Lawrence of Arabia on War: The Campaign in the Desert 1916–18

368 Pages·2020·8.95 MB·english

by  Rob Johnson

Contents
Preface
List of Illustrations
Maps

1 T. E. Lawrence and Contemporary Ideas on War
2 Depth not Face: The Making of an Insurgency
3 Extending the Flank: The Manoeuvre to Wejh
4 Seizing the ‘Kingfisher Moment’: The Learning Curve of Resistance
5 The Indirect Strategy and the Capture of Aqaba
6 Culminating Point at Aqaba
7 Railway Raids and Lawrence’s Conception of Mature Guerrilla Warfare
8 Movement as the Law of Strategy: The Battle of Tafila
9 Fighting Alongside Local Forces
10 By, With and Through: Integrating Local Forces in Allenby’s Campaign
11 Towards Armageddon: Operations Against Deraa
12 Hybrid Warfare: Air and Mobile Operations
13 The Deep Battle: Megiddo and the Final Phase of Guerrilla Operations
14 Lawrence on Strategy and Politics
15 Instrumentalizing Lawrence’s Ideas in Other Wars
16 Rethinking Lawrence and His Ideas on War
Notes
List of Abbreviations
Select Bibliography
Plates
Preface
T. E. Lawrence ‘of Arabia’ is an iconic figure, not only in studies of the First World War, but in the
historiography of guerrilla warfare. Since there are so many excellent biographies of Lawrence, this
book does not seek to retrace the story of his extraordinary life. Instead, it is concerned with three
things: first, Lawrence’s ideas on the nature and practice of war; second, the conduct of his insurgent
operations which gave him experiences that modified his theories; and third, how both his ideas and
his conduct have been instrumentalized by others since the First World War.
The centenary of the conclusion of the Great War in 1918 stimulated much reflection, not only on the
outcomes and costs of that conflict, but also the extent to which it shaped the world thereafter.1
Lawrence was but one figure in that global struggle, though his peripheral campaign took on a greater
significance in the subsequent fortunes of the Middle East. His ideas had even more impact on the
attempts to understand irregular warfare as it reappeared throughout the twentieth century and into our
own times. This presents us with an opportunity to reappraise how theoretical ideas about war are
used, but also, when taken out of their context, how they can generate potentially misleading
deductions.
This study shows the relative significance of Lawrence’s guerrilla operations, which were
dependent on the concurrent military campaign conducted by General Edmund Allenby, the
commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF). It was the EEF that checked, then defeated
the Ottomans in the Levant, and facilitated the Arab forces in the Hejaz, providing us with an
instructive example of how conventional armed forces work with local irregular and regular units.
This book offers some insights on the reactions of the Ottoman Empire to guerrilla war, explaining the
calculations that determined the outcome of Lawrence’s campaign. These elements are often
overshadowed by studies of Lawrence himself, but they are vital if we are to understand the
achievements, and the setbacks, of this remarkable man.
From the outset it is important to emphasize that this is a work that seeks to explain Lawrence’s
ideas on war and their significance: it is a critical study of warfare and the manner in which
Lawrence, and others, made their assessments of what was changing, what was distinctive, and what
was unique to guerrilla operations, to the desert environment, and to the character of war in that
period. The intention is to convey the significance of ‘hybrid warfare’ (that is, guerrilla actions,
combined with psychological warfare and other unconventional methods, alongside conventional
military operations), and the distinctive complexion of the desert campaign, to reveal the relative
importance of local forces in it.
Acknowledgements are due to a great many friends, supporters and scholars. I would especially
like to thank, for their inspiration on the region, the conflict, and the geography of place and mind, not
least in the workshops, conferences, field-trips and archival marathons that I have engaged with them
in: Professor Eugene Rogan, Dr James Kitchen, Dr Neil Faulkner, Dr John Peaty, the late Jeremy
