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As plans unravel, Lawrence rushes back and forth between Allenby’s HQ in Palestine and Feisal’s HQ out in the desert, trying to keep the dream alive.

Copyright © 2018 National Trust

Map, quotes and photos: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, published in 1926; Lawrence’s personal account of his role in the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Bust photo © John Hammond.

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T. E Lawrence in May 1918In Spring 1918 both the main British forces, near the coast around Jerusalem, and the Arab forces had stalled, and were making little or no progress northwards against the Turks. At the end of April, Lawrence ‘went down to Akaba, and took a ship for Suez, to discuss future [plans] with Allenby.’27 April – in Arethusa [HMS Arethusa II – a fleet messenger vessel] arriving 29 April – Cairo While Lawrence was in transit, Allenby launched another attempt across the Jordan valley on 30 April before his force was stripped bare to reinforce the Western Front. The Turks again resisted strongly and an offered rising by local Arabs [Beni Sakr] failed to materialise. By 4 May Allenby had withdrawn.

1 May – Sinai in transit to 2 May – GHQ [Bir Salem, near Ramlah, Palestine] ‘Dawnay met me, and we talked over our brief before going up to Allenby’s camp. ... Our movement, clean-cut while alone with a simple enemy, was now bogged in its partner’s contingencies. We had to take our tune from Allenby, and he was not happy. The German offensive in France was stripping him of troops. ... The War Office promised him Indian divisions ... perhaps, after the summer, he might be again in fighting trim: but for the moment we must both just hold on.’ Allenby still found time to take tea with Lawrence. ‘At tea-time Allenby mentioned the Imperial Camel Brigade in Sinai, regretting that in the new stringency he must abolish it and use its men as mounted reinforcements. I asked: “What are you going to do with the camels?”’ Allenby’s Quartermaster-General [‘Q’], was reluctant to release them. Allenby asked Lawrence: ‘“And what do you want them for?” I replied hotly, “To put a thousand men into Deraa any day you please”. He smiled ... “Q, you lose”. ... It was an immense, a regal gift; the gift of unlimited mobility. The Arabs could now win their war when and where they liked.’

1918: the road to DamascusMay: rushing around by sea, air and camel

The road to DamascusMarking the extraordinary trials, triumphs and tribulations of T. E. Lawrence in the last year of the First World War, month by month, in the British army alongside the Arabs fighting in the deserts of the Middle East; when the legend of Lawrence of Arabia was born.

Entering Damascus

The British Empire, with support from many Arabs, was fighting against the Turkish Ottoman Empire, allies of the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians. This series of leaflets covers the months leading up to the capture of Damascus from the Turkish army at the beginning of October 1918, which effectively signalled the end of the war in the Middle East: the formal Armistice with the Ottoman Turks was signed at the end of October.Some dramatic reversals of fortune in the final year of the campaign took their toll on Lawrence’s already strained nerves. This, and his feelings of guilt around what he saw as the betrayal of his dreams of a pan-Arab empire during the complex post-war peace negotiations, eventually caused the breakdown that brought him in due course to seek solitude at Clouds Hill.

A Jiddah street scene

The dates and places in bold [with modern transliterations where it helps] are taken from Appendix 2 of Seven Pillars, in which Lawrence records from his diary where he was overnight.

3 May2, 5, 15 May

Cairo 7-13, 17-18 May

Map and quotations are taken from Seven Pillars of Wisdom, chapters 94 to 96.

Not all places mentioned remain visible today.

Markers show Lawrence’s locations overnight

Mediterranean Sea

16 May

3 May – Jerusalem Lawrence was flown by Lt Dutton 150 miles in an RE8 to Aqaba, then driven up country by Crossley tender to see Feisal overnight, before returning the same way to GHQ the next day.

4 May – Aba el Lissan [Abu al-Luson, Feisal’s HQ] ‘Next morning I was off to join Feisal in his cool eyrie at Aba el Lissan. ... I remarked that Allenby had given us 2,000 camels. Feisal gasped and caught my knee, saying, “How?” I told him all the story. He leaped up and kissed me; then he clapped his hands loudly. “Hurry,” cried Feisal, “call them.”’ He summoned the tribal chiefs. ‘I said, “It is nearly finished. Soon you can let me go”. He protested, saying that I must remain with them always, and not just to Damascus, as I had promised in Um Lejj.’ Feisal told the assembled chiefs of the 2,000 camels. ‘They murmured in astonishment; [trying] to be calm; eyeing me to guess my share in the event.’

