SermonSuite click here for printer-friendly version T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, brought with him several Arab chieftains to the Paris Peace Conference after World War I. The Arab leaders underwent a kind of cultural shock observing the technological innovations of western civilization. One of the most amazing novelties was running water in their hotel rooms. They knew from their experiences in the desert how precious water was, and yet here they could obtain water by simply turning on the faucet. When the Arab chieftains were about to leave for home, one day Lawrence came upon them trying to dismantle the faucets so that they might take them to the desert where they would have an endless supply of water. Their friend tried to tell them that huge reservoirs of water really provided the water; the faucets were only instruments bringing the water from the reservoirs. The Arabs were not convinced; they insisted that the faucets would give them an inexhaustible supply of water. In... This Sermon Illustration T. E. Lawrence, better known... is based on Wisdom 9:13-18 and relates to Proper 18 | Ordinary Time 23 of Cycle C of the lectionary.

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Lawrence British archaeological scholar, adventurer, military strategist, and the writer of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1927), an ambitious work, which combines a detailed account of the Arab revolt against the Turks and the author's own spiritual autobiography. T.E. Lawrence's (1888-1935) enigmatic personality still fascinates biographers and his legend has survived many attempts to discredit his achievements. Sponsored Links T.E. Lawrence was better known in his lifetime as 'Lawrence of Arabia' because of the dashing role he played in helping the Arabs against the Turks during World War I. At 31 Lawrence was an international celebrity but, embittered by his country's Middle East policies, he chose a life of obscurity and died at the age of 46 after a motorcycle accident. "Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand." (from The Mint, 1955) Lawrence was born in Tremadoc, Caernarvonshire, Wales, the illegitimate son of Thomas Chapman. His father left his wife, who had refused to allow a divorce.

He set up a new home with Sarah Junner, a woman who had been governess in his household. Lawrence was the third son of this union. By the age of four Lawrence started to read books and newspapers. He was educated at Oxford High School and subsequently won a Welsh scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford. In the summer of 1909 he began a walking tour in Syria, Palestine, and parts of Turkey. By September he had covered some 1,100 miles. Lawrence visited 36 crusader castles, made careful notes and then wrote a thesis on 'The Influence of the Crusades on European Military Architecture - to the End of the XIIth Century". In 1910 Lawrence obtained a first class degree in history and was awarded a research fellowship for travel by Magdalen College. In 1911 Lawrence was in Syria and participated on an archaeological expedition excavating the Hittite site of Carchemish on Euphrates. He worked in Egypt under Sir Flinders Petrie, in Carchemish, the classic Hittite site north of Damascus, and took part in a survey in Palestine.

In Carchemish he became a friend of the site's 14-year-old water boy, Dahoum and taught him to read and write (and to whom he later dedicated The Seven Pillars of Wisdom). Their friendship raised eyebrows but Jeremy Wilson has stated in his authorized biography of T. E. Lawrence (1990) that rumours of a physical relationship have led many astray. During these years Lawrence acquired the knowledge of the language and customs of the Arab people. After the outbreak of World War I, he was assigned to intelligence as an Arabian expert. In 1916 he joined the forces of the Arabian sheik Feisal al Husayn. In The Seven Pillars Lawrence describes his first meeting with Feisal: "I felt at first glance that this was the man I had come to Arabia to seek - the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory. Feisal looked very tall and pillar like, very slender, in his long white silk robes and his brown head cloth...

His eyelids were dropped; and his black beard and colourless face were like a mask against the strange, still watchfulness of his body." Taking on Arab costume himself, he began to work with Feisal to launch a full-scale revolt of the tribes. In 1916 he was captured and subjected to beatings and homosexual rape by the Turkish governor of Deraa, ''an ardent pederast'' (Lawrence's own term). Though he escaped, Lawrence was shattered by the experience. ''I gave away the only possession we are born into the world with - our bodily integrity,'' he later wrote. Lawrence soon became an influential figure in the Arab forces. In particular his guerrilla warfare proved successful in undermining Germany's Ottoman ally. Lawrence was wounded several times in his campaigns - he suffered dozens of bullet and shrapnel wounds. He took the port of Akaba in July 1917, and led his Arab forces into the desert, distracting the Turks when the British army began its invasion of Palestine and Syria. However, Lawrence's military victories were overshadowed by the Sykes-Picot Agreement , which promised Syria to the French and undermined the idea of an Arab homeland in Syria.

