Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia

822 Pages·2011·7.55 MB·English

by  Korda Michael

MICHAEL KORDA

HERO
of Lawrence of Arabia
The Life and Legend
For Margaret, again and always
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
—Arthur Hugh Clough,
“Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth”
I do not pretend to have understood T. E. Lawrence fully, still less to be able to
portray him; there is no brush fine enough to catch the subtleties of his mind,
no aerial viewpoint high enough to bring into one picture the manifold of his
character…. I am not a tractable person or much of a hero-worshipper, but I
could have followed Lawrence over the edge of the world. I loved him for
himself, and also because there seemed to be reborn in him all the lost friends
of my youth…. If genius be, in Emerson’s phrase, “a stellar and undiminishable
something,” whose origin is a mystery and whose essence cannot be defined,
then he was the only man of genius I have ever known.
—John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir),
Pilgrim’s Way
The will is free;
Strong is the soul, and wise and beautiful;
The seeds of godlike power are in us still;
Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will!
—Matthew Arnold,
written in a copy of Emerson’s Essays
He was indeed a dweller upon mountain tops where the air is cold, crisp and
rarefied, and where the view on clear days commands all the Kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them.
—Winston S. Churchill,
on Lawrence
Oh! If only he had died in battle! I have lost my son, but I do not grieve for
him as I do for Lawrence…. I am counted brave, the bravest of my tribe; my
heart was iron, but his was steel. A man whose hand was never closed, but
open…. Tell them…. Tell them in England what I say. Of manhood, the man,
in freedom, free; a mind without equal; I can see no flaw in him.
—Sheikh Hamoudi,
on being told of Lawrence’s death
Contents
Cover
Title Page
List of Maps
Preface
: “Who Is This Extraordinary Pip-Squeak?”
CHAPTER ONE
: Aqaba, 1917: The Making of a Hero
CHAPTER TWO
: “The Family Romance”
CHAPTER THREE
: Oxford, 1907–1910
CHAPTER FOUR
: Carchemish: 1911–1914
CHAPTER FIVE
: Cairo: 1914–1916
CHAPTER SIX
: 1917: “The Uncrowned King of Arabia”
CHAPTER SEVEN
: 1918: Triumph and Tragedy
CHAPTER EIGHT
: In the Great World
CHAPTER NINE
: “Backing into the Limelight”: 1920-1922
CHAPTER TEN
: “Solitary in the Ranks”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
: Apotheosis
CHAPTER TWELVE
: Life after Death
EPILOGUE
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Advance Praise for HERO
ALSO BY MICHAEL KORDA
Illustration Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
List of Maps
The Arab area of the Ottoman Empire in 1914
Turkey’s Lifeline: Schematic map of the vital railway lines in the
Ottoman Empire
Aqaba-Maan zone
The Hejaz Railway
The Northern Theater: The area of the advance of Allenby and the Arab
army on Damascus
The Battle of Tafileh
Sketch map of the Middle East, showing the divisions proposed in the
Sykes-Picot agreement
Lawrence’s own map of his proposals for the Middle East, which he
prepared for the war cabinet in 1918, and for the Paris Peace Conference
in 1919
Preface
It has been ninety-two years since the end of World War I, known
until September 1939 as the Great War. Of the millions who fought
in it, of the millions who died in it, of its many heroes, perhaps the
only one whose name is still remembered in the English-speaking
world is T. E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia.”
There are many reasons for this—even during his own lifetime
Lawrence was transformed into a legend and a myth, the realities of his
accomplishments overshadowed by the bright glare of his fame and
celebrity—and it is the purpose of this book to explore them, as
objectively, and sympathetically, as possible, for Lawrence was from the
beginning a controversial figure, and one who very often did his best to
cover his tracks and mislead his biographers.
Since the British government began to open its files and release what
had hitherto been secret documents in the 1960s, Lawrence’s feats have
been confirmed in meticulous detail. What he wrote that he did, he did
—if anything he underplayed his role in the Arab Revolt, the 1919 Paris
Peace Conference that followed the Allies’ victory, and the British effort
to create a new Middle East out of the shards of the defeated Ottoman
Empire in 1921 and 1922. Many of the problems that confront us in the
Middle East today were foreseen by Lawrence, and he had a direct hand
in some of them. Today, when the Middle East is the main focus of our
attention, and when insurgency, his specialty, is the main weapon of our
adversaries, the story of Lawrence’s life is more important than ever.
As we shall see, he was a man of many gifts: a scholar, an
archaeologist, a writer of genius, a gifted translator, a mapmaker of
considerable talent. But beyond all that he was a creator of nations, of
which two have survived; a diplomat; a soldier of startling originality
and brilliance; an authentic genius at guerrilla warfare; an instinctive
leader of men; and above all, a hero.
We have become used to thinking of heroism as something that simply