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Sense and Nonsense in the biography of T.E. Lawrence
Jeremy Wilson
Prologue to Lawrence of Arabia, The Authorised Biography
(London, Heinemann, 1989, pp. 1-17)
Romance and enigma seem
to have become an inseparable part of T. E. Lawrence's reputation.
When I began research specifically for this book, in the mid-1970s, I
was often told that my task was hopeless. At this distance in time no
one could solve the biographical riddles.
This had indeed been
the case as long as the official archives relating to Lawrence's
military and political career remained under embargo, and biographers
were denied access to essential material for the period between 1914 and
1922. While this was so, no final judgment of his role during the Arab
Revolt was possible, and very little information at all was available
concerning either his work in Cairo during 1915-16 or his involvement in
British diplomacy after the war.
In 1968, however, the
great majority of these Government papers suddenly became available. At
any time thereafter, an authoritative reassessment of this much-debated
figure should have been possible - but for various reasons none was
forthcoming. Biographers dipped into the official archives in search of
previously unpublished material, but none of them attempted a systematic
investigation. One scholar did carry out a serious study of Lawrence's
part in the Arab Revolt, but his book was published only in German, and
has been ignored by British biographers.1
Twenty years later, in Lawrence's centenary year, his reputation in the
English-speaking world seemed little affected by the release of the
archives. This was regrettable, since a proper assessment of his career
was long overdue.
In the mind of the
general public, both in Britain and abroad, he remains one of the most
famous Englishmen of his generation. Yet ever since the 1950s, doubts
have been expressed about his real achievement, and some writers have
challenged the whole basis of his reputation. In 1962 the popular image
of Lawrence was radically changed by David Lean's film Lawrence of
Arabia, and the process has since been continued by a number of
sensational biographies. Many of these have been highly speculative, yet
subsequent writers have treated unproven suggestion as historical fact,
and added further speculation of their own. In this way layer upon layer
of invention has accumulated, leaving a grotesque impression of
Lawrence's career. Its outline (with variants) runs something like this:
Illegitimate son of
a religious maniac mother who dominates her children by flogging
them - is taken up in early childhood by an unscrupulous 'mentor',
D. G. Hogarth, and indoctrinated with imperialist views - is sent to
Carchemish for training as a spy while pretending to be an
archaeologist - goes to Cairo at the outbreak of war as a spy-master
- gets involved in the Arab Revolt - is motivated by virulent
imperialist (or perhaps pro-Arab, or pro-Zionist) feelings - is
sodomised at Deraa (or invents the whole story) - is carried away by
blood-lust at Tafas - is involved in treacherous diplomacy at the
Peace Conference and under Churchill at the Colonial Office, during
which he deceives everyone (or perhaps is manipulated by everyone) -
enlists to get away from it all - indulges in masochistic floggings
- has debatable sexual inclinations - seeks a substitute mother in
Mrs Bernard Shaw - and is finally murdered by the secret service for
reasons that can only be hinted at.
The errors of fact and
interpretation in these accounts ought to have been plain to anyone
familiar with the source materials available in print; but apart from a
handful of protests by specialist reviewers, the sensational fictions
have rarely been challenged. It seems that ordinary human scepticism has
been numbed by the sheer quantity of bizarre claims. The public no
longer knows what should be believed and what should be denied and, as a
result, many serious-minded people have come to regard the subject of T.
E. Lawrence with caution, if not distaste.
Such a state of affairs
might be tolerable if Lawrence had accomplished nothing and if his
career had lacked any lasting historical significance. But despite his
detractors' claims, this is not the case: even at their irreducible
minimum, Lawrence's achievements cannot lightly be dismissed. His most
severe critics have to admit that he played a role of some importance
while serving as a British liaison officer during the Arab Revolt. After
the war, fellow-officers who had seen his work at first-hand said that
his contribution had been outstanding. Although some of these witnesses
may have exaggerated, others were men of high integrity. Their testimony
cannot be entirely groundless. He was also involved in diplomatic
negotiations which reshaped the Middle East, first during the war
itself, then at the Paris Peace Conference, and finally while working in
the Colonial Office. There is ample evidence that he played an
influential role, particularly in the Cairo Conference settlement of
March 1921.
Next, his literary
achievement: Lawrence had hoped since childhood to become a writer, and
according to his own statements this remained his strongest ambition.
Three of his works have been very successful. Seven Pillars of Wisdom
has sold more than a million copies and has been widely translated. The
continuing popularity of this long and relatively expensive book about a
First World War campaign is surely remarkable. Barrack-room life in the
RAF, the subject matter of his second book, The Mint, might seem
to have still less appeal. Yet this work too has been translated into
several languages, and from 1978 until the turn of the century was
reprinted regularly in Penguin Modern Classics. Lawrence's
translation of the Odyssey has also earned a place in English
literature, as one of the most successful renderings addressed to the
general public. It has run through many editions, and is still available
in bookshops after more than fifty years. Finally, Lawrence was a
prolific letter-writer, and editions of his correspondence have been
widely read.