These years Lawrence later described in his work The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. A new national hero was born when the American journalist Lowell Thomas lectured in London on Sir Edmund Allenby's invasion of Syria and in particular Lawrence's exploits with the Arabs. After the war Lawrence accompanied the Arab delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, initially as Feisal's adjutant. He was a research fellow at Oxford and served at the invitation of Winston Churchill as a political adviser to the Middle East Department in the Colonial Office (1921-22). At the height of his fame Lawrence resigned disgusted from his post and enlisted with the Royal Air Force under the name of John Hume Ross. When his identity was discovered, he joined the Royal Tank Corps under the name of Thomas Edward Shaw. In 1925 he returned to the Air Force as Shaw, serving in England and in India for ten years. Supplementing his meagre income, Lawrence translated The Odyssey for an American publisher and wrote a book about his experiences in the RAF. He left the service in 1935 and moved to Moreton, Dorsetshire. He bought a little cottage named Clouds Hill.

"I imagine leaves must feel like this after they have fallen from their tree and until they die", Lawrence wrote in a letter. In the last 12 years of his life, Lawrence owned seven motorcycles manufactured by George Brough. They were the fastest in the U.K. On May 13, 1935, Lawrence was in an accident near his home - he tried to avoid two boys on bicycles, lost control of his motorcycle and slammed into the ground. He died at Bovington Camp Hospital without regaining consciousness on May 19. Lawrence's monument was later erected in the old Anglo-Saxon church of St. Martin at Wareham in Dorset. Lawrence's life formed the basis of the film Lawrence of Arabia (1963), directed by David Lean. Peter O'Toole played the title role and almost repeated Lawrence's fatal motorcycle accident when a towing bar from the camera car snapped and sent the trailer-mounted cycle straight toward a ditch. All of the city scenes - Damascus, Cairo, Jerusalem - were filmed on sets in Spain. The film won seven Academy Awards.

"Although Lawrence genuinely tried to see things from an Arab point of view, and did so more successfully than most, his technique of 'empathy' remained a method of control. He believed the traditional Arabs morally superior to Europeans because they were 'primitive' and therefore 'innocent,' but not intellectually so. The reality of his privileged position was stated frankly when he wrote: 'Really this country, for the foreigner, is too glorious for words: one is really the baron in the feudal system.'" (from Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia by Michael Asher, 1999) The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph was first published in a limited edition, with illustrations by Eric Kennington. A shortened, popular version, Revolt in the Desert, appeared in 1927. The work has been praised as a literary masterpiece and condemned as an example of monstrous self-aggrandizement. Lawrence's other works include an autobiographical account of his time in the Royal Air Force, titled The Mint (1936), which has been compared to the work of Ernest Hemingway . The Letters of T.E. Lawrence appeared in 1938 and was edited by David Garnett.

Article contributed by Petri Liukkonen , website Author's Calendar . Sponsored Links Saturday, 22 August, 2009 Petri Liukkonen A Battery was a group of six guns or howitzers. - Did you know? T. E. Lawrence - Wikiquote T. E. Lawrence Jump to: navigation , search All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. Thomas Edward Lawrence ( 16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935 ) better known as T.E. Lawrence or Lawrence of Arabia; for a brief time he also used the name T. E. Shaw "Lawrence of Arabia" redirects here. For the motion picture, see Lawrence of Arabia (film) . Contents Quotes[ edit ] To have news value is to have a tin can tied to one’s tail. I've been & am absurdly over-estimated.

There are no supermen & I'm quite ordinary, & will say so whatever the artistic results. In that point I'm one of the few people who tell the truth about myself. The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster. "Report on Mesopotamia" The Sunday Times (22 August 1920) Whether they are fit for independence or not remains to be tried. Merit is no qualification for freedom. Bulgars, Afghans, and Tahitans have it. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour's occupying you is greater than the profit.

This death’s livery which walled its bearers from ordinary life was sign that they have sold their wills and bodies to the State: and contracted themselves into a service not the less abject for that its beginning was voluntary. The Revolt in the Desert (1927) Ch. 35 The sword was odd. The Arab Movement was one: Feisal another (his name means a flashing sword): then there is the excluded notion, Garden of Eden touch: and the division meaning, like the sword in the bed of mixed sleeping, from the Morte d'Arthur. I don't know which was in your mind, but they all came to me — and the sword also means clean-ness, and death. Letter to Eric Kennington (27 October 1922); "The sword also means clean-ness and death" also appears on the cover of the first edition of Robert Mikey Thicklehorn's Words of Wisdom.

(1922)-- 71.208.212.225 02:37, 2 November 2013 (UTC) All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas! Letter to Bruce Rogers (20 August 1931) To have news value is to have a tin can tied to one’s tail. Letter (1 April 1935); published in The Letters of T.E. Lawrence (1988), edited by Malcolm Brown. You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That's the feeling. Letter to Eric Kennington (6 May 1935) I've been & am absurdly over-estimated.

