Hero redux

 Certainly Hussein already realized that his claim to be "king of all the Arabs" and likewise his claim to the vast amount of territory promised to him by Sir Henry McMahon in 1915 were going to be a hard sell in Paris, let alone in Riyadh, where his
rival ibn Saud, with the backing of the British government in India, was already moving to take control of the entire Arabian Peninsula. It should be noted that Lawrence, with the skill of a natural "insider," was already well informed about the negotiations between Britain and France. On November 9, the Foreign Office released an Anglo-French declaration that embodied some of his suggestions, though couched in such vague and optimistic prose that it seemed to envisage both "native governments" and colonial rule. The British were in a difficult position. McMahon and Hussein's correspondence of 1915 directly contradicted the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 (as well as the Balfour Declaration of 1917), and while these conflicting promises to the Arabs, the French, and the Jews could be swept under the rug so long as the war continued, vic-tory would instantly bring the British face-to-face with the unwelcome reality of having promised more in the Middle East than they or anyone else could deliver. On November 8, only a day after Lawrence's message to King Hussein, the subject of the Middle East was suddenly overshadowed by the surren-der of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On November 9 the kaiser abdicated. And on November 11, "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month," Germany itself asked for an armistice. Those in charge of Britain's foreign and colonial affairs were suddenly faced with a range of issues more serious and pressing than the Middle East. What was to be the future of Germany? What was to replace the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was already beginning to crumble into a number of small, mutually hostile would-be states? Who was to receive the German colonies in Africa, and on what terms? Could a viable European peace be constructed without the participation of the Russians, now controlled by a Bolshevik regime that repudiated all trea-ties and preached universal revolution? Clamorous advocates for new states like Poland and Czechoslovakia were already appearing, maps and draft constitutions in hand; in the Balkans the Romanians were already Allies; almost a third of Hungary as their reward for joining the "ies; the Serbs, on whose behalf the war had begun, weregreedy to seize as much territory as possible and create a multinational Yugoslavia; and Zionists were pressing for the rapid implementation of the Balfour Declaration. More important than all these problems was the fact that the presi-dent of the United States was planning to join in the peace talks himself, bringing with him a host of unwelcome ideas, including a "general asso-ciation of nations." The New World was embarking on an effort to remake and reform the Old. "Even the Good Lord contented himself with only ten," Clemenceau grumbled, when he read Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points with the skeptical eye of an old-fashioned French nationalist who already knew what he wanted: Alsace; Lorraine; the Rhineland; formi-dable, crippling reparations; client states in the east to hold Germany in check; and, of course, last but not least, Syria, Lebanon, Mosul with its oil, and a share in the Holy Land. At the same time, the prospect of President Wilson's participation in the peace talks, together with a formidable American delegation,* made his majesty's government more inclined to collaborate with the French. Only by standing together, arm in arm, bras dessus, bras dessous, could the two principal European powers hope to resist what they both saw as Woodrow Wilson's starry-eyed idealism and naïveté. In the meantime, reports and advice on the Middle East continued to pour in to the Eastern Committee. Both Clayton and Hogarth sent long, detailed recommendations, basically echoing Lawrence's views. They were quickly countered by an equally long memorandum from Sir Arthur Hirtzel of the India Office, outlining the views of the government of India. These amounted to a sharp reminder that what really mattered was the oil deposits of Mesopotamia, rather than the Syrian Desert, and a warning that it was not worth jeopardizing British interests in Mesopo-tamia for the sake of nebulous promises that may have been made to Hussein and his sons. Hirtzel expressed polite scorn for Lawrence, whose
