LL E A D E R S H I P S T R A T E G Y C O N F L I C T L AW R E N C E O F A R A B I A D M AVID URPHY © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com LAWRENCE OF A RABIA LE ADERSHIP STRATEGY CONFLIC T D M I G R AVID URPHY LLUSTRATED BY IUSEPPE AVA © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com CONTENTS Introduction 4 The early years 6 The military life 10 The hour of destiny 14 Opposing commanders 47 Inside the mind 51 When war is done 54 A life in words 60 Further reading 63 Index 64 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com INTRODUCTION Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888–1935), or ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ as he is more commonly known, remains one of the most iconic figures of the 20thcentury. Despite not being a career soldier, his World War I exploits had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Indeed, this amateur soldier was to play a crucial Thomas Edward Lawrence role in the creation of the modern Middle East. Nothing in his early life (1888–1935), later known suggested that he would excel in a military career. At the outbreak of the war, as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Lawrence (usually known as ‘Ned’ to his family and friends) seemed destined Heis photographed here for a career as an archaeologist. To those close to him, he also confessed a in Aqaba in 1917, wearing desire to embark on a career in writing or publishing. Having volunteered Arab robes. This is how forservice in 1914, Lawrence served in relative obscurity until 1916. The Arab most modern enthusiasts Revolt that broke out that year served to catapult Lawrence into a more of the Arab Revolt imagine dramatic phase of military activity. Eventually he would find himself in the him. (IWM Q59314) full glare of the public spotlight because of his wartime exploits. By the end of the war he had been promoted to full colonel and had been highly decorated. Most of his contemporaries were certain that an influential military or political career lay ahead. Instead, Lawrence chose obscurity, adding fuel to the growing public fascination with him and ensuring his status as one of the most enigmatic figures of his time. Lawrence was an extraordinary man by any analysis, and he found himself in the midst of extraordinary events. Once posted to Arabia in 1916, he displayed an uncanny ability to assess the various Arab leaders and later to Opposite: At the outbreak of World War I the Ottoman Empire retained considerable possessions in Europe, Asia and Arabia. These bordered Russia, Persia and British Protectorates in Aden, Kuwait and Bahrain. While Allied forces advanced into Ottoman territory from 1914, the campaigns in locations such as the Sinai, Gallipoli and Mesopotamia did not fare well, while Ottoman control of its possessions in Arabia remained intact. In the months before the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in 1916, Ottoman commanders reinforced their garrisons in Arabia while the main Arab forces gathered near Mecca and Medina. 4 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com The Ottoman Empire, 1914 ROMANIA BULGARIA B lack Sea RUSSIAN C EMPIRE a Istanbul sp Amu Darya i a n (disputed Ankara with Greece) O S e T a (disputed with Italy) T O (Russian zone of influence) Mediterranean CSYePaRUS Damascus M A Euphrates Tigris Baghdad P E R S I A Jerusalem N Cairo I Aqaba I RASHID AMIR (British zone KUWAIT Mudawwarah OF HA’IL of influence) E Nile 129 III (-) M Persia SHtorramit uozf n EGYPT Wejh x BAHRAIN Gulf III P Gulf of 45 (-) Fakhri Pasha IBN’ SAUD Oman Yanbu Medina x I OMAN HASHEMITE SHARIFS IAli & Feisal OF HIJAZ Rabegh x x R R Jidda x E Mecca T x E R R Galib Pasha A e U d HusseinIDRISIDS Q S OF ‘ASIR T Y ANGLO-EGYPTIAN e M P a E SUDAN TAurarkbss/British E(IRtaITliRaEnA) YEMENA D E N P(RBOriTtiE sChT)O R A T E ArSaebaian International frontiers DTuisrpkuisthe dfr fornotnietire r1s923 (where different) FRENCH Aden G ulf of A d e n N Zones of influence and tributary areas SOMALILAND 0 400 miles ITALIAN ABYSSINIA BRITISH SOMALILAND 0 400km SOMALILAND 5 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com encourage them to support the Allied vision for the direction of the revolt. Above all, Lawrence showed himself to have analmost instinctive grasp of guerrilla warfare. While he had little formal military training, he identified correctly his enemy’s weaknesses and devised the best tactics to adopt in attack. Two of Lawrence’s brothers were to die on the Western Front and, although spared the horror of the attritional warfare in that theatre of operations, he emerged from the war profoundly damaged. He retained hopes for greater Arab