There are no supermen & I'm quite ordinary, & will say so whatever the artistic results. In that point I'm one of the few people who tell the truth about myself. Letter in T.E. Lawrence: The Selected Letters (1989) edited By Malcolm Brown, as quoted in "The Hero Our Century Deserved" by Paul Gray in TIME magazine (15 May 1989) Isn't it true that the fault of birth rests somewhat on the child? I believe it's we who led our parents on to bear us, and it's our unborn children who make our flesh itch. Letter in T.E. Lawrence: The Selected Letters (1989) edited By Malcolm Brown, as quoted in "The Hero Our Century Deserved" by Paul Gray in TIME magazine (15 May 1989) Twenty-Seven Articles (1917)[ edit ] Do not try to do too much with your own hands. A guide Lawrence wrote for British officers in the Arab Bulletin (20 August 1917) Full text online Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly.

It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is. The Evolution of A Revolt (1920)[ edit ] Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books : but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals. Article in The Army Quarterly and Defence Journal (October 1920) Full text online An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot. The logical end of a war of creeds is the final destruction of one, and Salammbo is the classical text-book instance. ...but suppose we were an influence (as we might be), an idea, a thing invulnerable, intangible, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile as a whole, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head, we might be a vapor, blowing where we listed.

Our kingdoms lay in each man's mind, as we wanted nothing material to live on, so perhaps we offered nothing material to the killing. It seemed a regular soldier might be helpless without a target. He would own the ground he sat on, and what he could poke his rifle at. Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals. It can only be ensured by instinct, sharpened by thought practicing the stroke so often that at the crisis it is as natural as a reflex. The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armory of the modern commander... It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as we had in the Red Sea Parts, the desert, or in the minds of the men we converted to our creed. It must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfill the doctrine of acreage: too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts.

It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2 per cent. active in a striking force, and 98 per cent. passively sympathetic. The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply. They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyze the enemy’s organized communications, for irregular war is fairly Willisen’s definition of strategy, “the study of communication” in its extreme degree, of attack where the enemy is not. In fifty words: Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain. the sword also means clean-ness + death This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought. the sword also means clean-ness + death Motto on the cover of the first edition.

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars To gain you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be shining for me When I came. Dedicatory poem, to "S. A.", as written in the 1922 "Oxford text"; variant : "When we came" for "When I came" in the 1926 edition, and others. All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did. Introductory Chapter. Variant: This, therefore, is a faded dream of the time when I went down into the dust and noise of the Eastern market-place, and with my brain and muscles, with sweat and constant thinking, made others see my visions coming true.

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible. I am afraid that I hope so. We pay for these things too much in honour and in innocent lives. I went up the Tigris with one hundred Devon Territorials, young, clean, delightful fellows, full of the power of happiness and of making women and children glad. By them one saw vividly how great it was to be their kin, and English. And we were casting them by thousands into the fire to the worst of deaths, not to win the war but that the corn and rice and oil of Mesopotamia might be ours. The only need was to defeat our enemies (Turkey among them), and this was at last done in the wisdom of Allenby with less than four hundred killed, by turning to our uses the hands of the oppressed in Turkey. I am proudest of my thirty fights in that I did not have any of our own blood shed. All our subject provinces to me were not worth one dead Englishman. Introductory Chapter.

Some Englishmen, of whom Kitchener was chief, believed that a rebellion of Arabs against Turks would enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey. Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method. So they allowed it to begin... Introduction: Foundations of Revolt The desert was held in a crazed communism by which Nature and the elements were for the free use of every known friendly person for his own purposes and no more. Feisal asked me if I would wear Arab clothes like his own while in the camp… I agreed at once, very gladly; for army uniform was abominable when camel-riding … Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars.

We were a self-centred army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man's creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all our strength, a hope so transcendent that our earlier ambitions faded in its glare. Ch. 1 The Arab was by nature continent; and the use of universal marriage had nearly abolished irregular courses in his tribes. The public women of the rare settlements we encountered in our months of wandering would have been nothing to our numbers, even had their raddled meat been palatable to a man of healthy parts. In horror of such sordid commerce our youths began indifferently to slake one another's few needs in their own clean bodies — a cold convenience that, by comparison, seemed sexless and even pure. Later, some began to justify this sterile process, and swore that friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace, found there hidden in the darkness a sensual co-efficient of the mental passion which was welding our souls and spirits in one flaming effort. Several, thirsting to punish appetites they could not wholly prevent, took a savage pride in degrading the body, and offered themself fiercely in any habit which promised physical pain or filth. Ch.

