In the Hejaz (western coastal Arabia) something momentous had taken place. King Hussein of the Hashemite clan, the grand sharif (a descendant of Muhammad) of Mecca, had declared a revolt against Ottoman rule on June 5, 1916. Lawrence was dispatched to Jeddah to report on developments. A keen observer of men and character, Lawrence met Hussein’s four sons, sizing them up to see if one of them was fit to become the military leader of the revolt. In Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence’s epic account of the revolt, he recalled dismissing them all until he met the tall, elegant Prince Feisal bin Hussein bin Ali, immediately realizing ‘that this was the man I had come to Arabia to seek — the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory.’ He returned to report on the situation but was promptly sent back to Arabia in December, to act as adviser and liaison officer to Feisal. He would remain in the field for the next two years.

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The situation was grim. The Bedouins were fickle warriors, ferocious when honor or booty were at stake, but tending to drift away when they grew bored or took too many casualties. For their service, Feisal and Lawrence had to pay them gold and balance the varying blood feuds and traditional mistrust between the clans. Although their numbers were not insignificant — according to a report Lawrence wrote in 1919, at one point the Arabs had ‘raised some 14,000 Harb tribesmen, 11,000 Beni Salem villagers and 9,000 Juheina’ — discipline was slack, and artillery was sorely needed to give punch to their attacks.

But Lawrence was impressed by Feisal’s cool and resolve. Staying in the leader’s tent, Lawrence carefully observed how he handled his men with patience and tact. During that time, Feisal presented Lawrence with beautiful robes of silk and gold. Lawrence readily put them on, for in such garb — a visual symbol of status and importance — he would be more acceptable to the Arabs. The flowing gowns were also ideal for the heat and camel riding.

On January 3, 1917, Lawrence went off on his first desert raid with 35 armed tribesmen. Under cover of darkness, they rode their camels out of camp, dismounted and scrambled up a steep hill overlooking a Turkish encampment, which they peppered with rifle fire until driven off. Returning, they came across two Turks relieving themselves, and took them back to camp for questioning. That minor triumph was later counterbalanced by a small tragedy when, to prevent a crippling blood feud from breaking out, Lawrence had to personally execute a member of his own band, a deed that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

An important steppingstone in the revolt was the capture of the coastal town of Wejh, which fell with the vital assistance of the Royal Navy in 1917. After that, ill with dysentery and malaria, Lawrence — an amateur soldier unhampered by formal military training — had time to reflect on the course of the revolt and grand strategy. Both Feisal and Lawrence felt that the revolt must move northward toward Syria and Damascus, with the goal of achieving Arab independence. The idea of the uprising had always been to drive the Turks out of Medina and the other major cities of Arabia. While he was ill, however, Lawrence decided that it would be better to keep the Turks bottled up in the city. The Bedouin forces had no taste for siege warfare and could not fight like a regular army, so Lawrence wanted to use the Arabs’ strengths — speed, superb knowledge of the terrain, immense individual courage — to strike at the Turks’ supply lifeline, the Hejaz Railway, stretching nearly 700 miles from Medina to Damascus.

At the end of March, Lawrence set off on his first raid against the railway, a Turkish station at Abu el-Naam. After carefully reconnoitering it, Lawrence crept down to the lines at nightfall and laid a Garland mine under the tracks, cutting the telegraph wires as he left. The next morning, the Bedouins overran the station with the aid of a mountain gun and a howitzer, setting several wagons of a nearby train on fire. As it steamed out of the station, Lawrence blew the mine under the front bogies, knocking it off the rails. Although the Turks got the train rolling again, the operation was a success.

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