WEBVTT - Part Three: How Lawrence of Arabia Invented Modern War

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<v Speaker 1>Also media.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh what, I don't even know. I don't even know.

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<v Speaker 2>It's like three days before the election.

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<v Speaker 3>I had a milkshake.

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<v Speaker 2>You look so happy when you were drinking it, though. Tired,

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<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, no, it's great. Tired of everything, my everyone.

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<v Speaker 2>I know.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm wearing a hoodie.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm wearing a hoodie. You guys, mm hmmm. Oh I

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<v Speaker 2>am good stuff, good stuff. So how's uh, how's everyone doing?

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<v Speaker 2>How's how were y'all feeling.

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<v Speaker 3>The aforementioned high on sugar? Yeah, I'm uh.

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<v Speaker 1>I've worked out really hard today, so I'm a little sore.

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<v Speaker 2>I worked out a bit. I need to finish after this.

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<v Speaker 2>But you know who never works out, Margaret.

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<v Speaker 3>Uh, colonialism and ever world out?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean that's true. And I mean also, none

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<v Speaker 2>of the people in this podcast episode work out anymore

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<v Speaker 2>because they're all they've all been dead for decades. Oh,

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<v Speaker 2>because we're talking about World War One. Yeah, there we go.

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<v Speaker 2>That more or less worked.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>When we last left our friend Lawrence, he had just

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<v Speaker 2>met auDA Abu Tayi of the Howitat tribe and Feisal,

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<v Speaker 2>and auDA had decided that, with Lawrence's help, they were

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<v Speaker 2>going to make an attack on the city of Akaba

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<v Speaker 2>from the north. Now, this is kind of like the

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<v Speaker 2>major central like action scene is beautiful in the movie.

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<v Speaker 2>They they shoot it as this absolutely gorgeous like cavalry charge.

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<v Speaker 2>And the gist of what's happening here is that Akaba

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<v Speaker 2>is this port city. It's got a bunch of guns

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<v Speaker 2>that are trained on the sea, and after the disaster

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<v Speaker 2>that had been you know, Gallipoli, the British aren't really

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<v Speaker 2>interested in trying to take this critical port city by

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<v Speaker 2>like a sea a naval invasion because that just doesn't

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<v Speaker 2>tend to work out very well for them in this period.

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<v Speaker 3>So they have to call upon the riders of Rohan.

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<v Speaker 2>They do have to call upon the riders of Rohan.

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<v Speaker 2>And the reason why this has a chance of working

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<v Speaker 2>is that Lawrence is going to kind of Lawrence's idea

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<v Speaker 2>that he and there's some debate here as to like

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<v Speaker 2>who specifically decided to attack Akaba, but Lawrence seems to

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<v Speaker 2>be the one who is, like, I can take instead

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<v Speaker 2>of like marching in from either of the sides they expect.

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<v Speaker 2>The kind of back of this city is to this

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<v Speaker 2>vast desert that is considered impassable because like how would

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<v Speaker 2>you get a bunch of guys on foot across this right, Like,

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<v Speaker 2>it's just absolutely some of the deadliest terrain on planet Earth.

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<v Speaker 2>And Lawrence is like, if we get a small force,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, we can take this tiny gorilla and it's

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<v Speaker 2>literally just a few dozen guys across this vast desert

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<v Speaker 2>and then cross into the portion of Syria where the

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<v Speaker 2>Hawatat keep their spring pastures, and we can find all

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<v Speaker 2>the people who live in this area, rally them to

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<v Speaker 2>our banner, and attack Akaba. According to Lawrence, when he

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<v Speaker 2>broached this plan to Aouda, Aouda's response was all Gondor Yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>where was gondor when the when the Westfold fell? No,

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<v Speaker 2>although he does give like I would say, an equally

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<v Speaker 2>cool response to anything in the Lord of the Rings,

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<v Speaker 2>he says, all things are possible with dynamite and English gold.

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<v Speaker 2>That's an that's an an eternal truth. Enough dynamite and

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<v Speaker 2>English gold, I feel like I could do anything too. Yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>now this is you know, there's a bit of debate

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<v Speaker 2>here as to like the extent to which Lawrence was

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<v Speaker 2>kind of central to all the planning here. In twenty fourteen,

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<v Speaker 2>Iraqi historian Ali Alawi published a biography of Faisal, who,

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<v Speaker 2>after the Great Arab Revolt, went on to be the

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<v Speaker 2>first King of Iraq. His reappraisal of Feisal suggests that

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<v Speaker 2>Lawrence was not the one to suggest Akaba as a

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<v Speaker 2>location to attack, and that Feisal made that call on

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<v Speaker 2>his own. Now, I kind of feel like the the

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<v Speaker 2>fact that Lawrence gets a lot gets credit for coming

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<v Speaker 2>up with the idea of going after Akkaba in the

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<v Speaker 2>first place is less Lawrence's fault and more sort of

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<v Speaker 2>the fault of that Peter O'Toole movie. Because I went

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<v Speaker 2>through Seven Pillars of Wisdom and I read the portions

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<v Speaker 2>of the book which discuss Akaba, and there aren't a

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<v Speaker 2>whole lot. There's not a whole lot of a Kaba

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<v Speaker 2>talk in the book, not a whole lot of Akaba Takaba.

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<v Speaker 2>And it does not seem like what's in there from

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<v Speaker 2>what's in there, I know I had to do it.

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<v Speaker 2>I had to do it. It doesn't seem like to

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<v Speaker 2>me like Lawrence was taking credit for the idea itself

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<v Speaker 2>just to attack the city. In fact, he notes that

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<v Speaker 2>Feisal was unable to participate in the attack, which quote

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<v Speaker 2>through the Ungrateful load of this Northern expedition upon myself,

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<v Speaker 2>which sounds like he's saying it was not my idea,

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<v Speaker 2>but Feisal was, you know, had to stay his base

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<v Speaker 2>for this, so I had to like handle the implementation,

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<v Speaker 2>right oka. And he describes the fact that like he

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<v Speaker 2>had to be the one on the ground doing it

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<v Speaker 2>as leading to a dishonest implication, which I interpreted him

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<v Speaker 2>being kind of uncomfortable with being given credit for dreaming

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<v Speaker 2>up and executing the whole campaign.

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<v Speaker 3>Which is probably one of the biggest problems with him

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<v Speaker 3>in general, right, is how people like view him as

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<v Speaker 3>like the one white guy who saved everyone or right right?

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<v Speaker 2>Which is I mean? And I hope it's hard in

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<v Speaker 2>a podcast episode focused on Lawrence, because there's so many

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<v Speaker 2>people involved on every side of this to not have

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<v Speaker 2>it seem like you are. I mean. And he does

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<v Speaker 2>play a central role, but he's also not the only

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<v Speaker 2>shot guy. He's not the only shot he's certainly not

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<v Speaker 2>the major shot collar on the British side either, right,

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<v Speaker 2>Like General Allenby up in Palestine is making a lot

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<v Speaker 2>of calls and making a lot of direction, Feisal is

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<v Speaker 2>a major player here, and I think actually seven Pillars

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<v Speaker 2>gives a pretty fair accounting of how that all actually

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<v Speaker 2>worked out, and despite how central Akaba is to the movie,

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<v Speaker 2>the actual battle the capture of the city only merits

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<v Speaker 2>a couple of sentences in but really just a sentence

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<v Speaker 2>because all he writes about it in the book is

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<v Speaker 2>we tricked the Turks and entered Akaba with good fortune, right,

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<v Speaker 2>which is not like to be blown up into the

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<v Speaker 2>absolute like center of this like four hour epic movie.

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<v Speaker 2>Very funny is this?

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<v Speaker 3>Now, they didn't do this with thirty six guys. They

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<v Speaker 3>did this, but the thirty six guys went and got

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<v Speaker 3>out and.

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<v Speaker 2>Got other guys. Right. It was the thirty six or

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<v Speaker 2>so far, I think it was like forty five or

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<v Speaker 2>whatever that crossed the desert. And this is this is

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<v Speaker 2>an amazing feat. It's like one of the most impressive

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<v Speaker 2>feats of insurgent warfare because they they cross this massive,

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<v Speaker 2>absolutely merciless desert with just literally nothing but what they

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<v Speaker 2>are able to carry on them with their camels. Lawrence

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<v Speaker 2>and forty five men and each of his fighters. All

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<v Speaker 2>they have on them is a forty five pound sack

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<v Speaker 2>of a flower and all of the water they can carry.

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<v Speaker 2>That's all they have. With them to keep them alive,

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<v Speaker 2>rubber heroes. Just a huge sack of flower. Well, it

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<v Speaker 2>won't go bad, you know, not in the time that

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<v Speaker 2>you're out there. And I guess, like, yeah, that's that's

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<v Speaker 2>all you got, flour and water to keep you moving.

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<v Speaker 3>I mean sometimes raw calories will do. She said, high

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<v Speaker 3>on sugar.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, that's it's completely changed my prepping load out.

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<v Speaker 2>All I keep in my truck is ninety pounds of

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<v Speaker 2>flour in a bunch of water.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah. And the camel trailer was a good touch.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, I do have a camel.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>It's miserable here, a horrible place to have a camel.

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<v Speaker 2>They do not do well in the Pacific Northwest.

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<v Speaker 3>It's like huskies in New Orleans.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I think a big part of like why Akaba

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<v Speaker 2>gets so so much focus is that it is kind

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<v Speaker 2>of the first time Lawrence becomes a celebrity. Because at

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<v Speaker 2>the time in which they successfully take Akaba, the Brits

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<v Speaker 2>are kind of hungry for a win. The Western Front

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<v Speaker 2>is mostly bad, Like even the good news is really

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<v Speaker 2>bad news. Gallipoli was this catastrophe, and so the fact

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<v Speaker 2>that like this is they're going to take this strategically

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<v Speaker 2>important city from the Turks quite easily is a big deal.

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<v Speaker 2>So after two hideous months, it takes them two months

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<v Speaker 2>to cross the desert. Like that's how long they're living

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<v Speaker 2>off with a sack of flower desert oased a huge desert. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>like this is an incredible feat. Lawrence and his guys

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<v Speaker 2>reach the outskirts of Akaba, and by the time they

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<v Speaker 2>get to the city itself, their numbers have grown to

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<v Speaker 2>about a thousand. They recruit all these guys from the

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<v Speaker 2>local tribes in the area and the Turks, who were

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<v Speaker 2>slightly more competent in real life than in the movies.

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<v Speaker 2>The movie just shows Lawrence and his guy's writing and

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<v Speaker 2>this glorious rowhim cavalry charge and they just smash the Turks.

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<v Speaker 2>That's not at all what happens. They don't even actually

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<v Speaker 2>fight in Akaba. What happens is the Turks send a

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<v Speaker 2>five hundred and fifty man relief force to bolster a

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<v Speaker 2>Kapa's defense, and before they can get to the city,

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<v Speaker 2>Lawrence and his cavalry fall upon them in Ambush fort

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<v Speaker 2>or forty or so miles north of the city, in

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<v Speaker 2>a place named Wadi Abba Alissan. And this battle, there's

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<v Speaker 2>like a kind of funny like clown shit moment and

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<v Speaker 2>that like it starts with this again very lord of

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<v Speaker 2>the Ring shit. There's this argument between Lawrence and I

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<v Speaker 2>think it's Outa about like who's going to attack where first,

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<v Speaker 2>And finally Outa and his guy's charge in on one side,

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<v Speaker 2>and so Lawrence is like, fuck, we have to charge

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<v Speaker 2>it on the other, like just go, just go, just go,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, we can't let them like beat us to there.

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<v Speaker 2>And then as they're running, Lawrence is just like like

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<v Speaker 2>emptying his pistol like while charging on campmel back and

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<v Speaker 2>he shoots his camel in the head. auDA loses his

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<v Speaker 2>camel too. Outa has like fourteen bullet holes in his

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<v Speaker 2>gear when this battle ends, and I don't think any

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<v Speaker 2>of them actually hit his body. Like this guy is

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<v Speaker 2>just a like a fucking dull key Character's amazing. He's

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<v Speaker 2>got blot armor. Yes, he's got to. He's the main character.

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<v Speaker 2>Hell yeah. So as much of a shit show as

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<v Speaker 2>that kind of sounds like, the battle goes incredibly well.

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<v Speaker 2>They kill like three hundred something Turkish soldiers, absolutely destroy

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<v Speaker 2>this entire force, and Lawrence loses. Lawrence and and out

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<v Speaker 2>loose two men. Wow, yeah, which is like that's a

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<v Speaker 2>that's a big dub. That's about as well as the

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<v Speaker 2>battle could go. Yeah, so that's part of why this

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<v Speaker 2>becomes so like famous, you know overseas is like, wow,

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<v Speaker 2>what a fucking what a fucking coup. Now.