independence, and the Lawrence on one of his disappointments of the post-war peace conferences exacerbated his personal Brough motorcycles, taken problems. He had effectively withdrawn from active public life by 1922. at RAF Cranwell. During Seeking obscurity in the RAF, he later devoted himself to other projects such World War I he emerged as the development of high-speed rescue craft for the RAF. Lawrence was from relative obscurity and also obsessed with speed, and he owned a series of supercharged Brough became one of the iconic motorcycles during the 1920s and 1930s. He had been retired from the figures of the 20th RAFforjust a few months at the time of his death in 1935. century. He would seek Few, if any, of the commanders of World War I have enjoyed such obscurity once again in his continued interest after their deaths. This unlikely scholar-soldier has later life. (Bodleian continued to fascinate with hardly a year passing without a new study of his Library, Oxford). life being published. Indeed, so much has now been written that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a true sense of Lawrence the man, made doubly difficult by Lawrence’s own complex personality. In purely military terms, he has been recognized as an expert commander of unconventional and guerrilla operations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lawrence’s career has come under the spotlight again in more recent times as coalition forces have struggled to deal with insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although Lawrence fought in a totally different world context, he still has something to offer in his military and political assessments. A new generation of professional soldiers have begun to study the career and writings of this unashamedly amateur soldier. THE EARLY YEARS Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in Tramadoc in North Wales on 16 August 1888. He was born in the final decades of the Victorian era in family circumstances that were far from orthodox. His father was Sir Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath in Ireland. ThisAnglo-Irish gentleman was the product of a distinguished family that had lived in Ireland since the Elizabethan plantations. Lawrence’s mother was Sarah Lawrence, a Scottish-born governess who had entered Sir Thomas 6 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com Chapman’s household in 1879 to serve as nanny and governess to his four daughters. Itis not known when the couple began their affair, but Chapman would eventually leave his wife, his children and his ancestral home to run away with Sarah Lawrence. Together they would have five sons: Montagu Robert (1885), Thomas Edward (1888), William George (1889), Frank (1893) and Arnold Walter (1900). Chapman was never divorced from his wife, so he and Sarah were never married. The couple assumed Sarah’s surname and lived as ‘Mr and Mrs Lawrence’at various locations before settling in Oxford Above: A previously in 1896, where they bought a house on Polstead Road. Lawrence would later unpublished photograph light-heartedly claim to have known of his parents’ circumstances, and ofthe Chapman family therefore his own illegitimacy, from boyhood. It is unclear at what date he residence: South Hill, truly did find this out and it would appear that this facet of his life troubled Delvin, Co. Westmeath. him deeply. Lawrence’s father, Sir Lawrence’s early years in Oxford do not seem to have been totally Thomas Chapman, left this unhappy, however. In 1896 he entered the City of Oxford High School, estate in order to be with where he continued his education until 1907. He proved himself to be an Sarah Lawrence, the intelligent, although not brilliant, student. Unlike many of his peers, he governess to his children. abhorred team sports, preferring to engage in more solitary pursuits such as The woman in this canoeing and cycling. In stature, he would never be impressive, measuring photograph remains just less than 5ft 6in. (168cm) in height. He did however possess considerable unidentified at this strength and powers of endurance,and these qualities would stand to him timebut may have been during his wartime career. Elizabeth Chapman, the deserted wife of Sir Thomas Chapman, or one of his fourdaughters. (Irish Architectural Archive) Left: Sarah Lawrence photographed c.1895 with her first four sons. The ‘Lawrences’ were then living at Langley Lodge in Fawley, on the edge of the New Forest. From left to right, Thomas Edward, Will, Sarah with Frank in her arms and Bob. A fifth son, Arnold (‘Arnie’), was born in 1900. (Bodleian Library, Oxford) 7 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com As a youth, he never considered a