Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Oh what, I don't even know. I don't even know.
Speaker 2: It's like three days before the election.
Speaker 3: I had a milkshake.
Speaker 2: You look so happy when you were drinking it, though. Tired,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, it's great. Tired of everything, my everyone.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: I'm wearing a hoodie.
Speaker 2: I'm wearing a hoodie. You guys, mm hmmm. Oh I
Speaker 2: am good stuff, good stuff. So how's uh, how's everyone doing?
Speaker 2: How's how were y'all feeling.
Speaker 3: The aforementioned high on sugar? Yeah, I'm uh.
Speaker 1: I've worked out really hard today, so I'm a little sore.
Speaker 2: I worked out a bit. I need to finish after this.
Speaker 2: But you know who never works out, Margaret.
Speaker 3: Uh, colonialism and ever world out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's true. And I mean also, none
Speaker 2: of the people in this podcast episode work out anymore
Speaker 2: because they're all they've all been dead for decades. Oh,
Speaker 2: because we're talking about World War One. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2: That more or less worked.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When we last left our friend Lawrence, he had just
Speaker 2: met auDA Abu Tayi of the Howitat tribe and Feisal,
Speaker 2: and auDA had decided that, with Lawrence's help, they were
Speaker 2: going to make an attack on the city of Akaba
Speaker 2: from the north. Now, this is kind of like the
Speaker 2: major central like action scene is beautiful in the movie.
Speaker 2: They they shoot it as this absolutely gorgeous like cavalry charge.
Speaker 2: And the gist of what's happening here is that Akaba
Speaker 2: is this port city. It's got a bunch of guns
Speaker 2: that are trained on the sea, and after the disaster
Speaker 2: that had been you know, Gallipoli, the British aren't really
Speaker 2: interested in trying to take this critical port city by
Speaker 2: like a sea a naval invasion because that just doesn't
Speaker 2: tend to work out very well for them in this period.
Speaker 3: So they have to call upon the riders of Rohan.
Speaker 2: They do have to call upon the riders of Rohan.
Speaker 2: And the reason why this has a chance of working
Speaker 2: is that Lawrence is going to kind of Lawrence's idea
Speaker 2: that he and there's some debate here as to like
Speaker 2: who specifically decided to attack Akaba, but Lawrence seems to
Speaker 2: be the one who is, like, I can take instead
Speaker 2: of like marching in from either of the sides they expect.
Speaker 2: The kind of back of this city is to this
Speaker 2: vast desert that is considered impassable because like how would
Speaker 2: you get a bunch of guys on foot across this right, Like,
Speaker 2: it's just absolutely some of the deadliest terrain on planet Earth.
Speaker 2: And Lawrence is like, if we get a small force,
Speaker 2: you know, we can take this tiny gorilla and it's
Speaker 2: literally just a few dozen guys across this vast desert
Speaker 2: and then cross into the portion of Syria where the
Speaker 2: Hawatat keep their spring pastures, and we can find all
Speaker 2: the people who live in this area, rally them to
Speaker 2: our banner, and attack Akaba. According to Lawrence, when he
Speaker 2: broached this plan to Aouda, Aouda's response was all Gondor Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: where was gondor when the when the Westfold fell? No,
Speaker 2: although he does give like I would say, an equally
Speaker 2: cool response to anything in the Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 2: he says, all things are possible with dynamite and English gold.
Speaker 2: That's an that's an an eternal truth. Enough dynamite and
Speaker 2: English gold, I feel like I could do anything too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: now this is you know, there's a bit of debate
Speaker 2: here as to like the extent to which Lawrence was
Speaker 2: kind of central to all the planning here. In twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: Iraqi historian Ali Alawi published a biography of Faisal, who,
Speaker 2: after the Great Arab Revolt, went on to be the
Speaker 2: first King of Iraq. His reappraisal of Feisal suggests that
Speaker 2: Lawrence was not the one to suggest Akaba as a
Speaker 2: location to attack, and that Feisal made that call on
Speaker 2: his own. Now, I kind of feel like the the
Speaker 2: fact that Lawrence gets a lot gets credit for coming
Speaker 2: up with the idea of going after Akkaba in the
Speaker 2: first place is less Lawrence's fault and more sort of
Speaker 2: the fault of that Peter O'Toole movie. Because I went
Speaker 2: through Seven Pillars of Wisdom and I read the portions
Speaker 2: of the book which discuss Akaba, and there aren't a
Speaker 2: whole lot. There's not a whole lot of a Kaba
Speaker 2: talk in the book, not a whole lot of Akaba Takaba.
Speaker 2: And it does not seem like what's in there from
Speaker 2: what's in there, I know I had to do it.
Speaker 2: I had to do it. It doesn't seem like to
Speaker 2: me like Lawrence was taking credit for the idea itself
Speaker 2: just to attack the city. In fact, he notes that
Speaker 2: Feisal was unable to participate in the attack, which quote
Speaker 2: through the Ungrateful load of this Northern expedition upon myself,
Speaker 2: which sounds like he's saying it was not my idea,
Speaker 2: but Feisal was, you know, had to stay his base
Speaker 2: for this, so I had to like handle the implementation,
Speaker 2: right oka. And he describes the fact that like he
Speaker 2: had to be the one on the ground doing it
Speaker 2: as leading to a dishonest implication, which I interpreted him
Speaker 2: being kind of uncomfortable with being given credit for dreaming
Speaker 2: up and executing the whole campaign.
Speaker 3: Which is probably one of the biggest problems with him
Speaker 3: in general, right, is how people like view him as
Speaker 3: like the one white guy who saved everyone or right right?
Speaker 2: Which is I mean? And I hope it's hard in
Speaker 2: a podcast episode focused on Lawrence, because there's so many
Speaker 2: people involved on every side of this to not have
Speaker 2: it seem like you are. I mean. And he does
Speaker 2: play a central role, but he's also not the only
Speaker 2: shot guy. He's not the only shot he's certainly not
Speaker 2: the major shot collar on the British side either, right,
Speaker 2: Like General Allenby up in Palestine is making a lot
Speaker 2: of calls and making a lot of direction, Feisal is
Speaker 2: a major player here, and I think actually seven Pillars
Speaker 2: gives a pretty fair accounting of how that all actually
Speaker 2: worked out, and despite how central Akaba is to the movie,
Speaker 2: the actual battle the capture of the city only merits
Speaker 2: a couple of sentences in but really just a sentence
Speaker 2: because all he writes about it in the book is
Speaker 2: we tricked the Turks and entered Akaba with good fortune, right,
Speaker 2: which is not like to be blown up into the
Speaker 2: absolute like center of this like four hour epic movie.
Speaker 2: Very funny is this?
Speaker 3: Now, they didn't do this with thirty six guys. They
Speaker 3: did this, but the thirty six guys went and got
Speaker 3: out and.
Speaker 2: Got other guys. Right. It was the thirty six or
Speaker 2: so far, I think it was like forty five or
Speaker 2: whatever that crossed the desert. And this is this is
Speaker 2: an amazing feat. It's like one of the most impressive
Speaker 2: feats of insurgent warfare because they they cross this massive,
Speaker 2: absolutely merciless desert with just literally nothing but what they
Speaker 2: are able to carry on them with their camels. Lawrence
Speaker 2: and forty five men and each of his fighters. All
Speaker 2: they have on them is a forty five pound sack
Speaker 2: of a flower and all of the water they can carry.
Speaker 2: That's all they have. With them to keep them alive,
Speaker 2: rubber heroes. Just a huge sack of flower. Well, it
Speaker 2: won't go bad, you know, not in the time that
Speaker 2: you're out there. And I guess, like, yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: all you got, flour and water to keep you moving.
Speaker 3: I mean sometimes raw calories will do. She said, high
Speaker 3: on sugar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's it's completely changed my prepping load out.
Speaker 2: All I keep in my truck is ninety pounds of
Speaker 2: flour in a bunch of water.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And the camel trailer was a good touch.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I do have a camel.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's miserable here, a horrible place to have a camel.