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<v Speaker 3>I hope it was a different camel than the one

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<v Speaker 3>that took him all the way across the desert. I

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<v Speaker 3>hope you like switch in there.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Aerra Gord like charging at the fucking Battle of

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<v Speaker 2>pelenor Fields and excellently cuts fucking horses head off. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>Gandolf blasts a lightning bolt in the shadow facts. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>the King of Horses just tumbling as they hit the

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<v Speaker 2>Orc lines. I do also like to imagine that in

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<v Speaker 2>like Aerra Gorn's version of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, like

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<v Speaker 2>the whole Battle of Helm's Deep is just the Orcs

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<v Speaker 2>attack that said Helm's Deep and we won. We figured

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<v Speaker 2>it out, We figured it out, it was fine, our

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<v Speaker 2>friends came.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, well that is kind of like because Gandalf goes

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<v Speaker 3>off to get help, right, Yeah, so he's just like yeah, yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>he is the equivalent to him going through the desert anyway.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, now a big part of why Lawrence had

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<v Speaker 2>been so motivated to take a Kaba because like there

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<v Speaker 2>was debate, you know, should we should the French help

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<v Speaker 2>us out with this? Are the British going to like,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, attempt some sort of like landing Lawrence doesn't

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<v Speaker 2>want any Europeans in the city because at this point

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<v Speaker 2>there's a lot of debate. We don't really know when

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<v Speaker 2>he became aware of the sikes Pico agreement, which we're

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<v Speaker 2>going to talk about and explain here, but that's basically

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<v Speaker 2>the British French agreement that like split up the Middle

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<v Speaker 2>East under their spheres of influence. Right, we don't know

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<v Speaker 2>when Lawrence knew about it, But the actual answer is

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<v Speaker 2>probably that doesn't really matter, because he was aware of

0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.880
<v Speaker 2>the debate around what became sikes Picot right from pretty

0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:00.000
<v Speaker 2>much the beginning. So maybe he didn't know until late November,

0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:02.640
<v Speaker 2>you know, nineteen seventeen, when it got leaked out that

0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.120
<v Speaker 2>like this specific agreement had been signed, but he knew

0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:10.400
<v Speaker 2>that his leaders and the French were talking about carving

0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.040
<v Speaker 2>up the Arab world and he didn't want that to happen. Right,

0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:16.320
<v Speaker 2>He was okay with the idea of the British having

0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.840
<v Speaker 2>a sphere of influence in the Arab world. He didn't

0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:22.240
<v Speaker 2>want the French because again the French the genocide and stuff,

0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.360
<v Speaker 2>he's not happy with them, and he's in general like

0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.480
<v Speaker 2>he feels like there's this guilt that he's got kind

0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:30.160
<v Speaker 2>of this whole time with the idea that like, I

0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.200
<v Speaker 2>am fighting for Arab independence and I'm pretty sure my

0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.560
<v Speaker 2>side is going to betray these people, right, that we're

0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:38.960
<v Speaker 2>not going to live up to our promises. So a

0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.160
<v Speaker 2>big part of why he wants to take Akaba and

0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.040
<v Speaker 2>he wants the Arabs to take Akaba is the more

0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.800
<v Speaker 2>cities that they are in military control of when this

0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.720
<v Speaker 2>thing ends, the better their odds of keeping those cities

0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.600
<v Speaker 2>under their control. Right, Like, if the British or the

0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.520
<v Speaker 2>French occupy Akaba, there's no getting them out, you know,

0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.120
<v Speaker 2>like they're not going to lead, right, They're gonna set

0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:01.680
<v Speaker 2>us a sheep.

0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.439
<v Speaker 3>So, yeah, to do some terrorism in order to get

0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:05.559
<v Speaker 3>the British or the French to lead.

0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, But whereas you know, if if the Arabs are

0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.160
<v Speaker 2>running Akaba like they're running Mecca, and then the French

0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:12.800
<v Speaker 2>are like, okay, well we're gonna come in there. It's

0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:14.880
<v Speaker 2>a lot easier to be like, well, no, like we already,

0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:16.720
<v Speaker 2>we already have this set up. We're good.

0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.480
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, what a mind fuck for Lawrence because yeah, I mean,

0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:22.559
<v Speaker 3>like at least this version of him that's being presented,

0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.319
<v Speaker 3>which makes sense to me. Yeah, yeah, he wants what's best,

0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.599
<v Speaker 3>but he's like working within a flawed system and he

0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.520
<v Speaker 3>knows that not just a flaw system, but an evil system. Yes,

0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.840
<v Speaker 3>and he's like, oh, this is going to go badly, yes,

0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.920
<v Speaker 3>but still being like, well it's better than letting the Turks?

0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.800
<v Speaker 2>What else am I gonna do? It's he's he is.

0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.439
<v Speaker 2>He is in a very complicated situation, and there's a

0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.120
<v Speaker 2>lot to say about He is kind of lying to

0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.920
<v Speaker 2>all of these Arab guys that he claims to love

0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.600
<v Speaker 2>and consider brothers, right, He's he is not telling them

0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:56.520
<v Speaker 2>the full truth, but he is also lying and actively

0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.960
<v Speaker 2>kind of betraying England, like in a way because he

0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.800
<v Speaker 2>he's actively trying to like he's not telling his superior officers.

0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.120
<v Speaker 2>He didn't tell them that he's planning to even attack

0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.360
<v Speaker 2>Akaba this way, right, Like they don't find out until

0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.760
<v Speaker 2>the city gets taken because he doesn't want them to

0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.400
<v Speaker 2>make a move that would put them in the city. Right,

0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.199
<v Speaker 2>So he is kind of he's kind of I mean,

0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.280
<v Speaker 2>he's he's the situation he's in. He's kind of fucking

0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.480
<v Speaker 2>over everyone to some extent. But I think he is

0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.760
<v Speaker 2>overall trying to trying to secure what he sees as

0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:32.120
<v Speaker 2>a good outcome for the Arabs, right again, doing the

0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.040
<v Speaker 2>paternalistic thing. If he's not going to tell them necessarily

0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.600
<v Speaker 2>he does. There's some evidence that he eventually does kind

0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.400
<v Speaker 2>of that he does talk to like come out about

0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.240
<v Speaker 2>some of this to like Faisal, But it's all very

0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.680
<v Speaker 2>murky right Like again, this is skulduggery and spycraft.

0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:49.680
<v Speaker 3>I mean, I want the sixteen year old to have

0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.240
<v Speaker 3>been secretly planning the whole thing.

0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.120
<v Speaker 2>Right right. Yeah. Unfortunately we don't get a happy story

0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.280
<v Speaker 2>ending for Dome. Ok. Yeah, it's a bummer. So the

0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.320
<v Speaker 2>British government spins the Battle of Akaba into this like

0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:06.000
<v Speaker 2>massive thing for them because they really needed the good propaganda.

0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.040
<v Speaker 2>And when they start doing this, Lawrence he's got this

0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.360
<v Speaker 2>keen instinctive understanding of the moment that he inhabited. One

0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.440
<v Speaker 2>of the things that makes him like such a such

0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:18.920
<v Speaker 2>a an incredible figure here is that he has an

0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.040
<v Speaker 2>understanding not just of all these dynamics of insurgent warfare,

0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.440
<v Speaker 2>but of how propaganda plays into insurgent warfare and plays

0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.920
<v Speaker 2>into actually securing victory here. And he knows that now

0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.800
<v Speaker 2>that the British are invested in his success because they

0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.120
<v Speaker 2>need these wins, this is my best chance to get them,

0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.320
<v Speaker 2>to force them to deliver guns and support from my

0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.840
<v Speaker 2>Arab allies, which will allow them to take and hold

0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:42.840
<v Speaker 2>more cities, which is going to give them the best

0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:44.520
<v Speaker 2>odds of winning a state of their own and not

0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.360
<v Speaker 2>just being cut apart by the great powers. So again,

0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.840
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence is kind of aware of the broad strip strokes

0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.200
<v Speaker 2>of Syke's Pico. And to be clear, Sykes Pico never

0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.000
<v Speaker 2>actually gets instituted. When we talk about these significance. It's

0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.400
<v Speaker 2>not because they actually do Sykes Picot. It's because Sikes

0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.400
<v Speaker 2>Pico is an evidence of the ways in which the

0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.960
<v Speaker 2>British and French are talking about carving up the Middle East,

0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.040
<v Speaker 2>and what finally gets done looks a lot like what

0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.200
<v Speaker 2>Sykes Picot was planned to be, right, but it's not

0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.520
<v Speaker 2>exactly the same thing. Just to be clear here, because

0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.480
<v Speaker 2>like actual scholars will be like well, they never really did,

0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.600
<v Speaker 2>Sykes Picicau. It's just what happened was very similar, and

0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.160
<v Speaker 2>it's evidence that this is how they'd been talking, right, yeah,

0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.400
<v Speaker 2>for a long time. So at this point, the Brits

0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.400
<v Speaker 2>are still reeling from several failed assaults on Jerusalem, where

0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.880
<v Speaker 2>the Turks had beaten them back and established a dusty

0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.560
<v Speaker 2>desert version of the trench stalemate on the Western Front.

0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.640
<v Speaker 2>A general named George Allenby was brought in to clean

0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.960
<v Speaker 2>up the mess. And Alanby is more competent than most

0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:46.520
<v Speaker 2>British generals, we'll say that, right, Like, not that he's

0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.240
<v Speaker 2>got a spotless record here, but he's definitely like better

0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.520
<v Speaker 2>than the guys who had been doing this before. And

0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.440
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence knew that, you know. Once Allenby comes in as

0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.240
<v Speaker 2>the only British officer with a major victory behind him,

0:16:58.240 --> 0:16:59.720
<v Speaker 2>he was in a position to get a lot out

0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.560
<v Speaker 2>of it new boss. So he travels to where ALANB

0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.119
<v Speaker 2>is and I think I think Allenby's and Palestine at

0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.679
<v Speaker 2>this point, and he sits down with his boss to

0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.000
<v Speaker 2>get alan B to send guns to his men. Lawrence's

0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.520
<v Speaker 2>motivation here, according to Scott Anderson, was to sell allan

0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.240
<v Speaker 2>B the World War One general equivalent of heroin, which

0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.920
<v Speaker 2>is a promise that he can break a stalemate in front. Right,

0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.760
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence is like, I can stop the Turks from getting

0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.399
<v Speaker 2>relief forces from Medina up to I think Jerusalem. And

0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:32.040
<v Speaker 2>I can also, like basically ensure that you have as

0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.920
<v Speaker 2>good a chance to break this stalemate as possible by

0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.400
<v Speaker 2>carrying out my own offenses that pulls Turkish strength away. Right,

0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.119
<v Speaker 2>Just give me the guns, Just give me the guns.

0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:45.240
<v Speaker 2>And here's how Anderson describes it. Lawrence vastly exaggerated both

0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.399
<v Speaker 2>the strength and capability of those rebels already under arms

0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.639
<v Speaker 2>to paint an enticing picture of a military juggernaut, the

0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.960
<v Speaker 2>British advancing up the Palestine coast as the Arabs took

0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.080
<v Speaker 2>the fight to the Syrian interior. Now that's succinct and

0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.199
<v Speaker 2>overall accurate. But Laura, here's his own account of his

0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.160
<v Speaker 2>meeting with Allenby and Seven Pillars is much more colorful.

0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.040
<v Speaker 2>So I'm going to read that here because I just

0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.400
<v Speaker 2>really like the guy's writing. It was a comic interview.

0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.760
<v Speaker 2>For Alan b was physically large and confident and morally

0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.960
<v Speaker 2>so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow

0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.480
<v Speaker 2>to him. He sat in his chair looking at me,

0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:22.000
<v Speaker 2>not straight as his custom was, but sideways, puzzled. He

0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.199
<v Speaker 2>was newly from France, where for years he had been

0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.119
<v Speaker 2>a tooth of the great machine grinding the enemy. He

0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.320
<v Speaker 2>was full of Western ideas of gunpowder and weight, the

0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.600
<v Speaker 2>worst training for our war. But as a cavalryman, was

0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.199
<v Speaker 2>already half persuaded to throw up the new school in

0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.520
<v Speaker 2>this different world of Asia and accompany Donne and chetwode

0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.520
<v Speaker 2>along the worn road of maneuver and movement. Yet he

0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.760
<v Speaker 2>was hardly prepared for anything so odd as myself, a

0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.240
<v Speaker 2>little barefooted silk skirted man offering to hobble the enemy

0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.840
<v Speaker 2>by his preaching, if given stores and arms and a

0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.640
<v Speaker 2>fund of two hundred thousand sovereigns to convince and control

0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.800
<v Speaker 2>his converts. Alan b could not make out how much

0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.240
<v Speaker 2>was genuine performer and how much Charloton. The problem was

0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.040
<v Speaker 2>working behind his eyes, and I left him unhelped to

0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:04.560
<v Speaker 2>solve it.