Even on this minimal
reckoning, Lawrence's military, diplomatic and literary
achievements merit biographical investigation. But his life is
interesting for another reason as well. He knew and corresponded with
many of the leading figures of his time. These included archaeologists
such as D.G. Hogarth and Leonard Woolley; military leaders such as
Allenby, Trenchard and Wavell; diplomats and politicians such as Nancy
Astor, Gertrude Bell, Churchill, Curzon, and Lloyd George; and writers
such as Buchan, Conrad, Doughty, Flecker, Forster, Graves, Hardy,
Sassoon, and Shaw, to name only a selection. Then there were friends in
the world of art: Eric Kennington, Augustus John, Paul Nash, William
Roberts, and William Rothenstein; the architect Sir Herbert Baker, and
H.S. Ede of the Tate Gallery. As long as historians are interested in
figures such as these, they will also seek information about
Lawrence.
One reason for this
curiosity will be that Lawrence's personality and career provoked
extreme reactions among his contemporaries, often of passionate loyalty,
occasionally of bitter antagonism. Few were able to write about him
without revealing something of their own values and prejudices. Yet it
is impossible to make sense of these attitudes while the truth about
Lawrence is obscured by sensational claim and counter-claim.
In the future, the 'Lawrence of Arabia' legend will itself interest
social historians. Public enthusiasm for media idols is usually
short-lived, but in Lawrence's case it has endured for more than
sixty-five years [written in 1989]. Instead of fading, the legend
has evolved, keeping pace with changing popular interests. In 1919,
Lowell Thomas gave Britain a romantic military hero unsullied by the
horrors of the Western Front. Afterwards, when Lawrence wrote Seven
Pillars, he was thought to exemplify the 'intellectual man of
action'. During the Second World War his reputation as a leader again
came to the fore, and Seven Pillars was included in the standard
library issued to British fighting units. By the 1950s, the intense
patriotism of the war period was fading, and attacks on conventional
values became commonplace (Lord Altrincham, for example, made social
history by daring to criticise the Queen's speeches). Predictably, the
accumulated Lawrence legend came under attack. Then, in the early 1960s,
Lawrence became fair game for amateur psychologists, and when the
'permissive society'
focused public attention on private lives there was a glut of salacious
allegations. During the 1970s and 1980s the vogue has been for
espionage, and it has been claimed that Lawrence became a clandestine
'intelligence operative' before the First World War.
The development of this
Lawrence legend shows how a popular topic can take on a life of its own
as a result of continuing exposure. Successive accounts alter, as
writers vie with one another to say something new. In this process,
however, stories are not necessarily improved. It is not just the truth
which suffers: often the ingredients which originally made an event
worth reporting are sacrificed as well. The improbable figure presented
in some recent biographies lacks almost all the qualities that made
Lawrence fascinating to his contemporaries.
In reality, his
biography has no need of such embellishments. His experiences in the
Arab Revolt contained an extraordinary degree of drama: as he said
himself, the story he had to tell in Seven Pillars was 'one of
the most splendid ever given a man for writing.'2 The renunciations of his later career are hardly less
intriguing. In Churchill's words: 'The world looks with some awe upon a
man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank,
or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain
apprehension, that here is some one outside its jurisdiction; some one
before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely
enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independently
of the ordinary currents of human action'.3
The sensational
treatment of Lawrence's life, however entertaining, has helped to
conceal his true development and motivation. For example, writers
seeking an excuse to dwell on his maltreatment by the Turks at Deraa in
November 1917 have suggested that this experience was responsible for
the profound depression he felt during the later stages of the war. It
would have been more rewarding to admit that this depression was evident
several months before the Deraa incident. By placing such
emphasis on the events at Deraa, even at the expense of chronology,
these writers have been led to discount early evidence of the central
dilemma in his wartime career.
Likewise, the claim
that Lawrence began working for British Intelligence at Carchemish
before the First World War provided biographers with a dramatic new
angle on the early years of his adult life. It also supplied an
explanation, deus ex machina, for his elevation by October 1916
to an influential position in the Cairo Intelligence Department. The
result, however, is that attention has been distracted both from his
achievements as an archaeologist at Carchemish and from the merit of two
years' hard work in Cairo Intelligence during 1915 and 1916. Thus a
single biographical fiction makes a nonsense of Lawrence's development
during six important years.
No serious historical
study of Lawrence could have been attempted before the embargo on
Government papers began to expire. The idea of taking on the official
biography was first put to me by a publisher three years later, in 1971.
Having already edited Lawrence's commonplace-book Minorities, I
could foresee the time and very costly research that would be needed.
For this reason, I turned the proposal down. During the next three
years, however, no other strongly qualified biographer came forward, and
finally, in the autumn of 1974, I decided to accept the commission.4
This dearth of
candidates illustrates another of the central problems in tackling
Lawrence's life. As he warned Robert Graves in 1927, 'I'm rather a
complicated person, and that's bad for a simple biography.'5 Obvious among these
complications is the sheer diversity of his career. Normally a figure of
such stature would be subject to exhaustive study in university
departments, but Lawrence's life was too varied to fit in neatly with
modern academic demarcations. As a result, no faculty is really
interested in more than a small fraction of his life. Holders of
university posts are obliged to work mainly in their own fields, and are
naturally unwilling to trespass widely into other academic provinces.
Thus while individual scholars may be expert in one aspect of Lawrence's
career, they are likely to know little about large parts of his life. A
specialist in medieval military architecture would not normally want to
pass judgment on twentieth-century diplomatic history. Likewise, there
are few archaeologists with knowledge of the Hittite period who could
write with any proficiency about the development of high-speed
motorboats. How many guerilla leaders have successfully translated the
Odyssey, or set up a private printing press? The diversity of
Lawrence's activities and interests has prevented anything but piecemeal
academic research. It has also presented a special challenge to his
official biographer: the need to meet high standards of historical
scholarship in many different fields.