Speaker 2: They do not do well in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3: It's like huskies in New Orleans.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think a big part of like why Akaba
Speaker 2: gets so so much focus is that it is kind
Speaker 2: of the first time Lawrence becomes a celebrity. Because at
Speaker 2: the time in which they successfully take Akaba, the Brits
Speaker 2: are kind of hungry for a win. The Western Front
Speaker 2: is mostly bad, Like even the good news is really
Speaker 2: bad news. Gallipoli was this catastrophe, and so the fact
Speaker 2: that like this is they're going to take this strategically
Speaker 2: important city from the Turks quite easily is a big deal.
Speaker 2: So after two hideous months, it takes them two months
Speaker 2: to cross the desert. Like that's how long they're living
Speaker 2: off with a sack of flower desert oased a huge desert. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like this is an incredible feat. Lawrence and his guys
Speaker 2: reach the outskirts of Akaba, and by the time they
Speaker 2: get to the city itself, their numbers have grown to
Speaker 2: about a thousand. They recruit all these guys from the
Speaker 2: local tribes in the area and the Turks, who were
Speaker 2: slightly more competent in real life than in the movies.
Speaker 2: The movie just shows Lawrence and his guy's writing and
Speaker 2: this glorious rowhim cavalry charge and they just smash the Turks.
Speaker 2: That's not at all what happens. They don't even actually
Speaker 2: fight in Akaba. What happens is the Turks send a
Speaker 2: five hundred and fifty man relief force to bolster a
Speaker 2: Kapa's defense, and before they can get to the city,
Speaker 2: Lawrence and his cavalry fall upon them in Ambush fort
Speaker 2: or forty or so miles north of the city, in
Speaker 2: a place named Wadi Abba Alissan. And this battle, there's
Speaker 2: like a kind of funny like clown shit moment and
Speaker 2: that like it starts with this again very lord of
Speaker 2: the Ring shit. There's this argument between Lawrence and I
Speaker 2: think it's Outa about like who's going to attack where first,
Speaker 2: And finally Outa and his guy's charge in on one side,
Speaker 2: and so Lawrence is like, fuck, we have to charge
Speaker 2: it on the other, like just go, just go, just go,
Speaker 2: you know, we can't let them like beat us to there.
Speaker 2: And then as they're running, Lawrence is just like like
Speaker 2: emptying his pistol like while charging on campmel back and
Speaker 2: he shoots his camel in the head. auDA loses his
Speaker 2: camel too. Outa has like fourteen bullet holes in his
Speaker 2: gear when this battle ends, and I don't think any
Speaker 2: of them actually hit his body. Like this guy is
Speaker 2: just a like a fucking dull key Character's amazing. He's
Speaker 2: got blot armor. Yes, he's got to. He's the main character.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah. So as much of a shit show as
Speaker 2: that kind of sounds like, the battle goes incredibly well.
Speaker 2: They kill like three hundred something Turkish soldiers, absolutely destroy
Speaker 2: this entire force, and Lawrence loses. Lawrence and and out
Speaker 2: loose two men. Wow, yeah, which is like that's a
Speaker 2: that's a big dub. That's about as well as the
Speaker 2: battle could go. Yeah, so that's part of why this
Speaker 2: becomes so like famous, you know overseas is like, wow,
Speaker 2: what a fucking what a fucking coup. Now.
Speaker 3: I hope it was a different camel than the one
Speaker 3: that took him all the way across the desert. I
Speaker 3: hope you like switch in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Aerra Gord like charging at the fucking Battle of
Speaker 2: pelenor Fields and excellently cuts fucking horses head off. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Gandolf blasts a lightning bolt in the shadow facts. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the King of Horses just tumbling as they hit the
Speaker 2: Orc lines. I do also like to imagine that in
Speaker 2: like Aerra Gorn's version of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, like
Speaker 2: the whole Battle of Helm's Deep is just the Orcs
Speaker 2: attack that said Helm's Deep and we won. We figured
Speaker 2: it out, We figured it out, it was fine, our
Speaker 2: friends came.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that is kind of like because Gandalf goes
Speaker 3: off to get help, right, Yeah, so he's just like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: he is the equivalent to him going through the desert anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, now a big part of why Lawrence had
Speaker 2: been so motivated to take a Kaba because like there
Speaker 2: was debate, you know, should we should the French help
Speaker 2: us out with this? Are the British going to like,
Speaker 2: you know, attempt some sort of like landing Lawrence doesn't
Speaker 2: want any Europeans in the city because at this point
Speaker 2: there's a lot of debate. We don't really know when
Speaker 2: he became aware of the sikes Pico agreement, which we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about and explain here, but that's basically
Speaker 2: the British French agreement that like split up the Middle
Speaker 2: East under their spheres of influence. Right, we don't know
Speaker 2: when Lawrence knew about it, But the actual answer is
Speaker 2: probably that doesn't really matter, because he was aware of
Speaker 2: the debate around what became sikes Picot right from pretty
Speaker 2: much the beginning. So maybe he didn't know until late November,
Speaker 2: you know, nineteen seventeen, when it got leaked out that
Speaker 2: like this specific agreement had been signed, but he knew
Speaker 2: that his leaders and the French were talking about carving
Speaker 2: up the Arab world and he didn't want that to happen. Right,
Speaker 2: He was okay with the idea of the British having
Speaker 2: a sphere of influence in the Arab world. He didn't
Speaker 2: want the French because again the French the genocide and stuff,
Speaker 2: he's not happy with them, and he's in general like
Speaker 2: he feels like there's this guilt that he's got kind
Speaker 2: of this whole time with the idea that like, I
Speaker 2: am fighting for Arab independence and I'm pretty sure my
Speaker 2: side is going to betray these people, right, that we're
Speaker 2: not going to live up to our promises. So a
Speaker 2: big part of why he wants to take Akaba and
Speaker 2: he wants the Arabs to take Akaba is the more
Speaker 2: cities that they are in military control of when this
Speaker 2: thing ends, the better their odds of keeping those cities
Speaker 2: under their control. Right, Like, if the British or the
Speaker 2: French occupy Akaba, there's no getting them out, you know,
Speaker 2: like they're not going to lead, right, They're gonna set
Speaker 2: us a sheep.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, to do some terrorism in order to get
Speaker 3: the British or the French to lead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But whereas you know, if if the Arabs are
Speaker 2: running Akaba like they're running Mecca, and then the French
Speaker 2: are like, okay, well we're gonna come in there. It's
Speaker 2: a lot easier to be like, well, no, like we already,
Speaker 2: we already have this set up. We're good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a mind fuck for Lawrence because yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: like at least this version of him that's being presented,
Speaker 3: which makes sense to me. Yeah, yeah, he wants what's best,
Speaker 3: but he's like working within a flawed system and he
Speaker 3: knows that not just a flaw system, but an evil system. Yes,
Speaker 3: and he's like, oh, this is going to go badly, yes,
Speaker 3: but still being like, well it's better than letting the Turks?
Speaker 2: What else am I gonna do? It's he's he is.
Speaker 2: He is in a very complicated situation, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot to say about He is kind of lying to
Speaker 2: all of these Arab guys that he claims to love
Speaker 2: and consider brothers, right, He's he is not telling them
Speaker 2: the full truth, but he is also lying and actively
Speaker 2: kind of betraying England, like in a way because he
Speaker 2: he's actively trying to like he's not telling his superior officers.
Speaker 2: He didn't tell them that he's planning to even attack
Speaker 2: Akaba this way, right, Like they don't find out until
Speaker 2: the city gets taken because he doesn't want them to
Speaker 2: make a move that would put them in the city. Right,
Speaker 2: So he is kind of he's kind of I mean,
Speaker 2: he's he's the situation he's in. He's kind of fucking
Speaker 2: over everyone to some extent. But I think he is
Speaker 2: overall trying to trying to secure what he sees as
Speaker 2: a good outcome for the Arabs, right again, doing the
Speaker 2: paternalistic thing. If he's not going to tell them necessarily
Speaker 2: he does. There's some evidence that he eventually does kind
Speaker 2: of that he does talk to like come out about
Speaker 2: some of this to like Faisal, But it's all very
Speaker 2: murky right Like again, this is skulduggery and spycraft.
