Part 29
Lawrence then slept—for four days he had only allowed himself three hours’ sleep—and in the morning everything in Damascus seemed to have cleared up wonderfully. The tramcars were running, the shops open, grain and vegetables and fruit were coming in well from outside. The streets were being watered to lay the terrible dust, though no surface treatment would remedy the damage of three years’ heavy lorry traffic. Lawrence was particularly glad to see numbers of British troops sightseeing unarmed in the city. The telegraph was restored with Palestine and Beyrout. He was sorry to hear that the Arabs had seized Beyrout the night before, for as long ago as the Wejh operations he had warned them, when they took Damascus, to leave Beyrout and the Lebanon to the French, but to take the port of Tripoli, fifty miles north, instead. Still, he was glad to think that they felt themselves grown-up enough to disobey him.
Even the hospital was better. The fifty prisoners, now called ‘orderlies,’ had cleaned up the litter and rubbish. Others had gone through the wards, lifting and washing each patient. One ward had been cleared of beds, brushed out and sprinkled with disinfectant, and the less serious cases were about to be transferred here for their ward to be cleaned in turn. At this rate three days would have seen the place in fairly good order.
Lawrence was arranging other improvements when an Army Medical Corps major strode up and asked him shortly whether he spoke English. ‘Yes,’ said Lawrence. The Major looked with disgust at his skirts and sandals and asked: ‘You’re in charge?’ ‘In a way I am,’ Lawrence answered. ‘Scandalous, disgraceful, outrageous, ought to be shot ...’ the major bellowed. At this sudden attack Lawrence, whose nerves were very ragged, began to laugh hysterically; he had been so proud of himself for having bettered what was apparently past hope. The major had not seen the charnel-house of the day before, nor smelt it, nor helped in the burying of the putrefying corpses. He smacked Lawrence in the face and stalked off.
When Lawrence returned to the hotel he saw large crowds round a familiar grey Rolls-Royce: he ran in and found Allenby. Allenby welcomed him and approved the steps that he had taken for setting up Arab governments at Deraa and Damascus. He confirmed Ali Riza’s appointment as his military governor and regulated the spheres of interest for Feisal and Chauvel. He agreed to take over the barracks-hospital and the railway. In ten minutes all difficulties had slipped away: Allenby’s confidence and decision and kindliness were like a pleasant dream.
Then Feisal’s train arrived from Deraa and the rolling cheers as he came riding up could be heard louder and louder through the windows. He was coming to call on Allenby, and Lawrence was happy to be the interpreter between his two masters at their first meeting. Allenby gave Lawrence, for Feisal, a telegram just received from the British Government ‘recognizing to the Arabs their status as belligerents.’ But nobody knew what it meant in English, let alone in Arabic, so Feisal, smiling but still with tears in his eyes from his welcome by the crowd, put it aside to satisfy the ambition of a year—he thanked Allenby for the trust which had helped his Revolt to victory. ‘They were a strange contrast,’ writes Lawrence—‘Feisal large-eyed, colourless and worn, like a fine dagger; Allenby gigantic and red and merry, fit representative of the Power which had thrown a girdle of humour and strong dealing around the world.’
The interview lasted only a few minutes and when Feisal had gone Lawrence made Allenby the first and last request that he had ever made for himself—leave to go away. For a while Allenby would not give it, but Lawrence pointed out how much easier the change from war to peace conditions would be for the Arabs if his influence were removed. Allenby understood and gave his permission and then Lawrence at once realized how sorry he was to be going.
He took leave of his Arab friends. Among those others who came to say good-bye was Chauvel, who thanked Lawrence warmly for all he had done for him. He went off then in a Rolls-Royce. For more than a year after there were groups of his friends hanging about the aerodromes in hope of his return. It rather annoyed the Air Force officers when they landed from a flight that each time a small mob came pressing about the machine, to draw back always disappointed, crying: ‘No Aurans!’