contempt for the Indian government and the Indian army on his brief visit to Baghdad in 1916 during the siege of Kut had not been forgotten or forgiven: "Without in the least wishing to deprecate [Lawrence's] achieve-ments and his undoubted genius, it must be said about him that he does not at all represent—and would not, I think, claim to represent—the local views of Northern Mesopotamia and Iraq; of the latter, indeed, he has practically no first-hand knowledge at all." Hirtzel also warned strongly against Lawrence's proposal to place one of Hussein's sons on a throne in Baghdad as king of Iraq, and another on a throne in Mosul to rule over the Kurds,* and suggested that if Britain raised objections to France's ruling over Lebanon and Syria, the French would hardly be likely to accept British rule over Iraq. Even the joy of victory did not prevent Stephen-Jean-Marie Pichon, the French foreign minister, from administering a sharp rap on the knuckles to the British Foreign Office, reminding them that so far as France was concerned, the Sykes-Picot agreement was still in force and that France expected to receive everything it had been promised. Pichon reminded the British Foreign Office of France's "historic duty towards the peoples of Syria," just in case the members of the Eastern Committee had forgotten, or might have plans to denounce the Sykes-Picot agree-ment to President Wilson as exactly the kind of secret diplomacy that the Fourteen Points were intended to prevent. Much as the British might deprecate the exaggerated territorial claims of King Hussein, or the ambitions of Syrian nationalists, when it came to the Middle East there was more sympathy for the Arabs in London—partly because of Lawrence—than for the French. Lawrence's capacity for communicating enthusiasm was now concentrated on the task of getting Feisal to the Peace Conference, despite strong French opposition.
*Although Lawrence's plan may have been overgenerous to Hussein and his sons, it nevertheless recognized the difference between northern and southern Mesopotamia, and would have resulted in an independent Kurdish state and solved at least one of the fundamental divisive issues that plague modern Iraq.
The first difficulty Lawrence faced was not so much Feisal's initial reluctance to exchange his claim to the throne of Syria for that of Iraq—the latter had originally been promised to his brother Abdulla—although this was a factor, but Churchill's need to have it appear that the people of Iraq had called Feisal to the throne. Churchill's requirement was much harder to stage-manage, particularly given the doubts of Colonel Arnold Wilson, the stiff-necked acting chief political officer in Iraq, under whose orders the Iraqi rebellion of 1920 had been brutally repressed. Wilson remained skeptical about Feisal's appeal to the Iraqis, and about the Hashemite family in general, and his skepticism was initially shared by Gertrude Bell. Lawrence quickly managed to convert Bell to his point of view—his cheery self-confidence usually brought that about. The prob-lem of Wilson, a firm believer in the use of force and in the inability of the Arabs to govern an area like Iraq, was solved by knighting him, then replacing him with the more malleable Sir Percy Cox. Gertrude Bell was assigned—among many other more important tasks, including persuading the initially reluctant Shiites and the Jews of Baghdad to accept a Sunni king—the job of devising a national flag, draw-ing up a code of court etiquette, and selecting a recognizable national anthem. (The last proved impossible, so the initial choice was the music of "God Save the King," without the lyrics.) Deciding on Iraq's borders was a more difficult question. The western border with Syria was fixed by a pre-vious agreement with the French, the southern border was an invisible line in the sand between Iraq and the vast empty desert ibn Saud claimed, and the eastern border was that of the old Ottoman Empire with Persia; but to the north was the territory inhabited by Kurds, Arabic-speaking non-Arabs, supposedly of Indo-European descent, who passionately desired an independent Kurdistan. Unfortunately for them, the grand prize of Iraq from the British point of view was Mosul, right in the middle of the Kurdish homeland, with its rich oil deposits. Accordingly, commer-cial interests and realpolitik combined to create a country with a Shiite majority, a Sunni king, a disappointed Kurdish minority, and a small but wealthy and cosmopolitan class of Jewish merchants in Baghdad.
