LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
The man who led the Arab movement against Turks was born in a little village of Wales, Tremadoc in 1888. Thomas Edward Lawrence, well known as “Lawrence of Arabia”, was the second illegitimate child of a rich landowner who left his wife and daughters to live with Lawrence’s mother. It was only when he was 8 years old that his family hadn’t a residence. They settled in Oxford where the young Ned, as his family called him, began to study History at University in 1907. He was interested in novels of chivalry and epic poetry although he had a rougher facet: he liked testing himself in the worst conditions, starving, swimming in the cold nights of the winter or cycling until he was exhausted. Thomas was also fond of photography and target shooting.
From 1910 to 1914 he did several archaeological digs in Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt where his love for Arabian people and Orient was born. Although at this moment Lawrence just was an student, many people thinks he acted as British spy.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Lawrence joined up in the army. During his university years he had studied the Arabian language and he also knew all their customs. Because of this, when he requested to be send to the East front, the high command of British Army saw the opportunity of damaging the Germans interests in that zone. Turkey was an important German ally and an Arabian riot against Turks would be a good war action. Lawrence was sent to look for somebody who could join the different Arabian tribes to fight for their freedom. He met Emir Feisal and he thought that he could be the man. Feisal and Lawrence of Arabia did an important guerrilla warfare in the desert for five years, whose most significant action was the conquest of Damask in 1918.
When the war was over Lawrence was one of the impellers of the creation of Hejaz, Irak and Transjordania kingdoms. However, he was disappointed in the Versailles Treaty because Syria was handed over French command. Lawrence gave up his colonel rank and others political positions and came back to England.
During the Twenties he tried to live anonymously while he wrote a book, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, which was the story of his adventures with Arabian people in the desert. He joined up the Royal Air Force with a false name, Thomas Edward Shaw, due to his friend George Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright, but he was exposed by the press. Finally he died in a motorbike accident in 1935 when he avoided to run over some children who rode a bicycle.