1 The Beduin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God. He could not conceive anything which was or was not God, Who alone was great; yet there was a homeliness, an everyday-ness of this climatic Arab God, who was their eating and their fighting and their lusting, the commonest of their thoughts, their familiar resource and companion, in a way impossible to those whose God is so wistfully veiled from them by despair of their carnal unworthiness of Him and by the decorum of formal worship. Arabs felt no incongruity in bringing God into the weaknesses and appetites of their least creditable causes. He was the most familiar of their words; and indeed we lost much eloquence when making Him the shortest and ugliest of our monosyllables. This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought. It was easily felt as an influence, and those who went into the desert long enough to forget its open spaces and its emptiness were inevitably thrust upon God as the only refuge and rhythm of being.

The Bedawi might be a nominal Sunni, or a nominal Wahabi, or anything else in the Semitic compass, and he would take it very lightly, a little in the manner of the watchmen at Zion's gate who drank beer and laughed in Zion because they were Zionists. Each individual nomad had his revealed religion, not oral or traditional or expressed, but instinctive in himself; and so we got all the Semitic creeds with (in character and essence) a stress on the emptiness of the world and the fullness of God; and according to the power and opportunity of the believer was the expression of them. The common base of all the Semitic creeds, winners or losers, was the ever present idea of world-worthlessness. Their profound reaction from matter led them to preach bareness, renunciation, poverty; and the atmosphere of this invention stifled the minds of the desert pitilessly. A first knowledge of their sense of the purity of rarefaction was given me in early years, when we had ridden far out over the rolling plains of North Syria to a ruin of the Roman period which the Arabs believed was made by a prince of the border as a desert-palace for his queen.

The clay of its building was said to have been kneaded for greater richness, not with water, but with the precious essential oils of flowers. My guides, sniffing the air like dogs, led me from crumbling room to room, saying, 'This is jessamine, this violet, this rose'. But at last Dahoum drew me: 'Come and smell the very sweetest scent of all', and we went into the main lodging, to the gaping window sockets of its eastern face, and there drank with open mouths of the effortless, empty, eddyless wind of the desert, throbbing past. That slow breath had been born somewhere beyond the distant Euphrates and had dragged its way across many days and nights of dead grass, to its first obstacle, the man-made walls of our broken palace. About them it seemed to fret and linger, murmuring in baby-speech. 'This,' they told me, 'is the best: it has no taste.' My Arabs were turning their backs on perfumes and luxuries to choose the things in which mankind had had no share or part. Ch.

3 Men have looked upon the desert as barren land, the free holding of whoever chose; but in fact each hill and valley in it had a man who was its acknowledged owner and would quickly assert the right of his family or clan to it, against aggression. Even the wells and trees had their masters, who allowed men to make firewood of the one and drink of the other freely, as much as was required for their need, but who would instantly check anyone trying to turn the property to account and to exploit it or its products among others for private benefit. The desert was held in a crazed communism by which Nature and the elements were for the free use of every known friendly person for his own purposes and no more. Logical outcomes were the reduction of this licence to privilege by the men of the desert, and their hardness to strangers unprovided with introduction or guarantee, since the common security lay in the common responsibility of kinsmen. Ch. 11 Feisal asked me if I would wear Arab clothes like his own while in the camp. I should find it better for my own part, since it was a comfortable dress in which to live Arab-fashion as we must do. Besides, the tribesmen would then understand how to take me.

The only wearers of khaki in their experience had been Turkish officers, before whom they took up an instinctive defence. If I wore Meccan clothes, they would behave to me as though I were really one of the leaders; and I might slip in and out of Feisal's tent without making a sensation which he had to explain away each time to strangers. I agreed at once, very gladly; for army uniform was abominable when camel-riding or when sitting about on the ground; and the Arab things, which I had learned to manage before the war, were cleaner and more decent in the desert. Ch. 20 The Wahabis , followers of a fanatical Moslem heresy, had imposed their strict rules on easy and civilized Kasim. In Kasim there was but little coffee-hospitality, much prayer and fasting, no tobacco, no artistic dalliance with women, no silk clothes, no gold and silver head-ropes or ornaments. Everything was forcibly pious or forcibly puritanical. It was a natural phenomenon, this periodic rise at intervals of little more than a century, of ascetic creeds in Central Arabia.

Always the votaries found their neighbours' beliefs cluttered with inessential things, which became impious in the hot imagination of their preachers. Again and again they had arisen, had taken possession, soul and body, of the tribes, and had dashed themselves to pieces on the urban Semites, merchants and concupiscent men of the world. About their comfortable possessions the new creeds ebbed and flowed like the tides or the changing seasons, each movement with the seeds of early death in its excess of Tightness. Doubtless they must recur so long as the causes — sun, moon, wind, acting in the emptiness of open spaces, weigh without check on the unhurried and uncumbered minds of the desert-dwellers. Ch. 24 Rebels, especially successful rebels, were of necessity bad subjects and worse governors. Then rose up the horror which would make civilized man shun justice like a plague if he had not the needy to serve him as hangmen for wages. Quotes about Lawrence[ edit ] There is no other man I know who could have achieved what Lawrence did.