career in the military. Fascinated with archaeology and history, he seemed destined to follow an academic career. He travelled to local sites of historical interest and, during a programme of rebuilding in Oxford, collected pieces of interest from workmen that he later presented to the Ashmolean Museum, beginning a long association with that institution. To family and friends he also confessed to an ambition to start a career in fine printing. He was an adventurous traveller, spending the summers of 1906 and 1907 in France studying castles. The initial expeditions he undertook were with his father, but he would later travel alone. Also, around 1905–06, it is believed that he may have run away from home following an argument and joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in Cornwall. His father seems to have bought him out of this enlistment. In 1907 he entered Jesus College, University of Oxford, where he continued Lawrence photographed his studies in medieval castles. He returned to France in the summer of 1908 with Leonard Woolley at and, in the summer of 1909, travelled to Syria to examine some of the the archaeological dig at surviving crusader castles there. Equipped with just a basic rucksack and Carchemish in modern-day a camera, he carried out a walking tour through Syria and Palestine and Syria, then Ottoman covered over 1,770km (1,100 miles), an enterprise of considerable risk at that territory. Lawrence worked time. He was shot at on at least one occasion and on another his death was on this British Museum reported in the Aleppo newspapers. These research trips fuelled his BA thesis, excavation between 1911 entitled The Influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture – to the and 1914 and also spent end of the XIIth century.In his thesis he convincingly argued that developments aperiod on a dig in Egypt. in the east had influenced European castle building rather than vice versa, During this time he gained which had previously been argued as being the case. For this research he was knowledge of this area and awarded a first-class honours degree in 1910. He then returned to the Middle also of Arab languages and East, spending a period at Jebail in modern-day Lebanon, where he took tribal customs. This classes in Arabic. His time at university was also marked by eccentric experience would be of use behaviour of various kinds and he amazed fellow students when he joined to him during the Arab the university’s Officer Training Corps, where he proved himself to be both Revolt. (IWM Q73536) acrack shot and an effective scout. Increasingly, the focus of his gaze was turning to the Middle East, and in November 1910 he was fortunate enough to be given a job on the British Museum’s archaeological dig at Carchemish in Syria, where he worked under D. G. Hogarth of the Ashmolean Museum. He travelled to Syria in early 1911 and, apart from a brief period in England in 1913, he would spend most of the next four years in the Middle East, engaged in archaeological work. Throughout this time he worked in the territory of the Ottoman Empire, a power that by the end 8 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com of1914 would be at war with Britain. As a result he gained much practical knowledge that would later be of use during his wartime career. During his initial period at Carchemish he not only furthered his archaeological career but also improved his knowledge of Arabic. His work as an overseer of the excavations at Carchemish gave him an invaluable insight into the sensibilities and customs of the Arab workmen. All of this would later stand him in good stead. Lawrence also used Carchemish as a base for further exploration, travelling to northern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) in 1911. It has often been suggested that he was already working as a spy at this time and it is reasonably certain that he carried out a reconnaissance of the section of the Berlin–Baghdad Railway near Carchemish that was being built by German engineers. While difficult to Captain (later prove, it is certain that Lawrence gained much experience of a region that Lieutenant-Colonel) he would later revisit in wartime. Stewart Newcombe, Royal After a short period working with the distinguished archaeologist Flinders Engineers. In January and Petrie, Lawrence returned to Carchemish in March 1912. In 1913 he returned February 1914, Lawrence to England for a short stay in Oxford, taking two of his Arab friends, accompanied Newcombe to Dahoum and Hamoudi, for a visit. carry out a survey of Sinai. Lawrence’s real introduction to the world of military intelligence came in While this expedition was January 1914 when he and his