"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity, but the dreamers of day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence

Biography

Early Life

Lawrence was born Thomas Edward Lawrence in Wales in 1888. He was the second of five illegitimate sons born to Sir Thomas Chapman, an Anglo-Irish baronet, and Sarah Junner, who had formerly been the governess to Chapman's four legitimate daughters. Since Lady Chapman refused a divorce the two ran off together and lived as a couple under the assumed surname of Lawrence. T. E. learned his parents secret at the age of 10.

Around 1896 the family had settled in Oxford and the boys attended City of Oxford High School for Boys. Lawrence won a Meyricke Exhibition to study history at Jesus College, Oxford. In 1901 he gained first class honors in final examinations, in part because of his thesis on crusader castles, the research for which had included a walking tour of Palestine and Syria.

In 1905, at the age of 17, Lawrence ran away from home and served for a few weeks with the Royal Garrison Artillery before being bought out. In 1910 he was offered a position as an archaeologist, and through 1914 worked as an assistant at the British Museum's excavation site of the Hittite city Carchemish on the Euphrates. Lawrence's responsibilities included photography, pottery, and managing the local workforce. Here Lawrence learned to speak Arabic and spent a great deal of time learning Arab culture and custom. He also learned how to motivate Arabic workers, with no help from military discipline or colonial authority.

The Beginning of World War I

After the war broke out, Lawrence spent a brief period posted in the Geographical Section of the General Staff in London, but his knowledge and talents got him posted to military intelligence in Cairo fairly quickly, where he became an expert on Arab nationalist movements.

In October of 1916 he was sent on a fact finding mission to the Hedjaz where Hussein, the Sultan of Mecca, had rebelled against Turkish rule. The quality of Lawrence's reports and his empathy for the Arab leaders resulted in his subsequent post as liaison officer to the Arab Revolt. The Arab Revolt was led by Feisal, Hussein's son, with whom Lawrence became good friends.

Lawrence adopted many Arab customs and traditions, and was known for wearing white Arabian garb and riding camels and horses in the desert. His respect for Arab culture and tradition gained him extraordinary respect from the Arabic people in return.

The Hedjaz Campaigns

n the early stages of the Arab Revolt, British and French advisors urged Feisal and his forces to capture Medina and cut the Hedjaz railway, the major Turkish supply line. In the spring of 1917 Feisal's forces moved northward from Yenbo to Wejh and posed a serious threat to Turkish communications. Allied intelligence learned that the Turks planned to leave Medina, which would have thrilled Hussein and the Arab Revolt, but worried the British now because they feared the Turkish force from Medina would join up with Turkish forces on the Palestine front, where the British soldiers were. Therefore the British now requested that the Arabs keep the Turks in Medina.

Lawrence devised a strategy to accomplish just that. He allowed the railway to keep running, but only just - the Arab Revolt conducted frequent guerilla raiding on the railway, halting traffic for only a few days at most each time, but causing withdrawal from Medina to be virtually impossible. This caused large numbers of Turkish workers and soldiers to be deployed along the railway, looking for an enemy who may or may not appear. This kept the Turkish force in Medina bottled up there until the end of the war, impotent.

The Capture of Akaba

With the situation of the Hedjaz railway and Medina satisfactory by mid-1917, Lawrence and Feisal turned their ambitions to extending the revolt to Damascus and beyond. To do this they needed a base further inland, but the problem was how to supply it because no practical route lay at that time in British hands. Lawrence knew the obvious route was for the British to supply the revolt out of Akaba, from the Suez Canal. Akaba was heavily fortified at the Wadi Itm, but Lawrence knew from his visit to Akaba before the war that these fortifications faced the sea only and the city could therefore be easily taken from the landward side. Using local knowledge and tribesmen (Auda ibu Tayi and the Howeitat tribe, desert raiders of local renown) Lawrence and the Arab Revolt took Akaba from the rear and by July of 1917 controlled both the port and the vital mountain passes that enabled the British to supply the Arab Revolt further inland.

Four days after taking Akaba, Lawrence arrived at British headquarters in Cairo with the news and to request supplies, having crossed the Sinai Desert by camel.

Syrian Campaigns

Lawrence was now the key link between General Allenby, the commander of the British forces in Cairo, and Feisal's army. Allenby's plan was to advance northwards, but in his way was the Hedjaz railway (again). In September of 1918 Lawrence and his Arab irregulars cut the line at the crucial moment and also engineered a revolt of the local people. When Allenby advanced, the Turks found their communications cut, their retreating forces harassed on all sides by armed Arab tribesmen, and their supply line destroyed. Their forces were swept back in disarray. This enabled Allenby and the Arab Revolt to capture Damascus.

