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Eating Soup with a Knife: T.E. Lawrence and Iraq

© Viola Ashford

"War upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife." So said T.E. Lawrence, the glamorous and mysterious figure that Peter O'Toole brought so vividly to life in David Lean's great film, Lawrence of Arabia. Judging by Iraq it looks as though he was, unfortunately, right. At least one important lesson of history has failed to be learnt.

Even the origins of this famous figure were romantic. His father, Thomas Chapman, the 7th Baronet of his line which consisted of Protestant squires in Ireland, ran away with a governess. He already had a wife and four daughters, but after leaving with the governess he had five sons. He hid this illicit relationship from his sons, taking the surname Lawrence and living a seemingly respectably married life. Even though Lawrence' mother had run off with a married man she was also extremely puritanical and religious. When Lawrence found out about all this he was extremely upset. Although he was fond of his mother he found her smothering and his upbringing must have been rather strange. According to one biographer this background probably turned him off women altogether.

Lawrence gained an impressive degree at Oxford where his parents lived. In the course of researching his BA thesis Lawrence travelled widely and was often away from home. This suited his restless and ambitious nature and he eventually decided to pursue a career in the Middle East. The clever young archeologist went to the Middle East. Hogarth, the head of the Arab bureau of British Intelligence, acted as his mentor, and Lawrence eventually became a British military intelligence officer in Egypt.

However, at the start of the First World War, he enlisted in London and also worked there on military matters. For a short time, he worked as a civilian in the intelligence department in London.

Egypt was a British Protectorate but the Ottoman Empire, an ally of Germany, controlled most of the Middle East. Kitchener wanted Lawrence to explore the possibility of assisting a possible Arab revolt. Although he first talked to Prince Hussein of Mecca, he was more impressed with the clever Faisal, one of Hussein's four sons.

Lawrence united warring tribes with his great leadership and with British assistance led a successful rebellion against the powerful and hated Turks. The Arabs soon discovered, however, that they had been mislead. The British wanted much of the Arab world for themselves but Britain and France entered into an agreement as to how they would divide the land between them. Both were extremely interested in the oil capacity of the Middle East. Although Faisal became King of Iraq, then part of Mesopotamia, the country was under British control. When rebellion broke out in 1920 the British "reacted harshly, sending punitive expeditions across the land to burn villages and exact fines. In a new but very effective tactic, their aircraft machine-gunned and bombed from the air. By the end of the year, order had been restored."1.

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