While this problem has
discouraged academic attention, it cannot, on its own, account for the
wary attitude towards Lawrence found in British universities. The
situation abroad is different: major historical theses have been
published in France and Germany, and there have been several American
studies of Lawrence's writing.6 Caution about him in Britain seems to stem from two
causes. First, all scholars prefer to deal with evidence and reasoning,
while the Lawrence literature in this country has been saturated with
myth and enigma. The view elsewhere has been more sober.7 Secondly, attacks on his
integrity have raised far stronger passions in Britain than abroad.
British scholars, bombarded by allegations that he was a dishonest
eccentric, cannot be blamed for choosing some other subject for
research.
Much of this hostility
towards Lawrence is rooted in aspects of British culture and history. At
different times, his reputation has been savagely attacked by
well-defined interest groups in Britain. The first of these to speak out
was one associated with the Anglo-Indian administration in Mesopotamia.
In 1921, Churchill adopted Lawrence's policy for this region and swept
away years of painstaking effort by ambitious imperialists. Lawrence's
responsibility for this public humiliation was never forgiven. As a
result, thousands of Englishmen regarded him with a deep antagonism
(passed down, in some families, to the present generation).
Lawrence also offended a second group. At a time when society was far
more rigid than it is today, he rejected his 'proper' place in
the social order and chose to enlist. Military rank was then a potent
sign of social status, and after the First World War a great many
ex-officers continued to use their military titles in civilian life.
They were bitterly angry when it was revealed that the famous Colonel
Lawrence had joined the ranks of the RAF as A/c Ross. His action seemed
to undermine the respect which they considered due to the officer class.
The depth of feeling on this issue is difficult to understand today, and
has surprised me more than once when talking about Lawrence to people of
that generation. Naturally, those who felt threatened by his
unconventional attitude took action to defend themselves: in no time,
uncomplimentary gossip began to circulate about his social eccentricity.
The stories usually included some incident in which, while attempting to
be 'clever,' he had behaved with appalling rudeness. I have never been
able to substantiate any of these tales: no one seems actually to have
witnessed an incident of this kind. Yet the gossip is often repeated,
sometimes by biographers who do not realise that its original purpose
was derogatory. There is a flagrant example in Henry Williamson's book
Genius of Friendship,8
describing how Lawrence had snubbed a social-climbing hostess. The story
is told as though Williamson had heard it from the victim. Years later,
when I asked him for his source, he admitted that it had come from an
Air Force officer who did not like Lawrence.
More recently, there has been vociferous criticism of Lawrence from
British pressure groups associated with the Middle East. Although his
true role has been little understood, he clearly occupied a position of
some influence in Britain's policy towards the Arabs between 1914 and
1922. This episode in British diplomacy has proved to be extremely
contentious, and Lawrence's reputation has been attacked virulently by
some pro-Arab and some pro-Zionist writers. In many cases, polemicists
have used his name simply to attract attention to their views about much
wider issues. As the debate is directly related to the modern conflict
over Palestine, there has been far too little disinterested scholarship.
Historical interpretations are sharply divided, and Lawrence's
biographers have been faced with opposing and incompatible statements by
writers whose expertise in these questions is widely acknowledged. In
order to resolve this problem I was obliged to go back to the
contemporary documents. In the process, a fresh view has emerged, not
only of Lawrence, but of the events themselves.
Much of the controversy
about Lawrence in Britain can be traced to these differing viewpoints,
and it is essential to be aware of them. In almost every case the
hostility stems from an emotional allegiance rather than research and
analysis. As a result the criticism has often taken the form of abuse or
innuendo instead of reasoned argument.
It has also been claimed that veterans of the Western Front felt
slighted by the blaze of publicity given to Lawrence (and to Allenby's
Palestine campaigns). Individuals may have had such feelings, but the
records suggest no general resentment: the fault clearly lay with the
publicists and not with those who had fought in the Middle East. A
grudge of this kind may nevertheless have prompted Richard Aldington's
vehement attack on the popular Lawrence legend. Aldington was a
passionately embittered writer who had suffered deeply as a result of
war service on the Western Front. By the 1950s he was living abroad, in
self-imposed exile, and he had come to see Lawrence as the hero of a
decadent society which he detested. He seems to have believed that if he
could destroy Lawrence's reputation, this would in some way deeply wound
the British establishment.9
In his researches,
Aldington compared statements made by Lawrence at different times and to
different people with those made by three contemporary biographers. He
found many discrepancies between these sources, and presented the
variants as evidence that Lawrence had told vainglorious lies. The
obvious flaw in this argument was the assumption that Lawrence, rather
than his three biographers, was responsible for the anomalies. This was
extremely naïve. The earliest biographer, Lowell Thomas, was a popular
journalist whose work brimmed over with romantic exaggerations. Lawrence
was able to influence the text very little, but thought he could safely
assume that intelligent readers would recognise it for what it was; his
policy was therefore to refrain from comment. The second biographer,
Robert Graves, was a poet and novelist whose book was written very
hurriedly under pressure from his publishers. Although Lawrence saw the
draft, he warned Graves that he had not had the time to correct all the
mistakes. Only the third biographer, Liddell Hart, made any attempt at a
scholarly treatment, and it was his project which received the greatest
help from Lawrence. Given the differing qualities and aims of these
authors, it would be amazing if their accounts agreed in every detail.