Speaker 3: I mean, I want the sixteen year old to have
Speaker 3: been secretly planning the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Right right. Yeah. Unfortunately we don't get a happy story
Speaker 2: ending for Dome. Ok. Yeah, it's a bummer. So the
Speaker 2: British government spins the Battle of Akaba into this like
Speaker 2: massive thing for them because they really needed the good propaganda.
Speaker 2: And when they start doing this, Lawrence he's got this
Speaker 2: keen instinctive understanding of the moment that he inhabited. One
Speaker 2: of the things that makes him like such a such
Speaker 2: a an incredible figure here is that he has an
Speaker 2: understanding not just of all these dynamics of insurgent warfare,
Speaker 2: but of how propaganda plays into insurgent warfare and plays
Speaker 2: into actually securing victory here. And he knows that now
Speaker 2: that the British are invested in his success because they
Speaker 2: need these wins, this is my best chance to get them,
Speaker 2: to force them to deliver guns and support from my
Speaker 2: Arab allies, which will allow them to take and hold
Speaker 2: more cities, which is going to give them the best
Speaker 2: odds of winning a state of their own and not
Speaker 2: just being cut apart by the great powers. So again,
Speaker 2: Lawrence is kind of aware of the broad strip strokes
Speaker 2: of Syke's Pico. And to be clear, Sykes Pico never
Speaker 2: actually gets instituted. When we talk about these significance. It's
Speaker 2: not because they actually do Sykes Picot. It's because Sikes
Speaker 2: Pico is an evidence of the ways in which the
Speaker 2: British and French are talking about carving up the Middle East,
Speaker 2: and what finally gets done looks a lot like what
Speaker 2: Sykes Picot was planned to be, right, but it's not
Speaker 2: exactly the same thing. Just to be clear here, because
Speaker 2: like actual scholars will be like well, they never really did,
Speaker 2: Sykes Picicau. It's just what happened was very similar, and
Speaker 2: it's evidence that this is how they'd been talking, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: for a long time. So at this point, the Brits
Speaker 2: are still reeling from several failed assaults on Jerusalem, where
Speaker 2: the Turks had beaten them back and established a dusty
Speaker 2: desert version of the trench stalemate on the Western Front.
Speaker 2: A general named George Allenby was brought in to clean
Speaker 2: up the mess. And Alanby is more competent than most
Speaker 2: British generals, we'll say that, right, Like, not that he's
Speaker 2: got a spotless record here, but he's definitely like better
Speaker 2: than the guys who had been doing this before. And
Speaker 2: Lawrence knew that, you know. Once Allenby comes in as
Speaker 2: the only British officer with a major victory behind him,
Speaker 2: he was in a position to get a lot out
Speaker 2: of it new boss. So he travels to where ALANB
Speaker 2: is and I think I think Allenby's and Palestine at
Speaker 2: this point, and he sits down with his boss to
Speaker 2: get alan B to send guns to his men. Lawrence's
Speaker 2: motivation here, according to Scott Anderson, was to sell allan
Speaker 2: B the World War One general equivalent of heroin, which
Speaker 2: is a promise that he can break a stalemate in front. Right,
Speaker 2: Lawrence is like, I can stop the Turks from getting
Speaker 2: relief forces from Medina up to I think Jerusalem. And
Speaker 2: I can also, like basically ensure that you have as
Speaker 2: good a chance to break this stalemate as possible by
Speaker 2: carrying out my own offenses that pulls Turkish strength away. Right,
Speaker 2: Just give me the guns, Just give me the guns.
Speaker 2: And here's how Anderson describes it. Lawrence vastly exaggerated both
Speaker 2: the strength and capability of those rebels already under arms
Speaker 2: to paint an enticing picture of a military juggernaut, the
Speaker 2: British advancing up the Palestine coast as the Arabs took
Speaker 2: the fight to the Syrian interior. Now that's succinct and
Speaker 2: overall accurate. But Laura, here's his own account of his
Speaker 2: meeting with Allenby and Seven Pillars is much more colorful.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to read that here because I just
Speaker 2: really like the guy's writing. It was a comic interview.
Speaker 2: For Alan b was physically large and confident and morally
Speaker 2: so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow
Speaker 2: to him. He sat in his chair looking at me,
Speaker 2: not straight as his custom was, but sideways, puzzled. He
Speaker 2: was newly from France, where for years he had been
Speaker 2: a tooth of the great machine grinding the enemy. He
Speaker 2: was full of Western ideas of gunpowder and weight, the
Speaker 2: worst training for our war. But as a cavalryman, was
Speaker 2: already half persuaded to throw up the new school in
Speaker 2: this different world of Asia and accompany Donne and chetwode
Speaker 2: along the worn road of maneuver and movement. Yet he
Speaker 2: was hardly prepared for anything so odd as myself, a
Speaker 2: little barefooted silk skirted man offering to hobble the enemy
Speaker 2: by his preaching, if given stores and arms and a
Speaker 2: fund of two hundred thousand sovereigns to convince and control
Speaker 2: his converts. Alan b could not make out how much
Speaker 2: was genuine performer and how much Charloton. The problem was
Speaker 2: working behind his eyes, and I left him unhelped to
Speaker 2: solve it.
Speaker 3: WHOA I left him unhelped.
Speaker 2: I loved the way he writes.
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, I was lying him to figure it out.
Speaker 2: He knew he knew I was, but he didn't know
Speaker 2: how much not my job to figure that out for
Speaker 2: him anyway. You know what I'm not gonna leave you
Speaker 2: unhelped to do, listener is purchase the products and services
Speaker 2: that support this podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna spend my money on gambling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's where Lawrence would spend all of those
Speaker 2: those sovereigns. You know that, really money is always on gambling. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: gamble out with your handle out, I don't know whatever.
Speaker 2: Fuck it. Ah, we're back and we're talking t E. Lawrence.
Speaker 2: So Lawrence is, you know, too canny to everything he Lauren,
Speaker 2: t He Lawrence, that's right, t He because he's sneaky. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so his own ambitions are a lot more modest than
Speaker 2: what he's trying to sell. Alan beyond right, he doesn't
Speaker 2: he doesn't really believe, you know, he knows the reality
Speaker 2: of the strength of his forces, and he wants all
Speaker 2: these guns to build a more disciplined insurgent movement that
Speaker 2: will be kind of the core of this Arab state, right,
Speaker 2: and part of what he wants, Like he's he's kind
Speaker 2: of less focused on these big offensives that Alan be
Speaker 2: wants because he understands that the tactics these Western Front
Speaker 2: tactics had led his you know, were not the way
Speaker 2: to win in the desert. So after Akaba he takes
Speaker 2: he embarks on yet another like historically significant recon campaign.
Speaker 2: He takes two men with him and alone against a
Speaker 2: vast desert. They travel like a thousand miles or something like,
Speaker 2: this massive journey scouting out all of these Turkish positions.
Speaker 2: The whole operation was inspired by a recognition on Lawrence's
Speaker 2: part that thus far the war had involved haphazard playing
Speaker 2: with men in movement, and he saw that this had
Speaker 2: worked for them, but largely out of luck. And quote
Speaker 2: vowed to know henceforth before I moved where I was
Speaker 2: going and by what roads.
Speaker 3: No delegator.
Speaker 2: This guy, he is not. He does a lot on
Speaker 2: his own, like he. I think part of it is
Speaker 2: that he can't really make these plans unless he feels
Speaker 2: the ground beneath him, right, Like, that's just the kind
Speaker 2: of thinker he is. I think he just also likes
Speaker 2: it too, Yeah, totally. The purpose of this recon campaign
Speaker 2: was to help Lawrence figure out how to build what
Speaker 2: he called a ladder of tribes across Syria, eventually leading
Speaker 2: from Akaba to Damascus. Describing this plan, James Schneider writes
Speaker 2: the nature of the operations would be like naval war
Speaker 2: in mobility, ubiquity, independence of bases and communications, ignoring of
Speaker 2: ground features, of strategic areas, of fixed locations of fixed points.
