Lawrence In Arabia Part 29

36 "In many ways": Report to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, August 25, 1917; NARA RG84, Entry 58, Volume 399.

37 "grossly exaggerated": Townley to Balfour, August 10, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3055.

38 Even Aaron Aaronsohn: Aaronsohn, "The Evacuation Menace," undated but late July 1917; PRO-FO 141/805.

39 Of even greater import: Lawrence to Wilson, Intelligence Memo, undated but circa April 21, 1917; PRO-FO 686/6, f. 88.

40 "a highly mobile": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 224.

41 "Everyone was too busy": Ibid., p. 225.

42 "Auda is to travel": Wilson to Clayton, "Note on the Proposed Military Plan of Operations of the Arab Armies," May 1, 1917; PRO-FO 882/6, f. 351.

43 "The element I would": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 226.

44 "We now have a chance": Wilson to Clayton, March 21, 1917; PRO-FO 882/12, f. 199201.

45 When Wilson forwarded: Wingate to Foreign Office, April 27, 1917; MSP-41d.

46 "On 2nd May": Sykes to Wingate, May 5, 1917; MSP-41d.

Chapter 13: Aqaba.

1 "Never doubt Great Britain's": As related by Wilson to Clayton, May 24, 1917; PRO-FO 882/16, f. 113.

2 "His Sherifial Majesty": Wingate to Wilson, July 20, 1917; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 35.

3 Now it required: Lawrence's account of his journey to and capture of Aqaba is drawn from Seven Pillars, book 4, chapters 3944, pp. 227312.

4 After a tense three-hour: Sykes to Wingate, May 23, 1917; MSP-41b, p. 3; slightly different version in PRO-FO 371/3054, f. 329.

5 "Monsieur Picot received": Sykes to Wingate, May 23, 1917; MSP-41b, p. 5; slightly different version in PRO-FO 371/3054, f. 330.

6 Even those senior officials: Tanenbaum, France and the Arab Middle East, 19141920, pp. 1718.

7 "Although Sykes and Picot": Wilson to Clayton, May 25, 1917; PRO-FO 882/16, p. 5.

8 "[Hussein] stated to Faisal": Newcombe, "Note" on Sykes-Picot meeting with King Hussein, May 20, 1917; GLLD 9/9.

9 The only way Hussein: Despite Sykes's repeated a.s.sertions to the contrary, there is ample evidence that he didn't disclose the terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement to King Hussein at their May 1917 meetings. Well into 1918, Cyril Wilson and other British officers in conference with Hussein consistently reported that the king had no knowledge of the part.i.tions of the Arab "nation" called for in that agreement, but instead continued to believe that the far more generous framework specified in the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence remained in effect. To cite only the example discussed here, it's exceedingly hard to imagine that Hussein would have agreed to the Baghdad-Lebanon formulation had he known beforehand of the proposed dispensation of Baghdad province as specified in Sykes-Picot. As Tanenbaum (France and the Arab Middle East, p. 17) points out: "It did not make sense for a leader of a rebellion to ask an outside power to annex the territory for which he was fighting and hoped to rule."

10 In their back-and-forth: McMahon to Hussein, October 24, 1915, as cited by Antonius, The Arab Awakening, p. 420.

11 "for a short time": Report by Political Intelligence Department, Foreign Office, "Memorandum on British Commitments to King Husein [sic]," December 1918; PRO-FO 882/13, p. 7, f. 225.

12 "he knows that Sir Mark": "Note by Sheikh Fuad El Khatib taken down by Lt Col Newcombe," undated but May 1917, p. 3; PRO-FO 882/16, f. 133.

13 "If we are not going to see": Wilson to Clayton, May 24, 1917; PRO-FO 882/16, f. 111.

14 "we are deeply grateful": Faisal Hussein, "To All Our Brethren-The Syrian Arabs," trans. May 28, 1917; SADD Wingate Papers, 145/7/89.

15 "I do not attach very": Clayton to Sykes, July 30, 1917; SADD Clayton Papers, 693/12/30.