0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:07.920
<v Speaker 3>WHOA I left him unhelped.

0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:10.400
<v Speaker 2>I loved the way he writes.

0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.520
<v Speaker 3>He's like, yeah, I was lying him to figure it out.

0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:16.040
<v Speaker 2>He knew he knew I was, but he didn't know

0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.600
<v Speaker 2>how much not my job to figure that out for

0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:26.520
<v Speaker 2>him anyway. You know what I'm not gonna leave you

0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:30.680
<v Speaker 2>unhelped to do, listener is purchase the products and services

0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:31.879
<v Speaker 2>that support this podcast.

0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.200
<v Speaker 3>I'm gonna spend my money on gambling.

0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's that's where Lawrence would spend all of those

0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.360
<v Speaker 2>those sovereigns. You know that, really money is always on gambling. Yeah, yeah,

0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.959
<v Speaker 2>gamble out with your handle out, I don't know whatever.

0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:55.680
<v Speaker 2>Fuck it. Ah, we're back and we're talking t E. Lawrence.

0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.960
<v Speaker 2>So Lawrence is, you know, too canny to everything he Lauren,

0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.880
<v Speaker 2>t He Lawrence, that's right, t He because he's sneaky. Yeah,

0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.240
<v Speaker 2>so his own ambitions are a lot more modest than

0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.080
<v Speaker 2>what he's trying to sell. Alan beyond right, he doesn't

0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.679
<v Speaker 2>he doesn't really believe, you know, he knows the reality

0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.480
<v Speaker 2>of the strength of his forces, and he wants all

0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.760
<v Speaker 2>these guns to build a more disciplined insurgent movement that

0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.240
<v Speaker 2>will be kind of the core of this Arab state, right,

0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.960
<v Speaker 2>and part of what he wants, Like he's he's kind

0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.639
<v Speaker 2>of less focused on these big offensives that Alan be

0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.200
<v Speaker 2>wants because he understands that the tactics these Western Front

0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.880
<v Speaker 2>tactics had led his you know, were not the way

0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.080
<v Speaker 2>to win in the desert. So after Akaba he takes

0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.160
<v Speaker 2>he embarks on yet another like historically significant recon campaign.

0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.240
<v Speaker 2>He takes two men with him and alone against a

0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:48.000
<v Speaker 2>vast desert. They travel like a thousand miles or something like,

0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.760
<v Speaker 2>this massive journey scouting out all of these Turkish positions.

0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:55.600
<v Speaker 2>The whole operation was inspired by a recognition on Lawrence's

0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.919
<v Speaker 2>part that thus far the war had involved haphazard playing

0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:01.480
<v Speaker 2>with men in movement, and he saw that this had

0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:03.800
<v Speaker 2>worked for them, but largely out of luck. And quote

0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:06.639
<v Speaker 2>vowed to know henceforth before I moved where I was

0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:08.120
<v Speaker 2>going and by what roads.

0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:09.960
<v Speaker 3>No delegator.

0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.280
<v Speaker 2>This guy, he is not. He does a lot on

0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.399
<v Speaker 2>his own, like he. I think part of it is

0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.560
<v Speaker 2>that he can't really make these plans unless he feels

0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.440
<v Speaker 2>the ground beneath him, right, Like, that's just the kind

0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.240
<v Speaker 2>of thinker he is. I think he just also likes

0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.080
<v Speaker 2>it too, Yeah, totally. The purpose of this recon campaign

0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.000
<v Speaker 2>was to help Lawrence figure out how to build what

0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:34.040
<v Speaker 2>he called a ladder of tribes across Syria, eventually leading

0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:38.080
<v Speaker 2>from Akaba to Damascus. Describing this plan, James Schneider writes

0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.480
<v Speaker 2>the nature of the operations would be like naval war

0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:46.119
<v Speaker 2>in mobility, ubiquity, independence of bases and communications, ignoring of

0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:50.600
<v Speaker 2>ground features, of strategic areas, of fixed locations of fixed points.

0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.720
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence would command the desert camel raiding parties, self contained

0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.560
<v Speaker 2>like ships, might cruise confidently along the enemy's cultivation frontier,

0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.520
<v Speaker 2>sure of an unhindered retreat into their desert element which

0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.399
<v Speaker 2>the Turks could not explore. That's so interesting to be

0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:06.240
<v Speaker 2>that he's thinking about this like a naval war. Each

0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.760
<v Speaker 2>of these small insurgent squads is like a ship right

0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:11.560
<v Speaker 2>independent alone on the sea.

0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:12.320
<v Speaker 1>You know.

0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:15.639
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's so fluid and you have to think the

0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.920
<v Speaker 2>mind it takes to keep track of this as well

0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.239
<v Speaker 2>as he does. Yeah, not that he doesn't fuck up.

0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.679
<v Speaker 2>He's got after Akaba. There's a major defeat that like

0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:28.600
<v Speaker 2>he has kind of when he overstretches his his forces.

0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:31.159
<v Speaker 2>But like you know, for for the most part, this

0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:35.880
<v Speaker 2>is an extremely successful campaign. So during the ride into Akaba,

0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:38.720
<v Speaker 2>he had worked out exactly how far a unit of

0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.080
<v Speaker 2>camel riders could operate with a forty five pound bag

0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.880
<v Speaker 2>of flour and a pint of water. They could operate

0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:48.000
<v Speaker 2>alone for like six weeks, right, that's his assuming.

0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:49.320
<v Speaker 3>That I guess they're at getting water.

0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.720
<v Speaker 2>So yes, yes, they know where there are like places

0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.760
<v Speaker 2>to get water. And so these forces, these small straw, yeah,

0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.439
<v Speaker 2>life straw. These tiny units of camel riders just just

0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.560
<v Speaker 2>powered by flower and water have an operational range of

0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:05.800
<v Speaker 2>two thousand miles without re supply, right, that's how far

0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:06.440
<v Speaker 2>they can.

0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:07.960
<v Speaker 3>Go and rules.

0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:10.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's fucking cool. And when you look at that

0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:12.679
<v Speaker 2>range and you compare it to like an automan company

0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.439
<v Speaker 2>of infantry on foot can handle, which is like a

0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.439
<v Speaker 2>couple of miles past the railway, you see what a

0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:25.280
<v Speaker 2>nightmare he's created for the automance at these little rating parts. Absolutely, yeah, yeah,

0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:28.160
<v Speaker 2>it's like you are trying to fight a naval war

0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:32.000
<v Speaker 2>with infantry treading in the water, right, And that's what

0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:34.440
<v Speaker 2>the Turks are trying to do. Yeah, I'm going to

0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:37.800
<v Speaker 2>quote from Schneider again. Because of long standing feuds and jealousies,

0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.880
<v Speaker 2>it became virtually impossible to integrate or amalgamate the various tribes,

0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:45.359
<v Speaker 2>nor could one antithetic tribe operate in the territory of

0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:49.439
<v Speaker 2>another to overcome this organizational constraint, Lawrence operated in the

0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:53.200
<v Speaker 2>greatest dispersion possible, which contributed greatly to his agility, fluidity,

0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:58.439
<v Speaker 2>and mobility. Maximum disorganization created maximum articulation. As with a

0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:02.080
<v Speaker 2>box of legos, Lawrence could any organization and function as

0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:04.720
<v Speaker 2>unique as the new task at hand, for each mission

0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:07.200
<v Speaker 2>was unlike any other and had to be considered afresh.

0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:10.520
<v Speaker 2>The lego like articulation meant that the enemy response could

0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:13.359
<v Speaker 2>never develop a classic order of battle, for there was

0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:17.520
<v Speaker 2>no order, only disorder. His system was unsystematic.

0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:20.960
<v Speaker 3>That's cool. One of the things I'm really obsessed with

0:24:21.040 --> 0:24:27.040
<v Speaker 3>strategically is how chaotic forces can integrate into traditional war

0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:32.240
<v Speaker 3>and like, yeah, and how yeah, Like I think we

0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:34.080
<v Speaker 3>see this in activism all the time, is people try

0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:35.680
<v Speaker 3>to get all of these groups to be like, oh,

0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:38.000
<v Speaker 3>if only they were all under one command, and you're like,

0:24:38.240 --> 0:24:41.000
<v Speaker 3>you're not playing to your strengths at that point. Yeah, Like,

0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:44.920
<v Speaker 3>having diverse movements is stronger if you do it right.

0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:47.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean because kind of the difficulty and the

0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:50.720
<v Speaker 2>trouble with you know, the kind of activist we know

0:24:50.880 --> 0:24:55.840
<v Speaker 2>is you need both, you need this maximum articulation rights.

0:24:55.960 --> 0:24:59.479
<v Speaker 2>As Schneider describes it, But you also do need a vision,

0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:04.360
<v Speaker 2>a central vision, because you have you have this ultimate disorganization,

0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:07.760
<v Speaker 2>this incredibly flat hierarchy compared to the other militaries of

0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:10.359
<v Speaker 2>the day, but you also have Lawrence at the center

0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:14.240
<v Speaker 2>of this spider web, pulling in each direction, right, like

0:25:14.359 --> 0:25:19.359
<v Speaker 2>making the actual like polls, which is is very tough.

0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:21.000
<v Speaker 2>There's not a lot of Lawrences out there.

0:25:21.359 --> 0:25:21.560
<v Speaker 3>Now.

0:25:22.200 --> 0:25:26.280
<v Speaker 2>I do love that line. Maximum disorganization created maximum articulation.

0:25:26.480 --> 0:25:30.040
<v Speaker 2>I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. So

0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:32.639
<v Speaker 2>a big part of why these forces work is that

0:25:32.760 --> 0:25:36.159
<v Speaker 2>unlike the vast conscript armies of the Western Front, Lawrence's

0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:40.080
<v Speaker 2>soldiers are all either believers or at least at least

0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:44.000
<v Speaker 2>there willingly for the money, right because like some of

0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:46.679
<v Speaker 2>these Lawrence kind of Lawrence talks them up. You know,

0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:49.879
<v Speaker 2>he has a line their only contract was honor, which

0:25:49.920 --> 0:25:53.000
<v Speaker 2>is debatably true. Like Auta, who we've been talking about,

0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:55.720
<v Speaker 2>is going to make an approach to the Turks and

0:25:55.800 --> 0:25:58.320
<v Speaker 2>like be like, hey, if you bribe me, I'll switch sides.

0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:01.919
<v Speaker 2>And he may have been considering switching sides, but he

0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:05.040
<v Speaker 2>also just robs the Turkish guy with the money. But

0:26:05.080 --> 0:26:07.399
<v Speaker 2>it's unclear because of when everyone else finds out what

0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:09.640
<v Speaker 2>he's done. It's unclear was his plan from the beginning

0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:13.280
<v Speaker 2>just to rob, just to rob the Ottomans, or did

0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:14.879
<v Speaker 2>he move? Did he decide, well, I guess I'll just

0:26:14.960 --> 0:26:16.840
<v Speaker 2>rob this guy once he got caught because he didn't

0:26:16.840 --> 0:26:18.480
<v Speaker 2>want to. He didn't want to get like, you know,

0:26:19.280 --> 0:26:22.600
<v Speaker 2>murdered or whatever. Right, Like, was he actually trying to

0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:24.880
<v Speaker 2>beat turned trader? Or did he just was his plan

0:26:24.920 --> 0:26:27.320
<v Speaker 2>from the beginning, Hey, I bet these guys are dumb

0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:29.080
<v Speaker 2>enough to send a bunch of money my way and

0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:30.600
<v Speaker 2>then I just have to kill the guy bring it,

0:26:30.600 --> 0:26:32.800
<v Speaker 2>And I don't give a fuck. I am a sand pirate,

0:26:33.040 --> 0:26:33.280
<v Speaker 2>you know.

0:26:34.119 --> 0:26:38.960
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, totally, totally. The honor among thieves question is one, yeah.

0:26:38.760 --> 0:26:40.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and and Ouda is not the kind of guy

0:26:41.000 --> 0:26:43.840
<v Speaker 2>who gives a shit about your conceptions of honor. He

0:26:44.359 --> 0:26:47.840
<v Speaker 2>has his own code for sure, But I don't I

0:26:47.880 --> 0:26:52.400
<v Speaker 2>don't think anyone else really fully understands it. Lawrence wrote, quote,

0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:55.679
<v Speaker 2>irregular war was far more intellectual than a bayonet charge,

0:26:55.680 --> 0:26:59.040
<v Speaker 2>far more exhausting than service, and the comfortable imitative obedience

0:26:59.040 --> 0:27:02.240
<v Speaker 2>of an ordered army. Gorillas must be a loud liberal

0:27:02.280 --> 0:27:04.840
<v Speaker 2>work room in a regular war of two men together.

0:27:05.000 --> 0:27:07.920
<v Speaker 2>One was being wasted. Our ideals should be to make

0:27:07.920 --> 0:27:11.080
<v Speaker 2>our battle a series of single combats, our ranks a

0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:13.760
<v Speaker 2>happy alliance of agile commanders in chief.

0:27:16.320 --> 0:27:18.040
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, no, I like it.

0:27:18.119 --> 0:27:21.560
<v Speaker 2>I like that too. So one of the key points

0:27:21.600 --> 0:27:24.840
<v Speaker 2>here is that, unlike most European officers in similar situations,

0:27:25.200 --> 0:27:28.120
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence had not taken Well, I said, he's taken nothing

0:27:28.160 --> 0:27:30.560
<v Speaker 2>of Western military doctrine. That's not really true. He's just

0:27:30.640 --> 0:27:34.440
<v Speaker 2>taken He's taken some Western doctrine that is not popular

0:27:34.720 --> 0:27:38.480
<v Speaker 2>with other people, because that Austrian disachs is kind of

0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:41.159
<v Speaker 2>someone who had been writing a lot of the same things.

0:27:41.200 --> 0:27:44.280
<v Speaker 2>And Lawrence is very influenced by Desaks, but Dessaks is

0:27:44.320 --> 0:27:48.720
<v Speaker 2>certainly not influencing like British strategy at the sam You know, right,

0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:52.120
<v Speaker 2>nothing but machine guns are really influencing that, right, It's

0:27:52.119 --> 0:27:54.200
<v Speaker 2>all these guys who want to be Hannibal but can't

0:27:54.240 --> 0:27:56.680
<v Speaker 2>think of anything more creative than throwing their men into

0:27:56.760 --> 0:28:01.280
<v Speaker 2>the teeth of a bunch of German guns. What's interesting

0:28:01.320 --> 0:28:03.359
<v Speaker 2>about Lawrence is that, you know, for all that he

0:28:03.440 --> 0:28:06.320
<v Speaker 2>is an imperialist, he does not fall to the temptation

0:28:06.480 --> 0:28:10.560
<v Speaker 2>of imposing British standards on these Bedouin fighters. His only

0:28:10.600 --> 0:28:13.040
<v Speaker 2>thought is to give them modern English guns so that

0:28:13.080 --> 0:28:15.840
<v Speaker 2>they can fight their way. And he's writing the whole

0:28:15.880 --> 0:28:18.040
<v Speaker 2>time he's got to try it. He's trying to argue

0:28:18.359 --> 0:28:21.639
<v Speaker 2>to his superiors as to why this is how they

0:28:21.680 --> 0:28:24.240
<v Speaker 2>should handle the whole era of revolt. He writes a

0:28:24.280 --> 0:28:27.400
<v Speaker 2>series of twenty seven articles meant for publication among British

0:28:27.400 --> 0:28:31.040
<v Speaker 2>officers stationed in Arabia. Now these are part propaganda. Some

0:28:31.080 --> 0:28:34.240
<v Speaker 2>of what's in these is Lawrence lying about the strength

0:28:34.240 --> 0:28:36.639
<v Speaker 2>of the Bedouins to make a case, you know, as

0:28:36.680 --> 0:28:40.240
<v Speaker 2>to why they should be supported. But he also includes

0:28:40.240 --> 0:28:43.040
<v Speaker 2>a lot of very good advice on how European officers

0:28:43.040 --> 0:28:46.560
<v Speaker 2>should change their thinking to avoid bringing Western Front problems

0:28:46.600 --> 0:28:48.640
<v Speaker 2>to this new war zone. Like he is trying to

0:28:48.640 --> 0:28:51.880
<v Speaker 2>explain like why they ought to respect the Bedouin, and

0:28:51.920 --> 0:28:54.040
<v Speaker 2>how to respect the Bedouin, how to kind of let

0:28:54.120 --> 0:28:58.040
<v Speaker 2>these people do what works. The next phase of the

0:28:58.040 --> 0:29:00.800
<v Speaker 2>war sees Faisals raiders launched this bl lizard of attacks

0:29:00.800 --> 0:29:04.440
<v Speaker 2>against Ottoman positions around the Jjah's railway, destroying sections of

0:29:04.480 --> 0:29:07.080
<v Speaker 2>track and bridges, but also things like watering holes that

0:29:07.160 --> 0:29:10.960
<v Speaker 2>train operators relied upon for coolant. Lawrence again leads many

0:29:11.000 --> 0:29:13.480
<v Speaker 2>of these raids from the front. He counted that during

0:29:13.520 --> 0:29:17.360
<v Speaker 2>this period he personally destroyed seventy nine bridges, which is

0:29:18.760 --> 0:29:21.040
<v Speaker 2>that's like hurricane level of bridge destruction.

0:29:21.360 --> 0:29:26.360
<v Speaker 3>Lawrence is done, Hurricane Lawrence.

0:29:26.520 --> 0:29:30.440
<v Speaker 2>Hurricane Lawrence. Yeah, Lawrence often would set the charge himself,

0:29:30.440 --> 0:29:32.320
<v Speaker 2>and he became something of an innovator in the field

0:29:32.360 --> 0:29:36.320
<v Speaker 2>of explosives by helping to develop this technique that he

0:29:36.440 --> 0:29:40.040
<v Speaker 2>called scientific shattering. Now, the point of this, this is

0:29:40.120 --> 0:29:43.080
<v Speaker 2>very interesting, was to ruin the bridge, making it unfit

0:29:43.160 --> 0:29:46.920
<v Speaker 2>for transit, but to leave it standing right. And the

0:29:47.000 --> 0:29:51.000
<v Speaker 2>logic here is that a standing bridge that's ruined can't

0:29:51.040 --> 0:29:54.240
<v Speaker 2>just be repaired first. You have to destroy it before

0:29:54.280 --> 0:29:56.520
<v Speaker 2>you can rebuild it. Whereas it just blow it up.

0:29:56.560 --> 0:29:59.440
<v Speaker 2>Then all they have to do is like clear records are.

0:29:59.400 --> 0:30:01.800
<v Speaker 3>Way right, He doesn't have to work for him, right.

0:30:01.880 --> 0:30:04.760
<v Speaker 2>This extends the time. If you fuck the bridge up scientifically,

0:30:04.760 --> 0:30:07.640
<v Speaker 2>they have to spend even more time destroying it the

0:30:07.680 --> 0:30:10.240
<v Speaker 2>rest of the way before they can rebuild it. Now,

0:30:10.240 --> 0:30:12.120
<v Speaker 2>I know all of you listeners at home are taking notes.

0:30:12.160 --> 0:30:15.720
<v Speaker 2>How do I scientifically shatter a bridge? I've never blown

0:30:15.760 --> 0:30:17.800
<v Speaker 2>up a bridge yet, But I can read a quote

0:30:17.800 --> 0:30:20.560
<v Speaker 2>from Lawrence's book to describe how he did it. Yet. Hey,

0:30:20.640 --> 0:30:23.320
<v Speaker 2>what do you mean yet? Yeah, I haven't yet, So

0:30:23.800 --> 0:30:27.760
<v Speaker 2>that's just a factual statement. I haven't destroyed any bridges yet.

0:30:28.440 --> 0:30:35.280
<v Speaker 3>Before we do this, I once was hitchhiking and into Louisville, Kentucky,

0:30:35.320 --> 0:30:37.840
<v Speaker 3>and the trucker who picked me up was this older

0:30:38.440 --> 0:30:41.400
<v Speaker 3>I think Vietnam vet. He's pretty quiet the whole drive,

0:30:41.440 --> 0:30:42.920
<v Speaker 3>and he's like dropping us off in the middle of

0:30:42.960 --> 0:30:44.640
<v Speaker 3>the night, and he like does the trucker thing where

0:30:44.680 --> 0:30:47.400
<v Speaker 3>he just like stops the entire like when he wants

0:30:47.440 --> 0:30:49.479
<v Speaker 3>to do something, he just stops the truck in al traffic,

0:30:49.520 --> 0:30:51.400
<v Speaker 3>just has to deal with it, you know. And before

0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:53.920
<v Speaker 3>we get out, he turns to us and goes, you,

0:30:54.000 --> 0:30:55.440
<v Speaker 3>kid's ever blown up a bridge?

0:30:56.880 --> 0:31:01.880
<v Speaker 2>Amazing stuff? No, sir, oh no, we're children.

0:31:02.200 --> 0:31:05.120
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:31:05.160 --> 0:31:07.760
<v Speaker 2>So here's how Lawrence describes to blow up a bridge.

0:31:08.440 --> 0:31:10.960
<v Speaker 2>Hastily we set about the bridge, a pleasant little work

0:31:11.040 --> 0:31:13.760
<v Speaker 2>eighty feet long and fifteen feet high, honored with a

0:31:13.800 --> 0:31:16.720
<v Speaker 2>shining slab of white marble bearing the name and titles

0:31:16.720 --> 0:31:19.760
<v Speaker 2>of Sultan Abd el Hamide. In the drainage holes of

0:31:19.760 --> 0:31:22.920
<v Speaker 2>the spandrel six small charges were inserted zigzag and with

0:31:22.960 --> 0:31:27.280
<v Speaker 2>their explosion all the arches were scientifically shattered. So there

0:31:27.280 --> 0:31:29.880
<v Speaker 2>you go, guys, put some dynamite in the drainage holes

0:31:29.880 --> 0:31:32.760
<v Speaker 2>and let her rip. You know, Now you can go

0:31:32.800 --> 0:31:35.280
<v Speaker 2>take out bridges, which you shouldn't.

0:31:34.840 --> 0:31:38.840
<v Speaker 3>Do, especially not with someone that you meet at food

0:31:38.880 --> 0:31:41.280
<v Speaker 3>not bombs, or some activist circle.

0:31:42.160 --> 0:31:46.200
<v Speaker 2>That's kind of go badly for everyone. Don't destroy any

0:31:46.200 --> 0:31:49.120
<v Speaker 2>bridges unless you find yourself taking part in an Arab

0:31:49.560 --> 0:31:52.080
<v Speaker 2>revolt against Ottoman power. If that's the case, you know,

0:31:52.080 --> 0:31:54.960
<v Speaker 2>if you get transported back in time to nineteen sixteen

0:31:55.360 --> 0:31:58.080
<v Speaker 2>and you have to help the Bedouins fight for their

0:31:58.120 --> 0:32:00.520
<v Speaker 2>independence from the Ottomans, then it's probably okay to blow

0:32:00.600 --> 0:32:02.880
<v Speaker 2>up some bridges. Or if it's your bridge, you know,

0:32:03.000 --> 0:32:04.520
<v Speaker 2>or if it's your bridge, if you make a bridge

0:32:04.600 --> 0:32:07.520
<v Speaker 2>used to stop you, right, maybe someone owns a demolition

0:32:07.600 --> 0:32:09.920
<v Speaker 2>company out there. There's lots of legal reasons to destroy

0:32:09.960 --> 0:32:14.280
<v Speaker 2>a bridge right now. The bulk of the insurgent work

0:32:14.320 --> 0:32:17.160
<v Speaker 2>that Lawrence does in this period is done by Camelback,

0:32:17.440 --> 0:32:19.680
<v Speaker 2>but for his own team of raiders. Lawrence is going

0:32:19.680 --> 0:32:22.080
<v Speaker 2>to eventually settle on a different mode of transportation, which

0:32:22.120 --> 0:32:26.880
<v Speaker 2>is these armored Rolls Royce cars. They do get they do.

0:32:27.040 --> 0:32:29.200
<v Speaker 2>They are by the end of this like cruising around

0:32:29.280 --> 0:32:32.920
<v Speaker 2>and Rolls Royce as blowing up bridges, which is pretty gangster.

0:32:33.520 --> 0:32:36.120
<v Speaker 3>Is it the same level of luxury car that it's

0:32:36.120 --> 0:32:36.840
<v Speaker 3>seen as now?

0:32:37.240 --> 0:32:39.920
<v Speaker 2>No, I mean I don't think so. At this point.

0:32:39.960 --> 0:32:44.040
<v Speaker 2>These are armored cars. So these sturdy vehicles allow the

0:32:44.120 --> 0:32:46.280
<v Speaker 2>nine man team that he preferred for commando work to

0:32:46.320 --> 0:32:49.120
<v Speaker 2>carry hundreds of pounds of gun caught and explosives and

0:32:49.200 --> 0:32:52.680
<v Speaker 2>move rapidly from target to target. Well, Lawrence was helping

0:32:52.680 --> 0:32:56.640
<v Speaker 2>to execute a successful insurgency in the heart of Ottoman territory.