After the War: Diplomacy

After the war was over, Lawrence attended the Paris Peace Conference as part of Feisal's delegation. He promoted the idea of Arab independence, and sought to convince both his superiors and the British and French governments of the wisdom and justice of this idea, but failed at the time. Britain and France divided up the territories seized from Turkey.

Lawrence's exploits were told to the public by American journalist Lowell Thomas, who was encouraged to do so by Lawrence. Thanks to Thomas' romantic account, Lawrence became a popular hero and this added weight to his political campaign for Arabic independence. This was the only time in Lawrence's life in which he actively sought publicity and gave interviews willingly to promote Arab independence.

Exhausted and disappointed with the results of the post-war treaties, Lawrence returned to England and began work on his memoir about the war, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. By the end of 1920, however, the British colonial administration was causing rebellion in (now) Iraq. Winston Churchill was appointed to find a solution and he persuaded Lawrence to join him as an advisor. Together they established what would become the kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan, and placed Feisal on the throne in Iraq and his brother Abdullah in Jordan (though full independence for the two countries was not granted until 1932 and 1946 respectively).

After the War: Attempts at Anonymity

In 1922 Lawrence resigned from helping Churchill and attempted to disappear. He enlisted in the RAF under the name John Hume Ross, but was found by the press four months later and subsequently discharged. Soon afterward he enlisted in the Tank Corps under the name Thomas Edward Shaw where he served through 1925. In 1926 he transferred back to the RAF and was posted to India.

Rumors in the press of involvement in espionage activities forced Lawrence to return to England in the end of 1928. He was then posted to a flying-boat unit at Plymouth where he specialized in high-speed boats. After witnessing a flying-boat crash and seeing that the rescue launch was too slow to reach the scene, Lawrence became passionate about the RAF adopting new planning-hull design launches, the fastest of their day. These launches were later adopted by the RAF and saved many lives during World War II.

T. E. Lawrence the Author

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom was highly acclaimed and the abridgement Lawrence had been forced to sanction for general publication (Revolt in the Desert) to pay off his bank loan sold extremely well. Lawrence might have become a rich man, but he signed all royalties from the abridgement that remained after the payoff of the bank loan over to charity. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is Lawrence's account of his experiences in Arabia, told as an autobiographical novel, though parts of the book also serve as essays on military strategy, as well as Arab culture and geography.

Encouraged by the success of Seven Pillars, Lawrence wrote his next book, The Mint, between 1927 and 1928. The Mint is a portrait of the initial training of an RAF recruit. Lawrence felt that it passed such harsh judgment on the RAF, however, that he stipulated it not be published until 1950, because he had come to love the service and did not want the reputation of the RAF damaged. After finishing The Mint he accepted a commission to translate The Odyssey, which he finished in 1932. He also translated The Forest Giant, a piece of French fiction, and was a voluminous letter writer, often sending several letters a day.

Sexuality

It is possible that Lawrence was homosexual, but if he was it cannot be definitively proven. Several biographers have claimed that Lawrence was gay, while other biographers have not reached this conclusion. Lawrence did not marry or live with a romantic partner of either gender. (Lawrence himself admitted to never having intercourse with a woman.) We do know that he was close friends with several men, and that some of his writings are homoerotic. This may or may not mean anything.

Lawrence writes in Seven Pillars that in late 1917, while reconnoitering Deraa, he was captured, beaten, and raped by the (male) Turkish garrison commander. The experience shattered him. He wrote in a letter, "'I gave away the only possession we are born into the world with - our bodily integrity." Later in life Lawrence would pay a fellow member of the Tank Corps to beat him. His brother later said in an interview that Lawrence had read in medieval literature about people who quelled sexual longing through beatings.

The End of Lawrence's Life

In March of 1935 Lawrence's twelve year enlistment term came to an end, and he retired to a cottage, Clouds Hill, in Dorset. He wrote in a letter that "I imagine leaves must feel like this after they have fallen from their tree until they die." He planned to start a small press and produce a small edition of The Mint.

Two months after retiring, Lawrence was thrown from his Bough motorcycle when he swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles. He suffered critical head injuries and died six days later, never having regained consciousness. He was 46.

"Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper, to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand."