WEBVTT - Part Four: How Lawrence of Arabia Invented Modern War 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:07.880 Also media, what's murdering seventy five men in hand to 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.880 hand combat? My margaret? Have you killed seventy five men 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:13.120 in hand to hand combat? 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.520 I have been told to not comment on this until 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.639 I'm more certain about a few sevs. The other fucking 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.920 follow you into war? So bad? 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.720 Yeah? Yes, yes, boss, where we going to me to 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.680 meet me? Grab my axe, let's go. That's going to 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.879 be conditional for me on what kinds of men you 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.360 count when you're killing? Right? You know, like Outa didn't 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.559 count turks? You know, do you count turks if you 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.280 kill them in hand to hand combat? These are the 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:44.440 questions that I need to know. 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:47.479 You know, chuds are the ones that are not certain count. 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:52.840 You don't count no chuds? Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:54.520 And people think I refer to it as a truck 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.240 because it looks like a truck of chud would drive, 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:57.960 But actually it's just very good at. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:05.280 Anyway. Oh, Audo would have been a truck guy. I 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:12.240 think we can all agree on that. Yeah, long enough 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.959 to see the highlux, I know, it's it's tragic he 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.039 was born for the highlux. Oh my god, can you 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.440 imagine how much Lawrence would have loved the Highlux. 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.520 I got my oil at this guy who was like 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.640 trying to tell me about why it's worth it to 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:26.720 import a highlux. 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.639 Absolutely, you don't me, brother, the. 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:32.720 Cost of importing the He went over all of the 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.240 prices of all of the importing the Highlux, and I 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.400 was like, this no longer seems worth it. I thought 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:38.920 the point of it was that it was cheaper than 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:40.200 the other Toyota trucks. 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.280 Yeah, the point of it is that it's a high Lux, 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:45.480 you know, that's just that's just got some flair you 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:46.240 can't replace. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.760 It has high classiness, it's in the name. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.520 Yeah, I do feel some some I can understand Lawrence 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.680 better now that I've gone into battle in the back 0:01:55.720 --> 0:02:01.880 of a Highlux in the fucking Arab world, driven across Syria. Yeah, 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.360 in an up armored Hilux. Yeah that that that is 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.560 a good life experience to have for really getting t 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.359 E Lawrence. Yeah, it would have been a lot of fun, 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.160 probably if we gotten to blow up a bridge or two, 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.400 but that wouldn't have been helpful in the situation we 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:17.640 were in. 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.760 Now, this a strategic scientifically scientific and I have no 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:22.960 idea how to really do that. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.880 I would just blow up the bridge. Yeah. Yeah. 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:26.280 Uh. 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.240 Now when we discuss T. E. Lawrence, particularly when we 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.240 try to answer the question was he a bastard? You know, 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.680 sitting at our computers in the fall of twenty two? 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.239 Have we been forgetting to do cold opens? Haven't we? Sophie? 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.080 We just do them and then Daniel cuts them in later. 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.519 Daniel cuts them in later. Well, heiro And I don't 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:50.560 know does Dan? Sorry, I just it's fine. Yeah, I 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.920 wonder what Daniel counts. Yeah, it depends. I still don't know. 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.119 I don't know what kind of men Daniel counts when 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.040 he when he when he's killing men. 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:01.280 So she doesn't count men. It's pretty impressive. 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.079 Wow. Wow, only only the women you kill? Okay, Yeah, 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:05.800 that's good to know. 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.640 Would Yeah, that's what Sophie. Just never kills anyone by 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:12.040 Sophie standards. 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:18.680 Woke swashbuckler who only counts the nbs he kills men 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.200 and women don't count to me, just the they thems. 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.160 Each one counts more than one because of the plural. Anyway, 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:28.800 Is this like. 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:32.120 A political ad that plays during baseball games? 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.720 Oh my god, yeah, Jesus Christ. 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:36.680 Okay, far enough left of your jokes. 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:45.320 Yeah, you wind up doing a trump at So when 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.480 we discussed Lawrence while sitting in our computers in the 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:54.640 fall of twenty twenty four, one thing probably stands what 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:57.640 that wasn't even a joke, I know, but so funny. 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:02.320 It's good. Yeah, one thing stands above every other matter, 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.920 which is his support for the Balfour Declaration, particularly his 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.240 support I mean, because that was not made, he did 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:10.920 not help make that, but he is. He is a 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:15.840 supporter of Zionism in this particularly post war period, right 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.280 when all of these European powers give their official support 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.000 for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Lawrence is not initially 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:23.640 on that side, but he's going to wind up on 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.400 that side, right and given what's going on in Gaza 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.560 right now, it's probably impossible to avoid having this dominate 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.080 your thoughts on the man's legacy. And that's not entirely wrong. 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:35.760 We are going to talk about his role here because 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.320 it's significant, but it's important to note that at the 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.320 time his feelings on Zionism are not what any of 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.960 his critics, including in the Arab world, saw as the 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.600 most problematic thing about the man. If you are a 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.880 Westerner or a Turk the top argument in your Lawrence's 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.200 evil ledger probably would have been the war crimes, and 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.800 so we're going to talk about those first. The gist 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.640 of this story is that after Lawrence escape the Turks, 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.680 the forces under his command exhibited increasingly brutal behavior on 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:09.040 the battlefield. He started ordering his soldiers not to take prisoners, 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.359 which is against the law, and in several cases began 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.200 executing wounded men himself as they lay bleeding on the battlefield. 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.840 He would just walk around battlefields afterwards, shooting guys in 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:23.320 the head, doing qu de grass, cooing degraz. Yeah, okay, 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.120 which is you know, bad, You're not supposed to do that. 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.599 I mean, arguably in a lot of these cases that 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:30.960 may have been the kindest thing to do, but it's 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:35.520 not legal to do that. Yeah, so he's cooing some degraz, 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:40.040 he's killing people. Scott Anderson, writing for Smithsonian Magazine, describes 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.599 how his judgment seems to have degraded as well, and 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.440 the general way this often gets credited to, like the 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.640 fact that he has just been gang raped, right that 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.239 like this kind of his mind breaks After that quote, 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.239 he attacked the Turkish troop train, despite being so short 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.240 of weapons that some of his men could only throw 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:58.760 rocks at the enemy. If this was rooted in the 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.039 trauma at Derah's it seems he was at least as 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.800 much driven by the desperate belief that if the Arabs 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.359 could reach Damascus first, then the lies and guilty secrets 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:09.919 he had harbored since coming to Arabia might somehow be 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.680 set right. So that's kind of the debate here, is like, 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.600 is he traumatized because he's just been raped and as 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.400 a result, he's making all of these very rash moves, 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:22.320 He's becoming increasingly brutal in battle. Is it more that 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.160 he's desperate to try and he's traumatized because he knows 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.440 that he's kind of betraying his friends, and he's trying 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.640 to make things right by getting them to Damascus before 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:33.800 the war ends, you know, in order to kind of 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:36.680 cut off Sykes Pico at the knees. Right. 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.360 I think that's a strong argument to me, because he 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:41.719 wants to be a moral man and he knows he's not, 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.000 so he can find a loophole to loophole himself into 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:46.800 morality by killing everyone. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.920 Yeah, yeah, maybe that's the only thing he can do. 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.640 There's also this argument that, like Lawrence describes himself as 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.159 a virgin, and he is someone who his friends in 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.920 sist he has no discernible sexual leanings, and maybe they're 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:02.880 this the fact that it's forced upon him, like he 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.120 has an extra strong reaction to it. We just will 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:11.120 never know, you know, thexual he did go to it, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.280 he did. He went to less rapeye schools than a 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.520 lot of other British boys of his of his era. 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.080 But like, I think that is kind of built into 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.800 a lot of that school system though, But we don't. 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:23.600 I have no evidence as to whether or not any 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.120 anything like that happened to Lawrence. He certainly doesn't write 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.600 about it. Yeah, so even if you hold the argument 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:31.720 that Lawrence light about the rape, and maybe he would 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.240 have led about that in order to explain why he 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.640 was like obsessively trying to get the Arabs to Damascus, 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.960 because that was kind of some like light treason against 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:45.040 his own side. Whatever's going on here, it makes total 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:47.520 sense that his mental state would be degraded. By this point. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.600 He has spent more than half of his time in Arabia, 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.600 deathly ill, sick with plague and heat stroke and catastrophic dehydration. 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.000 He's experienced harrowing combat at close quarters he had, he 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.320 has blown his camel's brains out and been flung into 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.840 the hot desert sands during a battle. So yeah, I mean, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:06.960 just not weird that he's kind of losing it at 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.080 this point. And as Anderson notes, he's also weighed down 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:11.960 with guilt over the fact that all these guys are 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.400 fighting and dying with him, maybe for nothing, because his 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:20.080 government might betray them. This all culminates in late September 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.960 in an attack on a town called Derah, where Lawrence 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.960 had been if he was raped. This is where that happened, right, 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:28.680 So this is part of a general offensive that he 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.480 is carrying out with Allenby that's meant to coordinate with 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.040 an attack by Allenby on Palestine in the north. Right, 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:38.280 Lawrence and his Bedouin allies are supposed to cut off 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:42.280 the Turkish avenues of retreat by taking the railroad junction 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:44.480 at Derah. So one of the arguments here is that 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:46.920 like this is, you know, where he claims to have 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:48.880 been tortured, So maybe what he's about to do is 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:51.719 like him taking vengeance, you know, for that attack. And 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.800 I'm going to quote from Anderson again. After coming upon 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.599 the village of Tafas, where the fleeing Turks had massacred 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.320 many residents. Lawrence ordered his men to give no quarter. 