0:32:56.880 --> 0:32:59.160
<v Speaker 2>The powers that be in the British Empire had started

0:32:59.200 --> 0:33:01.000
<v Speaker 2>to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

0:33:01.240 --> 0:33:03.400
<v Speaker 2>The Americans were almost to the Western Front, and with

0:33:03.440 --> 0:33:06.440
<v Speaker 2>the possibility of victory came the sweet prospect of carving

0:33:06.480 --> 0:33:10.200
<v Speaker 2>up the Ottoman world for European consumption. If you spend

0:33:10.320 --> 0:33:12.720
<v Speaker 2>literally any length of time talking to people in the

0:33:12.760 --> 0:33:15.400
<v Speaker 2>Arab world today and asking them, in brief why is

0:33:15.440 --> 0:33:18.720
<v Speaker 2>everything so fucked up? Every conversation will at some point

0:33:18.760 --> 0:33:22.240
<v Speaker 2>circle back to Sykes be Go. During the fighting against isis.

0:33:22.240 --> 0:33:25.160
<v Speaker 2>I talked about Sykes Pico with like twelve year old boys, right,

0:33:26.000 --> 0:33:28.080
<v Speaker 2>people know it over there, and it's the thing I

0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:31.160
<v Speaker 2>think a lot of Americans don't really know much about.

0:33:31.880 --> 0:33:34.520
<v Speaker 2>It is, as one New Yorker article aptly described it,

0:33:34.600 --> 0:33:36.640
<v Speaker 2>the curse that still haunts the Middle East.

0:33:37.240 --> 0:33:37.400
<v Speaker 1>Now.

0:33:37.440 --> 0:33:39.800
<v Speaker 2>The first of the men that Sykes Pico was named

0:33:39.800 --> 0:33:43.760
<v Speaker 2>after was essentially a dark mirror of Lawrence. Sir Mark

0:33:43.880 --> 0:33:47.000
<v Speaker 2>Sykes was the son of Sir Tetan Sikes, who married

0:33:47.040 --> 0:33:49.120
<v Speaker 2>an eighteen year old girl at age forty eight and

0:33:49.160 --> 0:33:51.560
<v Speaker 2>then disowned her publicly in the newspaper when she spent

0:33:51.640 --> 0:33:56.840
<v Speaker 2>too much of his Money's that's Mark's dad, Yeah, a

0:33:56.840 --> 0:34:00.240
<v Speaker 2>lot of pieces of shit in the British nobility. Dark

0:34:00.360 --> 0:34:02.760
<v Speaker 2>was their only child, and he spent his childhood moving

0:34:02.760 --> 0:34:05.360
<v Speaker 2>between his father's thirty four thousand acre estate and his

0:34:05.400 --> 0:34:08.920
<v Speaker 2>mother's London home. He traveled the Ottoman Empire regularly as

0:34:08.960 --> 0:34:11.920
<v Speaker 2>a tourist with his dad, and then when he became

0:34:12.040 --> 0:34:14.600
<v Speaker 2>a young man, he joined the military and participated in

0:34:14.640 --> 0:34:17.760
<v Speaker 2>the Boer War. He became a Conservative member of Parliament

0:34:17.800 --> 0:34:21.279
<v Speaker 2>and he writes books about like the Ottoman Empire and

0:34:21.320 --> 0:34:24.399
<v Speaker 2>the you know and kind of the Islamic world right,

0:34:24.840 --> 0:34:27.239
<v Speaker 2>and he is during the First World War kind of

0:34:27.239 --> 0:34:29.920
<v Speaker 2>one of the first major at He's a major advocate

0:34:29.960 --> 0:34:33.920
<v Speaker 2>within the British government for the independence of Arabs, Armenians,

0:34:34.000 --> 0:34:37.480
<v Speaker 2>Jews and Turks, right, so long as that independence existed

0:34:37.560 --> 0:34:40.279
<v Speaker 2>under European control and profit. And his thinking here is

0:34:40.640 --> 0:34:43.840
<v Speaker 2>less these people deserve their independence, and more if we

0:34:43.920 --> 0:34:48.520
<v Speaker 2>cut them up into individual little like quasi states under

0:34:48.560 --> 0:34:51.279
<v Speaker 2>our control, it's going to be a lot easier to

0:34:51.360 --> 0:34:56.439
<v Speaker 2>keep everyone dominated, right, Oh shit, uh huh yeah. Over

0:34:56.480 --> 0:34:59.040
<v Speaker 2>the last for a few pre war years, Sykes had

0:34:59.040 --> 0:35:01.000
<v Speaker 2>become the Empire's red is it an expert on the

0:35:01.239 --> 0:35:03.400
<v Speaker 2>Arab world based on the strength of him like vacationing

0:35:03.440 --> 0:35:05.640
<v Speaker 2>there a bunch, right, and the fact that he was

0:35:05.680 --> 0:35:06.360
<v Speaker 2>a baronet.

0:35:06.640 --> 0:35:08.960
<v Speaker 3>He was writing his picture of this character so easily.

0:35:09.520 --> 0:35:14.680
<v Speaker 2>Daddy, Daddi, daddi. He was referred to as the mad

0:35:14.760 --> 0:35:17.920
<v Speaker 2>Mulla as he watched rush around London building support for

0:35:17.960 --> 0:35:20.560
<v Speaker 2>this Arab revolt against the Ottomans, who he hated for

0:35:20.560 --> 0:35:24.200
<v Speaker 2>the squalor and poverty that he saw in cities like Damascus. Now,

0:35:24.200 --> 0:35:26.400
<v Speaker 2>he's not entirely misguided here, because the Ottomans are not

0:35:26.440 --> 0:35:29.440
<v Speaker 2>good rulers, but his feeling that the way to improve

0:35:29.520 --> 0:35:33.160
<v Speaker 2>things was to set Europeans up over the poor bumbling Mohammedans.

0:35:33.880 --> 0:35:37.880
<v Speaker 2>Sykes was paired with Francois George Picot, a French diplomat,

0:35:37.920 --> 0:35:40.440
<v Speaker 2>to portion out the Ottoman Empire into little bits to

0:35:40.520 --> 0:35:43.640
<v Speaker 2>various powers. As the war worked towards a close, there

0:35:43.640 --> 0:35:47.360
<v Speaker 2>were a lot of hopeful claims. Italy wanted the Aegean Islands,

0:35:47.600 --> 0:35:51.680
<v Speaker 2>Greece wanted traditional Byzantine territory in modern Turkey. Russia wanted

0:35:51.719 --> 0:35:54.160
<v Speaker 2>that some good some of that good Asia minor shit

0:35:54.200 --> 0:35:56.560
<v Speaker 2>as well, although they're not going to be, you know,

0:35:56.640 --> 0:35:58.719
<v Speaker 2>at the table for very long here because of that

0:35:58.760 --> 0:36:02.480
<v Speaker 2>whole Bolshevik revolution. And of course the Zionists wanted a

0:36:02.560 --> 0:36:05.759
<v Speaker 2>Jewish homeland in Palestine. And it's interesting one of the

0:36:05.760 --> 0:36:07.960
<v Speaker 2>big I was actually kind of unaware of this, one

0:36:08.040 --> 0:36:10.839
<v Speaker 2>of the big like, one of the reasons why there's

0:36:10.880 --> 0:36:14.600
<v Speaker 2>a support for the Zionists is people who are is

0:36:14.680 --> 0:36:18.640
<v Speaker 2>like people in the British government who are scared that

0:36:18.760 --> 0:36:22.680
<v Speaker 2>Russia is going to collapse under a socialist revolution and

0:36:22.760 --> 0:36:25.320
<v Speaker 2>are like, well, if we give the Jews a homeland, obviously,

0:36:25.360 --> 0:36:27.520
<v Speaker 2>all socialists are Jews, right, so if you give them

0:36:27.560 --> 0:36:31.279
<v Speaker 2>a homeland, you know, in Palestine, then maybe they'll leave

0:36:31.360 --> 0:36:34.040
<v Speaker 2>Russia and they won't destroy Russia, right like that. That's

0:36:34.120 --> 0:36:36.320
<v Speaker 2>literally why a lot there's a lot of early support

0:36:36.320 --> 0:36:40.920
<v Speaker 2>for Zionism among the British government. It's like this super

0:36:41.000 --> 0:36:42.400
<v Speaker 2>concentrated racism.

0:36:42.560 --> 0:36:46.600
<v Speaker 3>God, I love how Schrodinger's jew where you're either a

0:36:46.600 --> 0:36:49.000
<v Speaker 3>capitalist or a communist or something both at once.

0:36:49.160 --> 0:36:51.120
<v Speaker 2>Yes. No, yes, you control all the money and are

0:36:51.120 --> 0:36:52.399
<v Speaker 2>a left wing radical yes.

0:36:52.640 --> 0:36:54.920
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:36:55.200 --> 0:36:58.480
<v Speaker 2>So this was to put mildly if you are people

0:36:58.560 --> 0:37:00.480
<v Speaker 2>like Sykes and Pico, any of the people you know

0:37:00.520 --> 0:37:02.839
<v Speaker 2>in the British government above Lawrence's level, who are trying

0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:04.759
<v Speaker 2>to figure out what the post war is going to

0:37:04.760 --> 0:37:07.080
<v Speaker 2>look like for this region, there's a lot to keep

0:37:07.080 --> 0:37:09.759
<v Speaker 2>in mind, right, there's a lot of competing claims. There's

0:37:09.760 --> 0:37:12.400
<v Speaker 2>a lot of different you know, national groups that are

0:37:12.440 --> 0:37:14.759
<v Speaker 2>kind of agitating for independence too.

0:37:15.239 --> 0:37:17.080
<v Speaker 3>They're just gonna ignore it at all and just cut

0:37:17.080 --> 0:37:17.839
<v Speaker 3>it up, willy nilly.

0:37:18.000 --> 0:37:19.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's more or less what Sykes is going to

0:37:19.520 --> 0:37:22.000
<v Speaker 2>do because he's British, right, so he's only focused on

0:37:22.400 --> 0:37:26.760
<v Speaker 2>mostly yeah, yeah, he's mostly focused on his country's closest

0:37:26.800 --> 0:37:31.120
<v Speaker 2>ally France, right, and France wants something they called greater Syria. Right,

0:37:31.200 --> 0:37:39.120
<v Speaker 2>they think, obviously this is natural French territory. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:37:39.239 --> 0:37:41.400
<v Speaker 2>In deference to the large number of young men that

0:37:41.440 --> 0:37:43.840
<v Speaker 2>France had thrown into the woodshippers on the Western Front,

0:37:43.880 --> 0:37:46.319
<v Speaker 2>they got most of what they wanted. The fact that

0:37:46.320 --> 0:37:49.080
<v Speaker 2>they were doing a fifty to fifty genocide ratio in

0:37:49.880 --> 0:37:53.160
<v Speaker 2>the Muslim majority areas that they had governed in the

0:37:53.200 --> 0:37:55.680
<v Speaker 2>past should have been a warning that, like, this is

0:37:55.719 --> 0:37:58.600
<v Speaker 2>not going to go well. But no one anywhere has

0:37:58.640 --> 0:38:01.600
<v Speaker 2>ever learned a lesson ever. Know, that's the primary lesson

0:38:01.600 --> 0:38:03.680
<v Speaker 2>of history is that no one learns lessons, and no

0:38:04.239 --> 0:38:07.160
<v Speaker 2>one has learned any lessons from France fucking around in Algeria.

0:38:07.320 --> 0:38:08.840
<v Speaker 3>So I haven't even learned this lesson.

0:38:10.360 --> 0:38:12.879
<v Speaker 2>Now. It would have been obvious at the time that

0:38:13.080 --> 0:38:15.480
<v Speaker 2>what you know, the planning going into sykes Pico was

0:38:15.520 --> 0:38:19.200
<v Speaker 2>would lead to catastrophe. The Ottoman Empire had been collapsing

0:38:19.239 --> 0:38:22.080
<v Speaker 2>for some time. In eighteen thirty, France had taken Algeria

0:38:22.120 --> 0:38:24.719
<v Speaker 2>and immediately done a genocide to put down the rebels there.

0:38:25.080 --> 0:38:27.520
<v Speaker 2>They had gained control of Tunisia in eighteen eighty one,

0:38:27.560 --> 0:38:30.399
<v Speaker 2>and they actually waited until nineteen fifty eight and before

0:38:30.440 --> 0:38:32.640
<v Speaker 2>they did a genocide in Tunisia. So really, I mean

0:38:32.719 --> 0:38:35.719
<v Speaker 2>like it's kind of impressive they've got you know, they

0:38:35.760 --> 0:38:38.759
<v Speaker 2>got more responsible.