Speaker 2: Lawrence would command the desert camel raiding parties, self contained
Speaker 2: like ships, might cruise confidently along the enemy's cultivation frontier,
Speaker 2: sure of an unhindered retreat into their desert element which
Speaker 2: the Turks could not explore. That's so interesting to be
Speaker 2: that he's thinking about this like a naval war. Each
Speaker 2: of these small insurgent squads is like a ship right
Speaker 2: independent alone on the sea.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so fluid and you have to think the
Speaker 2: mind it takes to keep track of this as well
Speaker 2: as he does. Yeah, not that he doesn't fuck up.
Speaker 2: He's got after Akaba. There's a major defeat that like
Speaker 2: he has kind of when he overstretches his his forces.
Speaker 2: But like you know, for for the most part, this
Speaker 2: is an extremely successful campaign. So during the ride into Akaba,
Speaker 2: he had worked out exactly how far a unit of
Speaker 2: camel riders could operate with a forty five pound bag
Speaker 2: of flour and a pint of water. They could operate
Speaker 2: alone for like six weeks, right, that's his assuming.
Speaker 3: That I guess they're at getting water.
Speaker 2: So yes, yes, they know where there are like places
Speaker 2: to get water. And so these forces, these small straw, yeah,
Speaker 2: life straw. These tiny units of camel riders just just
Speaker 2: powered by flower and water have an operational range of
Speaker 2: two thousand miles without re supply, right, that's how far
Speaker 2: they can.
Speaker 3: Go and rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fucking cool. And when you look at that
Speaker 2: range and you compare it to like an automan company
Speaker 2: of infantry on foot can handle, which is like a
Speaker 2: couple of miles past the railway, you see what a
Speaker 2: nightmare he's created for the automance at these little rating parts. Absolutely, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like you are trying to fight a naval war
Speaker 2: with infantry treading in the water, right, And that's what
Speaker 2: the Turks are trying to do. Yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 2: quote from Schneider again. Because of long standing feuds and jealousies,
Speaker 2: it became virtually impossible to integrate or amalgamate the various tribes,
Speaker 2: nor could one antithetic tribe operate in the territory of
Speaker 2: another to overcome this organizational constraint, Lawrence operated in the
Speaker 2: greatest dispersion possible, which contributed greatly to his agility, fluidity,
Speaker 2: and mobility. Maximum disorganization created maximum articulation. As with a
Speaker 2: box of legos, Lawrence could any organization and function as
Speaker 2: unique as the new task at hand, for each mission
Speaker 2: was unlike any other and had to be considered afresh.
Speaker 2: The lego like articulation meant that the enemy response could
Speaker 2: never develop a classic order of battle, for there was
Speaker 2: no order, only disorder. His system was unsystematic.
Speaker 3: That's cool. One of the things I'm really obsessed with
Speaker 3: strategically is how chaotic forces can integrate into traditional war
Speaker 3: and like, yeah, and how yeah, Like I think we
Speaker 3: see this in activism all the time, is people try
Speaker 3: to get all of these groups to be like, oh,
Speaker 3: if only they were all under one command, and you're like,
Speaker 3: you're not playing to your strengths at that point. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 3: having diverse movements is stronger if you do it right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean because kind of the difficulty and the
Speaker 2: trouble with you know, the kind of activist we know
Speaker 2: is you need both, you need this maximum articulation rights.
Speaker 2: As Schneider describes it, But you also do need a vision,
Speaker 2: a central vision, because you have you have this ultimate disorganization,
Speaker 2: this incredibly flat hierarchy compared to the other militaries of
Speaker 2: the day, but you also have Lawrence at the center
Speaker 2: of this spider web, pulling in each direction, right, like
Speaker 2: making the actual like polls, which is is very tough.
Speaker 2: There's not a lot of Lawrences out there.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I do love that line. Maximum disorganization created maximum articulation.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. So
Speaker 2: a big part of why these forces work is that
Speaker 2: unlike the vast conscript armies of the Western Front, Lawrence's
Speaker 2: soldiers are all either believers or at least at least
Speaker 2: there willingly for the money, right because like some of
Speaker 2: these Lawrence kind of Lawrence talks them up. You know,
Speaker 2: he has a line their only contract was honor, which
Speaker 2: is debatably true. Like Auta, who we've been talking about,
Speaker 2: is going to make an approach to the Turks and
Speaker 2: like be like, hey, if you bribe me, I'll switch sides.
Speaker 2: And he may have been considering switching sides, but he
Speaker 2: also just robs the Turkish guy with the money. But
Speaker 2: it's unclear because of when everyone else finds out what
Speaker 2: he's done. It's unclear was his plan from the beginning
Speaker 2: just to rob, just to rob the Ottomans, or did
Speaker 2: he move? Did he decide, well, I guess I'll just
Speaker 2: rob this guy once he got caught because he didn't
Speaker 2: want to. He didn't want to get like, you know,
Speaker 2: murdered or whatever. Right, Like, was he actually trying to
Speaker 2: beat turned trader? Or did he just was his plan
Speaker 2: from the beginning, Hey, I bet these guys are dumb
Speaker 2: enough to send a bunch of money my way and
Speaker 2: then I just have to kill the guy bring it,
Speaker 2: And I don't give a fuck. I am a sand pirate,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, totally. The honor among thieves question is one, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and Ouda is not the kind of guy
Speaker 2: who gives a shit about your conceptions of honor. He
Speaker 2: has his own code for sure, But I don't I
Speaker 2: don't think anyone else really fully understands it. Lawrence wrote, quote,
Speaker 2: irregular war was far more intellectual than a bayonet charge,
Speaker 2: far more exhausting than service, and the comfortable imitative obedience
Speaker 2: of an ordered army. Gorillas must be a loud liberal
Speaker 2: work room in a regular war of two men together.
Speaker 2: One was being wasted. Our ideals should be to make
Speaker 2: our battle a series of single combats, our ranks a
Speaker 2: happy alliance of agile commanders in chief.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I like it.
Speaker 2: I like that too. So one of the key points
Speaker 2: here is that, unlike most European officers in similar situations,
Speaker 2: Lawrence had not taken Well, I said, he's taken nothing
Speaker 2: of Western military doctrine. That's not really true. He's just
Speaker 2: taken He's taken some Western doctrine that is not popular
Speaker 2: with other people, because that Austrian disachs is kind of
Speaker 2: someone who had been writing a lot of the same things.
Speaker 2: And Lawrence is very influenced by Desaks, but Dessaks is
Speaker 2: certainly not influencing like British strategy at the sam You know, right,
Speaker 2: nothing but machine guns are really influencing that, right, It's
Speaker 2: all these guys who want to be Hannibal but can't
Speaker 2: think of anything more creative than throwing their men into
Speaker 2: the teeth of a bunch of German guns. What's interesting
Speaker 2: about Lawrence is that, you know, for all that he
Speaker 2: is an imperialist, he does not fall to the temptation
Speaker 2: of imposing British standards on these Bedouin fighters. His only
Speaker 2: thought is to give them modern English guns so that
Speaker 2: they can fight their way. And he's writing the whole
Speaker 2: time he's got to try it. He's trying to argue
Speaker 2: to his superiors as to why this is how they
Speaker 2: should handle the whole era of revolt. He writes a
Speaker 2: series of twenty seven articles meant for publication among British
Speaker 2: officers stationed in Arabia. Now these are part propaganda. Some
Speaker 2: of what's in these is Lawrence lying about the strength
Speaker 2: of the Bedouins to make a case, you know, as
Speaker 2: to why they should be supported. But he also includes
Speaker 2: a lot of very good advice on how European officers
Speaker 2: should change their thinking to avoid bringing Western Front problems
Speaker 2: to this new war zone. Like he is trying to
Speaker 2: explain like why they ought to respect the Bedouin, and
Speaker 2: how to respect the Bedouin, how to kind of let
Speaker 2: these people do what works. The next phase of the
Speaker 2: war sees Faisals raiders launched this bl lizard of attacks
Speaker 2: against Ottoman positions around the Jjah's railway, destroying sections of
Speaker 2: track and bridges, but also things like watering holes that
Speaker 2: train operators relied upon for coolant. Lawrence again leads many
Speaker 2: of these raids from the front. He counted that during
Speaker 2: this period he personally destroyed seventy nine bridges, which is
Speaker 2: that's like hurricane level of bridge destruction.