XXIX
He returned to England, arriving in London, after four years’ absence, on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918. Feisal arrived a few weeks later and Lawrence, after first escorting him round England, accompanied him to Paris for the Peace Conference. Lawrence had been appointed by the British Foreign Office as a member of the British Delegation, and he now used the same extraordinary energy that had gone towards winning the war in the Desert for winning the war in the Council Chamber. But he knew well that it was a losing one.
The French had made things difficult for a start by refusing to recognize Feisal as the ruler of Damascus and of the other Syrian cities that they wanted for themselves. And Feisal’s position was not at all a secure one. His only right to take part in the Peace Conference was as representing the ‘ally’ Sherif Hussein, his father, whose claim to call himself King of the Hejaz (the Holy Province and the Red Sea coast as far as Akaba) was alone recognized. All official business had to be transacted in Hussein’s name, though actually no Hejaz business came before the Peace Conference. All discussion was limited to Syria and Mesopotamia, about which Hussein’s right to treat was not admitted by the French. If Hussein and Feisal had been in agreement it would have been easier, but the ambitious narrow-minded old man was most jealous of his son. He wanted to rule a great religious Empire consisting of all the Arabic-speaking parts of the old Turkish Empire, and to make Mecca his capital.
While the war lasted it was advisable not to oppose him too strongly, since unity was necessary in the Arab movement; but when the Armistice came Lawrence set about putting him quietly in his place. Mecca was the worst city in the whole Arabic-speaking world, a hot-bed of religious fanaticism (and also of vice) and, because of its sanctity and its distance from Syria and Mesopotamia, impossible as the capital of any enlightened State. Also the Desert (for Mecca was the Desert) could never rule the settled lands: the settled lands were passing into modern civilization and the Desert would always remain barbarous and primitive.
Sir Henry McMahon, who as High Commissioner of Egypt had concluded the first treaty with Hussein that made him enter the war on the side of the Allies, has told me about Lawrence at Paris. ‘I was appointed,’ he said, ‘as British member of the delegation to Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia to report on the feeling of the peoples concerned as to what governments would be most welcome to them and on the possibility of gratifying their wishes. When I got to Paris nobody seemed to know anything about what was happening; I could not even find out who my colleagues were. The only person who seemed to know every one and everything and to have access to all the Big Three—Clemenceau, Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson—was Lawrence. I don’t know how he did it, but he was in and out of their private rooms all the time and, as he was about the only man who knew the whole Eastern geographical and racial question inside out, they were probably glad of his advice. He found me my colleagues at once, all except the French delegate: but, possibly, the French never intended the delegation to go, for the Frenchman was never appointed and never will be, and nothing ever came of the business.’
Lawrence took Lloyd George into his confidence, a man in whom he found a sympathy for small or oppressed nations that matched his own, and explained to him simply what the problem was. Arab independence had begun in the Desert; as was to be expected, for the Desert is the starting-off point of all great Arab movements. But as soon as it reached the settled countries of Syria and Mesopotamia it had to be stabilized there; the Desert has always made sudden magnificent efforts that in the end tail off into nothing. He wanted Damascus as the settled home of this new Arab independence and he wanted Feisal as the first ruler of the new Syrian state with Damascus as his capital. The French, in exact accordance with the terms of the Sykes-Picot treaty, might be satisfied with having Beyrout and the Lebanon and the north Syrian coast for their own, and with the privilege of assisting the Damascus State with what advice its administrators needed.
Mesopotamia would form another Arab State, or perhaps two, even, and eventually some generations hence when communications by road, rail and air had drawn together the more civilized Arab provinces, there might be a United States of Arabia. Lawrence advised that nothing should now be done to promote early confederation; but that, particularly, nothing should be done to hinder it. The Desert should be left alone to look after itself in the old way without interference from the settled lands of Arabia, or from the rest of the world.
