Page 59 - History of War - Issue 29-16

DESERT REBEL

DESERT REBEL

WORDS TOM GARNER

Lawrence’s story is one of the most unlikely In 1916, the Ottoman Empire was in trouble. suppression of Hussein’s Revolt would be swift
to have emerged from the war. An Oxford- For centuries it had ruled a multicultural and brutal – for the Arab rebels, the stakes
educated archaeologist, his expert knowledge society made up of numerous nationalities and couldn’t have been higher.
of Arabian culture led him to become a liaison religions under an Islamic sultanate. Gradually Britain’s main concern in the region was
of cer between the British and Arabs, who in though, it had begun to impose Turkish protecting the Suez Canal and Egypt from the
1916 rebelled against the rule of the Turkish language and culture on all its subjects, an advancing Turks. In October 1914, Lawrence
Ottoman Empire. approach that was deeply resented by many in had been plucked away from his archaeological
He played a large part in unifying the Arab its majority Arab population. work in Syria and transformed into a British
tribes who then pushed the Turks out of the On 5 June 1916, the spiritual gurehead intelligence of cer, based in the newly formed
Arabian Peninsula, Palestine, Syria and Iraq. of Islam, Sharif Hussein of Mecca, declared Arab Bureau. When the Revolt erupted two
However, Lawrence’s dream of a uni ed Arab a revolt against the Empire. Hussein was years later, he was sent to negotiate a tentative
state were dashed by the backroom ambitions a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed, alliance with the Arab rebels and to pick a
of Britain and France, who subsequently carved which gave his uprising an immediate prestige leader to unite them. This would prove to be a
the Middle East into imperial ‘mandates’. that the Ottomans couldn’t ignore. However, seemingly impossible task. Sharif Hussein may
The Allied betrayal of the Arabs, and the Empire had recently defeated the Allies have been a spiritual leader, but the elderly
Lawrence’s own tortured role in the complex at Gallipoli and was now busy committing theologian was not a warrior or tactician that
political fallout of the Revolt, has largely genocide against its largely Christian Armenian could co-ordinate a military campaign. Even
dominated histories of his life, but his actual subjects. This meant that any Ottoman more challenging were the rebels themselves,
military career between 1917-18 is fascinating
in its own right. Lawrence the soldier was a “AT THE HEIGHT OF WWI, LAWRENCE WAS FIGHTING A BATTLE THAT
military innovator who became a pioneer of
modern guerrilla warfare, despite his complete WAS ALMOST MEDIEVAL IN ITS CONDUCT, BUT IT WORKED”
lack of experience.

An Arab patrol ies
the Shari an ag
during the revolt

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