Speaker 3: Lawrence is done, Hurricane Lawrence.
Speaker 2: Hurricane Lawrence. Yeah, Lawrence often would set the charge himself,
Speaker 2: and he became something of an innovator in the field
Speaker 2: of explosives by helping to develop this technique that he
Speaker 2: called scientific shattering. Now, the point of this, this is
Speaker 2: very interesting, was to ruin the bridge, making it unfit
Speaker 2: for transit, but to leave it standing right. And the
Speaker 2: logic here is that a standing bridge that's ruined can't
Speaker 2: just be repaired first. You have to destroy it before
Speaker 2: you can rebuild it. Whereas it just blow it up.
Speaker 2: Then all they have to do is like clear records are.
Speaker 3: Way right, He doesn't have to work for him, right.
Speaker 2: This extends the time. If you fuck the bridge up scientifically,
Speaker 2: they have to spend even more time destroying it the
Speaker 2: rest of the way before they can rebuild it. Now,
Speaker 2: I know all of you listeners at home are taking notes.
Speaker 2: How do I scientifically shatter a bridge? I've never blown
Speaker 2: up a bridge yet, But I can read a quote
Speaker 2: from Lawrence's book to describe how he did it. Yet. Hey,
Speaker 2: what do you mean yet? Yeah, I haven't yet, So
Speaker 2: that's just a factual statement. I haven't destroyed any bridges yet.
Speaker 3: Before we do this, I once was hitchhiking and into Louisville, Kentucky,
Speaker 3: and the trucker who picked me up was this older
Speaker 3: I think Vietnam vet. He's pretty quiet the whole drive,
Speaker 3: and he's like dropping us off in the middle of
Speaker 3: the night, and he like does the trucker thing where
Speaker 3: he just like stops the entire like when he wants
Speaker 3: to do something, he just stops the truck in al traffic,
Speaker 3: just has to deal with it, you know. And before
Speaker 3: we get out, he turns to us and goes, you,
Speaker 3: kid's ever blown up a bridge?
Speaker 2: Amazing stuff? No, sir, oh no, we're children.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So here's how Lawrence describes to blow up a bridge.
Speaker 2: Hastily we set about the bridge, a pleasant little work
Speaker 2: eighty feet long and fifteen feet high, honored with a
Speaker 2: shining slab of white marble bearing the name and titles
Speaker 2: of Sultan Abd el Hamide. In the drainage holes of
Speaker 2: the spandrel six small charges were inserted zigzag and with
Speaker 2: their explosion all the arches were scientifically shattered. So there
Speaker 2: you go, guys, put some dynamite in the drainage holes
Speaker 2: and let her rip. You know, Now you can go
Speaker 2: take out bridges, which you shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Do, especially not with someone that you meet at food
Speaker 3: not bombs, or some activist circle.
Speaker 2: That's kind of go badly for everyone. Don't destroy any
Speaker 2: bridges unless you find yourself taking part in an Arab
Speaker 2: revolt against Ottoman power. If that's the case, you know,
Speaker 2: if you get transported back in time to nineteen sixteen
Speaker 2: and you have to help the Bedouins fight for their
Speaker 2: independence from the Ottomans, then it's probably okay to blow
Speaker 2: up some bridges. Or if it's your bridge, you know,
Speaker 2: or if it's your bridge, if you make a bridge
Speaker 2: used to stop you, right, maybe someone owns a demolition
Speaker 2: company out there. There's lots of legal reasons to destroy
Speaker 2: a bridge right now. The bulk of the insurgent work
Speaker 2: that Lawrence does in this period is done by Camelback,
Speaker 2: but for his own team of raiders. Lawrence is going
Speaker 2: to eventually settle on a different mode of transportation, which
Speaker 2: is these armored Rolls Royce cars. They do get they do.
Speaker 2: They are by the end of this like cruising around
Speaker 2: and Rolls Royce as blowing up bridges, which is pretty gangster.
Speaker 3: Is it the same level of luxury car that it's
Speaker 3: seen as now?
Speaker 2: No, I mean I don't think so. At this point.
Speaker 2: These are armored cars. So these sturdy vehicles allow the
Speaker 2: nine man team that he preferred for commando work to
Speaker 2: carry hundreds of pounds of gun caught and explosives and
Speaker 2: move rapidly from target to target. Well, Lawrence was helping
Speaker 2: to execute a successful insurgency in the heart of Ottoman territory.
Speaker 2: The powers that be in the British Empire had started
Speaker 2: to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2: The Americans were almost to the Western Front, and with
Speaker 2: the possibility of victory came the sweet prospect of carving
Speaker 2: up the Ottoman world for European consumption. If you spend
Speaker 2: literally any length of time talking to people in the
Speaker 2: Arab world today and asking them, in brief why is
Speaker 2: everything so fucked up? Every conversation will at some point
Speaker 2: circle back to Sykes be Go. During the fighting against isis.
Speaker 2: I talked about Sykes Pico with like twelve year old boys, right,
Speaker 2: people know it over there, and it's the thing I
Speaker 2: think a lot of Americans don't really know much about.
Speaker 2: It is, as one New Yorker article aptly described it,
Speaker 2: the curse that still haunts the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The first of the men that Sykes Pico was named
Speaker 2: after was essentially a dark mirror of Lawrence. Sir Mark
Speaker 2: Sykes was the son of Sir Tetan Sikes, who married
Speaker 2: an eighteen year old girl at age forty eight and
Speaker 2: then disowned her publicly in the newspaper when she spent
Speaker 2: too much of his Money's that's Mark's dad, Yeah, a
Speaker 2: lot of pieces of shit in the British nobility. Dark
Speaker 2: was their only child, and he spent his childhood moving
Speaker 2: between his father's thirty four thousand acre estate and his
Speaker 2: mother's London home. He traveled the Ottoman Empire regularly as
Speaker 2: a tourist with his dad, and then when he became
Speaker 2: a young man, he joined the military and participated in
Speaker 2: the Boer War. He became a Conservative member of Parliament
Speaker 2: and he writes books about like the Ottoman Empire and
Speaker 2: the you know and kind of the Islamic world right,
Speaker 2: and he is during the First World War kind of
Speaker 2: one of the first major at He's a major advocate
Speaker 2: within the British government for the independence of Arabs, Armenians,
Speaker 2: Jews and Turks, right, so long as that independence existed
Speaker 2: under European control and profit. And his thinking here is
Speaker 2: less these people deserve their independence, and more if we
Speaker 2: cut them up into individual little like quasi states under
Speaker 2: our control, it's going to be a lot easier to
Speaker 2: keep everyone dominated, right, Oh shit, uh huh yeah. Over
Speaker 2: the last for a few pre war years, Sykes had
Speaker 2: become the Empire's red is it an expert on the
Speaker 2: Arab world based on the strength of him like vacationing
Speaker 2: there a bunch, right, and the fact that he was
Speaker 2: a baronet.
Speaker 3: He was writing his picture of this character so easily.