0:38:38.840 --> 0:38:41.400
<v Speaker 3>That's nice for French patients, you know, the Friz.

0:38:41.600 --> 0:38:44.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they have patients. They waited almost a whole century

0:38:44.239 --> 0:38:48.239
<v Speaker 2>before they did a genocide in Tunisia. Now, under the

0:38:48.280 --> 0:38:52.160
<v Speaker 2>final agreement between France and England, a large region of

0:38:52.160 --> 0:38:55.440
<v Speaker 2>the Ottoman heartland directly above Syria would be under direct

0:38:55.440 --> 0:38:59.000
<v Speaker 2>French control, while a triangle that included a Leppo, Damascus

0:38:59.000 --> 0:39:01.919
<v Speaker 2>and Mosel would be like kind of independent but under

0:39:02.000 --> 0:39:06.000
<v Speaker 2>heavy French influence, whereas the British would have an area

0:39:06.040 --> 0:39:08.400
<v Speaker 2>of influence that was like this large chunk of the

0:39:08.440 --> 0:39:11.520
<v Speaker 2>desert on the peninsula south of the French mandate, and

0:39:11.560 --> 0:39:14.600
<v Speaker 2>they would hold direct control over much of modern Iraq

0:39:14.680 --> 0:39:18.120
<v Speaker 2>stretching to the Arabian Gulf. Sykes would go on to

0:39:18.160 --> 0:39:20.640
<v Speaker 2>solidify his role as one of the most harmful dudes

0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:23.640
<v Speaker 2>to ever cause harm by also pushing the Balfour Declaration

0:39:23.719 --> 0:39:26.920
<v Speaker 2>to the British Cabinet in November of nineteen seventeen. He's

0:39:26.960 --> 0:39:29.920
<v Speaker 2>like one of the forces behind the Balfour Declaration.

0:39:29.719 --> 0:39:32.360
<v Speaker 3>And this is like the early Zionists.

0:39:32.520 --> 0:39:35.879
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, although the actual declaration itself spends more time

0:39:35.920 --> 0:39:40.319
<v Speaker 2>talking about like Jewish populations in European countries, right because

0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:43.200
<v Speaker 2>a lot of in the chaos in Russia, a lot

0:39:43.239 --> 0:39:46.200
<v Speaker 2>of like Jewish people had fled Russia and like wound

0:39:46.280 --> 0:39:48.600
<v Speaker 2>up in England, wound up in other European like that

0:39:48.680 --> 0:39:50.880
<v Speaker 2>is actually more of what the declaration is. But kind

0:39:50.920 --> 0:39:53.760
<v Speaker 2>of the outcome of the declaration, is this the first

0:39:53.760 --> 0:39:57.360
<v Speaker 2>time that there's official British government support behind the Zionist

0:39:57.400 --> 0:40:01.360
<v Speaker 2>desire for a homeland in Palestine. The actual text of

0:40:01.440 --> 0:40:04.480
<v Speaker 2>the declaration, like of the agreement being made, is like that,

0:40:04.840 --> 0:40:06.840
<v Speaker 2>of course, no one will be displaced, none of the

0:40:06.960 --> 0:40:09.640
<v Speaker 2>none of the current like inhabitants of Palestine will be

0:40:09.680 --> 0:40:10.960
<v Speaker 2>displaced as result of this.

0:40:11.360 --> 0:40:13.480
<v Speaker 3>Yea in tgic.

0:40:14.000 --> 0:40:18.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, through magic in true imperial fashion. Sikes's primary

0:40:18.400 --> 0:40:22.680
<v Speaker 2>justification for supporting the Balfour Declaration was his own rampant

0:40:22.680 --> 0:40:26.719
<v Speaker 2>anti Semitism. He believed that if Great Jewry was against us,

0:40:27.239 --> 0:40:30.280
<v Speaker 2>the Allies had no hope for final victory. Right, because again,

0:40:30.560 --> 0:40:33.640
<v Speaker 2>these guys are both communists and they control all the money, right, Yeah,

0:40:33.640 --> 0:40:34.040
<v Speaker 2>And they're.

0:40:33.920 --> 0:40:37.799
<v Speaker 3>Also both incredibly strong and are they're they're weak, sniveling,

0:40:38.080 --> 0:40:40.960
<v Speaker 3>effeminate people who will absolutely destroy us if they get

0:40:40.960 --> 0:40:41.279
<v Speaker 3>the chance.

0:40:41.760 --> 0:40:44.960
<v Speaker 2>Right. It's it's the common like proto fascist bullshit.

0:40:45.120 --> 0:40:48.200
<v Speaker 3>Which we're dealing with right now in America about the left. Sure,

0:40:48.239 --> 0:40:49.560
<v Speaker 3>anti fun stuff, Yes.

0:40:49.560 --> 0:40:51.759
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it's it's it's I mean, it's just kind of

0:40:52.600 --> 0:40:55.120
<v Speaker 2>these people, right, Sikes Is Sykes is the kind of

0:40:55.120 --> 0:40:57.600
<v Speaker 2>guy you see all throughout history, and in this case

0:40:57.840 --> 0:41:01.680
<v Speaker 2>he's anti semitically talking himself for Desionism, which is a

0:41:01.719 --> 0:41:04.080
<v Speaker 2>fascinating part of the history of this whole of this

0:41:04.160 --> 0:41:04.720
<v Speaker 2>whole moment.

0:41:05.000 --> 0:41:09.279
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, very common, Yes, of encouraging Zionism at this time.

0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:09.760
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:41:10.080 --> 0:41:12.720
<v Speaker 2>Now, after setting up like a third of the twentieth

0:41:12.760 --> 0:41:16.600
<v Speaker 2>and twenty first centuries worst dominoes, Sikes lives happily until,

0:41:16.680 --> 0:41:19.440
<v Speaker 2>in a rare wind for humanity, he dies a flu in

0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:23.359
<v Speaker 2>nineteen nineteen. So again I have to keep going back to, like,

0:41:23.520 --> 0:41:25.080
<v Speaker 2>is influenza so bad?

0:41:25.320 --> 0:41:25.520
<v Speaker 1>You know?

0:41:25.960 --> 0:41:28.600
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Spanish flu got somebody.

0:41:28.200 --> 0:41:30.560
<v Speaker 2>It took out Sykes. That's not the worst, you know.

0:41:32.400 --> 0:41:34.439
<v Speaker 2>So back to our boy t E. Lawrence. We don't

0:41:34.480 --> 0:41:36.880
<v Speaker 2>know precisely when he found out that sykes Pico was

0:41:36.920 --> 0:41:40.520
<v Speaker 2>a thing. The agreement first entered public awareness in late

0:41:40.640 --> 0:41:44.040
<v Speaker 2>nineteen seventeen, after the October Revolution led to the overthrow

0:41:44.080 --> 0:41:46.520
<v Speaker 2>of the Czar. The Bolsheviks get a hold of a

0:41:46.560 --> 0:41:49.399
<v Speaker 2>bunch of different like paperwork, right that you know, had

0:41:49.440 --> 0:41:52.319
<v Speaker 2>been in the hands of the Tzar's government, and some

0:41:52.480 --> 0:41:57.040
<v Speaker 2>of that is the sikes Pico agreement, and yeah, later

0:41:57.560 --> 0:42:00.680
<v Speaker 2>government you get the Yeah, Trotzky actually seeks a copy

0:42:00.719 --> 0:42:02.920
<v Speaker 2>of sykes Pico to a newspaper, right, and then The

0:42:02.960 --> 0:42:05.680
<v Speaker 2>Guardian publishes the details in English media for the first

0:42:05.680 --> 0:42:09.160
<v Speaker 2>time after this In early reporting on the manner, Lennon

0:42:09.280 --> 0:42:12.759
<v Speaker 2>called sikes Pico quote the agreement of colonial theeves. And

0:42:13.120 --> 0:42:16.040
<v Speaker 2>there's really no fact based argument against that. Yeah, that's

0:42:16.080 --> 0:42:19.000
<v Speaker 2>that he was just right. He was just correct on that.

0:42:19.600 --> 0:42:22.719
<v Speaker 3>Well, didn't they weren't these the like I think they

0:42:22.719 --> 0:42:25.080
<v Speaker 3>were called protectorates or something. There was like a different word.

0:42:25.120 --> 0:42:27.440
<v Speaker 3>They were like, oh, we don't, we don't know this.

0:42:28.000 --> 0:42:30.080
<v Speaker 2>We're just gonna get a lot of these are spheres

0:42:30.120 --> 0:42:35.799
<v Speaker 2>of influence, right, yeah, yeah, So when and again, this

0:42:35.920 --> 0:42:38.920
<v Speaker 2>is not sex becou is not what actually happened, specifically

0:42:39.000 --> 0:42:41.120
<v Speaker 2>because like they get carved up, you get like a rack,

0:42:41.200 --> 0:42:42.840
<v Speaker 2>you get Jordan, and right that none of that's in

0:42:42.920 --> 0:42:45.680
<v Speaker 2>sychs Pico. That all comes later, but six Picot is

0:42:45.760 --> 0:42:49.600
<v Speaker 2>kind of evidence of what they've agreed to, basically, right,

0:42:49.640 --> 0:42:53.640
<v Speaker 2>it's the broad strokes of what's going to happen. So

0:42:53.920 --> 0:42:56.600
<v Speaker 2>when Lawrence had left Cairo, this had not all been

0:42:56.640 --> 0:42:59.320
<v Speaker 2>as settled as it was by November. The British government's

0:42:59.360 --> 0:43:01.600
<v Speaker 2>official line and still was that it was inciting an

0:43:01.640 --> 0:43:06.279
<v Speaker 2>Arab revolt to secure their total independence. Lawrence clearly knew

0:43:06.280 --> 0:43:08.280
<v Speaker 2>that there was some extent to which this was bogus

0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:10.760
<v Speaker 2>from the beginning, which is why he wrote in Seven Pillars,

0:43:11.120 --> 0:43:14.120
<v Speaker 2>hardly one day in Arabia passed without a physical ache

0:43:14.160 --> 0:43:18.160
<v Speaker 2>to increase the corroding sense of my accessory deceitfulness towards

0:43:18.239 --> 0:43:22.560
<v Speaker 2>the Arabs and the legitimate fatigue of responsible command. Right.

0:43:22.600 --> 0:43:24.120
<v Speaker 2>So the fact that this is all a lie is

0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:27.520
<v Speaker 2>wearing on Lawrence, especially since the greater part of his

0:43:27.680 --> 0:43:31.960
<v Speaker 2>job was to personally negotiate deals with various Arab tribes

0:43:31.960 --> 0:43:34.359
<v Speaker 2>to fight the Ottomans with the promise of independence after

0:43:34.400 --> 0:43:38.200
<v Speaker 2>the war. In letters back to his superiors. Lawrence protested

0:43:38.360 --> 0:43:41.719
<v Speaker 2>what became Sykes Pico. Anthony Satin describes this for an

0:43:41.800 --> 0:43:45.120
<v Speaker 2>article in Al Jazeera. He objected loudly to the agreement

0:43:45.160 --> 0:43:47.120
<v Speaker 2>for several reasons. He thought that the French should be

0:43:47.160 --> 0:43:50.440
<v Speaker 2>allowed nothing, having behaved so badly in Algeria and elsewhere

0:43:50.480 --> 0:43:53.440
<v Speaker 2>in Northwest Africa. He thought a post war commonwealth of

0:43:53.440 --> 0:43:57.200
<v Speaker 2>Arab states under British tutelage might work, and he protested

0:43:57.239 --> 0:43:59.360
<v Speaker 2>it having to ask Arab forces to fight on what

0:43:59.400 --> 0:44:02.320
<v Speaker 2>he called a lie. I can't stand it, he insisted.

0:44:02.560 --> 0:44:06.000
<v Speaker 2>And yet he continued. And if we're looking for like

0:44:06.360 --> 0:44:08.960
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence as a bastard, this is this is getting into

0:44:09.000 --> 0:44:11.200
<v Speaker 2>some of the better cases for it, right because, like

0:44:11.280 --> 0:44:13.319
<v Speaker 2>he talks about how much he hates this, he is

0:44:13.440 --> 0:44:18.280
<v Speaker 2>trying to like trying to work against Sykespico on the ground,

0:44:18.719 --> 0:44:22.680
<v Speaker 2>but he also knows what his government is planning, and

0:44:22.719 --> 0:44:26.239
<v Speaker 2>he's he's kind of being a pied piper to these

0:44:26.239 --> 0:44:28.799
<v Speaker 2>guys that he cares about as it goes on.

