Lawrence Enters Arabia

After exchanging the usual Oriental compliments over many sweetened cups of Arabian coffee, the first question Lawrence asked Feisal was, “When will your army reach Damascus?”

Continuing Arabs Enter World War I,
our selection from With Lawrence in Arabia by Lowell Thomas published in 1924. The selection is presented in eight easy 5-minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Arabs Enter World War I.

Time: 1916
Place: Jeddah

Some of his superiors at the Savoy Hotel in Cairo were delighted at the prospect of getting rid of this altogether too obstreperous upstart “shavetail” lieutenant, and his request was granted with alacrity. But Lawrence, contrary to the custom of war-worn veterans on leave, did not go sailing down the Nile to the races at Alexandria, or up-stream to Luxor to while away his holiday at the Winter Palace. Instead, he accompanied Ronald Storrs down the Red Sea. On arrival at Jeddah, Lawrence succeeded in getting permission from Grand Shereef Hussein to make a short camel journey inland to the camp of Emir Feisal, third son of the Grand Shereef, who was attempting to keep the fires of revolution alive. The Arab cause looked hopeless. There were not enough bullets left to keep the army in gazelle meat, and the troops were reduced to John the Baptist’s melancholy desert fare of locusts and wild honey. After exchanging the usual Oriental compliments over many sweetened cups of Arabian coffee, the first question Lawrence asked Feisal was, “When will your army reach Damascus?”

The question evidently nonplussed the emir, who gazed gloomily through the tent-flap at the bedraggled remnants of his father’s army. “In sh’Allah,” replied Feisal, stroking his beard. “There is neither power nor might save in Allah, the high, the tremendous! May He look with favor upon our cause. But I fear the gates of Damascus are farther beyond our reach at present than the gates of Paradise. Allah willing, our next step will be an attack on the Turkish garrison at Medina, where we hope to deliver the tomb of the Prophet from our enemies.”

A few days with Emir Feisal convinced Lawrence that it might be possible to reorganize this rabble into an irregular force which might be of assistance to the British army in Egypt and Sinai. So absorbed did he become in working out this idea that when his two weeks’ furlough came to an end, he stayed on in Arabia without even sending apologies to Cairo. From then onward Lawrence was the moving spirit in the Arabian revolution.

When Lieutenant Lawrence arrived the situation was critical. The Turks had rushed an army corps down from Syria to strengthen Medina, and they had sent down mule and camel transport, armored cars, aëroplanes, cavalry, and more artillery with which to stamp out the revolution. An expeditionary force from Medina was already on its way south, to recover Mecca and hang the rebel leaders higher than Haman. To be sure, this advancing army had two hundred and fifty miles of desert to cross, but they would have crossed it had not strange events occurred causing them hurriedly to revise their plans. As the Arab chroniclers recount: “The hosts of Othman, the minions of the usurper califs, advanced defiantly. But God was not with them! Praise be to Allah, the protector of all those who trust in him!”

Lawrence had no definite plan but the thought was in his mind to devise a way of harassing the Turk and attracting the attention of a portion of the Ottoman forces opposing the British to the north in Sinai. He had startled Feisal with the remark that he believed his troops would be in Damascus within two years. “If Allah wills,” had replied the emir with a dubious smile, as he stroked his beard and gazed at his riffraff army lolling in the shade of the date-palms. But something in Lawrence’s quiet manner impressed him with confidence, and he accepted the offer to cooperation. To the young archeologist turned soldier the thought of participating in a desert war appealed greatly. Here he saw an opportunity not only of beating the Germans but of testing the theories of the great military experts whose books had so fascinated him.

Once he had made up his mind to help the Arabs, Lawrence was immediately transformed from a scholarly student of the metaphysical and philosophical side of war to a student of the stern realities of war. To reach Mecca he thought the Turkish expedition would first attempt to drive Feisal’s force out of the hills in order to capture Rabegh, the tiny but strategically important Red Sea port one hundred miles north of Jeddah. Here, behind coral-reefs, under a picturesque grove of palm-trees, were excellent wells. Lawrence’s first plan was to supply the Bedouin irregulars in the hills between Medina and Rabegh with modern rifles and plenty of ammunition, in the hope that they would be able to hold up the advancing Turks in the narrow defiles, until a regular army of Arab townsmen, more amenable to discipline, could be whipped into shape. Next, he planned to intrench them outside Rabegh, where they could cooperate with the British fleet and give battle to the enemy when the latter finally broke through the hills. The Turks, however, upset this scheme with alarming speed. Much sooner than anticipated, and without warning, they pushed straight through the hills as though the Bedouin irregulars were not there. The situation now was even more precarious than when Lawrence first arrived. It seemed to the Arabs as though “the Maker of the Sun and Moon and Stars were guiding the destiny of the enemy.”

It was at this stage in the campaign that Lawrence decided to disregard Foch’s dictum, that the object of modern war is to locate the enemy army and annihilate it. He came to the conclusion that to win a war against the Turks, or any other well-trained troops in the desert, it would be better to imitate the tactics of Hannibal and other military leaders of pre-Napoleonic wars. He realized that in a stand-up fight against the better disciplined Turks the Arabs would be doomed. On the other hand, he figured that if Hussein’s followers confined themselves exclusively to the hit-and-run type of guerrilla warfare, to which they were so thoroughly accustomed, the Turks would be helpless to retaliate. The failure of his first plan opened Lawrence’s eyes, and the situation as he now saw it resolved itself to this:

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