Speaker 2: Daddy, Daddi, daddi. He was referred to as the mad
Speaker 2: Mulla as he watched rush around London building support for
Speaker 2: this Arab revolt against the Ottomans, who he hated for
Speaker 2: the squalor and poverty that he saw in cities like Damascus. Now,
Speaker 2: he's not entirely misguided here, because the Ottomans are not
Speaker 2: good rulers, but his feeling that the way to improve
Speaker 2: things was to set Europeans up over the poor bumbling Mohammedans.
Speaker 2: Sykes was paired with Francois George Picot, a French diplomat,
Speaker 2: to portion out the Ottoman Empire into little bits to
Speaker 2: various powers. As the war worked towards a close, there
Speaker 2: were a lot of hopeful claims. Italy wanted the Aegean Islands,
Speaker 2: Greece wanted traditional Byzantine territory in modern Turkey. Russia wanted
Speaker 2: that some good some of that good Asia minor shit
Speaker 2: as well, although they're not going to be, you know,
Speaker 2: at the table for very long here because of that
Speaker 2: whole Bolshevik revolution. And of course the Zionists wanted a
Speaker 2: Jewish homeland in Palestine. And it's interesting one of the
Speaker 2: big I was actually kind of unaware of this, one
Speaker 2: of the big like, one of the reasons why there's
Speaker 2: a support for the Zionists is people who are is
Speaker 2: like people in the British government who are scared that
Speaker 2: Russia is going to collapse under a socialist revolution and
Speaker 2: are like, well, if we give the Jews a homeland, obviously,
Speaker 2: all socialists are Jews, right, so if you give them
Speaker 2: a homeland, you know, in Palestine, then maybe they'll leave
Speaker 2: Russia and they won't destroy Russia, right like that. That's
Speaker 2: literally why a lot there's a lot of early support
Speaker 2: for Zionism among the British government. It's like this super
Speaker 2: concentrated racism.
Speaker 3: God, I love how Schrodinger's jew where you're either a
Speaker 3: capitalist or a communist or something both at once.
Speaker 2: Yes. No, yes, you control all the money and are
Speaker 2: a left wing radical yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this was to put mildly if you are people
Speaker 2: like Sykes and Pico, any of the people you know
Speaker 2: in the British government above Lawrence's level, who are trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what the post war is going to
Speaker 2: look like for this region, there's a lot to keep
Speaker 2: in mind, right, there's a lot of competing claims. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of different you know, national groups that are
Speaker 2: kind of agitating for independence too.
Speaker 3: They're just gonna ignore it at all and just cut
Speaker 3: it up, willy nilly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's more or less what Sykes is going to
Speaker 2: do because he's British, right, so he's only focused on
Speaker 2: mostly yeah, yeah, he's mostly focused on his country's closest
Speaker 2: ally France, right, and France wants something they called greater Syria. Right,
Speaker 2: they think, obviously this is natural French territory. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: In deference to the large number of young men that
Speaker 2: France had thrown into the woodshippers on the Western Front,
Speaker 2: they got most of what they wanted. The fact that
Speaker 2: they were doing a fifty to fifty genocide ratio in
Speaker 2: the Muslim majority areas that they had governed in the
Speaker 2: past should have been a warning that, like, this is
Speaker 2: not going to go well. But no one anywhere has
Speaker 2: ever learned a lesson ever. Know, that's the primary lesson
Speaker 2: of history is that no one learns lessons, and no
Speaker 2: one has learned any lessons from France fucking around in Algeria.
Speaker 3: So I haven't even learned this lesson.
Speaker 2: Now. It would have been obvious at the time that
Speaker 2: what you know, the planning going into sykes Pico was
Speaker 2: would lead to catastrophe. The Ottoman Empire had been collapsing
Speaker 2: for some time. In eighteen thirty, France had taken Algeria
Speaker 2: and immediately done a genocide to put down the rebels there.
Speaker 2: They had gained control of Tunisia in eighteen eighty one,
Speaker 2: and they actually waited until nineteen fifty eight and before
Speaker 2: they did a genocide in Tunisia. So really, I mean
Speaker 2: like it's kind of impressive they've got you know, they
Speaker 2: got more responsible.
Speaker 3: That's nice for French patients, you know, the Friz.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have patients. They waited almost a whole century
Speaker 2: before they did a genocide in Tunisia. Now, under the
Speaker 2: final agreement between France and England, a large region of
Speaker 2: the Ottoman heartland directly above Syria would be under direct
Speaker 2: French control, while a triangle that included a Leppo, Damascus
Speaker 2: and Mosel would be like kind of independent but under
Speaker 2: heavy French influence, whereas the British would have an area
Speaker 2: of influence that was like this large chunk of the
Speaker 2: desert on the peninsula south of the French mandate, and
Speaker 2: they would hold direct control over much of modern Iraq
Speaker 2: stretching to the Arabian Gulf. Sykes would go on to
Speaker 2: solidify his role as one of the most harmful dudes
Speaker 2: to ever cause harm by also pushing the Balfour Declaration
Speaker 2: to the British Cabinet in November of nineteen seventeen. He's
Speaker 2: like one of the forces behind the Balfour Declaration.
Speaker 3: And this is like the early Zionists.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, although the actual declaration itself spends more time
Speaker 2: talking about like Jewish populations in European countries, right because
Speaker 2: a lot of in the chaos in Russia, a lot
Speaker 2: of like Jewish people had fled Russia and like wound
Speaker 2: up in England, wound up in other European like that
Speaker 2: is actually more of what the declaration is. But kind
Speaker 2: of the outcome of the declaration, is this the first
Speaker 2: time that there's official British government support behind the Zionist
Speaker 2: desire for a homeland in Palestine. The actual text of
Speaker 2: the declaration, like of the agreement being made, is like that,
Speaker 2: of course, no one will be displaced, none of the
Speaker 2: none of the current like inhabitants of Palestine will be
Speaker 2: displaced as result of this.
Speaker 3: Yea in tgic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, through magic in true imperial fashion. Sikes's primary
Speaker 2: justification for supporting the Balfour Declaration was his own rampant
Speaker 2: anti Semitism. He believed that if Great Jewry was against us,
Speaker 2: the Allies had no hope for final victory. Right, because again,
Speaker 2: these guys are both communists and they control all the money, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And they're.
Speaker 3: Also both incredibly strong and are they're they're weak, sniveling,
Speaker 3: effeminate people who will absolutely destroy us if they get
Speaker 3: the chance.
Speaker 2: Right. It's it's the common like proto fascist bullshit.
Speaker 3: Which we're dealing with right now in America about the left. Sure,
Speaker 3: anti fun stuff, Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's it's it's I mean, it's just kind of
Speaker 2: these people, right, Sikes Is Sykes is the kind of
Speaker 2: guy you see all throughout history, and in this case
Speaker 2: he's anti semitically talking himself for Desionism, which is a
Speaker 2: fascinating part of the history of this whole of this
Speaker 2: whole moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very common, Yes, of encouraging Zionism at this time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, after setting up like a third of the twentieth
Speaker 2: and twenty first centuries worst dominoes, Sikes lives happily until,
Speaker 2: in a rare wind for humanity, he dies a flu in
Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen. So again I have to keep going back to, like,
Speaker 2: is influenza so bad?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Spanish flu got somebody.
Speaker 2: It took out Sykes. That's not the worst, you know.
Speaker 2: So back to our boy t E. Lawrence. We don't
Speaker 2: know precisely when he found out that sykes Pico was
Speaker 2: a thing. The agreement first entered public awareness in late
Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen, after the October Revolution led to the overthrow
Speaker 2: of the Czar. The Bolsheviks get a hold of a
Speaker 2: bunch of different like paperwork, right that you know, had
Speaker 2: been in the hands of the Tzar's government, and some
Speaker 2: of that is the sikes Pico agreement, and yeah, later
Speaker 2: government you get the Yeah, Trotzky actually seeks a copy
Speaker 2: of sykes Pico to a newspaper, right, and then The
Speaker 2: Guardian publishes the details in English media for the first
Speaker 2: time after this In early reporting on the manner, Lennon
Speaker 2: called sikes Pico quote the agreement of colonial theeves. And
Speaker 2: there's really no fact based argument against that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that he was just right. He was just correct on that.