0:44:29.560 --> 0:44:32.959
<v Speaker 3>Oh that's wild, because he's also overall he's someone who's

0:44:32.960 --> 0:44:37.120
<v Speaker 3>trying to act based on morality rather than like cold strategy.

0:44:37.239 --> 0:44:40.560
<v Speaker 3>He's obviously strategic thinker, right, but he's like, yeah, he's thinking,

0:44:41.600 --> 0:44:44.840
<v Speaker 3>you know, because geopolitically you have to give the French something,

0:44:44.920 --> 0:44:47.759
<v Speaker 3>And he's like, no, I don't deserve anything because they're terrible.

0:44:47.480 --> 0:44:48.719
<v Speaker 2>But they're dicks, fuck up.

0:44:48.800 --> 0:44:51.840
<v Speaker 3>Yeah yeah, yeah, Like, whereas he's able to sell himself

0:44:51.880 --> 0:44:54.160
<v Speaker 3>on the idea that the British protectorate or sphere of

0:44:54.160 --> 0:44:58.359
<v Speaker 3>influence won't be as bad. Yeah, and some of that

0:44:58.440 --> 0:45:00.520
<v Speaker 3>might be even some of his own like show from

0:45:00.560 --> 0:45:03.799
<v Speaker 3>being from that culture, but also it might have been

0:45:03.800 --> 0:45:07.279
<v Speaker 3>an honest appraisal of the situation. But then yeah, like

0:45:07.320 --> 0:45:10.920
<v Speaker 3>he's like trying to act more from a moral position,

0:45:11.040 --> 0:45:14.080
<v Speaker 3>but he knows he can't. Oh that's so right.

0:45:14.160 --> 0:45:15.799
<v Speaker 2>I mean, yeah he could have.

0:45:15.840 --> 0:45:17.600
<v Speaker 3>He could have just been like I have been tired.

0:45:17.640 --> 0:45:23.759
<v Speaker 2>Abound and you know, yeah, but he doesn't. Yeah, so

0:45:24.360 --> 0:45:27.640
<v Speaker 2>uh so he's canceled. So he's canceled. Yes, we're canceling

0:45:27.680 --> 0:45:31.120
<v Speaker 2>t E. Lawrence. We've decided. The fight against sikes Peco

0:45:31.280 --> 0:45:33.400
<v Speaker 2>was to dominate the next years of Lawrence's life. But

0:45:33.400 --> 0:45:36.000
<v Speaker 2>he would have missed the public reveal of sikes Pico

0:45:36.160 --> 0:45:39.200
<v Speaker 2>in November for a very unfortunate reason, which is that

0:45:39.200 --> 0:45:43.160
<v Speaker 2>that month he was captured by the Ottomans. If it now,

0:45:43.160 --> 0:45:45.680
<v Speaker 2>we're this is actually one of those ifs, because we

0:45:45.800 --> 0:45:48.360
<v Speaker 2>this may be something he lied about, but if it happened,

0:45:48.680 --> 0:45:50.640
<v Speaker 2>this happened while he was conducting one of his many

0:45:50.719 --> 0:45:53.680
<v Speaker 2>recon missions. He describes in Seven Pillars of Islam that

0:45:53.719 --> 0:45:56.720
<v Speaker 2>he was hiding himself as a circassian in the city

0:45:56.800 --> 0:46:00.319
<v Speaker 2>of Derah when he was drafted. Basically, like they see

0:46:00.360 --> 0:46:02.719
<v Speaker 2>a young man walking around and they're like, you're in

0:46:02.719 --> 0:46:05.920
<v Speaker 2>the army now, buddy, right, because he's good, he's good

0:46:06.000 --> 0:46:08.480
<v Speaker 2>enough at hiding that he's like a circassian, right that

0:46:08.520 --> 0:46:10.360
<v Speaker 2>they think, okay, well, we got a time for you

0:46:10.400 --> 0:46:14.040
<v Speaker 2>to be a member of the army that you're fighting now.

0:46:14.239 --> 0:46:16.600
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence says, basically, like the draft was just kind of

0:46:16.640 --> 0:46:18.680
<v Speaker 2>an excuse to take me in the custody. What happened

0:46:18.719 --> 0:46:22.200
<v Speaker 2>really is the governor wanted to fuck me, right, And

0:46:22.360 --> 0:46:26.279
<v Speaker 2>he describes lengthily how he was beaten and tortured and

0:46:26.320 --> 0:46:29.080
<v Speaker 2>then gang raped by the governor and his guards in

0:46:29.160 --> 0:46:32.239
<v Speaker 2>Seven Pillars. This is like and it's interesting because like

0:46:32.600 --> 0:46:35.440
<v Speaker 2>this is a page is long description of like torture

0:46:35.560 --> 0:46:39.359
<v Speaker 2>and rape. He doesn't quite describe openly sexual penetration but

0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:43.080
<v Speaker 2>basically everything else, right, And it is ultimately published in

0:46:43.160 --> 0:46:46.440
<v Speaker 2>nineteen twenty two. I don't know if Lawrence was the

0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:49.360
<v Speaker 2>first famous man of the twentieth century to write publicly

0:46:49.360 --> 0:46:52.080
<v Speaker 2>about being raped, but the list ahead of him can't

0:46:52.080 --> 0:46:55.000
<v Speaker 2>have been long, right, Like, there can't be a lot

0:46:55.000 --> 0:46:58.800
<v Speaker 2>of competition for that role you were.

0:46:58.719 --> 0:47:03.480
<v Speaker 3>Really really into, like, and then the curtains are drawn, yeah,

0:47:03.640 --> 0:47:04.760
<v Speaker 3>historically with their writings.

0:47:04.840 --> 0:47:07.319
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And he does that a bit, right, Like he's

0:47:07.320 --> 0:47:10.120
<v Speaker 2>not as open about like he doesn't describe it in

0:47:11.239 --> 0:47:15.640
<v Speaker 2>but he's like, this is like it's a very detailed

0:47:15.680 --> 0:47:18.200
<v Speaker 2>description of like the torture and stuff, to the point

0:47:18.200 --> 0:47:20.480
<v Speaker 2>that the people who think this is faked is kind

0:47:20.480 --> 0:47:23.040
<v Speaker 2>of like Lawrence is sort of like writing his own

0:47:23.520 --> 0:47:24.600
<v Speaker 2>sexy fan fiction.

0:47:24.719 --> 0:47:28.720
<v Speaker 3>Oh, because he's a masochist maybe, right, you know, maybe

0:47:28.960 --> 0:47:30.719
<v Speaker 3>or this is why he's a masochist. It's to try

0:47:30.800 --> 0:47:31.760
<v Speaker 3>this is right, he's.

0:47:31.600 --> 0:47:33.959
<v Speaker 2>A masochist because he's raped and tortured.

0:47:33.680 --> 0:47:36.160
<v Speaker 3>Yes, yeah, as a way to you know, experience the

0:47:36.160 --> 0:47:38.000
<v Speaker 3>same thing, but under his own control.

0:47:38.040 --> 0:47:41.920
<v Speaker 2>Right right, And you know, I'm gonna tell you right

0:47:41.920 --> 0:47:45.160
<v Speaker 2>now what actually happened here was unknowable to us right

0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:48.320
<v Speaker 2>now there. I am going to give the best arguments

0:47:48.440 --> 0:47:50.279
<v Speaker 2>as to like why this is fake, because I think

0:47:50.320 --> 0:47:53.040
<v Speaker 2>that's responsible. I tend to think it was probably real.

0:47:53.080 --> 0:47:56.640
<v Speaker 2>But I'm not a historian. Yeah, So I debated whether

0:47:56.719 --> 0:47:58.440
<v Speaker 2>or not to read some quotes from this portion of

0:47:58.480 --> 0:48:01.000
<v Speaker 2>Seven Pillars. I opted not to because, like it's really

0:48:01.120 --> 0:48:05.000
<v Speaker 2>upsetting stuff like this is a legitimately upsetting description of

0:48:05.600 --> 0:48:10.239
<v Speaker 2>torture and sexual assault. In recent years, some Lawrence biographers,

0:48:10.480 --> 0:48:14.400
<v Speaker 2>namely James Barr, who authored Desert on Fire, have argued

0:48:14.400 --> 0:48:16.560
<v Speaker 2>that Lawrence could not have been in deraw when he

0:48:16.600 --> 0:48:19.040
<v Speaker 2>claimed this happened, and have even found evidence that he

0:48:19.120 --> 0:48:22.880
<v Speaker 2>doctored his notes to further this lie. Barr's argument is

0:48:22.920 --> 0:48:25.799
<v Speaker 2>that Lawrence came up with this story later after the

0:48:25.840 --> 0:48:30.640
<v Speaker 2>war to quote discredit Arab militants in the precarious postwar climate.

0:48:31.280 --> 0:48:33.680
<v Speaker 2>I find this an odd argument, which is not really

0:48:33.719 --> 0:48:36.880
<v Speaker 2>in line with Lawrence's other post war behavior. But in

0:48:36.920 --> 0:48:39.080
<v Speaker 2>my research for this, I did run across a couple

0:48:39.120 --> 0:48:41.600
<v Speaker 2>of pieces of evidence that might be seen as evidence

0:48:41.640 --> 0:48:44.640
<v Speaker 2>that Lawrence's lye continues to work in the present day,

0:48:44.880 --> 0:48:48.080
<v Speaker 2>like discrediting on Arabs. But like these these kind of

0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:52.360
<v Speaker 2>like some of these local fighters. Here's a segment I

0:48:52.360 --> 0:48:54.799
<v Speaker 2>found from the website on the website first World War

0:48:54.840 --> 0:48:57.480
<v Speaker 2>dot com, and this is talking about like the Ottoman

0:48:57.560 --> 0:49:00.600
<v Speaker 2>use of rape as a weapon. This indig was more

0:49:00.680 --> 0:49:03.279
<v Speaker 2>often inflicted on members of the officer class and the

0:49:03.280 --> 0:49:05.279
<v Speaker 2>belief that it robbed them of their authority as a

0:49:05.360 --> 0:49:08.759
<v Speaker 2>leader of men, sometimes resulting in the victim's suicide. The

0:49:08.760 --> 0:49:11.399
<v Speaker 2>Ottoman Turks were infamous for inflicting it throughout the Great

0:49:11.400 --> 0:49:15.240
<v Speaker 2>War on captured Indian troops, beating and gang raping enemy officers.

0:49:15.280 --> 0:49:18.160
<v Speaker 2>Often as a matter of due course. Prisoners and garrisons

0:49:18.160 --> 0:49:20.799
<v Speaker 2>often had personnel who specialized in this abuse, although there

0:49:20.840 --> 0:49:24.040
<v Speaker 2>was nothing homosexual about it. And this is kind of

0:49:24.080 --> 0:49:27.279
<v Speaker 2>contra to Lawrence's description because he does describe this as

0:49:27.360 --> 0:49:30.279
<v Speaker 2>being a very like the the governor and his men

0:49:30.480 --> 0:49:35.320
<v Speaker 2>are homosexual, right, they like they want to fuck Lawrence.

0:49:35.680 --> 0:49:37.399
<v Speaker 2>And that's kind of the result of all this.

0:49:37.880 --> 0:49:39.560
<v Speaker 3>Well, you just get into ideas of like what counts

0:49:39.560 --> 0:49:42.760
<v Speaker 3>as homosexual being like right, in a lot of different places,

0:49:43.280 --> 0:49:45.960
<v Speaker 3>the active person as not the gay person, you know.

0:49:46.040 --> 0:49:49.080
<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, and there's a yeah, we'll talk more about this,

0:49:49.239 --> 0:49:53.360
<v Speaker 2>but first, wait, have we done our second ad break. Now, Okay,

0:49:53.440 --> 0:50:02.760
<v Speaker 2>here's some ads. Motherfucker back. So you know we're talking

0:50:02.800 --> 0:50:09.080
<v Speaker 2>about was Lawrence of Arabia gang raped? Uh yeah, light

0:50:09.160 --> 0:50:12.440
<v Speaker 2>dinner topic. Now, when it comes to like the anti

0:50:12.600 --> 0:50:14.880
<v Speaker 2>site of this, bar is joined in doubt by academics

0:50:14.920 --> 0:50:18.560
<v Speaker 2>like Adrian Greeves. Greeves make some points that I find compelling,

0:50:18.600 --> 0:50:22.120
<v Speaker 2>particularly that the Turks were unlikely to have believed for

0:50:22.280 --> 0:50:27.160
<v Speaker 2>days that Lawrence was really an Arab captive or Circassian captive.