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.679 Throughout that day. The rebels picked apart a retreating column 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.240 of four thousand, slaughtering all they found. But as Lawrence 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.079 doubled back that afternoon, he discovered one unit had missed 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.680 the command and taken two hundred and fifty Turks and 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.719 Germans captive. We turned our Hotchkiss machine gun on the prisoners, 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.560 he noted in his battlefield report, and made an end 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.680 of them. Lawrence was even more explicit about his actions 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.520 that day, and seven pillars. In a madness born of 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.680 the horror of Taphus, we killed and killed, even blowing 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:31.800 in the heads of the fallen and of the animals, 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:38.439 as though their death and running blood could slake our agony. Whoops. Yeah, 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.720 he's going full like corn berserker here. You know, he's 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.200 just massacring people, and it's you know, the people he's 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.439 massacring had also just massacred a bunch of civilians. It's 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.800 a very ugly war like war. Plenty of war crimes 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:56.840 to go around here, right, but this, this slaughter of 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.880 hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prisoners and wounded men 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:03.920 would have been a massive war crime in any theater 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.440 of world wars. To put him in like yeah, belongs 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.800 and behind the bastards, now yeah, that's that's that's an 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.280 international criminal court crime. Right yeah. 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:15.599 Now again, any of the bastards who had on have 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:17.160 killed like three people. 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:23.760 Right right? That said, do I kind of sympathize with him? Still? Yeah, 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:28.240 Like this is just no, I don't know, I just 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.319 don't know how likely it is that most commanders in 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.080 a similar situation, having gone through what he's gone through, 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.160 would have been much better, right, especially since this is 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.960 not entirely Lawrence, by his own admission, is partaking in 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.439 the bloodshed. But a lot of this is just that 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.640 his own troops are so angry at all of these 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.960 war crimes that including on some of their families, right, 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.640 and they're just bent for slaughter now, right, like everyone 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.079 has just lost their minds. The war has gotten that ugly. 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:00.679 So anyway, you know, you can you can parse that 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.080 out morally however you want to. You could judge him 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.559 however you want to. Sitting at your computer. We all 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.280 do to some extent. But yeah, from here, from Dera. 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.480 Lawrence himself moved directly to Damascus, right like, he and 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:18.439 his forces rushed there and they they beat the Turks 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.960 out of Damascus, and they beat European forces to the city. 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.120 Now I have a question, Yeah, how did he get 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.080 out of conscription rape channel? 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.440 He kind of just escapes? Okay, I mean they're not 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.240 they're not great at at at at doing guardings. They 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:39.200 don't know that he's Lawrence of Arabia. Right, he just 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:43.200 sort of bounces, you know, after a while. So this 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.280 was an explicit and a direct attempt to destroy Sykes Picau. 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:48.840 As soon as the city was in their hands, Lawrence 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:53.720 helped organize a provisional Arab government headed by Feisal. Right now, again, 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.280 the Arabs don't really want the Arabs of Syria don't 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.360 really want Faisal in charge of them. They certain don't 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.400 want his dad in charge. But like they have their 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.880 own leaders, and they see they don't really like guys 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:09.120 from Mecca. They write about like these these Arabs in 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.079 Syria who are pissed about this. Some of them are 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.880 like making overtures to the Ottomans because of how unhappy 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.800 they are about Faisal. They kind of see Feisal and 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.840 his dad, this whole family of like guys, the Sharif 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.000 of Mecca, the way like rural Americans talk about like 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.160 people from like San Francisco or you know, DC. You 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.240 know that they have the kind of like Richmond north 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.800 of Richmond talk about them of like these fucking city 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.760 assholes from Mecca coming into Syria and telling us how 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:37.760 to live our goddamn lives. I don't like that any 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.600 better than the Turks, you know. Yeah, And there's actually 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.040 there's this this kind of Zionism is going to play 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:46.199 a weird role in this here because it becomes kind 