Speaker 3: Well, didn't they weren't these the like I think they
Speaker 3: were called protectorates or something. There was like a different word.
Speaker 3: They were like, oh, we don't, we don't know this.
Speaker 2: We're just gonna get a lot of these are spheres
Speaker 2: of influence, right, yeah, yeah, So when and again, this
Speaker 2: is not sex becou is not what actually happened, specifically
Speaker 2: because like they get carved up, you get like a rack,
Speaker 2: you get Jordan, and right that none of that's in
Speaker 2: sychs Pico. That all comes later, but six Picot is
Speaker 2: kind of evidence of what they've agreed to, basically, right,
Speaker 2: it's the broad strokes of what's going to happen. So
Speaker 2: when Lawrence had left Cairo, this had not all been
Speaker 2: as settled as it was by November. The British government's
Speaker 2: official line and still was that it was inciting an
Speaker 2: Arab revolt to secure their total independence. Lawrence clearly knew
Speaker 2: that there was some extent to which this was bogus
Speaker 2: from the beginning, which is why he wrote in Seven Pillars,
Speaker 2: hardly one day in Arabia passed without a physical ache
Speaker 2: to increase the corroding sense of my accessory deceitfulness towards
Speaker 2: the Arabs and the legitimate fatigue of responsible command. Right.
Speaker 2: So the fact that this is all a lie is
Speaker 2: wearing on Lawrence, especially since the greater part of his
Speaker 2: job was to personally negotiate deals with various Arab tribes
Speaker 2: to fight the Ottomans with the promise of independence after
Speaker 2: the war. In letters back to his superiors. Lawrence protested
Speaker 2: what became Sykes Pico. Anthony Satin describes this for an
Speaker 2: article in Al Jazeera. He objected loudly to the agreement
Speaker 2: for several reasons. He thought that the French should be
Speaker 2: allowed nothing, having behaved so badly in Algeria and elsewhere
Speaker 2: in Northwest Africa. He thought a post war commonwealth of
Speaker 2: Arab states under British tutelage might work, and he protested
Speaker 2: it having to ask Arab forces to fight on what
Speaker 2: he called a lie. I can't stand it, he insisted.
Speaker 2: And yet he continued. And if we're looking for like
Speaker 2: Lawrence as a bastard, this is this is getting into
Speaker 2: some of the better cases for it, right because, like
Speaker 2: he talks about how much he hates this, he is
Speaker 2: trying to like trying to work against Sykespico on the ground,
Speaker 2: but he also knows what his government is planning, and
Speaker 2: he's he's kind of being a pied piper to these
Speaker 2: guys that he cares about as it goes on.
Speaker 3: Oh that's wild, because he's also overall he's someone who's
Speaker 3: trying to act based on morality rather than like cold strategy.
Speaker 3: He's obviously strategic thinker, right, but he's like, yeah, he's thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, because geopolitically you have to give the French something,
Speaker 3: And he's like, no, I don't deserve anything because they're terrible.
Speaker 2: But they're dicks, fuck up.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, Like, whereas he's able to sell himself
Speaker 3: on the idea that the British protectorate or sphere of
Speaker 3: influence won't be as bad. Yeah, and some of that
Speaker 3: might be even some of his own like show from
Speaker 3: being from that culture, but also it might have been
Speaker 3: an honest appraisal of the situation. But then yeah, like
Speaker 3: he's like trying to act more from a moral position,
Speaker 3: but he knows he can't. Oh that's so right.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah he could have.
Speaker 3: He could have just been like I have been tired.
Speaker 2: Abound and you know, yeah, but he doesn't. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: uh so he's canceled. So he's canceled. Yes, we're canceling
Speaker 2: t E. Lawrence. We've decided. The fight against sikes Peco
Speaker 2: was to dominate the next years of Lawrence's life. But
Speaker 2: he would have missed the public reveal of sikes Pico
Speaker 2: in November for a very unfortunate reason, which is that
Speaker 2: that month he was captured by the Ottomans. If it now,
Speaker 2: we're this is actually one of those ifs, because we
Speaker 2: this may be something he lied about, but if it happened,
Speaker 2: this happened while he was conducting one of his many
Speaker 2: recon missions. He describes in Seven Pillars of Islam that
Speaker 2: he was hiding himself as a circassian in the city
Speaker 2: of Derah when he was drafted. Basically, like they see
Speaker 2: a young man walking around and they're like, you're in
Speaker 2: the army now, buddy, right, because he's good, he's good
Speaker 2: enough at hiding that he's like a circassian, right that
Speaker 2: they think, okay, well, we got a time for you
Speaker 2: to be a member of the army that you're fighting now.
Speaker 2: Lawrence says, basically, like the draft was just kind of
Speaker 2: an excuse to take me in the custody. What happened
Speaker 2: really is the governor wanted to fuck me, right, And
Speaker 2: he describes lengthily how he was beaten and tortured and
Speaker 2: then gang raped by the governor and his guards in
Speaker 2: Seven Pillars. This is like and it's interesting because like
Speaker 2: this is a page is long description of like torture
Speaker 2: and rape. He doesn't quite describe openly sexual penetration but
Speaker 2: basically everything else, right, And it is ultimately published in
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty two. I don't know if Lawrence was the
Speaker 2: first famous man of the twentieth century to write publicly
Speaker 2: about being raped, but the list ahead of him can't
Speaker 2: have been long, right, Like, there can't be a lot
Speaker 2: of competition for that role you were.
Speaker 3: Really really into, like, and then the curtains are drawn, yeah,
Speaker 3: historically with their writings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he does that a bit, right, Like he's
Speaker 2: not as open about like he doesn't describe it in
Speaker 2: but he's like, this is like it's a very detailed
Speaker 2: description of like the torture and stuff, to the point
Speaker 2: that the people who think this is faked is kind
Speaker 2: of like Lawrence is sort of like writing his own
Speaker 2: sexy fan fiction.
Speaker 3: Oh, because he's a masochist maybe, right, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: or this is why he's a masochist. It's to try
Speaker 3: this is right, he's.
Speaker 2: A masochist because he's raped and tortured.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, as a way to you know, experience the
Speaker 3: same thing, but under his own control.
Speaker 2: Right right, And you know, I'm gonna tell you right
Speaker 2: now what actually happened here was unknowable to us right
Speaker 2: now there. I am going to give the best arguments
Speaker 2: as to like why this is fake, because I think
Speaker 2: that's responsible. I tend to think it was probably real.
Speaker 2: But I'm not a historian. Yeah, So I debated whether
Speaker 2: or not to read some quotes from this portion of
Speaker 2: Seven Pillars. I opted not to because, like it's really
Speaker 2: upsetting stuff like this is a legitimately upsetting description of
Speaker 2: torture and sexual assault. In recent years, some Lawrence biographers,
Speaker 2: namely James Barr, who authored Desert on Fire, have argued
Speaker 2: that Lawrence could not have been in deraw when he
Speaker 2: claimed this happened, and have even found evidence that he
Speaker 2: doctored his notes to further this lie. Barr's argument is
Speaker 2: that Lawrence came up with this story later after the
Speaker 2: war to quote discredit Arab militants in the precarious postwar climate.
Speaker 2: I find this an odd argument, which is not really
Speaker 2: in line with Lawrence's other post war behavior. But in
Speaker 2: my research for this, I did run across a couple
Speaker 2: of pieces of evidence that might be seen as evidence
Speaker 2: that Lawrence's lye continues to work in the present day,
Speaker 2: like discrediting on Arabs. But like these these kind of
Speaker 2: like some of these local fighters. Here's a segment I
Speaker 2: found from the website on the website first World War
Speaker 2: dot com, and this is talking about like the Ottoman
Speaker 2: use of rape as a weapon. This indig was more
Speaker 2: often inflicted on members of the officer class and the
Speaker 2: belief that it robbed them of their authority as a
Speaker 2: leader of men, sometimes resulting in the victim's suicide. The
Speaker 2: Ottoman Turks were infamous for inflicting it throughout the Great
Speaker 2: War on captured Indian troops, beating and gang raping enemy officers.