~ Edmund Allenby The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is some one outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain... ~ Winston Churchill There is no other man I know who could have achieved what Lawrence did. As for taking undue credit for himself, my own personal experience with Lawrence is that he was utterly unconcerned whether any kudos was awarded him or not. Lawrence of Judea : Azure - Ideas for the Jewish Nation I agree to receive emails from Shalem College Preview: T.E. Lawrence—better known in Britain and throughout the Middle East as Lawrence of Arabia—was a lifelong friend of Arab national aspirations. In 1917 and 1918 he participated as a British officer in the Arab revolt against the Turks, a revolt led by Sharif Hussein, later King of the Hedjaz. He was also an adviser to Hussein’s son Feisal, whom he hoped to see on the throne of Syria. For generations of British Arabists, Lawrence was and remains a symbol of British understanding of and support for the Arab cause. Virtually unknown, however, is his understanding of and support for Jewish national aspirations in the same era.

In mid-December 1918, a month after the end of World War I, Lawrence was instrumental in securing an agreement between Emir Feisal and the Zionist leader Dr. Chaim Weizmann. The meeting was held at the Carlton Hotel in London (a building subsequently destroyed in the London Blitz). At this meeting, Lawrence acted as the interpreter. Weizmann assured Feisal that the Zionists in Palestine should be able “to carry out public works of a far-reaching character” and that the country “could be so improved that it would have room for four or five million Jews, without encroaching on the ownership rights of Arab peasantry.”1 As Weizmann wrote in his notes on the meeting, Feisal explained that “it was curious there should be friction between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. There was no friction in any other country where Jews lived together with Arabs…. He [Feisal] did not think for a moment that there was any scarcity of land in Palestine. The population would always have enough, especially if the country were developed.

Besides, there was plenty of land in his district.”2 On January 3, 1919, Feisal and Weizmann met again in London, to sign an “Agreement between the King of the Hedjaz and the Zionists.” Lawrence, who was once again the guiding hand in this agreement, hoped that it would ensure what he, Lawrence, termed “the lines of Arab and Zionist policy converging in the not distant future.”3 On March 1, 1919 Lawrence, while in Paris as the senior British representative with the Hedjaz Delegation, drafted and then wrote out in his own hand a letter from Feisal to the American Zionist Felix Frankfurter. In this letter, Feisal declared, “We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.” Feisal went on to say that Weizmann “has been a great helper of our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness.

We are working together for a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another.” The Jewish movement, Feisal continued, “is national, and not imperialist: our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed I think that neither can be a real success without the other.” Feisal then added, in strong, optimistic words: “I look forward, and my people with me look forward to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their place in the community of the civilized peoples of the world.”4 Sir Martin Gilbert is Winston Churchill’s official biographer. An honorary fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and a distinguished fellow of Hillsdale College, Michigan, he recently published Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship (Henry Holt, 2007) and the revised and updated Israel: A History (McNally & Loftin, 2008). T.E. Lawrence Blog T.E. Lawrence Much of what is known today of T.E.

Lawrenceï¿½s World War I exploits has come to the broader public from David Leanï¿½s Academy Award-winning film, Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The Welsh-born Lawrence developed an interest in the Middle East early in life, when he traveled throughout Syria while an Oxford student. He later worked with an archaeological expedition in present-day Iraq and where he perfected his command of Arabic. At the outbreak of war in 1914, Lawrence was assigned to the British Military Intelligence Service in Egypt. In 1916, Lawrence was sent to aid the cause of Faisal al Husayn, an Arab shaykh intent on overthrowing Ottoman control in Arabia and Palestine. Lawrence served very successfully as both a military advisor and an inspirational figure. His contributions were twofold: The Arab insurrection created a diversion behind enemy lines, which drew away Turkish soldiers from the main war effort. Lawrence and Faisal became masters of guerilla-style warfare, conducting lighting attacks against enemy positions, then withdrawing into the desert expanses. Turkish lines of transportation and communication were kept in a constant state of turmoil.

Lawrence played a pivotal role in overcoming the traditional suspicions and independence of many Arab leaders; this temporary unity was instrumental in their success against the Turks In late 1917, Lawrence was captured by the Turks, tortured and apparently homosexually raped. He managed to escape, but was never able to overcome the impact of his brutal captivity. He accompanied his force when it entered Damascus in October 1918, his last military act. Later that same month, he shocked a public gathering by politely refusing honors to be bestowed by George V. Lawrence served as a passionate advocate of an independent Arab state at the Paris Peace conference in 1919, but his views were not incorporated into the final treaties. He became obsessed with avoiding publicity and died in a motorcycle accident at age 47. Lawrenceï¿½s account of his exploits during the war is contained in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, published privately in 1926 and publicly in 1935 after his death. The work is described by some to contain great literary merit, but by others as an overwritten glorification of the authorï¿½s contribution to history.

