Lawrence of Arabia

The centenary of General Allenby’s capture of Jerusalem falls later this year. On 11 December 1917, the commander-in-chief of Britain’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force entered the city on foot in recognition of the unique sensitivities surrounding the world’s holiest city. War and farce are never too far removed and, as is so often the case on these extraordinarily important moments, the surrender of Jerusalem almost went hilariously wrong. Mounted on horseback and waving a white flag, the city’s mayor offered to hand over the keys to Private Murch, a British cook who had been sent out to find some eggs for his commanding officer. ‘I don’t want yer city,’ the stalwart Murch told the immaculately-turned-out mayor. ‘I want some eggs for my hofficers!’

Lawrence reckoned the Arab Revolt, by comparison with the industrialised slaughter of the Western Front, was the ‘sideshow of a sideshow’, an afterthought of the first world war in the Middle East. Yet the stirring, cinematic story of the guerrilla campaign waged by Lawrence and the camel-bound Arabs on the Ottomans’ Hejaz Railway still captures our imagination. We all love a winner.

Lawrence’s enduring fame — Lawrence of Arabia was the first world war’s answer to the Victorians’ Gordon of Khartoum — can seem a mystery. Gordon and Scott of the Antarctic had plenty of sacrificial derring-do, after all, but they went out of vogue years ago.

Part of the reason for that, perhaps, is that Gordon and Scott’s writing has not aged well. It may also be because in Lowell Thomas, the sensationalist American journalist, and the film director David Lean, Lawrence found skilful and energetic propagandists. Everyone loves a hero in times of war and great national danger, and Churchill was not slow in spotting Lawrence’s potential.