Conflicting evidence, as Aldington must have known, is a common problem
for historians. Even after a short time-span, remembered versions of an
incident hardly ever correspond exactly. Moreover, retrospective
accounts are often coloured by self-justification and by wisdom after
the event. Material gathered from autobiographies or interviews rarely
turns out to be wholly consistent with contemporary sources.10
In Lawrence's case,
special factors have helped to generate conflicting evidence. First,
those who knew him were inevitably exposed to the popular legend; many
found it impossible to distinguish this from their own recollections.
Interviews and published reminiscences often contain inaccuracies which
are difficult to explain in any other way.
Secondly, Lawrence's
career brought him into contact with people from all ranks of society.
To the public at large, the only remarkable thing about some of his
acquaintances was the fact that they had known him. Most of his close
friends, particularly those in the RAF and Tank Corps, refused to
capitalise on this public interest; but there were a few who traded on
it and fabricated incidents and anecdotes to bolster their apparent
importance in his life.
Thirdly, even greater
distortions occur when people are encouraged to recall something 'new'
about Lawrence. No interviewee likes to be found wanting, and wholesale
fiction is amazingly common. Sometimes, the details have been very
ingeniously worked out to tie in with known events. Fortunately,
however, these yarn-spinners have rarely had access to Lawrence's vast
unpublished correspondence. While their statements may tally with
readily available sources, lesser-known material will usually expose
enough invention to cast doubt on everything they have said.
It is curious that while such people will take immense care over a
central fiction, they often give themselves away in minor details. This
is the case with the much-publicised reminiscences of John Bruce. In
pursuit of cash rewards for his story, Bruce embroidered it
considerably. Thus in 1938 he sold an article to the Scottish Field11 in which he claimed to have
been in India on spying expeditions with Lawrence, who dressed like a
native and spoke the local language. The story was a complete falsehood,
but Bruce thought it safe because ten years earlier there had been press
reports that Lawrence was spying in India. As Bruce had not actually
been in India with Lawrence, he had no idea that the press rumours were
untrue. He said many other things about his relationship with Lawrence,
and could have been an important biographical witness. As it is,
however, his testimony can be faulted on so many points that every
uncorroborated statement must be regarded with extreme caution.
Bruce's Indian spy
'revelations' also demonstrate how a popular myth can inspire what
appears to be substantiating evidence. If there were no reliable
contemporary documents to show that the 1928 press stories were false,
Bruce's account might be accepted as proof that they were true.
Lastly, accounts of
Lawrence's life have often been distorted in order to fit a preconceived
theory (for instance that he exemplified some archetype such as the
'romantic hero who rejected worldly rewards'). These oversimplified
interpretations rarely stand up to close examination, and usually
obscure more than they illuminate.
I have tried very hard to avoid such pitfalls. The surest way to do so
was to base my account of Lawrence's career on contemporary documents,
using later statements only when they were consistent with these
sources. Fortunately, an enormous amount of contemporary evidence has
survived, relating to every stage in his life. The documents now
available in public and private archives fully justify the claim made
some years ago by Paul Adam, one of several French intellectuals who
have written on Lawrence: 'By a paradox which is not without logic, the
very mystery of Lawrence's case has provoked both research and
testimony. As a result we know far more about him than we do about
people who were never thought to be mysterious.'12
The extent of this
source material is so great that it is impossible to include a
satisfactory account of it in this book. I have therefore compiled a
separate annotated reference work: T.E. Lawrence: a Guide to Printed and
Manuscript Materials.13
The first object of my research was to collect as much of this
contemporary information as possible. I soon found that it was better to
copy entire documents than to work from notes. Very often a statement
which seemed insignificant on its own turned out to be important when
set alongside other material from the same period. Relevant documents
are scattered throughout the world and, unless transcripts are brought
together in one place, all but the most obvious interrelated statements
will be overlooked. Even where a single institution holds many
documents, it can be impossible to examine them in the proper sequence.
For example, there is a great deal of transcribed correspondence among
the T.E. Lawrence papers at the Bodleian Library, but the letters to
each recipient are grouped separately and bound in a series of
alphabetical volumes. Library rules and practical considerations make it
impossible to use all these volumes at once, yet that would be the only
way to read the letters in chronological order.
This is a minor problem
compared with the situation at the Public Record Office [now The
National Archives], where information is scattered through countless
files. It can be extremely difficult to locate specific documents in the
maze of departmental records. Thousands of hours were spent working
through these official papers; the time involved probably explains why
biographers have hitherto made so little use of this material.
The task of gathering
photocopies and transcripts of contemporary documents continued during
ten years. At the core of the chronological archive thus formed was
Lawrence's own correspondence. He once wrote: 'of course somebody will
want to write a life of me some day, and his only source will be such
letters as chance has preserved. Had they been all kept, there would be
a pretty complete history of events since 1910: volumes of stuff enough
to discourage any historian: but chance will narrow his pile down.'14 Lawrence was wrong in
thinking that his letters would be discarded. At that time many people
retained correspondence as a matter of course, and in his case the
letters had a financial value. Comparing his address book with groups of
surviving letters, it seems unlikely that much has been lost. More than
four thousand letters, telegrams, official memoranda, and minutes
written by Lawrence, and about twelve hundred letters and telegrams
addressed to him, are now preserved in libraries or private collections.