In sum, Lawrence played a small, but important, role in disrupting Turkish operations during World War I. 10 Things You May Not Know About “Lawrence of Arabia” - History in the Headlines 10 Things You May Not Know About “Lawrence of Arabia” August 15, 2013 By Christopher Klein Share this: 10 Things You May Not Know About “Lawrence of Arabia” Author 10 Things You May Not Know About “Lawrence of Arabia” URL Google Thomas Edward Lawrence, the British Army officer whose World War I exploits earned him fame as “Lawrence of Arabia,” was such an enigmatic figure that sources even conflict about his precise birth date, which is reported as either August 15 or August 16, 1888. Check out 10 surprising facts about T.E. Lawrence. 1. Born out of wedlock, Lawrence only learned his true identity after his father’s death. In 1879, 18-year-old Sarah Lawrence arrived at the opulent Irish estate of Sir Thomas Chapman to begin work as a governess for his four daughters.

The Victorian aristocrat and his domestic servant began an affair, and she secretly gave birth to their illegitimate son in 1885. When the scandal was discovered, Chapman left his wife and moved to Britain with his new love. Although the couple never wed, they adopted the last name Lawrence and pretended to be man and wife. T.E., who was the second of the couple’s five children, only learned the true identities of his parents after his father’s 1919 death. 2. The real “Lawrence of Arabia” was a man of short stature. While six-foot, three-inch Peter O’Toole cut a towering figure as the lead in the 1962 epic biopic “Lawrence of Arabia,” the real Lawrence was only five feet, five inches tall. Lawrence remained self-conscious about his height, which may have been caused by a childhood case of the mumps. 3. He first traveled to the Middle East as an Oxford archaeology student. Lawrence spent the summer of 1909 traveling solo through Syria and Palestine to survey the castles of the Crusaders for his thesis. He walked nearly 1,000 miles and was shot at, robbed and badly beaten.

In spite of the arduous journey, the new graduate returned to Syria the following year as part of an archaeological expedition sponsored by the British Museum. His years in the region deepened his knowledge of Arabic and affinity for the Arabs. 4. He never had a single day of battlefield training. In 1914, the British military employed Lawrence on an archaeological expedition of the Sinai Peninsula and Negev Desert, a research trip that was actually a cover for a secret military survey of territory possessed by the Ottoman Turks. Once World War I began, Lawrence joined the British military as an intelligence officer in Cairo. He worked a desk job for nearly two years before being sent to Arabia in 1916 where, in spite of his nonexistent military training, he helped to lead battlefield expeditions and dangerous missions behind enemy lines during the two-year Arab Revolt against the Turks. 5. Lawrence lost two brothers who also served in World War I. Within months of each other in 1915, two of Lawrence’s younger brothers, Frank and Will, were killed fighting on the Western Front.

The guilt Lawrence felt about his safe desk job in Cairo as millions died on the front lines spurred him to the field at the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in 1916. 6. Lawrence’s fame did not come until after the war. Overshadowed by the millions of lives lost on the Western Front, Lawrence’s exploits were largely unheralded by the end of World War I in 1918. He was such an unknown figure that even the Turks, who had a bounty on his head, did not know what he looked like. However, when the American war correspondent Lowell Thomas launched a 1919 lecture tour recounting his assignment in the Middle East, his photographs and films of “Lawrence of Arabia” transfixed the public and transformed the British colonel into both a war hero and an international celebrity. 7. He refused a knighthood. King George V summoned Lawrence to Buckingham Palace on October 30, 1918. Lawrence hoped that the private audience was to discuss borders for an independent Arabia, but instead the king wished to bestow a knighthood on his 30-year-old subject.

Believing that the British government had betrayed the Arabs by reneging on a promise of independence, Lawrence quietly told the befuddled monarch that he was refusing the honor before turning and walking out of the palace. 8. Lawrence worked for Winston Churchill. In 1921, the future prime minister became Colonial Secretary and employed Lawrence as an advisor on Arab affairs. The two men grew to admire each other and became lifelong friends. 9. After World War I, he re-enlisted under assumed names. After completing his diplomatic service under Churchill, Lawrence returned to the military in 1922 by enlisting in the Royal Air Force. But in an attempt to avoid the glare of celebrity, he did so under a pseudonym: John Hume Ross. Months later, the press revealed his secret, and he was discharged. Lawrence subsequently enlisted as a private in the Royal Tank Corps, but under the assumed name Thomas Edward Shaw, a nod to his friend, the famed Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. Lawrence subsequently published an English translation of Homer’s Odyssey under the pen name of T.E. Shaw and maintained the assumed name until his death. 10. Lawrence died in a motorcycle crash.