5 May – G.H.Q. Lawrence resumed discussions with Dawney ‘on May the fifth, the date chosen ... for the heave northward of the whole army as prelude to the fall of Damascus and Aleppo. As first phase of this arrangement we [i.e. the Arabs] had undertaken liability of Maan: and Allenby’s pause stuck us with this siege of a superior force.’ Allenby ‘offered what technical equipment we needed. We took the opportunity to ask for repeated air-raids on the Hejaz Railway. ... The RAF [as it was from 1 April 1918] kept up a dull, troublesome pressure on Amman from now till the fall of Turkey.’

6 May – Sinai then 7 May – Cairo, where Lawrence spent a week working in the Arab Bureau [Savoy Hotel]. ‘Joyce was also gladdened and made smooth by the news ... We had, meanwhile, the need to maintain ourselves all summer on the plateau, besieging Maan, and keeping the railways cut. The task was difficult.’

14 May – Sinai then 15 May – G.H.Q. and another flight [in an Australian ‘Bristol Fighter’] to meet Feisal

16 May – Wadi [el] Hafira [15km N of Disah / W Rum]. ‘All this time the face of our revolt was growing. Feisal, veiled in his tent, maintained incessantly the teaching and preaching of his Arab Movement. ... The Arab regulars had [17 May] had their third success against Jerdun, the battered station which they made it almost a habit to take and lose.’ Feisal’s younger

brother Zeid, ‘in command of half the army posted north of Uheida, was showing great vigour. His gaiety of spirit appealed more to the professional officers than did Feisal’s poetry and lean earnestness; so this happy association of the two brothers gave every sort of man a sympathy with one or the other of the leaders of the revolt.’

17 May – Cairo then 19 May – In Imogen [HMS Imogene – a naval yacht] arriving 21 May – Akaba; 22 May– Aba el Lissan; 23 May – Akaba; and on to 24 May – Disi [Disah]; 25 May – Mudowwara [Mudawara]; 26 May – Akaba; 27 May – Aba el Lissan ‘At Amman was a forcible Turkish concentration of troops earmarked for Maan when supply conditions would let them move. ... To make head against them, Nasir, our best guerrilla general, had been appointed, in advance of Zeid, to do something against the railway. He had camped at Wadi Hesa, with Hornby, full of explosives, and Peake’s trained section of Egyptian Army Camel Corps to help in demolition. ... Nasir attacked Hesa station [23 May] in his old fashion, cutting the line north and south the night before, and opening a sharp bombardment of the building when it was light enough to see. ... When the Turks weakened, the Arabs charged into the station ... We had, of course, no killed; as was ever the way with such tactics. Hornby and Peake reduced the place to heaps of ruins. They blew in the well, the tanks, engines, pumps, buildings, three bridges, rolling stock, and about four miles of rail. Next day Nasir moved north, and destroyed Faraifra station [24 May]. Peake and Hornby continued work that day and the day following. Altogether it sounded like our biggest demolition. I determined to go up and see for myself.’

28 May – Fagair [Bir Fuqayr]; 29 May – Towani [Bir at Tawwanah] 30 May – Hesa, etc. He arrived ‘to find Nasir, with 600 men, concealed under cliffs and bushes, afraid of enemy aircraft, which had killed many.’ That day ‘the Turks sent a force of camel corps, cavalry and infantry, down to re-occupy Faraifra as a first counter-stroke. Nasir was at once up and at them. While his machine-guns kept down the Turks’ heads, the Abu Tayi charged up to within a hundred yards of the crumbling wall which was the only defence, and cut out all the camels and some horses. To expose riding-animals to the sight of Beduins was a sure way to lose them.’

30 May

21, 23, 26 May

4, 22, 27 May

24 May25 May

low lying landmountains over 3,000 ftsteep side (scarp) of rift valley, over 2,000 ft in places

Sinai 1, 6, 14 May