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As temperatures in Arabia soar, Allenby trains up a new (mostly Indian) Army, while Lawrence keeps the Ottomans busy. But wider political issues start to intrude.

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Map, quotes and photos: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, published in 1926; Lawrence’s personal account of his role in the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Bust photo © John Hammond.

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T. E Lawrence in June 1918By June, the German ‘Spring Off ensive’ on the Western Front was faltering, but not before Allenby’s forces had been stripped of two complete battle-hardened divisions: nine yeomanry regiments and 23 infantry battalions, to reinforce that Front. But with the US Army now at last arriving in France in signifi cant numbers, the Allies began to dream of a victorious spring/summer campaign in 1919, yes 1919!

Allenby and the main British forces on the coastal front between Jaff a and Jericho remained stalled, training up troops newly-arrived from Mesopotamia and India to replace those sent to France. The Arab forces had moved northwards at the end of May along the line of the Hejaz railway capturing Hesa and Faraifra. They were managing to keep hold, but only just, under constant pressure from the opposing Turkish Ottoman forces. Lawrence moved forward to Hesa, and then on to Sultani, to see for himself the Arab successes, travelling in a loop round to Themed and then back to Feisal’s H.Q. at Abu al-Lissan.

1 June – Sultani; 2 June – Um el Rusas [Umm ar-Rasas]; 5 June – Themed; 6 June – Wadi Mojeb [Wadi Mujib]; 7 June – Jurf [Jurf Al Darawish]; 8 June – Aba el Lissan [Abu al-Lissan]‘I explained to Feisal that Nasir’s cutting of the [Hejaz railway] line would endure another month; and, after the Turks had got rid of him, it would be yet a third month before they attacked us at Aba el Lissan. By then our new camels should be fi t for use in an off ensive of our own. I sugg ested that we ask his father, King Hussein, to transfer to Akaba the regular units at present with [Feisal’s brothers] Ali and Abdulla. Their reinforcement would raise us to ten thousand strong, in uniformed men.’‘We would divide them into three parts. The immobile would constitute a retaining force to hold Maan quiet. A thousand, on our new camels, would attack the Deraa-Damascus sector. The balance would form a second expedition, of two or three thousand infantry, to move into the Beni Sakhr country and connect with Allenby at Jericho. The long-distance mounted raid, by taking Deraa or Damascus, would compel the Turks to withdraw from Palestine one division, or even two, to restore their communications. By so weakening the

1918: the road to DamascusJune: diplomatic clarifi cation or confusion?

The road to DamascusMarking the extraordinary trials, triumphs and tribulations of T. E. Lawrence in the last year of the First World War, month by month, in the British army alongside the Arabs fi ghting in the deserts of the Middle East; when the legend of Lawrence of Arabia was born.

Entering Damascus

The British Empire, with support from many Arabs, was fi ghting against the Turkish Ottoman Empire, allies of the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians. This series of leafl ets covers the months leading up to the capture of Damascus from the Turkish army at the beginning of October 1918, which eff ectively signalled the end of the war in the Middle East: the formal Armistice with the Ottoman Turks was signed at the end of October.Some dramatic reversals of fortune in the fi nal year of the campaign took their toll on Lawrence’s already strained nerves. This, and his feelings of guilt around what he saw as the betrayal of his dreams of a pan-Arab empire during the complex post-war peace negotiations, eventually caused the breakdown that brought him in due course to seek solitude at Clouds Hill.

A Jiddah street scene

13-14, 17, 20 June

Map and quotations are taken from Seven Pillars of Wisdom, chapters 96 and 97.

The dates and places in bold [with modern transliterations where it helps] are taken from Appendix 2 of Seven Pillars, in which Lawrence records from his diary where he was overnight.