Lawrence was an avid motorcyclist; he owned seven different Brough Superiors, dubbed the “Rolls-Royces of Motorcycles.” On the morning of May 13, 1935, Lawrence sped through the English countryside on his Brough Superior SS100 motorbike. He suddenly saw two boys on bicycles on the narrow country road and swerved to avoid them. However, he clipped one of the bikes and was thrown forward over the handlebars. Lawrence never recovered from his massive brain injuries and died at the age of 46 on May 19. Tags T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) - dorsetforyou.com T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) Thomas Edward Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia used to live near Bovington in Dorset. From a young age he explored the world and later decided to retire to a small Dorset cottage. T.E. Lawrence was born in Wales on 16 August 1888. From the age of eight he lived in Oxford where he later studied Modern History at Jesus College.

In 1909, he did a 1100 mile walking tour of Palestine and Syria collecting information for his thesis, 'Crusader Castles'. In 1911, Lawrence started work as an archaeologist at Carchemish in Syria, where he learnt about Arabian culture and Arabic. In 1914 he joined the army and was posted to Military Intelligence in Cairo. As Captain T.E. Lawrence he led Bedouin tribesmen in guerrilla raids against the Turkish Army, especially the Hejaz railway. He was promoted to Major and then to Lieutenant Colonel. In July 1917 Arab forces captured Akaba and then went on to capture Damascus in 1918, the highlight of the Arab campaign. As Colonel Lawrence, he returned to Britain in 1918 where he lobbied unsuccessfully for Arab independence. He turned down a series of important jobs and tried to escape from the public eye by changing his identity. In 1922, he became known as Aircraftsman Ross at Uxbridge, but his alias was discovered. In 1923, as T.E. Shaw, he made Dorset his new home.

He joined the Tank Corps at Bovington and bought nearby Clouds Hill cottage as a retreat. During this time he finished writing 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' and 'The Mint'. In 1925 he was allowed to rejoin the RAF, and after some time in Karachi he was posted to Plymouth, where he lobbied successfully for faster rescue boats. He spent the rest of his career developing and testing high speed rescue boats, which formed the basis of the air-sea rescue service and retired to Clouds Hill in 1935. Some famous people who visited Lawrence at Clouds Hill include: Thomas Hardy (Author) & Florence Hardy George Bernard Shaw (Author/Playwright) & Charlotte Shaw E.M. Forster (Author) Robert Pattinson Joining Naomi Watts in 'Queen of the Desert' | Hollywood Reporter Robert Pattinson Joining Naomi Watts in 'Queen of the Desert' 2:27 PM PDT 8/14/2012 by Borys Kit Getty Images The "Twilight" actor will play T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Robert Pattinson is attached to play Lawrence of Arabia in Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog’s biopic of Gertrude Bell. PHOTOS: 11 British Actors Invading Hollywood's 'It List' Naomi Watts is starring as Bell, described as the female Lawrence of Arabia for the impact the English woman had in the Middle East and her work in establishing what would become the modern framework for Jordan and Iraq. She was an explorer, writer, archeologist and political attache and worked for British Intelligence during World War I. Pattinson will play T.E. Lawrence, the archeologist-turned-British Army officer who played key roles in Middle Eastern revolutions in the same time period and became close friends with Bell. Peter O'Toole earned an Oscar nom for portraying the explorer in the 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia. Herzog wrote the screenplay. Nick Raslan is producing with Cassian Elwes. STORY: Robert Pattinson Heads Back Into the Spotlight for 'Cosmopolis' NYC Premiere A fall shoot in Jordan and England is being eyed. The move keeps Pattinson firmly in the world of independent film.