I was able to copy the vast majority of these documents, thanks to their
owners and to a request for such co-operation made on my behalf by
Lawrence's youngest brother and literary executor, A. W. Lawrence.
Copies of many other
relevant documents have been added to the archive, especially for the
war and diplomatic periods. This material was essential if Lawrence's
contribution was to be seen in its proper context. I particularly wanted
to discover contemporary opinions about him exchanged between third
parties who were in a position to judge his work.
By the time the
biography had been completed, the archive formed a sequence of
day-to-day records running to about four million words (around ten times
the length of the book). Some of the material it contains had not been
available to other biographers; a great deal more, though available,
seems not to have been consulted. While many of the documents were
individually informative, the most valuable conclusions often came
through juxtaposition. Even the most familiar letters have taken on a
new significance when put alongside other material from the same period.
For example, the letters Bernard Shaw wrote to Lawrence during the
winter of 1922-3 are well known and often admiringly quoted. However,
when read in sequence with other documents in the archive, their advice
appears to be very ill-considered, and Shaw's motives seem questionable.
His irresponsible counsel was to have a far-reaching effect on
Lawrence's life.
The archive records in
minute detail Lawrence's military activities, diplomatic negotiations,
service work, and writing. This incontestable primary evidence made it
possible to write the biography with little recourse to later
reminiscences. One important result is that the account of his role in
the Arab Revolt no longer relies entirely on Seven Pillars. I
have quoted contemporary documents in preference to Lawrence's book,
even though that has proved to be remarkably accurate on questions of
fact. In some instances, however, passages from Seven Pillars
have been included because they have assumed a new significance in the
light of contemporary materials. I have also quoted Lawrence's
explanations of his own thinking and, less frequently, descriptions
which help to convey the atmosphere of the Revolt.
Research established
the factual record, but the content, approach, and style of this
biography remained to be decided when I began writing in the autumn of
1986.
The term 'biography'
covers two very different types of work, both equally legitimate. The
first seeks primarily to give a factual narrative, together with the
most objective account possible of the subject's personality and
opinions. One might call this 'historical biography'. The second type
also includes a biographical narrative, but makes this the basis for
subjective interpretation. The very raison d'être of such works
lies in the author's analysis and value judgments, and it is this
subjective content, rather than the historical record, which gives these
studies their novelty and interest. One might call them 'critical
biographies'.
A critical biography
written with intelligence and perception can be extremely rewarding. I
myself have enjoyed the studies of Lawrence by Paul Adam, André Malraux
and Victoria Ocampo.15
It has to be said, however, that the knowledge, calibre and diligence of
a critical biographer are all-important. In my judgment, the great
majority of Lawrence biographies belonging to this genre are of mediocre
quality.
In many cases their
argument is invalid because of factual errors or premature conclusions.
For example, it is often claimed that because Lawrence posed for so many
portraits, he must have been exceedingly vain. Deeper investigation does
not support this conclusion. There is no record that Lawrence ever
actually asked anyone to paint his portrait or to photograph him, and in
the overwhelming majority of cases there is positive evidence that the
request came from the artist or photographer.16 On reflection, this does not seem very
surprising, since portraits of Lawrence were extremely saleable.
However, this entirely changes the inference that can be drawn from the
number of portraits. The biographer must now ask whether or not it was
reasonable for Lawrence to agree to be painted, free of charge, by some
of the most talented artists of the day. The answer is so obvious that
the question is not even interesting: indeed, the position would only
have been intriguing if Lawrence had refused.
In other cases,
critical biographers have presented highly tendentious interpretations
of Lawrence's life without any supporting analysis whatsoever. This is
impossible to justify, but it seems that the controversy over his career
has left the truth in so much doubt that writers have felt free to
indulge in pure speculation. In a similar fashion, psychological comment
has been flawed by dramatic and grossly over-simplified statements about
motivation, ignoring the elementary principle that human decisions are
almost always influenced by a complex range of factors. Moreover, few of
these 'critical' studies display any depth of research. At best, the
results have been misleading because they focus too narrowly on
Lawrence's life with disregard for the historical context; at worst,
these authors have ignored, distorted, or suppressed large parts of the
evidence in order to give their preconceived theories an illusion of
credibility.
One difficulty with
such books is that the abuse of evidence is rarely obvious except to
someone with a detailed and comprehensive knowledge of the subject. A
biography which is readable and superficially plausible may, unknown to
the critic, be more a work of fiction than a historical study. Worthless
and untenable theories, like some of those put forward in T.E.
Lawrence by Desmond Stewart,17 have often been praised by non-specialist reviewers.
Although I know that
many people would have preferred my own biography to be an
'interpretation', there was an overwhelming case for a carefully
researched historical study, and that is the approach I decided to take.
As a general principle, I have restricted critical judgments to
straightforward issues where the comment is unquestionably valid. For
example, in April 1929, Lawrence made a great fuss about newspaper
revelations that he was anonymously translating the Odyssey. His
astonished indignation was clearly absurd, since for several months
previously he himself had been telling friends and acquaintances about
his work on this project.