0:50:27.440 --> 0:50:29.920
<v Speaker 2>But he also takes issue with the fact that Lawrence

0:50:30.120 --> 0:50:33.520
<v Speaker 2>didn't bring this up until nineteen nineteen. Right, That's one

0:50:33.560 --> 0:50:35.879
<v Speaker 2>of Barr's pieces of evidence that like this is probably fake,

0:50:36.080 --> 0:50:38.279
<v Speaker 2>is that Lawrence didn't talk about it. And I'm like, no,

0:50:38.680 --> 0:50:40.800
<v Speaker 2>it's not really weird that you'd wait, like a couple

0:50:40.840 --> 0:50:45.600
<v Speaker 2>of years to talk about your gang rape. Like, yeah,

0:50:45.640 --> 0:50:47.919
<v Speaker 2>that's not I don't really think that counts the way

0:50:47.920 --> 0:50:52.239
<v Speaker 2>that you seem to think it does. Yeah, And there's

0:50:52.239 --> 0:50:55.719
<v Speaker 2>also some gay panic adjacent stuff in some of these arguments.

0:50:55.960 --> 0:50:59.440
<v Speaker 2>Historian David Fromkin has suggested Lawrence made up the rape

0:50:59.440 --> 0:51:03.560
<v Speaker 2>to explain marks from his alleged sato masochistic kink. I

0:51:03.600 --> 0:51:06.239
<v Speaker 2>don't know who is right here, but I do want

0:51:06.280 --> 0:51:09.040
<v Speaker 2>to read this line from an article on Cleo's Visualizing

0:51:09.120 --> 0:51:13.280
<v Speaker 2>History website. Biographer John E. Mack, however, accepts the story

0:51:13.320 --> 0:51:16.120
<v Speaker 2>and Lawrence's later assertion at that what happened to him

0:51:16.120 --> 0:51:20.279
<v Speaker 2>at Deraw apparently did permanent damage to his psyche, and

0:51:20.320 --> 0:51:23.440
<v Speaker 2>there is compelling evidence for this damage. Although separating what

0:51:23.520 --> 0:51:26.359
<v Speaker 2>might have been caused from the rape, what was PTSD?

0:51:26.719 --> 0:51:30.640
<v Speaker 2>Right because of the war and all of the illness,

0:51:30.760 --> 0:51:33.840
<v Speaker 2>right like you get PTSD from nearly dying repeatedly, a

0:51:34.000 --> 0:51:37.799
<v Speaker 2>various like shit yourself to death illnesses. There's no way

0:51:37.840 --> 0:51:41.719
<v Speaker 2>to separate this, right like Lawrence is after about a

0:51:41.800 --> 0:51:44.759
<v Speaker 2>year or so, because he's really not there all that long.

0:51:44.840 --> 0:51:47.920
<v Speaker 2>He's there like a like two years. In all, he

0:51:48.080 --> 0:51:51.879
<v Speaker 2>is just a pile of PTSD stitched together together into

0:51:51.920 --> 0:51:53.160
<v Speaker 2>the crude image of a man.

0:51:53.360 --> 0:51:55.960
<v Speaker 3>On one of his best days. He shot his own

0:51:56.000 --> 0:51:58.560
<v Speaker 3>camel in the head by accident. That was one of

0:51:58.600 --> 0:51:59.520
<v Speaker 3>the best days.

0:52:00.160 --> 0:52:04.680
<v Speaker 2>His winds like he is just destroyed as a person.

0:52:04.840 --> 0:52:08.799
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, it is I think very consistent. Now Barr

0:52:08.840 --> 0:52:10.640
<v Speaker 2>has a really good point when he kind of pieces

0:52:10.680 --> 0:52:13.360
<v Speaker 2>out it can't have happened exactly the way Lawrence describes

0:52:13.400 --> 0:52:15.680
<v Speaker 2>it in the book, right, because we know there's some

0:52:15.760 --> 0:52:17.719
<v Speaker 2>just some things about the timing of where he was

0:52:17.800 --> 0:52:20.200
<v Speaker 2>win that don't work out. That doesn't mean he didn't

0:52:20.719 --> 0:52:23.120
<v Speaker 2>it didn't happen in another city and he Leiden said

0:52:23.120 --> 0:52:25.880
<v Speaker 2>it was Dera for some reason. There's they're also just

0:52:25.960 --> 0:52:29.320
<v Speaker 2>like people fuck up, right, Like Lawrence is going.

0:52:29.239 --> 0:52:31.880
<v Speaker 3>Sick thing to remember really well, yeah, we'll talk.

0:52:31.719 --> 0:52:33.600
<v Speaker 2>About this in the next episode. Lawrence is going to

0:52:33.719 --> 0:52:37.440
<v Speaker 2>like destroy his notes several times and just and lose

0:52:38.000 --> 0:52:40.880
<v Speaker 2>drafts of this book and have to rewrite it. So

0:52:41.080 --> 0:52:45.600
<v Speaker 2>like some errors probably got introduced, but it is now

0:52:45.680 --> 0:52:49.800
<v Speaker 2>agreed and even and Barr even writes that, like, broadly speaking,

0:52:49.880 --> 0:52:53.200
<v Speaker 2>Seven Pillars is quite accurate as in its descriptions of

0:52:53.239 --> 0:52:57.680
<v Speaker 2>what happened in the Arab revolt, right, And I tend

0:52:57.680 --> 0:53:01.759
<v Speaker 2>to think this probably happened to Lawrence, And part of

0:53:01.760 --> 0:53:06.759
<v Speaker 2>why is because he has a personality shift after this

0:53:06.840 --> 0:53:09.960
<v Speaker 2>point and it kind of loses his mind in a

0:53:10.000 --> 0:53:12.799
<v Speaker 2>way that seems very much like, oh, yeah, I bet

0:53:12.800 --> 0:53:14.920
<v Speaker 2>if you were gang raped and then suddenly had an

0:53:15.040 --> 0:53:18.960
<v Speaker 2>army and a bunch of Turkish soldiers surrendering to you,

0:53:19.360 --> 0:53:22.319
<v Speaker 2>this might be how you'd act, right, is.

0:53:22.360 --> 0:53:23.040
<v Speaker 3>Where he's gonna go.

0:53:23.760 --> 0:53:26.160
<v Speaker 2>He is going he is going to kill a lot

0:53:26.160 --> 0:53:29.520
<v Speaker 2>of people in part four, Margaret, Oh shit, he is

0:53:29.600 --> 0:53:31.320
<v Speaker 2>going to kill a ton of dudes.

0:53:32.360 --> 0:53:35.480
<v Speaker 3>Like the bastard's formula is to get you to become

0:53:35.520 --> 0:53:38.840
<v Speaker 3>sympathetic with a terrible person and then like about halfway through,

0:53:39.160 --> 0:53:41.719
<v Speaker 3>but you've had me for the first three acts.

0:53:41.640 --> 0:53:44.120
<v Speaker 2>I don't know. I still he's going to commit war crimes.

0:53:45.960 --> 0:53:48.440
<v Speaker 2>I still don't know that this makes him a terrible person.

0:53:48.800 --> 0:53:53.160
<v Speaker 2>Like it's a bad thing to have done, right, But

0:53:55.160 --> 0:53:57.440
<v Speaker 2>I don't know that anyone who is capable of doing

0:53:57.480 --> 0:54:00.200
<v Speaker 2>the things that he's done up to this point and

0:54:00.320 --> 0:54:02.960
<v Speaker 2>in a war, who is capable of the competences that

0:54:03.000 --> 0:54:06.919
<v Speaker 2>he showed, would by this point be able to have

0:54:07.080 --> 0:54:10.320
<v Speaker 2>better judgment in this way, right, Which isn't to say

0:54:10.360 --> 0:54:13.200
<v Speaker 2>like it's fine that he did this. It's just that like, well,

0:54:13.520 --> 0:54:16.360
<v Speaker 2>anyone in this position would have would be out of

0:54:16.360 --> 0:54:19.560
<v Speaker 2>their minds by a certain point, because that's just what

0:54:20.440 --> 0:54:25.520
<v Speaker 2>like personally, like orchestrating an insurgent campaign in the desert

0:54:25.800 --> 0:54:29.120
<v Speaker 2>while shitting yourself to death and nearly dying every single day,

0:54:29.120 --> 0:54:31.799
<v Speaker 2>and gunfights like it just ruins, you you know, like

0:54:31.880 --> 0:54:34.920
<v Speaker 2>he is just shattered as a man, and there's a

0:54:35.040 --> 0:54:37.799
<v Speaker 2>very good chance part of that science he's tortured and

0:54:37.960 --> 0:54:42.560
<v Speaker 2>gang raped. Yeah, like who would be doing well after this?

0:54:43.040 --> 0:54:46.839
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and blow up the bridge. They just dismantled it.

0:54:47.120 --> 0:54:50.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they dismantled it, but they left Yeah, they left

0:54:50.160 --> 0:54:53.440
<v Speaker 2>the shape intact right again. He's just like a bunch

0:54:53.480 --> 0:54:55.960
<v Speaker 2>of trauma piled into a bag shaped like T. E.

0:54:56.120 --> 0:55:01.160
<v Speaker 2>Lawrence at this point. Yeah, this man is so fucked up.

0:55:03.560 --> 0:55:06.880
<v Speaker 2>Speaking of fucked up, Margaret, let's go get fucked up

0:55:06.920 --> 0:55:09.120
<v Speaker 2>and then come back to record part four. And by

0:55:09.160 --> 0:55:11.160
<v Speaker 2>fucked up, I mean I'm.

0:55:11.000 --> 0:55:13.480
<v Speaker 3>Actually gonna I do with sugar. But I've had a

0:55:13.480 --> 0:55:13.960
<v Speaker 3>lot of it.

0:55:14.239 --> 0:55:18.120
<v Speaker 2>I'm high on life, Margaret, which is a powerful mix

0:55:18.160 --> 0:55:19.680
<v Speaker 2>of heroin and uh.

0:55:20.320 --> 0:55:23.600
<v Speaker 3>That's all life. Yeah, it's it's a new gas station drug.

0:55:23.680 --> 0:55:26.319
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's a new gas station drug. That's what I

0:55:26.360 --> 0:55:29.120
<v Speaker 2>call it. When I mix Kraton and those yellow Jacket

0:55:29.160 --> 0:55:31.640
<v Speaker 2>pills and then just a bunch of five hour energy

0:55:31.680 --> 0:55:33.520
<v Speaker 2>and grind that up into a shake with a little

0:55:33.520 --> 0:55:35.160
<v Speaker 2>bit of milk, a little bit of old milk, you know,

0:55:35.800 --> 0:55:36.480
<v Speaker 2>just for flavor.

0:55:36.719 --> 0:55:37.080
<v Speaker 3>Wow.

0:55:37.960 --> 0:55:41.800
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I guess we don't do that. Friends that friends

0:55:41.880 --> 0:55:43.920
<v Speaker 1>and said, you should purchase Margaret Culture's new.

0:55:43.760 --> 0:55:47.840
<v Speaker 2>Book if they sell it in Yeah, purchase Margaret's new book,

0:55:48.160 --> 0:55:51.759
<v Speaker 2>you know, Uh, the Sapling Cage. It's excellent. Uh.

0:55:51.920 --> 0:55:53.840
<v Speaker 3>And if you're listening to this several weeks ago, you

0:55:53.880 --> 0:55:56.240
<v Speaker 3>can go see Robert and I talk in Portland.

0:55:56.400 --> 0:56:00.560
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, yeah, this will have happened long before by

0:56:00.560 --> 0:56:03.719
<v Speaker 2>the time this airs, possibly in a world where we're

0:56:03.719 --> 0:56:07.680
<v Speaker 2>all preparing for a fascist takeover of the governments world.

0:56:09.560 --> 0:56:11.040
<v Speaker 1>This will be great.

0:56:11.040 --> 0:56:11.600
<v Speaker 2>It'll be great.

0:56:11.680 --> 0:56:12.440
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's amazing.

0:56:12.680 --> 0:56:14.520
<v Speaker 1>Also, I really want to plug something we just did

0:56:14.520 --> 0:56:17.000
<v Speaker 1>one it could happen here. James Stout, who is a

0:56:17.040 --> 0:56:20.439
<v Speaker 1>phenomenal journalist that works on the show, just a week

0:56:20.480 --> 0:56:23.520
<v Speaker 1>long series about the dairy and grap and land migration.

0:56:23.719 --> 0:56:27.759
<v Speaker 3>So I haven't listened to it yet. I've talked to amazing. Yeah,

0:56:28.200 --> 0:56:32.560
<v Speaker 3>it's amazing. So please please check that out. Yeah that.

0:56:36.719 --> 0:56:39.600
<v Speaker 1>Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

0:56:39.800 --> 0:56:42.399
<v Speaker 1>For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

0:56:42.480 --> 0:56:46.439
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