Lloyd George might have agreed to this, but unfortunately the Sykes-Picot Treaty had put Mosul into the sphere of French influence. This did not distress Lawrence, but it threatened ruin to the military occupation of Mesopotamia which the Imperial Government, Bagdad having been won at such cost, intended to turn into a British administered province. So when the case came up before the Council of Ten—present, Clemenceau and Pichon (France), Lloyd George (England), Montagu (Indian Government), Sonnino (Italy) and others—the French were allowed to take the same equivocal attitude towards Syria as the British were taking towards Mesopotamia. Lawrence was present as Feisal’s interpreter at this most eventful meeting and spoke in Arabic, French and English. An amusing incident was Pichon’s speech quoting St. Louis and France’s claims on Syria during the Crusades. Feisal, a successor of Saladin, replied, ‘But pardon me, M. Pichon, which of us won the Crusades?’
The various contradictory pledges which Lawrence had first been shown by the Emir Nuri were then discussed, and finally, after months of intrigue, Feisal and Clemenceau appear to have come to a secret working agreement. Feisal was, with French help, to rule the greater part of inland Syria, from Damascus; the French took Beyrout and the Syrian coast. The Jews were given a home in Palestine, under British protection. But the British kept Mesopotamia and discouraged all agitation there towards Arab independence. Nothing of this agreement, if it was an agreement, was made public during the life of the Peace Conference: but Feisal returned to Syria and the working arrangement began to show itself.
Lord Riddell has kindly given me the following story: ‘After the final debate at Versailles I had a talk with Feisal and Lawrence. The latter ascribed to Feisal the following observation: “In the desert, overtaking a long caravan of camels, you find each camel tied by his nose-rope to the tail of the camel in front of him; but when you reach the head of the string after a long walk you find that it is led by a little donkey!” The implication was of course that the stately ones were dull and lacking in brains, and that the leaders were artful but not profound.’
This was how matters stood at the close of the Peace Conference and Lawrence was not at all satisfied with them: as he clearly showed in his letter to _The Times_ in 1920, printed in Appendix B. In England, at his first coming, he had refused to accept his British decorations. According to an account that he gave me a few months later, he explained personally to his Sovereign that the part he had played in the Arab Revolt was dishonourable to himself and to his country and government. He had, by order, fed the Arabs with false hopes and would now be obliged if he might be quietly relieved of the obligation to accept honours for succeeding in his fraud. He said respectfully as a subject, but firmly as an individual, that he intended to fight by straight means or crooked until His Majesty’s ministers had conceded to the Arabs a fair settlement of their claims. According to this account, to which Lawrence had nothing to add when I submitted my version of it to him recently, for verification, His Majesty, though unwilling to believe that Ministers of the Crown were capable of double-dealing, respected Lawrence’s scruples, permitting him to forgo his decorations. Lawrence expressed his gratitude, and thereupon also returned his foreign decorations to their donors with an account of the circumstances.
Lord Stamfordham, His Majesty’s Private Secretary, to whom I wrote for permission to print this paragraph, has been good enough to get His Majesty’s own recollections of the interview: ‘His Majesty does not remember that Colonel Lawrence’s statement was what you have recorded: but that, in asking permission to decline the proffered decorations, Colonel Lawrence explained in a few words that he had made certain promises to King Feisal: that these promises had not been fulfilled, and consequently, it was quite possible that he might find himself fighting against the British Forces, in which case it would be obviously impossible and wrong to be wearing British Decorations. The King has no recollection of Colonel Lawrence’s saying that the part he had played in the Arab Revolt was dishonourable to himself and to his Country and Government.’
He returned to Cairo during the tail-end of the Peace Conference to collect his diaries and photographs of the war-period and on his way by Handley-Page was in a bad crash at Rome. Both the pilots were killed and Lawrence had three ribs and a collar-bone broken, with other injuries. It was at Paris that he began writing his book _Seven Pillars of Wisdom_, of which the next chapter will treat. In July 1919 he was demobilized and at the conclusion of the Peace Conference returned to London and lived there until November 1919, when he was elected to a seven-year research fellowship at All Souls’ College, Oxford. 1920 he again spent in London.