There were several
instances, however, in which I thought it necessary to state my personal
conclusions even though the issues were much more complex. Where the
subject (e.g. Lawrence's sexuality) was of great biographical
significance, the discussion has been placed in the main text. In less
important cases (e.g. Lawrence's reaction to RAF discipline) my own
conclusions have been placed in the endnotes. I have used these notes
extensively to deal with matters that are not central to the narrative.
A biography such as
this must not merely be accurate; it must be seen to be accurate. At the
end of my research I could have written a narrative of Lawrence's life
in which my conclusions were expressed entirely in my own words. This,
however, would have required the reader to place total trust in my
reliability, and it would have been only too easy for future writers to
challenge my account in order to suggest alternatives. I have therefore
adopted the principles set out in Winston Churchill's biography of his
father. In the introduction he wrote: 'The style and ideas of the writer
must throughout be subordinated to the necessity of embracing in the
text those documentary proofs upon which the story depends. Letters,
memoranda, and extracts from speeches, which inevitably and rightly
interrupt the sequence of his narrative, must be pieced together upon
some consistent and harmonious plan. It is not by the soft touches of a
picture, but in hard mosaic or tessellated pavement, that a man's life
and fortunes must be presented in all their reality and romance. I have
thought it my duty, so far as possible, to assemble once and for all the
whole body of historical evidence required for the understanding of Lord
Randolph Churchill's career . . . Scarcely any statement of importance
lacks documentary proof'.18
I too have used
extensive quotation, and the essential points can be seen to rest
everywhere on contemporary evidence rather than on some theory of my
own. Individual extracts were chosen for a number of different reasons.
The first was to give authority to the factual record: in many important
instances the truth about events was not clear from evidence commonly
available, and this had led some biographers to false conclusions. I
thought it necessary to set out the new information which lay behind my
own deductions. Secondly, I used quotation to illustrate Lawrence's
values, aims, motivation and critical judgment, and to show how he was
assessed by his contemporaries. Lastly, there can be more subtle
benefits in the use of quotation. Those who have never carried out
research in historical archives can have little idea of the human
interest to be found in letters, telegrams, and notes written down while
the events were still unfolding. There is often a fascinating interplay
of personalities, and the documents can be alive with ambition and
jealousy, generosity and humour. It is virtually impossible to retain
these qualities in paraphrase: however brilliant the historian, accounts
which summarise the documents almost invariably make duller reading than
the documents themselves. In many cases, therefore, I have used
quotation simply to preserve the drama that was so vividly present in
the source materials; and also on occasion to illustrate attitudes which
are very distant from those held today. Examples are the messages which
passed back and forth during the siege at Kut, and the kind of
statements made by the French and Anglo-Indian imperialists.
Most of the passages quoted contain a narrative element, but they have
not been selected for that reason. I have in no sense attempted to 'tell
Lawrence's story in his own words.'
In a work which had to
deal with complex historical events, studious attention to chronology
was essential. But there are at least three circumstances in which
non-chronological presentation can seem useful in a biography. First, it
is often necessary to explain the background to some new field of the
subject's activity. In such cases historical recapitulation is usually
unavoidable. Secondly, events which form part of the story may have
occurred simultaneously in different places. A rigorously chronological
treatment, even if possible, would be very confusing, but it is
important not to let the time-sequence get too far out of phase. Related
to this is a third problem: it can be difficult to keep track of the
subject's involvement in different spheres of activity over a long
period. The temptation is to describe these independently - in
Lawrence's case, for example, dealing separately with his service life
and his work on the subscribers' edition of Seven Pillars. It is
without question easier to give the reader a clear understanding of
individual topics in this way; but the logical outcome of such a
treatment would be a series of essays, not a biography. Even where
spheres of activity seem completely unconnected, they are related, from
a biographer's point of view, because the subject divided his time
between them and they had a simultaneous influence on his life. The
danger of non-chronological treatment in such cases is that influences
which cross over from one sphere into another are overlooked. How many
biographers, for example, have realised that Lawrence's state of
depression while serving in the Tank Corps during the summer of 1925
corresponds exactly with a period of anxiety arising from financial and
technical difficulties in the production of Seven Pillars?
Incomplete treatment
can be equally damaging. Lawrence's development has rarely been very
clear in biographies. Many have concentrated almost entirely on the Arab
Revolt, saying little to explain how this man came to find himself in
Arabia in October 1916, endowed with a most unusual combination of
personality and accomplishments. Others have focused on certain topics
and periods without providing an adequate linking account. This means
that there is little sense of continuity: Lawrence's moods and ambitions
seem to change abruptly and without explanation. The source materials,
unlike these biographies, show his career to have been a sequence of
natural and considered steps. I have tried to bring out this continuity
while treating each period in a manner which reflects its historical and
biographical interest.
Another aim has been to
place Lawrence's public career in its political and military setting.
