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Meeting Notes – July 2017
Dr John Peaty visited us to talk about T E Lawrence, the man, the myth and the movie on a supremely well timed (almost entirely accidental) evening, the eve of the centenary of the capture of Aqaba on 6th July 1917!
Lawrence found fame for his work with the Arab forces via his writing and the eventual movie, but was only one of several British Officers working with the Arabs. His quotes are still much used today in the Armed Forces:
“To make war upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife.”
Lawrence performed daring deeds and was a strong leader of men, but also thought deeply about his actions afterwards and wrote extensively on the subject. Basil Liddell-Hart, Robert Graves. Ernest Hemingway and Winston Churchill all admired him – Churchill even wept at Lawrence’s funeral. But the idea that blowing up a railway repeatedly in the middle of a desert would lead to Turkey’s exit from the war and that that, in turn, would lead to Germany’s downfall was ridiculous. In the movie, General Murray calls it, rightly, “a sideshow of a sideshow”, but these were actually Lawrence’s words. He knew the extent of his influence.
In 1920 Lawrence published “The Evolution of a Revolt” in the inaugural issue of the British Army Journal, then, in 1927, he published “Revolt in the Desert”, in essence an abridged version of his seminal “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, that was actually not published until 1935, after Lawrence’s death.
The 1962 movie contains lots of historical inaccuracies, starting with the lead characters – Peter O’Toole was six foot two and that tall lean physique now is synonymous with Lawrence, but Lawrence was actually only five foot five tall! Faisal is portrayed as old, but was actually only 33, just five years older than Lawrence. The film does actually have the standard disclaimer “…any similarity with persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.”! But fact is often stranger than fiction…
The Arab Revolt began in the Hejaz region in June 1916. Mecca was quickly captured and Ta’if surrendered in September 1916. Medina, however, never surrendered and the revolt ground to a halt. Lawrence arrived in October and advised against further attempts to capture Medina. He recommended, instead, hit and run attacks on the railway link to Medina, the only supply route for the garrison.
Aqaba was the last Red Sea port in Turkish hands and its capture would not only remove this logistical asset from the Turks but also bring Arab forces right to the border of Palestine. The capture of Aqaba actually had nothing to do with facilitating supply lines to Faisal, as suggested in the movie. The film also shows the British refusing to provide artillery to the Revolt in order to stifle its success, lest it should go too far. It is true no artillery could be spared from France with the Third Battle of Ypres in full flow, but the Arabs did have some mountain batteries from the Egyptian army, and had used them to great success in the capture of Mecca.
Aquaba was a small fort, with just 80 soldiers and police, with strong defences facing the sea, the logical route for an attack. 54 miles further inland was the main force of around 800 Turkish soldiers. Lawrence’s plan for the capture of Aqaba was to launch a surprise attack from the desert side, attacking the main force first.
On 9th May 1917 Lawrence and the Arab forces leave their base at Wejh and travel north-east into the Nefu Desert, then turn north-east to reach their goal. Arab forces attack the main Turkish defences, but fail to make progress until Auda abu Tayi orders a mounted charge, which causes the Turks to flee. Despite the charge portrayed in the movie, by his own admission, Lawrence’s contribution amounted to him shooting his own camel with his revolver by accident.
With the main Turkish force routed, the army marches unopposed into Aqaba on 6th July.
While the attack from the desert was Lawrence’s idea, the victory itself was down to Auda’s decision to mount the charge. [Auda married 28 times, was wounded 13 times and professed to killing 75 fellow Arabs (not counting Turks!)]
Lawrence then crosses into Sinai to tell GHQ of their success, informing Allenby, who was newly in post there. Lawrence tells Allenby “Francis Bacon said ‘he who commands the sea may take as much or as little of the war as he will’; if the sea is the desert and ships are camels, I command the desert.”
With control of Aqaba, the Arab supply lines were assured and the force became an army.
In the original preface for Seven Pillars, redacted on the advice of George Bernard Shaw before publications, Lawrence admits “my proper share was a minor one. In reality I never had any office among the Arabs, was never in charge of the mission to them.” In the film, the Brighton character actually represents the forty British Officers supporting the whole affair.
The film itself, like Lawrence, had a troubled childhood. The American journalist, Lowell Thomas, spent just two days in Arabia in 1917, but shot enough footage of Lawrence to allow him to produce his film ‘With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia’, which he narrated, that toured the world, making him and Lawrence household names.
In 1934 Alexander Korda, a British film producer, approached Robert Graves to write a screenplay and tried to secure global rights (now and forever, on all media to include that not yet invented!). Winston Churchill was even contracted to assure the historical accuracy. Lawrence was happy with Graves doing the screenplay was adamant that Hollywood should not be involved while he was alive. However, with Lawrence’s untimely death in May the following year, even this restriction was suddenly lifted!
Was Lawrence murdered? Some say he was killed by Tarka the Otter… Lawrence was racing to send a telegram to Henry Williamson, Tarka’s creator, when he crashed!
The screenplay was finally written by Miles Madison and approved by Lawrence’s trustees in 1936. The film was not a history lesson, it was for entertainment, but it was historically accurate in most of its important aspects.
In October 1937 Korda announced the film was to be made, but then the Foreign Office called a halt to the project after protests from Turkey that they were not portrayed in a very good light! The script was duly amended over the course of 1938 but protests by Turkey and unrest in Palestine, where it was to be filmed, continued. As war loomed in Europe, Korda eventually gave up and went to the Sudan to make ‘The Four Feathers’ instead.
After WW2, Sam Spiegel buys the rights and scripts from Korda and works with David Lean on a new script. This was originally written by Michael Wilson, but Lean felt this was too focused on the historical and political aspects so Robert Bolt was hired to re-draft it for a more ‘Hollywood’ feel.
Bolt’s distortions, according to Wilson, meant the following lessons from his original screenplay were lost:
The military victory led only to subsequent failure
No hero actually emerged, as war corrupts
British imperialism was evil and manipulating
Deraa’s rail junction was the key, not Aqaba
Lawrence was a masochist, an egomaniac and was effeminate
The Arab forces dwindled as they moved north.
Upon release, the film was banned in most Arab countries, except Egypt. It was even criticised by Lawrence’s brother, Arnold, who said “almost every event in this film is either fictitious or fictionalised – I should not have recognised my brother.”
Lawrence was a remarkable man, with a remarkable life – it really didn’t need ‘sexing up’ by Hollywood…