Find out about one of the most famous men of the First World War, and how he shaped today's Middle East... On August 8, 1918, 314 men emerged out of the desert and prepared to attack. (This, however, has been disputed by some historians). In fact, much of what turned out to be seemed unlikely at first. Knowledge and control of water sources in the desert tracts was vital for any army crossing the desert. The ideology thus brought into the Saudi Kingdom, known by some as Salafism, is more generally called Wahhabism. This process was in keeping with assurances made by Britain from the Balfour Declaration onwards. The Turks had also begun to lose the ability to defend their empire: “During the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had lost control of large areas of its territory following a series of military defeats. But rather than seeing this growing weakness as a political opportunity, at first, Britain and France were deeply worried about this development. His resting place is in sharp contrast to the majestic treatment he received in the film - he is today buried in a quiet churchyard in the tiny village of Moreton, Dorset. They lost three men to attacks by snakes in the Wadi Sirhan region, while Nuri Shaalan was paid 6,000 pounds sterling in gold for the use of Wadi Sirhan as a base. What’s more, knowing by this point that the British and French were planning to take control of much of northern Arabia after the war, Feisal intended to get there first. It was vital for the survival of the Turkish garrisons in Arabia and would tie down Turkish divisions for the remainder of the war.”. But the latter didn’t show up until January 25, 1917, two days after the Navy had already moved into position and begun their part of the operation. He would also be re-directed northwards to satisfy both his own kingly ambitions and British military purposes.”. [2][3][4], Gilbert Clayton had already told Lawrence, "The move to Aqaba on the part of Feisal is not at present desirable..." This was due to the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence being superseded by the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Before the outbreak of World War I therefore, it seemed that the Ottoman or Turkish Empire was on the brink of collapse, an event that had been predicted by many since the mid-19th century.”. Lawrence was nearly killed in the action after he accidentally shot his camel in the head with his pistol. The following month, Allenby launched his campaign in Syria, the Megiddo offensive. Many of the men were tough farmers who made good shots, ideal foot soldiers in one sense. He is seen looking at his own shadow on the right side of the camel, but in the next shot the shadow is right under the camel. And in typical imperial arrogance, showed no knowledge nor interest in existing communities as borders were arbitrarily drawn for political reasons. One driver remembered that Lawrence, a speed junkie, urged him on and on until the armoured car they were in hit 113 kph (70 miles per hour). At the age of 46, Lawrence crashed his motorcycle while riding near his home. The subsequent tensions that developed between the Jewish and Palestinian communities destabilized the region and this remains the case up to today.”. There were also strategic and political considerations. Kethira was taken on the night of 4 July, aided by a lunar eclipse. From there, with Palestine now within striking distance, Lawrence rushed across the Sinai peninsula to get to his commanding officers in Cairo. (It) was heavily defended and when the ICC had cleared all but one of the Turkish redoubts, RAF planes that were in support bombed the final position and forced its surrender. This process repeated itself at the town of Ta’if, with Egyptian support troops again coming to the aid of Arab besiegers, helping to end the siege on September 22. A further complication was the publication of the Balfour Declaration, in ‘The Times’ on November 7, which proposed the creation of a Jewish state within what was then Palestine. Having travelled widely in the Middle East for his BA dissertation on Crusader castles for Jesus College, Oxford, Lawrence had ended up in the region doing excavation work with the British Museum in Syria after he’d graduated university. Allenby promised Lawrence to do what he could, and subsequently told Robertson, "...even the partial success of Captain Lawrence's scheme would seriously disorganise Turkish railway communications south of Aleppo, while its complete success would destroy effectively his only main artery of communication..."[5]:280[6]:315–21, Aqaba became a major Royal Navy depot, supplying and transporting Feisal's forces upon his arrival on 23 August, as HMS Euryalus and then HMS Humber guarded the port. These were two railway companies, a volunteer cavalry regiment, logistics and medical support, and, later, four infantry regiments – 23, 42, 162 and 178 – assigned to railway protection. In Cairo, Lawrence reported to Clayton and then Allenby, from whom Lawrence requested arms, supplies, an immediate 16,000 pounds in gold to pay debts incurred, and a further 200,000 sovereigns to support his plans to threaten communications with Jerusalem. This allowed “teams to place mines that needed no telltale command cord to detonate them”, which allowed not only tracks but moving locomotives to be blown up. As he did so, more and more tribes joined him until his force was 8,000 strong, the largest Arab army in living memory up to that point. The 5’5” insurgency leader has since, of course, become larger than life after having been immortalised by the 6’2” Peter O’Toole in 1962s ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Although planning to leave some of Arabia for the Arabs, the north of the Middle East was to be carved up between France, Britain and Russia. He found the Arab force and quickly latched onto Emir Feisal, who he perceived to be the most charismatic of the Arab leaders: “On Lawrence’s recommendation, Feisal would receive increasing amounts of support from Britain, in terms of both money and military material. He would oversee the country’s independence from Britain in 1932 only to die rather prematurely at the age of 48 the following year. Lawrence would have to proceed with care. Due to his knowledge of the native Bedouin tribes, British Lieutenant T.E. Murphy theorises that a rape that may have been committed on Lawrence when he was briefly in captivity at Deraa in 1917 could have played a role in brutalising him. Lawrence crossed the Nefud Desert, located in the northwest part of present-day Saudi Arabia and the very southwest section of Jordan. As Murphy explains: “In one of the most spectacular attacks, on 8 August 1918, Major Robin Buxton and his contingent of the Imperial Camel Corps (ICC) captured the station at Mudawwarah. The idea of this next phase was essentially not to destroy the Turkish force at Medina, but to bottle them up. The Bartholomew Archive Map of Lawrence's journey across Arabia. They’d been alienated by increasingly authoritarian rule in the capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul). This is only estimated because it was a remarkably jumbled force. The attack might be nominal, not directed against him, but against his stuff, so it would not seek either his strength or his weakness, but his most accessible material.”, “The noise of the dynamite going was something grand and it is always satisfactory finding one is breaking things.”. A landing strip was built at Kuntilla; and by August 4 the Royal Flying Corps was bombing Maan, Abu al-Lissan, and Fuweilah, supplementing continued attacks by Auda on the Hejaz railway. But get through it they did, organising a force of 500 plus Arabs that swelled to 1,000 as it fought its way through Turkish outposts on the way to Aqaba. Today, the Ottoman territories would encompass the modern Arab states of Jordan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Despite the wartime assurances of the Allies governments, the Hashemites were left to fend for themselves in the face of increasing Saudi opposition.”. (*It would be the assassination Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the next in line to the Austro-Hungarian throne, during a visit to Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that would spark the war). Idea of this financial effort involved getting up-to-date weapons to the city of Petra for the Arab could! Creative liberties taken and events compressed evolved by this stage of the Bedouin. 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