His activities during and after the First World War formed part of
important, complex, and much-debated historical events. In many
instances it is impossible to understand his motivation and achievements
without a knowledge of their wider context, and I have therefore
included much background information. Priority has been given to
material which sheds light on Lawrence's career. Thus I have given far
more space to the McMahon-Hussein and Sykes-Picot negotiations of
1915-16 than to the post-war conferences in Paris and in Cairo, even
though Lawrence was more deeply involved in the latter than in the
former. The reason is that the earlier negotiations set up a framework
of diplomatic commitments which deeply influenced his decisions for
several years. By contrast, it is not necessary to know about the
post-war conferences in great detail in order to understand their effect
on his life. To cite another example, his observations in Mesopotamia in
1916 influenced his later thinking on several issues, notably on the
merits of the Anglo-Indian administration there. For this reason I have
given space to the 1916 mission, even though it had no great importance
in the short term.
The style of the book
had to be appropriate to its aims. The emphasis in a historical (as
opposed to a critical) biography should be on the story, rather than on
the manner in which it is told. In 1928, commenting on D.G. Hogarth's
Life of Charles M. Doughty, Lawrence wrote: 'Hogarth's style is that
perfection of English - an invisible garment for his ideas. It would be
the despair and ambition of everyone who had anything to say, if they
were wise. Do you see, how there isn't a "fine line" in the book? If I
had done it there would have been many: and people would have liked
them: and it would have done Doughty wrong.'19 A conspicuous prose style would also be a handicap in a
work which seeks to blend extracts from documents by many different
hands into a readable narrative.
A further cause of
distraction can be the excessive use of endnote references. It was
necessary to give sources for quoted material, and in order to reduce
the number of notes I have tried, where possible, to attach any comment
to the same references. It would be impractical to give a source for
every statement of incidental fact, and for the benefit of future
researchers I intend to put a marked-up copy of the text with the T.E.
Lawrence papers in the Bodleian Library.
Finally, I would like to say something about the status of an 'official
biographer'. The expression is commonly used in publishing circles, but
to me it has the aura of an 'official version', inspired and possibly
censored by the subject's loving relatives. I greatly prefer the term
'authorised biography', which, for me at least, lacks this unfortunate
connotation.
I would not have
accepted the role of Lawrence's official biographer if there had been
any hint of future censorship, and A.W. Lawrence, as literary executor,
insisted from the outset that I should publish whatever conclusions I
reached. We agreed that it would be best if my work was totally
independent, and I avoided troubling him with questions about his
brother's life except as a last resort when the information seemed
unavailable elsewhere. When the book was in draft I sent parts of it for
comment to several well-qualified critics. I was glad when he agreed to
read the chapters describing Lawrence's childhood and work as an
archaeologist, and I was grateful for the notes that he and other
readers sent me. But the responsibility for the content of this
biography is mine and mine alone.
Notes
1. K. Morsey, T. E. Lawrence und der arabische
Aufstand 1916/18 (Osnabrück, Biblio Verlag, 1976). Originally
written as a doctoral thesis. A revised English-language edition is in
preparation. The book compares Lawrence's own account of the Arab Revolt
in Seven Pillars with the evidence of contemporary documents, and
also discusses criticisms made by biographers such as R. Aldington and
S. Mousa. (back)
2. T. E. Lawrence to V. W. Richards n.d. (1922).
Bodleian R (transcript). (back)
3. W. S. Churchill, address given at the
City of Oxford High School for Boys on the occasion of the unveiling of
a memorial to T. E. Lawrence, 3.10.1936 HL p. xiii.
(back)
4. At one time it was suggested, by J.
Meyers and others, that I was commissioned to write this biography as a
corrective to J. E. Mack's A Prince of our Disorder (Boston,
Little, Brown, 1976. For Meyers's views see Virginia Quarterly Review,
Vol. 52, No. 4, Autumn 1976).
In reality, the project of a major historical biography was put to me
some years before Mack's book was written, and I agreed to take on the
commission before I had seen his text in any form. I had, however,
already discussed Lawrence with him on many occasions during his
research and I knew that his book would be a subjective interpretation
of Lawrence, written from the unusual and interesting viewpoint of a
professional psychiatrist.
The biography I have written is a historical study based on far more
extensive examination of contemporary records (especially British
Government papers) than Mack was able to undertake. Consequently there
have been many revisions (some of them substantial) in the factual
narrative of Lawrence's life. In particular, I have dealt in greater
depth with the history of the political, military, and literary
activities which are at the core of Lawrence's reputation. These
revisions and additions have considerably altered the biographical
record given by Mack, and have sometimes placed his argument in
question; but in no sense did I set out to overturn his specialist
analysis and judgments. (back)
5. T. E. Lawrence to R. R. Graves 28.6.1927
B:RG p. 58. (back)
6. M. J-M. Larès, T. E. Lawrence, la
France, et les Français (Université de Lille III, Service de
Réproduction des Thèses, 1978; abridged edition: Paris, Imprimerie
Nationale [Publications de la Sorbonne, 7] 1980). K. Morsey, op. cit.
note 1 above. (back)
7. In the past, some of the most outrageous
allegations about Lawrence have been made by writers in France and
Italy, but all in all there has been far more sensational comment about
him in Britain than overseas. (back)
8. H. Williamson, Genius of Friendship
(London, Faber & Faber, 1941). (back)
9. The letter to Alister Kershaw used as an
introduction to Aldington's biography of Lawrence has left many readers
with the impression that Aldington was a Lawrence admirer when he began
research for the book, and that his views changed as he 'discovered the
truth'. This may be true, but Aldington's published and unpublished
correspondence clearly shows that dislike of Lawrence permeated his
research from a very early stage. For his true attitude see A
Passionate Prodigality, Letters to Alan Bird from Richard Aldington
(New York, New York Public Library and Readex Books, 1975); Literary
Lifelines: the Richard Aldington-Lawrence Durrell Correspondence(London,
Faber & Faber, 1981), and Aldington's unpublished letters to his wife
Netta, BL Add. MS54211. (back)
10. Historians working on more recent
events have met with difficulties where contemporary documents have
contradicted accounts by the surviving participants. In some cases these
conflicting versions have raised the possibility of action for libel.