colleague, Leonard Woolley, were invited to technically for the join a survey of the Sinai Peninsula. In appearance, this survey was an Palestine Exploration entirely non-military in nature and had been organized by the Palestine Fund, in reality it was for Exploration Fund. In reality it had been ordered by the director of military intelligence purposes. operations in London; it was to assess the possibilities of the Ottoman Army Lawrence would later serve attacking through the Sinai towards Suez, and also the difficulties that would again with Newcombe on be faced by a British force operating in that area. Lawrence and Woolley acted the intelligence staff in as the civilian ‘cover’, while the expedition was actually led by Captain Cairo. (IWM Q58908) Stewart Newcombe, who would later serve with Lawrence in Arabia. While Lawrence enjoyed this period of amateur cloak-and-dagger, as it offered an opportunity to visit Petra, he also gained real experience in military planning and surveying. He was also now known to intelligence officers in Cairo and, on Lawrence volunteering for service in 1914, they would make use of his skills and experience. As the clouds of war gathered, the dig at Carchemish was wound down and Lawrence returned to England. He spent some time working up the archaeological findings of the Sinai expedition with Woolley, and these were published as The Wilderness of Zin (1914). On the outbreak of war he joined the Geographical Section of the General Staff (Intelligence) based in the War Office in London. This was initially in a civilian capacity, but on 26 October he was gazetted into the army as a second lieutenant on the ‘Special List’ – a category reserved for officers with no regimental attachment and hence bound for special duties. Just a few days later, the Ottoman Empire entered 9 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com the war on the side of Germany and Austro-Hungary. By December 1914 Lawrence was in Cairo,where he joined the Intelligence Department. The territory where he had travelled and worked as an archaeologist belonged toa power that was now at war with England. It was hoped that Lawrence could play his part in the campaign against the Ottoman Empire by employing his knowledge of the languages, tribes and terrain of these areas. No one, not even Lawrence himself, could have suspected that he would play so great a role in the campaigns that were to follow. Lawrence began the war attached to the THE MILITARY LIFE intelligence staff in Cairo, serving as a temporary second lieutenant. He Lawrence would have been the first to admit that he was a rank amateur in found his early duties all things military. Although he had served with the Officer Training Corps quite routine but felt he when studying as an undergraduate, he never planned on a military career. was performing a more As a young man with a temporary commission he travelled to Cairo in crucial role after his December 1914, where he joined the intelligence staff at GHQ (general assignment as a liaison headquarters). The next two years were mixed with periods of excitement officer to the Arab Army in and humdrum routine, but during this time he obtained a firm grounding in October 1916. He is intelligence work and also proved himself to be a natural practitioner in this photographed here after field. his promotion to captain. When Lawrence arrived in Cairo, the intelligence section at GHQ was (IWM Q59314A) being expanded. Rooms were taken at the Savoy Hotel to accommodate the growing number of staff. GHQ had maintained a small intelligence staff before the war but by 1918 thishad been expanded to over 700 people. Lawrence served under Colonel Gilbert ‘Bertie’ Clayton, whose second in command was Major (later Colonel) Stewart Newcombe, with whom Lawrence had explored the Sinai earlier in 1914. During the course of the war, the section was responsible for intelligence reporting to a succession of commanders. These included General Sir John Maxwell (1914–15), General Sir Archibald Murray (1915–17) and finally General Sir Edmund Allenby (1917–18), with whom Lawrence would work closely. The intelligence staff also reported to Sir Reginald Wingate, governor-general of the Sudan. Reports from Cairo’s intelligence team were also processed back to London to Lieutenant-General Sir George Macdonagh, director of military intelligence at the War Office. There were also other intelligence agencies at work. The Royal Navy operated its own intelligence section, as did the British High Commission. Additionally, in 1915 the French established an intelligence headquarters, based on Arwad Island off the Libyan coast. 10 © Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com