanjak of Jerusalem." From such omissions on Hussein's part, Friedman concludes, Hussein had clearly tacitly ceded control of Palestine in his dialogue with McMahon.

Except the first problem with this thesis is that no portion of Palestine lies "to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo." Instead, that designation corresponds roughly-roughly because it's unclear exactly what McMahon meant by "districts"-to modern-day Lebanon and the coastal areas of modern-day Syria; Palestine/Israel lies well to the south. An even larger problem is that, over the course of his correspondence with Hussein, McMahon carefully specified each region that he was seeking "modifications" for, and at no time did he ever mention Palestine. As for why Hussein himself never raised the issue of Palestine with McMahon, Friedman and other proponents of this thesis seem determined to avoid the most obvious explanation: since Palestine fell outside of the exclusion zone McMahon had described, and since McMahon had never included it in his "modifications," there was simply nothing to discuss?

16 As T. E. Lawrence: Lawrence to Liddell Hart, notes from interview, undated; UT, Folder 1, File 1.

17 "if properly handled": Lawrence, "The Politics of Mecca," forwarded by McMahon to Grey, February 7, 1916; PRO-FO 371/2771, f. 15156.

18 "essentially a trivial": As quoted in Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 249.

19 "with all the narrow minded": Ibid.

20 "and if it prevailed": Lawrence, "The Politics of Mecca," p. 1; PRO-FO 371/2771, f. 152.

21 the 36th Indian Infantry Brigade: Millar, Death of an Army, pp. 2045.

22 army of twelve thousand: There is a considerable disparity in historical sources over the size of the Kut garrison, with numbers ranging between nine and twelve thousand. This disparity is explained by the inclusion or omission of so-called camp followers the estimates-the number of actual soldiers was closer to the lower estimate-but since the camp followers would share in their grim fate, it seems appropriate to include them.

23 Perhaps in recognition of his uneven achievements: For details on the battle of Dujaila, and Aylmer's actions, see PRO-WO 158/668, f. 75127.

24 "My dear c.o.x": McMahon to c.o.x, March 20, 1916, as quoted by Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 259.

25 after the war: A. W. Lawrence, T. E. Lawrence by his Friends (1937 edition), p. 301.

26 "undesirable and inconvenient": Lake to Secretary of State (India), March 30, 1916; PRO-FO 371/2768, f. 36.

27 "My general information": Robertson to Lake, March 16, 1916; PRO-WO 158/669, no. 197.

28 It had all the trappings: William Yale's account of life in wartime Jerusalem is largely drawn from Yale, It Takes So Long, chapters 4 and 5.

29 despite "his harmless appearance": Ballobar, Jerusalem in World War I, p. 75.

30 "[Djemal] says": Edelman to Socony, Constantinople, March 29, 1916; NARA RG 84, Entry 350, Volume 30, Decimal 300-general.

31 "I studied his face": Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 5, pp. 78.

32 "At a dance": Herbert, Mons, Kut and Anzac, p. 232.

33 "Townshend's guns": Herbert diary, as quoted by Wilson, Lawrence, p. 272. In the published version (Herbert: Mons, Kut and Anzac, p. 228), the sentence was changed to "We have got very little to bargain with as far as the Turks are concerned, practically only the exchange of prisoners."

34 "Perhaps one of our [Turkish] men": Herbert, Mons, Kut and Anzac, p. 234.

35 "they gave us a most excellent dinner": Lawrence, The Home Letters, p. 324.

36 With most put to work: While postwar British governments were meticulous in tabulating the number of British soldiers at Kut who had died in captivity-1755 out of 2592, according to Crowley (Kut 1916, p. 253)-they were far less with their Indian counterparts, or even in repatriating those who had survived. According to Millar (Death of an Army, p. 284), Indian survivors of Kut continued to show up in their native villages, having somehow managed their own pa.s.sage home, as late as 1924.

37 In a testament to the element: Nash, Chitral Charlie, pp. 27479.

38 "Effendim": Djemal Pasha, Memories of a Turkish Statesman, p. 216.

39 "I should also draw": Ibid., pp. 21617.

40 "By brute force": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 59.

41 "British generals": Ibid., p. 386.

42 "We pay for": Ibid., p. 25.

43 So thoroughly did the censors: This is to be found in the Wingate Papers at Durham University, in File W/137/7.

44 It was the signal: Baker, King Husain and the Kingdom of Hejaz, pp. 9899. Baker gives the revolt start date as June 10.

Chapter 8: The Battle Joined.

1 "The Hejaz war": T. E. Lawrence, "Military Notes," November 3, 1916; PRO-FO 882/5, f. 63.

2 "A detonation about equal": Unless otherwise noted, all of Storrs's observations and quotes related to the October 1916 Jeddah trip are taken from his "Extract from Diary" (PRO-FO 882/5, f. 2238) or from his partially reproduced personal diary in Storrs, Memoirs, pp. 18695.

3 On his two earlier pa.s.sages: Barr, Setting the Desert on Fire, pp. 910.

4 "To the most honoured": Unless otherwise noted, all of Storrs's observations and quotes related to his June 1916 visit to Arabia are drawn from his unt.i.tled report to High Commissioner McMahon, June 10, 1916 (PRO-FO 371/2773), or from his partially reproduced personal diary in Storrs, Memoirs, pp. 16976.

5 Lending all this momentous activity: Storrs, Memoirs, p. 176.

6 In that case: While Murray's resistance to a.s.sisting the Arab Revolt was of long standing, he expressed it most forcefully at a meeting of senior British military staff in Ismailia, Egypt, on September 12, 1916 (PRO-FO 882/4, f. 33847).

7 Indeed, well into the autumn: Wilson to Arab Bureau, October 10, 1916; PRO-FO 882/5, f. 89. Also Clayton to Wingate, October 12, 1916; PRO-FO 882/5, f. 1214.

8 "it was quickly apparent": Storrs, Memoirs, p. 203.

9 "I took every opportunity": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 63.

10 In just this way: While it is technically true that Lawrence went to Jeddah in no official capacity, Gilbert Clayton worked behind the scenes to have him accompany Storrs so that, jointly, they could return with "a good appreciation of the situation" in Arabia (Clayton to Wingate, October 9, 1916; SADD Wingate Papers, W/141/3/35). This, in turn, was tied to Clayton's efforts to have Lawrence transferred back to the Arab Bureau.

11 "the heat of Arabia": Much of Lawrence's account of his October 1916 journey to Arabia is drawn from Lawrence, Seven Pillars, book 1, chapters 816, pp. 65108.

12 "totally unsuited": Storrs Papers, Pembroke College, Cambridge, as cited by Barr, Setting the Desert on Fire, p. 65.

13 In fact, the chief reason: Ibid.

14 "in a state of admiration": Storrs, Memoirs, p. 189.

15 "playing for effect": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 67.

16 "The un-French absence": Storrs, Memoirs, p. 190.

17 Promotion came steadily: Porte, Lt. Col. Remi, "General edouard Bremond (18681948)," Cahiers du CESAT (bulletin of the College of Higher Learning of the Army of France), issue 15 (March 2009).

18 "a practicing light": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 111.

19 Accompanying a group: Details on Bremond's mission to Egypt and the Hejaz are found in PRO-FO 882/5, f. 299306, and PRO-FO 371/2779, File 152849.

20 Should Medina fall: Lawrence memorandum for Clayton, November 17, 1916 (SADD Clayton Papers, 694/4/42). Also Bremond to Defrance, October 16, 1917, as cited by Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 309.