16 "short statement of fact": Wilson to Symes, June 20, 1917; PRO-FO 882/16, f. 127. Many historians contend that it was King Hussein and Faisal, not Mark Sykes, who dissembled about the substance of their meetings in May 1917. In The Question of Palestine, Isaiah Friedman wholeheartedly accepts Sykes's version, a.s.serting (p. 206) that at their preliminary, early May meeting, "Feisal's misgivings were set at rest by Sykes's explanation of the Anglo-French Agreement ... The interview with Hussein on 5 May went off equally well." Sykes's only fault, in Friedman's view, was a failure to make a personal record of his and Picot's subsequent talks with Hussein. "For this omission," he writes, "Sykes had to pay the penalty when a year later, to his surprise, Hussein feigned ignorance of the Anglo-French Agreement and pretended to have learned of it first from Djemal Pasha's Damascus speech ... "

Not only Hussein's protestations, but Sykes's own actions, belie this contention. On May 12, 1917, just one week after his first meeting with Hussein, Sykes attended a high-level strategy meeting at Reginald Wingate's Cairo office. At that meeting, Sykes described in detail the agreement he and Picot had reached with the Cairo-based Syrian "delegates" nearly three weeks earlier, but made no mention of the vastly more important accord he had supposedly reached with Hussein just days prior. One reason may have been that this May 12 conference was attended by Colonel Cyril Wilson, the official British liaison to Hussein, and a person uniquely positioned to refute such an a.s.sertion.

As for the subsequent meetings Sykes and Picot held with Hussein, it's difficult to discern any possible motive for two career military officers, Stewart Newcombe and Cyril Wilson, whose missions in the Hejaz would have been made markedly easier if Sykes's account of those meetings were true, to so vehemently refute it.

17 "The whole question": Symes to Wilson, June 26, 1917; PRO-FO 882/16, f. 12930.

18 As for Faisal: Wilson to Clayton, May 20, 1917; SADD Wingate Papers, 145/7/36.

19 "They saw in me": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, pp. 2526.

20 "Can't stand another day": Lawrence as quoted by Wilson, Lawrence, p. 410 n. 40.

21 "Clayton. I've decided": Ibid., p. 410 n. 41.

22 Lawrence's northern: Lawrence, Seven Pillars (Oxford), chapter 51.

23 "Very old, livid": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 546.

24 "I saw that with my answer": Lawrence, Seven Pillars (Oxford), chapter 51.

25 "In other words": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 26.

26 In debriefings: In his debriefing of July 6, 1917, in London, Samuel Edelman, the U.S. consul in Damascus, reported a 25 percent desertion rate among Anatolian Turkish soldiers brought to Syria, a rate surely surpa.s.sed by less loyal elements of the empire; PRO-FO 371/3050.

27 The more perceptive: See PRO-FO 371/3050, File 47710.

28 The spare diary: Prfer, Diary, May 21July 18, 1917; HO.

29 As he reported to: Prfer to Mittwoch, April 12, 1917; NARA T149, Roll 365, Frame 399.

30 "the High Command has": Engle, The Nili Spies, p. 129.

31 Now, in mid-June 1917: The account of William Yale's 1917 return to the United States is drawn from Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 7.

32 The situation was even worse: Yale, "PalestineSyria Situation," to U.S. State Department, June 27, 1917; NARA 763.72/13450.

33 "the disposition of": Yale to Secretary of State Lansing, June 30, 1917; YU Box 2/ Folder 48.

34 "no guns, no base": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 306. For an account of the battle at Aba el Lissan, see also Lawrence, "The Occupation of Akaba," undated; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 6368.

35 Their reports noted: See field reports of Herbert Garland, May 1917; PRO-FO 686/6.

36 "It is somewhat difficult": Dawnay, "Notes on Faisal's Proposed Advance Northward," May 29, 1917; PRO-WO 158/606, f. 43A.

37 By the time Clayton penned: Clayton to Director of Military Intelligence (London), July 5, 1917; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 1.

38 "The enemy had never": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 310.

Chapter 14: Hubris.

1 "Do not try to do": Lawrence, Twenty-Seven Articles, August 1917; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 9397.

2 "nothing has occurred": Clayton to Military Intelligence Director (London), July 11, 1917; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 1823.

3 Ironically, some of: Lawrence's account of his return to Cairo and his first meeting with Allenby is to be found in Seven Pillars, book 5, chapters 55 and 56, pp. 31722.