For a discussion of this delicate problem see C. Cruikshank, 'People or
Papers' in The Author (London) Vol. XCVIII, No. 4, Winter 1987,
pp.105-6. (back)
11. J. Bruce, 'I knew Lawrence' in the
Scottish Field, (Glasgow) August 1938, pp.20-1. (back)
12. P. Adam, Les Echecs de T. E.
Lawrence (privately printed, c.1962, p. 9) author's
translation. (back)
13. J. M. Wilson, T. E. Lawrence: A
Guide to Printed and Manuscript Materials. This work was never
printed. Instead, most of it will be incorporated in the online T.E.
Lawrence Studies website. (back)
14. T. E. Lawrence to C. F. Shaw
29.3.1927 MB p. 321. BL Add. MS 45903. This comment is slightly
at odds with the impression often given by Lawrence when discussing the
use of documents. For example, after reading John Buchan's life of
Montrose, he wrote: 'I am glad you allow common-sense to interpret the
documents. A fetish of the last-school-but-one was to believe every
document. As one who has had the making of original historical records I
know how weak and partial and fallible they are. Fortunately you have
been a man of affairs, and so are not to be taken in, like a scholar
pure.' (26.12.1928 DG pp. 627-8) Elsewhere, his remarks were even
stronger: 'One of the ominous signs of the time is that the public can
no longer read history. The historian is retired into a shell to study
the whole truth; which means that he learns to attach insensate
importance to documents. The documents are liars. No man ever yet tried
to write down the entire truth of any action in which he has been
engaged. All narrative is parti pris. And to prefer an ancient
written statement to the guiding of your instinct through the maze of
related facts, is to encounter either banality or unreadableness. We
know too much, and use too little knowledge.' (T. E. Lawrence to L. G.
Curtis 22.12.1927 DG p.559). However, I view with caution the
extreme statements on the same theme reported by Ralph Isham (Friends,
bottom of p.298). Only the first of the passages cited by Isham comes
from any letter I have seen. The remainder appear to be paraphrase, or
memories of conversations with Lawrence. I am particularly doubtful
about the weight that should be attached to the statement: 'What does
[the truth] matter? History is but a series of accepted lies.' As
Lawrence admitted in Seven Pillars, he enjoyed provoking people
with outrageous assertions so that he could observe their reaction. This
remark, made to an American banker who was investing huge sums in
research on the Boswell papers, seems a typical instance (assuming that
it was reported correctly).
In considering Lawrence's views, one must first of all recognise that
his enthusiasm had been for medieval history. The documents relating to
that period are notoriously undependable, and have often been
contradicted by archaeological evidence. As a field archaeologist he
would have been well aware of such conflicts. Secondly, he was by nature
an interpretative historian. This does not mean that he was indifferent
to the factual record other people had worked to establish. That record
is, after all, the raw material for all worthwhile historical
interpretation. Lawrence was urging intelligent use, not total
disregard, of the documents. He himself used contemporary documents very
extensively when writing Seven Pillars. Few historians of the
twentieth century would accept his suggestion that researchers do not
recognise partiality in written records. The archival sources for this
period are very great, and it is usually possible to read so widely that
the bias and inaccuracy of individual documents become obvious. Lawrence
himself had no experience of, or taste for, this kind of research. It is
therefore wrong to treat his comments as though they were the carefully
considered views of a qualified research historian. (back)
15. P. Adam, Les Echecs de T. E.
Lawrence (Privately printed, c.1962); A. Malraux, extract
from a then-unpublished biography of T. E. Lawrence titled 'N'était-ce
donc que cela?' in T. E. Lawrence Studies (n.pl.) Vol. I, No. 1,
1976, pp. 21-32; V. Ocampo, 338171 TE (Lawrence of Arabia)
(Buenos Aires, Sur, 1942; English translation: London, V. Gollancz,
1963). All three of these intellectual works on Lawrence (including
Ocampo's) were originally written in French. (back)
16. For the circumstances under which
Lawrence's various portraits were painted see C.Grosvenor, An
Iconography: the Portraits of T. E. Lawrence (Pasadena, The Otterden
Press, 1988). There were only three major series of photographic
portraits during Lawrence's adult life. All were taken at the
photographers' request. (back)
17. D. Stewart, T. E. Lawrence
(London, Hamish Hamilton, 1977). See for instance Stewart's claims about
Lawrence's relationship with Ali ibn el Hussein, which include the
suggestion that Ali was responsible (under different circumstances) for
the flogging described by Lawrence in Seven Pillars ch. LXXX. Not
a shred of evidence is offered for these extraordinary allegations.
(back)
18. W. S. Churchill, Life of Lord
Randolph Churchill London, Macmillan, 1906, pp. x-xi.
(back)
19. T. E. Lawrence to C. F. Shaw
27.11.1928. BL Add. MS45904. (back)
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