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.439 of crucial to this conflict in between these different factions 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.520 on the Arab revolt. Right. So, within a few days 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:57.400 of the Arabs taking Damascus, General Allenby arrives and he's 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.480 like provisional government, my ass The French are in charge now, 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.920 and Lawrence like there's really nothing he can do, right 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:07.439 allenb is his superior officer. The British are there with 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.960 like you know, a significant amount of assets, and this 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.280 is you know, kind of shatters him, right, Like he 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:19.079 is so distraught over the fact that all of their work, 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.400 you know, even though they took the city it's just 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.560 been handed over to French control. He said, distraught by this, 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.079 that he begs to be relieved of command by Allen. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.480 Allenb he leaves for London, hell bent on using his 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.560 celebrity to win Western support for an independent Arab nation 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.360 after this. Now, as a note, Lawrence was definitely a 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.480 very famous over in Europe by this point. An American 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:46.040 journalist based in Palestine, Lowell Thomas, had like spotted his 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:47.959 story and been like, this is one of the most 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.720 interesting things happening in the war. It's much more interesting 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.840 than just like recording slaughter at the various trench fronts. 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.320 I'm gonna follow this guy around. I'm gonna take some 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:01.120 video and photographs and whatnot. And he put together like 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:05.440 a lecture show, basically like a slide show with a 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.280 lecture attached to it that runs in movie theaters. It's 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.640 like a matinee hit in England. It's a huge blockbuster 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.760 at the time, like prior to the nineteen sixty Lawrence 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:17.840 of Arabia. This is kind of like the first movie 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.680 version of Lawrence, and it's it's portrayed as journalism, but la, 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.160 you know, Lowell is a he's like a tabloid guy, right, 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.720 Like he is exaggerating, he's kind of outright lying about stuff. 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:33.440 There's some evidence that Lawrence is deeply, deeply unhappy as 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.840 a result of like the kind of attention that Lowell 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.000 draws on him and how much he makes Lawrence the 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.960 center of the story. But he's also able to use 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:46.120 this fame in order to secure meetings with like politicians 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.840 to try and talk up feisal side of things, right 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.440 as during these negotiations over what's going to happen to 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.840 Ottoman territories in the wake of Ottoman collapse. So he's 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.440 he's so he's such a a vocal part of this 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.240 and such like so vocally against Syke's Picot that he 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.040 starts to be seen as a threat from within the 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.600 military and like within the government of the British Empire. 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.040 A lot of them see him as a fame hound 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:15.560 because like this is happening while his movie's a big deal. 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.240 They see him as like he's just some like up 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.400 to junior officer who's gotten way too big for his 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:23.840 breeches and he's trying to ruin this good thing we've 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.800 got with France. This horrible war is finally done and 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.080 We're finally going to get fucking some money a place 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.440 we can plunder right to, to help make up for 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.520 all of the money we spent on this stupid war 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.760 we got our country into, right, and this guy is 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.760 going to fuck it all up right now. The Balfour 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.760 Declaration had been leaked out to the public right around 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:47.680 the same time Sykes Picot had been made public so 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.840 right at the end of nineteen seventeen, and some in 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.760 the British administration during these negotiations in late nineteen eighteen 0:15:54.880 --> 0:16:00.280 nineteen nineteen, saw the Balfour Declaration, which has a complicated reaction, 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.240 especially over in the Arab world, saw it as potentially 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.960 good news for their support of the Husseins, because again, 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.360 Feisal and his dad are wildly unpopular in Syria. Right 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.600 They're seen as these assholes from Mecca trying to lord 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.520 over a place they don't belong, and Lawrence's boss and 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.880 the Intelligence Services Service. One of the masterminds behind the 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.520 whole Arab revolt was a brigadier general named Gilbert Clayton, 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:28.320 and Gilbert saw the Balfour declaration as problematic. He's going 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:30.480 to be the guy who writes most accurately about why 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.040 this is a bad idea, But he also is like 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.840 this could help us with faisal, right, and he writes 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.000 up to date, the Syrian Arab has shown the utmost 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.960 distaste for any idea of a government in which Meccan 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.920 patriarchism has any influence, hence a lack of real sympathy 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.760 with the Sharif. Fear of the jew may cause a 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.480 reproach ma. Right, if we make it clear that we're 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:54.680 going to give the Jews a homeland, the Arabs may 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.240 get so angry that they decide they line up behind 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.440 our guy, who they're not really happy about right now, 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.840 but maybe they're racism against Jewish people will like convince them, 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:08.320 you know which obviously that's an incredibly racist move from Clayton, right, 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.000 Like we'll just use anti Semitism to solve our imperial 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:13.879 problems and get our puppet in charge. 