and
Already in 1921 there were considerable misgivings about Lawrence's solution to the problem of how to reward Abdulla for giving up any claim he had to the Iraqui throne in favor of his brother Feisal. The Balfor Declaration had prudently not attempted to define the exact frontiers of Palestine, but both historically and biblically it had always included the area to the east of the Jordan as well as the west bank. Approximately three-quarters of the territory to which the Zionists aspired was now a separate country, under the rule of an emir and the Sharif of Mecca, with Jewish settlement forbidden
there—an area moreover which potentially could have sufficient water and could be ideal for settlement and modern farming, but which would remain a sandy wasteland. The reaction of Lawrence's fellow political adviser Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen was apoplectic and immediate, and echoed the feelings of the Zionist leadership: "The atmosphere in the Colonial Office is definitely hebraphobe, the worst offender being Shuck-burgh who is head of the Middle East Department. Hubert Young and little Lawrence do their best to cOnceal their dislike and mistrust of Jews but both support the official pro-Arab policy of Whitehall and frown on the equally official policy based on the Balfour Declaration; the latter is the only policy I recognize. I exploded on hearing Churchill had severed the Transjordan from Palestine. . . . Lawrence was of course with Churchill and influenced him.... This reduces the Jewish National Home to one-third of Biblical Palestine." Meinertzhagen described himself as "foam-ing at the mouth with anger and indignation," not necessarily a figure of speech where Meinertzhagen was concerned, but his protests were mild compared with those of the Zionists themselves, in Palestine and in the United States. The Israelis' belief that Jordan is, or ought to be, the Pales-tinian state, and that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were always intended to be part of the Jewish state, thus goes back to 1921, and the creation of Trans-Jordan. If Lawrence had been unaware of that before the eight days he spent with Abdulla, calming the tribes and persuading Abdulla to accept the "governorship" of Trans-Jordan, he certainly became aware of it the moment he reached Jerusalem. Churchill's daring initiatives were not all that disturbed the inhabi-tants of Palestine, who now suddenly found themselves living in a much smaller country than either the Jews or the Arabs had expected. Although Palestine was still occupied by the British army, and Lawrence's old friend Ronald Storrs had been rushed into khaki to serve as Jerusalem's military governor, a civilian high commissioner had been appointed in 1920, and the choice had fallen on Sir Herbert Samuel, the former home secretary, who was a Jew and an ardent Zionist. Even before his appoint-ment was final, Arabs responded with "consternation, despondency, and
exasperation," feelings shared for once with the Christian population of Palestine—Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Protestant—as well as with the Orthodox Jews, who believed that any attempt to encourage Jewish immigration was impious until and unless God arranged it. Samuel arrived at Jaffa, in a white diplomatic uniform, and was greeted by a seventeen-gun salute. Then he was taken to a reception in Jerusalem, where the chief military administrator he was replacing handed him "a typewritten receipt for 'one Palestine taken over in good condition,' which Sir Herbert duly signed." Below his signa-ture, however, he cautiously wrote, "E.&O.E.," letters which, on commer-cial documents, stand for "Errors and Omissions Excepted." Samuel was happily unaware that even the unflappable and unmilitary Storrs was holding "a loaded and cocked Browning pistol in his left hand" as they sat together in the back of the open car on the way to the reception. Storrs was well informed of the Arabs' hostility toward Samuel, though in the event, Samuel was notably evenhanded and fair. Although he too was strongly opposed to the creation of Trans-Jordan, he got along well with Lawrence, who took him on a sightseeing trip to Petra. At one point, as Churchill, Samuel, and Lawrence stood surrounded by a crowd of chant-ing, shouting Arabs, Churchill took off his hat to thank them for their prolonged cheers. "What are they saying?" he asked Lawrence. "Death to the Jews," Lawrence explained quietly. Samuel did his best to control the fear and anger that were already beginning to mar the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs in the Holy Land.
* Storrs (the source of this quotation) got it slightly wrong. In fact, it read, "Received from Major-General Sir Louis J. Bois, K.C.B.—One Palestine, complete." Samuel (by then in his nineties) was incensed when this chit, intended as a good-natured joke, was offered for sale at auction in New York, and went for $5,000.