Wilson, Eran Tearosh, Dr John Nagl, Dr Justin Fantazzo, Professor Margaret MacMillan, Professor
Sir Hew Strachan, Dr Metin Gurcan, Professor Himmet Umunc, Professor Mesut Uyar, Dr Tuncay
Yılmazer, Dr Saul Kelly, Dr Adrian Gregory, Dr Todd Greentree, Professor Yakov Ben Haim, Dr
Eado Hecht, Dr Eitan Shamir, Dr Rod Bailey, Dr Johnny Fennell, Professor George Joffe, Daryl
Green, Group Captain John Alexander, Professor Charles Townshend, Professor Sir Lawrence
Freedman, Dr Jonathan Boff, Dr David Murphy, and Professor Gary Sheffield.
I would particularly like to thank Dame Vivien Duffield who has been an incredibly generous
supporter for several years, and together we have assisted a very special team for whom this book
was always intended. I am deeply grateful also to the Gerry Holdsworth Trust for their generosity in
funding, at last minute, part of this project, without which I would not have been able to make a
crucial return trip to the Middle East. Sadly, the civil war in Syria precluded the opportunity of
reaching some of the sites concerned with Lawrence’s campaign, particularly Deraa, but I am very
grateful for all the efforts friends and colleagues made to get me to the other locations. The Ax:Son
Johnson Foundation supported me as a researcher and as Director of the Oxford Changing Character
of War Research Centre throughout the period in which I wrote this work, for which I am immensely
grateful.
I should also like to thank the various collections, museums, libraries and archives that have given
me permission to read, consult, study and reproduce material in this volume. Particular thanks are due
to the Middle East Centre Archive at St Antony’s, Oxford, the Bodleian Library, and the Ashmolean
Museum, as well as Magdalen College, my former college, All Souls, and my own college,
Pembroke. Illustrations appear from several collections, for which I am immensely grateful, including
the Imperial War Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Library of Congress and the Marist
College Special Collection of New York.
I am also hugely grateful to the many friends and comrades of the United States Army and the United
States Marine Corps who have shown such interest in, and support for, this project, and protected
me along the way. I also want to express very special thanks to the Royal Air Force who not only had
an important role to play in the campaign in the Middle East, but who have been very generous,
informative and supportive in furthering my research.
This book is dedicated to Marianne. As you know, the mind is everything.
Rob Johnson, Oxford, 2019
List of Illustrations
1 T. E. Lawrence.
2 Mecca, the first city to be liberated by the Arab revolutionaries.
3 Yanbo, the site of the critical moment of the revolt in 1916.
4 Wejh, the port seized by British and Arab forces.
5 The Hejaz railway.
6 A railway raid.
7 The Egyptian Expeditionary Force.
8 The declaration of jihad in Medina in 1914.
9 Suffolk Yeomanry bivouac on the Gaza–Beersheba line.
10Sharifian forces at Aqaba.
11Colonel Newcombe.
12Arab regulars.
13Talbots and an armoured car in support of Arab irregulars.
14Air power gave critical support to the Arabs.
15Feisal, the commander of the Arab Northern Army.
16Auda abu Tayi flanked by his brothers.
17The Grand Sharif of Mecca, Hussein.
18Turkish troops on the Nablus Road.
19Abdullah ibn Hussein, Ali ibn Hussein and Motlog el Himrieh.
20Field Marshal Sir Edmund Allenby.
21The country east of Aqaba.
22Sharif Nasir and Jafar al-Askari.
23Sir Ronald Henry Amherst Storrs.
24An aerial photograph over the Jordan.
25The Yarmuk Valley.
26The Jordan Valley.
27Azrak: Lawrence’s medieval base in the desert.
28The Imperial Camel Corps.
29Ottoman troops repairing the track at Ma’an.
30Captain Herbert Garland.
31T. E. Lawrence, David Hogarth and Colonel Alan Dawnay.
32Megiddo, September 1918.
33Allenby arrives in Damascus.
34The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
35The Arab delegation at Paris.
36Winston Churchill at the Cairo Conference.
37Basil Liddell Hart.
38The Trans-Jordan Frontier Force.
39Sir Colin McVean Gubbins.
40T. E. Lawrence portrait by Harry Chase.
Maps
THE HEJAZ IN 1917