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:15.560 He's pretty classic. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.320 It's pretty classic, right, yeah. Now, Psykes himself tried to 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.920 convince Clayton that the declaration was a positive for Arab independence, 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.560 which Clayton, for all of you know the racism you 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.440 see in his writing, really does care about Arab independence. 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:30.080 He is one of these guys like Lawrence, who is like, 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.400 we made promises to these people and we should keep them. 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.920 Clayton more than Lawrence recognizes, because Lawrence kind of gets 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.800 behind the idea of Zionism. Eventually, Clayton is always like, 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.399 this is a bad idea and we shouldn't have done it. 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.679 But he does get into that. He comes to that 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.320 conclusion also through a very racist way by saying that 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.560 Arabs would be dismayed by knowledge that the Jews quote 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.760 whose superior intelligence and commercial abilities are feared, would take 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.480 over in Palestine. In a different level letter to Gertrude Bell, 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:03.800 the Arab Bureau's Bagdad correspondent, Clayton wrote this, the Arab 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.399 of Syria and Palestine sees the Jew with a free 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.320 hand and the backing of Her Majesty's government, and interprets 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.960 it as meaning the eventual loss of his heritage. Jacob 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.800 and Esau wants more. The Arab is right, and no 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.680 amount of species oratory will humbug them in a matter 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.960 which affects him so vitally. Experience such as I have 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:24.960 gained in this war impels me to deprecate strongly. In 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:29.600 cautious declarations and visionary agreements, we are like men walking 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.040 through an unknown country in a fog, and it behooves 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.680 to feel our way and take care with each step 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:36.120 we take. 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.040 And he is not wrong. 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.600 Yeah, we are men. We shouldn't be doing this in 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.560 part because, like obviously this is going to lead to 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.960 Arabs being displaced from their homes in Palestine, right, Arabs 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.679 recognize this, their right to recognize this, and even by 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.960 sticking our hands into this mess, we are We are 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.800 men walking through an unknown country in a we don't 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:05.080 know what we're doing, and so we shouldn't be doing it, right, Yeah, 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:05.880 which is. 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.840 Yeah, No, that's that's what the British Empire should have 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:09.160 been doing. 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:14.200 Yes, yeah, empire. He is he again, everyone here is racist, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.760 but some of the racists are correct about what's going 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:21.800 to happen. Yeah, right, Bell, who also deserves much more 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:23.800 coverage than we're giving her, good true Bill as a 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.400 fascinating character. This woman who had just like traveled alone 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:29.600 throughout this huge stretch of the Middle East become a 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.240 legitimate expert on the area, a really interesting person, someone 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.400 who knew Lawrence too kind of in his early travels. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.520 Replied that she also hated quote mister Balfour's Zionist pronouncement. 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.560 But Lawrence, whose instincts for this region and its people 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:45.840 were generally much better than this, got caught up in 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.240 the Zionist cause, and he did so in an interesting 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.159 way as part of his backing of the Arab cause. 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:55.640 Right So, during Lawrence's struggle against Syke's Picot in London 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.159 after the war, he came to see European Zionists as 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.520 potential alley the fight for Arab independence. He met with 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.639 Heim Weizmann, head of the English Zionist Federation, who was 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.439 willing to back Lawrence's fight for an Arab state so 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.520 long as Lawrence supported the establishment of a Jewish state. Lawrence, 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.000 by one account, convinced Faisal. By another, Faisal is kind 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.199 of the one who's saying, hey, Lawrence, I want you 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.920 to make overtures to this guy. But either way, Lawrence 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.720 and Faisal get on board with Wiseman and the Zionists 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.680 and they make an agreement. They actually sign an agreement, 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.800 right which if the Zionists support a Faisal led Arab 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.040 state based in Syria, Faisal will support European Jews immigrating 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:40.480 to Palestine. Now, Faisal does not explicitly embrace a Jewish state, 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:43.040 but that was understood to be the result of this. 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:46.679 The treaty between the two of them reads mindful, and 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.920 this is just fascinating reading just in light of where 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.439 we are today, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.280 bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people, and 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.200 realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:03.359 of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.600 in the development of the Arab state in Palestine. It 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.000 continues that the Arab State and Palestine should, in all 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.960 their relations be controlled by the most cordial goodwill. A 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.760 commission would be established to lay out boundaries of the 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.160 Arab state and Palestine. Right, and there's a lot there 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.080