Meanwhile things were developing politically. After Clemenceau retired, the French Government’s attitude to Syria became stiffer, and the working agreement that had apparently existed was replaced by a veiled state of war. This soon gave an excuse for open hostilities, and Feisal, not himself resisting, was turned out of Damascus. He withdrew to Palestine and thence to Italy and England, where he pleaded to the British Government for help. Nothing could be done for him and he returned to Mecca. Here he lived for some while until he received an invitation, through his father, from influential elements in Bagdad to visit Mesopotamia as their nominee for the now vacant throne of that country. He obtained assurances from the British Government that his acceptance of the throne would be welcome to it; and was duly crowned in Bagdad with the assistance of Sir Percy Cox, the British High Commissioner.
It had seemed after Feisal’s expulsion from Damascus that Lawrence’s worst fears were realized, that having duped the Arabs with false hopes he had been unable even to win them a small degree of independence. But he did not give up hope. Finally, in February 1921, the crisis in Mesopotamia became so acute that Middle Eastern affairs were transferred to the sphere of the Colonial Office and the appointment was made of Mr. Winston Churchill as Colonial Minister. He sent for Lawrence and offered him the post of adviser to himself, with the promise of a fair deal if he would help to put things straight in the East. Lawrence consented on one condition, that the war-time pledges given to the Arabs should at last be honoured. His ‘straight means or crooked’ are plainly given in the following letter which he wrote to me in reply to certain queries of mine as to his motives and intentions during this very obscure period:
‘Events in Mecca had changed much between June 1919, when I found the Coalition Ministry very reluctant to take a liberal line in the Middle East, and March 1921, when Mr. Winston Churchill took over. The slump had come in the City. The Press, with help from many quarters, including mine, was attacking the expense of our war-time commitments in Asia. Lord Curzon’s lack of suppleness and subtlety had enflamed a situation already made difficult by revolt in Mesopotamia, bad feeling in Palestine, disorder in Egypt and the continuing break with Nationalist Turkey. So the Cabinet was half persuaded to make a clean cut of our Middle East responsibilities; to evacuate Mesopotamia, “Milnerize Egypt,” and perhaps give Palestine to a third party. Mr. Churchill was determined to find ways and means of avoiding so complete a reversal of the traditional British attitude. I was at one with him in this attitude: indeed I fancy I went beyond him in my desire to see as many “brown” dominions in the British Empire as there are “white.” It will be a sorry day when our estate stops growing.’
(The Lawrence who wrote that last sentence is difficult to reconcile with the nihilistic Lawrence without national predilections, but both are Lawrence—or rather Shaw—and you can take your choice.)
* * * * *
The War Office (under Sir Henry Wilson) was a strong advocate of Mesopotamian withdrawal, since the minimum cost of military occupation was twenty million pounds a year. Winston Churchill persuaded Sir Hugh Trenchard, the Air Chief of Staff, to undertake military responsibility there for less than a quarter that cost. The Royal Air Force was to be used instead of troops and the Senior Air Officer would command all forces in Irak. This was a new departure in Air history: but Sir Hugh Trenchard was confident in the quality of the men and officers under his command. And Lawrence, who advocated the change with all his powers, believed that such early responsibility would be the making of the young Service. (Lawrence again in a purposeful mood!)
But this policy would only be practicable if it were joined with a liberal measure of Arab self-government controlled by a treaty between Irak (the Arabic name for Mesopotamia) and Great Britain, instead of a Mandate. The Cabinet agreed after an eventful discussion and the new policy brought peace.
‘British and native casualties in the five years since the treaty was made with Irak have only been a few tens, whereas before the treaty they had run to thousands. The Arab Government in Irak, while not wholly free from the diseases of childhood, is steadily improving in competence and self-confidence. There is a progressive reduction in the British personnel there. The country has financial independence in sight. Our aim is its early admission to the responsibility of membership of the League of Nations. Our hope is that it will continue its treaty relations with Great Britain in return for the manifest advantages of intimate connection with so large a firm as the British Empire.