Speaker 2: Often as a matter of due course. Prisoners and garrisons
Speaker 2: often had personnel who specialized in this abuse, although there
Speaker 2: was nothing homosexual about it. And this is kind of
Speaker 2: contra to Lawrence's description because he does describe this as
Speaker 2: being a very like the the governor and his men
Speaker 2: are homosexual, right, they like they want to fuck Lawrence.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of the result of all this.
Speaker 3: Well, you just get into ideas of like what counts
Speaker 3: as homosexual being like right, in a lot of different places,
Speaker 3: the active person as not the gay person, you know.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and there's a yeah, we'll talk more about this,
Speaker 2: but first, wait, have we done our second ad break. Now, Okay,
Speaker 2: here's some ads. Motherfucker back. So you know we're talking
Speaker 2: about was Lawrence of Arabia gang raped? Uh yeah, light
Speaker 2: dinner topic. Now, when it comes to like the anti
Speaker 2: site of this, bar is joined in doubt by academics
Speaker 2: like Adrian Greeves. Greeves make some points that I find compelling,
Speaker 2: particularly that the Turks were unlikely to have believed for
Speaker 2: days that Lawrence was really an Arab captive or Circassian captive.
Speaker 2: But he also takes issue with the fact that Lawrence
Speaker 2: didn't bring this up until nineteen nineteen. Right, That's one
Speaker 2: of Barr's pieces of evidence that like this is probably fake,
Speaker 2: is that Lawrence didn't talk about it. And I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: it's not really weird that you'd wait, like a couple
Speaker 2: of years to talk about your gang rape. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's not I don't really think that counts the way
Speaker 2: that you seem to think it does. Yeah, And there's
Speaker 2: also some gay panic adjacent stuff in some of these arguments.
Speaker 2: Historian David Fromkin has suggested Lawrence made up the rape
Speaker 2: to explain marks from his alleged sato masochistic kink. I
Speaker 2: don't know who is right here, but I do want
Speaker 2: to read this line from an article on Cleo's Visualizing
Speaker 2: History website. Biographer John E. Mack, however, accepts the story
Speaker 2: and Lawrence's later assertion at that what happened to him
Speaker 2: at Deraw apparently did permanent damage to his psyche, and
Speaker 2: there is compelling evidence for this damage. Although separating what
Speaker 2: might have been caused from the rape, what was PTSD?
Speaker 2: Right because of the war and all of the illness,
Speaker 2: right like you get PTSD from nearly dying repeatedly, a
Speaker 2: various like shit yourself to death illnesses. There's no way
Speaker 2: to separate this, right like Lawrence is after about a
Speaker 2: year or so, because he's really not there all that long.
Speaker 2: He's there like a like two years. In all, he
Speaker 2: is just a pile of PTSD stitched together together into
Speaker 2: the crude image of a man.
Speaker 3: On one of his best days. He shot his own
Speaker 3: camel in the head by accident. That was one of
Speaker 3: the best days.
Speaker 2: His winds like he is just destroyed as a person.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it is I think very consistent. Now Barr
Speaker 2: has a really good point when he kind of pieces
Speaker 2: out it can't have happened exactly the way Lawrence describes
Speaker 2: it in the book, right, because we know there's some
Speaker 2: just some things about the timing of where he was
Speaker 2: win that don't work out. That doesn't mean he didn't
Speaker 2: it didn't happen in another city and he Leiden said
Speaker 2: it was Dera for some reason. There's they're also just
Speaker 2: like people fuck up, right, Like Lawrence is going.
Speaker 3: Sick thing to remember really well, yeah, we'll talk.
Speaker 2: About this in the next episode. Lawrence is going to
Speaker 2: like destroy his notes several times and just and lose
Speaker 2: drafts of this book and have to rewrite it. So
Speaker 2: like some errors probably got introduced, but it is now
Speaker 2: agreed and even and Barr even writes that, like, broadly speaking,
Speaker 2: Seven Pillars is quite accurate as in its descriptions of
Speaker 2: what happened in the Arab revolt, right, And I tend
Speaker 2: to think this probably happened to Lawrence, And part of
Speaker 2: why is because he has a personality shift after this
Speaker 2: point and it kind of loses his mind in a
Speaker 2: way that seems very much like, oh, yeah, I bet
Speaker 2: if you were gang raped and then suddenly had an
Speaker 2: army and a bunch of Turkish soldiers surrendering to you,
Speaker 2: this might be how you'd act, right, is.
Speaker 3: Where he's gonna go.
Speaker 2: He is going he is going to kill a lot
Speaker 2: of people in part four, Margaret, Oh shit, he is
Speaker 2: going to kill a ton of dudes.
Speaker 3: Like the bastard's formula is to get you to become
Speaker 3: sympathetic with a terrible person and then like about halfway through,
Speaker 3: but you've had me for the first three acts.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I still he's going to commit war crimes.
Speaker 2: I still don't know that this makes him a terrible person.
Speaker 2: Like it's a bad thing to have done, right, But
Speaker 2: I don't know that anyone who is capable of doing
Speaker 2: the things that he's done up to this point and
Speaker 2: in a war, who is capable of the competences that
Speaker 2: he showed, would by this point be able to have
Speaker 2: better judgment in this way, right, Which isn't to say
Speaker 2: like it's fine that he did this. It's just that like, well,
Speaker 2: anyone in this position would have would be out of
Speaker 2: their minds by a certain point, because that's just what
Speaker 2: like personally, like orchestrating an insurgent campaign in the desert
Speaker 2: while shitting yourself to death and nearly dying every single day,
Speaker 2: and gunfights like it just ruins, you you know, like
Speaker 2: he is just shattered as a man, and there's a
Speaker 2: very good chance part of that science he's tortured and
Speaker 2: gang raped. Yeah, like who would be doing well after this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and blow up the bridge. They just dismantled it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they dismantled it, but they left Yeah, they left
Speaker 2: the shape intact right again. He's just like a bunch
Speaker 2: of trauma piled into a bag shaped like T. E.
Speaker 2: Lawrence at this point. Yeah, this man is so fucked up.
Speaker 2: Speaking of fucked up, Margaret, let's go get fucked up
Speaker 2: and then come back to record part four. And by
Speaker 2: fucked up, I mean I'm.
Speaker 3: Actually gonna I do with sugar. But I've had a
Speaker 3: lot of it.
Speaker 2: I'm high on life, Margaret, which is a powerful mix
Speaker 2: of heroin and uh.
Speaker 3: That's all life. Yeah, it's it's a new gas station drug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a new gas station drug. That's what I
Speaker 2: call it. When I mix Kraton and those yellow Jacket
Speaker 2: pills and then just a bunch of five hour energy
Speaker 2: and grind that up into a shake with a little
Speaker 2: bit of milk, a little bit of old milk, you know,
Speaker 2: just for flavor.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess we don't do that. Friends that friends
Speaker 1: and said, you should purchase Margaret Culture's new.
Speaker 2: Book if they sell it in Yeah, purchase Margaret's new book,
Speaker 2: you know, Uh, the Sapling Cage. It's excellent. Uh.
Speaker 3: And if you're listening to this several weeks ago, you
Speaker 3: can go see Robert and I talk in Portland.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yeah, this will have happened long before by
Speaker 2: the time this airs, possibly in a world where we're
Speaker 2: all preparing for a fascist takeover of the governments world.
Speaker 1: This will be great.
Speaker 2: It'll be great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Also, I really want to plug something we just did
Speaker 1: one it could happen here. James Stout, who is a
Speaker 1: phenomenal journalist that works on the show, just a week
Speaker 1: long series about the dairy and grap and land migration.
Speaker 3: So I haven't listened to it yet. I've talked to amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's amazing. So please please check that out. Yeah that.
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