One of the world’s most recognizable stars, the actor is this week promoting Cosmopolis, his drama directed by David Cronenberg. He is set to star with Guy Pearce in the postapocalyptic indie The Rover as well as Mission: Blacklist, an indie thriller about Saddam Hussein’s capture. Lawrence of Arabia . T.E. Lawrence . Top 10 Facts | PBS Lawrence of Arabia was a celebrity during his life time, but there are many things about him that remain less well-known. Here's the top 10 lesser-known Lawrence-isms... T.E. Lawrence was only 5'5" tall. Though robust, lively and intelligent his height was possibly stunted by a dose of mumps in childhood. At that time, the average height for men was 5'9". Lawrence's head looked too big for his body. He was very conscious of his stature, and from an early age set out to strengthen himself by cycling everywhere. An unsettled childhood undoubtedly contributed to Lawrence's passion for travel and adventure. His parents never stayed in one place for long - none of the five Lawrence boys were born in the same country: Robert in Ireland, T.E.

in Wales, William in Scotland, Frank in Jersey, off England, and Arnold in Britain. In particular, the years he spent in France as a small boy broadened his mind to the outside world, exposing him to another language, people and culture, perhaps why he never developed the insular attitudes prevalent at the time. Lawrence was a staunch vegetarian. In France in 1906 he was pleased to see one morning that "nothing had to be killed to feed us", though he was warned by his French host family that "vegetarians fill an early grave" and was pressured to eat meat. His clean-living life-style included complete abstinence from alcohol and tobacco. Lawrence left an unusual legacy when he designed a set of stamps for the Grand Sharif of Mecca. After launching the Arab Revolt in June 1916 Sharif Hussein wanted an independent Arab postal service to help provide him legitimacy. In Egypt Lawrence spent many hours wandering the corridors of the Cairo Museum searching for suitable arabesque designs, before drafting and printing the stamps in defiance of the Turkish authorities in Constantinople. What's in a name? To Lawrence, it seemed, not a lot.

During his childhood the illegitimate Thomas Edward grew up under the assumed family name of Lawrence and was known as Ned by his brothers, though he often referred to himself as T.E. After World War I, to escape his celebrity, Lawrence joined the ranks of the Royal Air Force under the assumed name John Hume Ross. He was found out and then enlisted in the Tank Corps as Thomas Edward Shaw, a name that remained with him when he transferred back into the R.A.F. and up until the day he died. His only return to the name Lawrence was to publish his seminal work The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in 1926. Lawrence loved exploring the Middle East. He once walked 1100 miles in three months across mountains and deserts in order to get an insight into Arab life. On his first trip to Syria as a student, Lawrence was beaten so badly he nearly died. He never told his mother. Lawrence was a scruffy officer. His army superior, Ronald Storrs, remembered Lawrence had - and deserved - the title of the 'untidiest officer in the British Army'.

His uniform was never put on quite right; his Sam Browne belt was as often as not buckled loose over his unbuttoned shoulder strap, or he'd forget to put it on at all. He also had an instant disrespect for army officers, his general lack of respect for authority being a theme running through his life. Much of Lawrence's early life was spent preparing himself for later adventures. In his teens he cycled across France; as a university student he endured intense heat and illness and a mugging while he walked across Syria; he pushed his intellectual powers working through the night as a school boy; he tested his short but sturdy frame cycling up hills and walking down them; he tested his stamina by depriving himself of food and water for long periods. Lawrence was unknown in his native Britain during World War I. It was not until Lowell Thomas brought his slide and lantern show to London in 1919 that the British liaison officer to the Arabs became a celebrity. The British Army made efforts to suppress his image during the war to protect him. Although the Turks had put a bounty on his head they didn't know what he looked like.

Protecting his image may have saved his life in De'ra where he was captured but not recognised by Turkish soldiers. All his life Lawrence felt a need for speed. He had a motor engine sent over to him at Carchemish which he fitted to a local boat and raced with his friend Dahoum. Lawrence was delighted when he swapped his camels for Rolls Royce Armoured cars that were capable of 60 mph over the desert flats. In the Royal Air Force he was never happier than when he was working on fast motor launches in Plymouth. And he loved racing his motor bike. On the day he suffered his fatal accident, police estimated his motor bike was travelling at its absolute limit, just short of 100 mph. · August 16, 2016 · Welsh soldier and writer, 'Lawrence of Arabia,' Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in Tremadog, Caernarvonshire, Wales, United Kingdom on this day in 1888. “All me...n dream: but not equally.

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” ―from SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM: A Triumph (The Authorized Doubleday/Doran Edition) by T. E. Lawrence In his classic book, T.E. Lawrence—forever known as Lawrence of Arabia—recounts his role in the origin of the modern Arab world. At first a shy Oxford scholar and archaeologist with a facility for languages, he joined and went on to lead the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks while the rest of the world was enmeshed in World War I. With its richly detailed evocation of the land and the people Lawrence passionately believed in, its incisive portraits of key players, from Faisal ibn Hussein, the future Hashemite king of Syria and Iraq, to General Sir Edmund Allenby and other members of the British imperial forces, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is an indispensible primary historical source.

It helps us to understand today’s Middle East, while giving us thrilling accounts of military exploits (including the liberation of Aqaba and Damascus), clandestine activities, and human foibles.

Question: What is T.E. Lawrence better known as?
Answer: Lawrence of Arabia