‘I told Lloyd George at Paris that the centre of Arab Independence will eventually be Bagdad, not Damascus, since the future of Mesopotamia is great and the possible development of Syria is small. Syria now has 5,000,000 inhabitants, Irak only 3,000,000. Syria will only have 7,000,000 when Irak has 40,000,000. But I envisaged Damascus as the capital of an Arab State for perhaps twenty years. When the French took it after two years, we had to transfer the focus of Arab nationalism at once to Bagdad; which was difficult, since during the war and armistice period British local policy had been sternly repressive of all nationalist feeling.
‘I take to myself credit for some of Mr. Churchill’s pacification of the Middle East, for while he was carrying it out he had the help of such knowledge and energy as I possess. His was the imagination and courage to take a fresh departure and enough skill and knowledge of political procedure to put his political revolution into operation in the Middle East, and in London, peacefully. When it was in working order, in March 1922, I felt that I had gained every point I wanted. The Arabs had their chance and it was up to them, if they were good enough, to make their own mistakes and profit by them. My object with the Arabs was always to make them stand on their own feet. The period of leading-strings could now come to an end. That’s why I was at last able to abandon politics and enlist. My job was done, as I wrote to Winston Churchill at the time, when leaving an employer who had been for me so considerate as sometimes to seem more like a senior partner than a master. The work I did constructively for him in 1921 and 1922 seems to me, in retrospect, the best I ever did. It somewhat redresses, to my mind, the immoral and unwarrantable risks I took with others’ lives and happiness in 1917–1918.
‘Of course Irak was the main point, since there could not be more than one centre of Arab national feeling; or rather need not be: and it was fit that it should be in the British and not in the French area. But during those years we also decided to stop the subsidies to the Arabian chiefs and put a ring-wall around Arabia, a country which must be reserved as an area of Arabic individualism. So long as our fleet keeps its coasts, Arabia should be at leisure to fight out its own complex and fatal destiny.
‘Incidentally, of course, we sealed the doom of King Hussein. I offered him a treaty in the summer of 1921 which would have saved him the Hejaz had he renounced his pretensions to hegemony over all other Arabic areas: but he clung to his self-assumed title of ‘King of the Arabic Countries.’ So Ibn Saud of Nejd outed him and rules in Hejaz. Ibn Saud is not a system but a despot, ruling by virtue of a dogma. Therefore I approve of him, as I would approve of anything in Arabia which was individualistic, unorganized, unsystematic.
‘Mr. Churchill took a moderate line in Palestine to obtain peace while the Zionist experiment is tried. And in Transjordania he kept our promises to the Arab Revolt and assisted the home-rulers to form a buffer-principality, under the nominal presidency of Feisal’s brother Abdulla, between Palestine and the Desert.
‘So as I say, I got all I wanted (for other people)—the Churchill solution exceeded my one-time hopes—and quitted the game. Whether the Arab national spirit is permanent and dour enough to make itself into a modern state in Irak I don’t know. I think it may, at least. We were in honour bound to give it a sporting chance. Its success would involve the people of Syria in a similar experiment. Arabia will always, I hope, stand out of the movements of the settled parts, as will Palestine too if the Zionists make good. Their problem is the problem of the third generation. Zionist success would enormously reinforce the material development of Arab Syria and Irak.
‘I want you to make it quite clear in your book, if you use all this letter, how from 1916 onwards and especially in Paris I worked against the idea of an Arab Confederation being formed politically before it had become a reality commercially, economically and geographically by the slow pressure of many generations; how I worked to give the Arabs a chance to set up their provincial governments whether in Syria or in Irak; and how in my opinion Winston Churchill’s settlement has honourably fulfilled our war-obligations and my hopes.’