Not all places mentioned remain visible today.

enemy, we would give Allenby the power to advance his line ... to Nablus.’‘Feisal fell in with the proposal, and gave me letters to his father advising it. Unhappily, the old man [i.e. Hussein] was, nowadays, little inclined to take his advice, out of green-eyed hatred for this son who was doing too well and was being disproportionately helped by the British. For dealing with the King I relied on joint-action by Wingate and Allenby, his paymasters. I decided to go up to Egy pt personally, to press them to write him letters of the necessary stiff ness.’Although unmentioned in Seven Pillars, while Lawrence was away raiding with Nasir, a brief (45 minutes) but historic meeting took place on 4 June at Waheida [Awheeda] between Emir Feisal and Chaim Weizmann, leading Zionist proponent of the ‘Balfour Declaration’ of 2 November 1917 in which the British Government had expressed support for the idea of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, subject to it not harming the interests of ‘existing non-Jewish [90% Arab] communities’. Lawrence had been intended to be interpreter, but in his (accidental or intended) absence, Col. Joyce substituted. Weizmann and Feisal were wary in this fi rst meeting but professed an informal understanding (formalised in January 1919): Feisal supporting limited Jewish settlement in Palestine; the Zionists assisting in the development of the vast Arab empire that Feisal’s father, Hussein, hoped to establish.Lawrence and Feisal must have spoken of this key issue between 8-10 June, but Lawrence was soon off on what proved to be his longest absence from the Arab front line of the War; he was away for over six weeks until 28 July.

10 June – In Arethusa [HMS Arethusa II, fl eet messenger vessel, for passage from Aqaba to Suez]; 12 June – Suez; 13 June – Cairo‘In Cairo, Dawnay agreed both to the transfer of the southern regulars, and to the independent off ensive. We went to Wingate, argued it, and convinced him that the ideas were good. He wrote letters to King Hussein, strongly advising the reinforcement of Feisal. I pressed him to make clear to the King that the continuance of a war-subsidy would depend on his giving eff ect to our advice: but he refused to be stringent, and couched the letters in terms

of politeness, which would be lost on the hard and suspicious old man in Mecca. Yet the eff ort promised so much for us that we went up to Allenby, to beg his help with the King.’

15 June – Alexandria; 17 June – Cairo; 18 June – Sinai; 19 June – At G.H.Q. [Bir Salem, near Ramlah, Palestine]‘At G.H.Q., we felt a remarkable diff erence in the air. The place was, as always, throbbing with energy and hope, but now logic and co-ordination were manifest in an uncommon degree.’ Lawrence had hoped to go to see Allenby directly, but instead found himself having to work through Staff Brigadier-General Bartholomew. ‘We unrolled before him our scheme to start the ball rolling in the autumn, hoping by our pushes to make it possible for him to come in later vigorously to our support. He listened smiling, and said that we were three days too late. Their new army was arriving to time from Mesopotamia and India; prodigious advances in grouping and training were being made. On June the fi fteenth it had been the considered opinion of a private conference that the army would be capable of a ... sustained off ensive in September.’Finally, ‘we went in to Allenby, who said outright that late in September he would make a grand attack ... even to Damascus and Aleppo. Our role [i.e. the Arabs’] would be as laid down in the spring; we must make the Deraa raid on the two thousand new camels. Times and details would be fi xed as the weeks went on, and as Bartholomew’s calculations took shape.’‘I got Allenby’s blessing upon the transfer of Ali’s and Abdulla’s khakhi-clad contingents; and set off , fortifi ed, to Jidda, where I had no more success than I expected.’

20 June – Cairo; 21 June – In Mansurah [SS Mansourah, an Egy ptian government mail steamer, for passage from Suez to Jiddah]; 25 June – Jidda [Jiddah]‘The King had got wind of my purpose and took refuge, on the pretext of Ramadhan, in Mecca, his inaccessible capital. We talked over the telephone, King Hussein sheltering himself behind the incompetence of the operators in the Mecca exchange, whenever the subject turned dangerous. My thronged mind was not in the mood for farce, so I rang off , put Feisal’s, Wingate’s and Allenby’s letters back unopened into my bag and returned to Cairo in the next ship.’ Lawrence left Jiddah, again in the Mansourah, on 1 July, calling in at Wejh on his way back to Suez and then Cairo.

Markers show Lawrence’slocations overnight

15-16 June

19 June

1-7 June

8-9 June

12 June

25-30 June

British military occupationArabs allied to Sharif HusseinArab Sheiks not allied to Hussein but in treaties with Britain

Ottoman military occupation

Pro-Ottoman Arab Sheiks

Main desert areas

British front-line

Hussein’s claim