LAWRENCE RECALLED

by MONITOR
LAWRENCE of Arabia was an enigmatic figure in the politics of the Middle East during and after the First World War. David Lean's visually sumptuous film about Lawrence, made in 1962, did little more than emphasize his romantic appeal as a desert warrior who rallied the Arabs to rise up against their Turkish rulers. When he returned to Britain he cultivated obscurity by joining the Royal Tank Corps as “T E Shaw” and later transferred to the RAF. He was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1935. London's Imperial War Museum has just opened an exhibition about Lawrence which shows that his political skills and perceptions were every bit as remarkable as the audacious military deeds for which he is best known. At the end of the 1914-18 war and with the collapse of the Ottoman empire which had ruled over much of the Middle East, Lawrence proposed homelands for the Kurds and Armenians, the end of quasi-colonial rule of Syria and Jordan, and the creation of a large state uniting Syria, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia. “Irak”, comprising the Shia region in the south and the Sunnis around Baghdad, would be placed under British administration. A map drawn by Lawrence showing these plans is on display for the first time at the Imperial War Museum. Lawrence's proposals were designed to reward his Arab allies for their contribution to the Allied victory and were tabled at the Versailles Peace Treaty. But Britain was already committed to giving the Zionists a foothold in Palestine and France had its own ideas about Syria and the country which became Lebanon. However, some of Lawrence's wisdom remains valid: advising on western co-operation with Arab nations during the war he wrote: “Do not try to do too much. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly. It is their war and you are there to help them, not win it for them.”