4 "considerably enhanced": Wingate to Robertson, July 14, 1917; PRO-WO 374/41077.

5 On the opposite side: Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, p. 422.

6 "there is little hope": Lawrence to Clayton, July 10, 1917; PRO-FO 882/16, f. 249.

7 To make use of: Allenby to Robertson, July 16, 1917; PRO-WO 158/634, f. 4A.

8 "The advantages offered": Allenby to Robertson, July 19, 1917; PRO-WO 158/634, f.10A.

9 "A slave brought up": Lawrence, Twenty-Seven Articles, August 1917; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 9397.

10 "are no good": Aaronsohn, Diary, July 1, 1917; ZY.

11 "I no longer had": Ibid., July 2, 1917.

12 his local "representative": Sykes to Graham, May 5, 1917; MSP-41a.

13 So vague had his: Clayton to Sykes, June 22, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3058, f. 156.

14 This the German government: Cecil to Hardinge, June 13, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3058, f. 145.

15 "There can be no doubt": Cecil to Hardinge, June 13, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3058, f. 14648.

16 "very much inclined": Aaronsohn, Diary, July 17, 1917; ZY.

17 "I gather": Wingate to Graham, July 23, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3083, f. 55.

18 In his discussions with Generals: As Clayton wrote to Sykes after interviewing Lawrence in Cairo, "Faisal's name is one to conjure with.... Already he is accepted in practically all of the [Syrian] districts through which Lawrence pa.s.sed." Clayton, July 22, 1917; PRO-FO 882/16, f. 145.

19 "Aqaba had been taken": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 323.

20 As Lawrence explained: Wilson to Clayton, July 29, 1917; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 48.

21 A surprised Wilson: Newcombe quickly tired of his rearguard duties and transferred back to Cairo. He was captured by the Turks in early November 1917 during the EEF offensive in southern Palestine.

22 "The main points": Lawrence, "Report on meeting King Hussein," July 30, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3054, f. 37273.

23 While he was still in Jeddah: Macindoe for Clayton to Military Intelligence Director, July 28, 1917; PRO-WO 141/668, p. 5.

24 "They were anxious": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 326.

25 "absolutely satisfactory": Wilson to Arab Bureau (Cairo), August 6, 1917; PRO-WO 158/634, f. 25A.

26 "Since [British] Egypt kept": Lawrence, Seven Pillars, p. 327.

27 This Yale did: Yale, "Palestine-Syrian Situation," with addendum, July 10, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3050.

28 "with view to subsequent": Foreign Office to Spring-Rice, July 25, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3057.

29 "he was positively": Yardley, American Black Chamber, p. 172.

30 "the collection and examination": Department of State, "History of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security of the United States Department of State," 2011. www.state.gov/doc.u.ments/organization/176705.pdf.

31 "[Yale] is to keep us informed": Harrison to Gunther (American emba.s.sy, London), August 30, 1917; NARA RG59, Box 1047.

32 "I lacked a historical": Yale, It Takes So Long, chapter 8, pp. 1011.

33 "We are glad": Aaronsohn, "The Jewish Colonies," Arab Bulletin no. 64 (September 27, 1917): 38991.

34 "It was an interview": Aaronsohn, Diary, August 12, 1917; ZY.

35 "It might help matters": Wingate to Balfour, August 20, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3053, f. 384.

36 stop her "activities": Engle, The Nili Spies, pp. 15254.

37 Their cavalier manner: The cavalier att.i.tude of the British toward the well-being of their intelligence a.s.sets was amply reflected in Hard Lying, the memoir of the Managem captain, Lewen Weldon. As Weldon noted on p. 195, "We were on the whole extraordinarily lucky with our 'agents.' I don't think more than seven were actually captured. Six of these were hanged and one had his head cut off."

38 "I don't think that any": Lawrence to Clayton, August 27, 1917; PRO-FO 882/7, f. 8892.

39 "colonialism is madness": Sykes to Clayton, July 22, 1917; MSP-69.

40 "the Anglo-French-Arab": Sykes memorandum, "On Mr. Nicholson's [sic] Note Regarding Our Commitments," July 18, 1917; MSP-66.

41 Over time, a growing consensus: Curzon to Hardinge, August 23, 1917; PRO-FO 371/3044, f. 299.