Zaagi, 420Zaal (raider), 92, 93–94Zeid, emir (son of Hussein), 22, 526and British gold, 292, 375, 376and Mesopotamia, 444retreating, 53, 56, 57, 58at Tafileh, 366, 368, 370–71Zionism:and Aaronsohn, 328–29and Balfour Declaration, 306, 399, 453, 454, 519–20, 531and Churchill, 510importance of, 468and Jewish national home, 511, 520, 531–32and Jewish settlement in Palestine, 451, 466, 467, 468, 531Meinertzhagen as supporter of, 470, 512, 520and Palestine, 280, 306, 328–29, 451, 458, 463, 466–67, 519–20, 524, 531and Paris Peace Conference, 454, 458, 463, 468Sykes as supporter of, 272, 280, 352and Sykes-Picot agreement, 280, 399, 451, 453, 458, 467and Weizmann-Feisal discussions, 399–400, 463, 465–68, 476
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks to my dear friends Marianna and Jay Watnick for their affectionate support.
I owe special gratitude to my friend and colleague from her days at Simon and Schuster, Phyllis Grann, whose suggestion it was that I should write about Lawrence in the first place, as well as for her editing of the manuscript; and to Lynn Nesbit for making all this possible. I also owe very special thanks to Hugh Van Dusen at HarperCollins, and to his assistant, Robert Crawford, for their unfailing help and enthusiasm; to Lucy Albanese of HarperCollins for her skill, taste, and patience; and to Diane Aronson for her very special and painstaking care.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to the incomparable Mike Hill, for his research, support, and friendship; to Kevin Kwan, chocolatier par excellence,for his brilliant picture research—and to Amy Hill, for once again taking on the task of designing one of my books. I am also deeply indebted to my assistant Dawn Lafferty, whose help has been unstinting, and whose calm in the middle of chaos has been a precious and invaluable gift to me, and to Victoria Wilson for reading the manuscript, and for her excellent and thought-provoking suggestions.
Close to home, I am profoundly grateful to John Ansley, Head of the Archives and Special Collections and of the Lowell Thomas Collection and Archives; and to Angelo Galeazzi, Project Archivist at Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York, for giving me such valuable access to their films, photographs, and manuscripts, which contain a treasuretrove of material about Lawrence, and for going to such trouble on my behalf.
I would also like to thank the following: Hugh Alexander, Deputy Manager, The Image Library, The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, U.K.; Katherine Godfrey, Archivist at the Liddell Hart Centre for Military History, King’s College, London, U.K.; Colin Harris, Superintendent, Department of Special Collections, Bodleian Library, Oxford, U.K.; Penny Hatfield, Eton College, Windsor, Berkshire, U.K.; Jane Hogan, Assistant Keeper, Archives and Special Collections, Durham University Library, Durham, U.K.; Allen Packwood, Director, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, U.K.; Lora Parker, Royal Agricultural College Library, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, U.K.; Peter Preen, Visitor Services Manager, Clouds Hill, Wareham, Dorset, U.K.; John and Rosalind Randle, Whittington Press; Gayle M. Richardson, Manuscripts Department, Huntington Library, San Marino, California; Daun van Eee at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Christine Warner, Oak Knoll Press; and John Wells, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, U.K.
My thanks to Will Bueche for so kindly making available to me many of the late Professor John E. Mack’s notes and papers; and to Barry Singer of Chartwell Books, New York, the most eminent of “Eminent Churchillians,” for so diligently seeking out books by and about T. E. Lawrence from all over the world.
To my dear friend Gypsy da Silva my thanks for being willing to answer questions at any hour of the day or night, and for always knowing the right answer.
And to “I Putti,” my five schoolmates from Le Rosey, for their long-distance support and enthusiasm: Jean-Jacques Boissier; Max Cauvin, whose courage and good humor in adversity are an example to us all; Christian Delsol; Gabriel Villada; and Peter Wodtke, chic types et chers amis.
Finally, and above all, to my beloved wife, Margaret, for putting up with yet another time-consuming project and for the accompanying tidal wave of books, papers, and files overflowing through the house.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
List of Maps
Preface
CHAPTER ONE: “Who Is This Extraordinary Pip-Squeak?”
CHAPTER TWO: Aqaba, 1917: The Making of a Hero
CHAPTER THREE: “The Family Romance”
CHAPTER FOUR: Oxford, 1907–1910
CHAPTER FIVE: Carchemish: 1911–1914
CHAPTER SIX: Cairo: 1914–1916
CHAPTER SEVEN: 1917: “The Uncrowned King of Arabia”
CHAPTER EIGHT: 1918: Triumph and Tragedy
CHAPTER NINE: In the Great World
CHAPTER TEN: “Backing into the Limelight”: 1920-1922
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “Solitary in the Ranks”
CHAPTER TWELVE: Apotheosis
EPILOGUE: Life after Death
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Advance Praise forHERO
ALSO BY MICHAEL KORDA
Illustration Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
List of Maps
The Arab area of the Ottoman Empire in 1914
Turkey’s Lifeline: Schematic map of the vital railway lines in the Ottoman Empire
Aqaba-Maan zone
The Hejaz Railway
The Northern Theater: The area of the advance of Allenby and the Arab army on Damascus
The Battle of Tafileh
Sketch map of the Middle East, showing the divisions proposed in the Sykes-Picot agreement
Lawrence’s own map of his proposals for the Middle East, which he prepared for the war cabinet in 1918, and for the Paris Peace Conference in 1919
About the Author
MICHAEL KORDAis the New York Timesbestselling author of Charmed Lives, Ike, Country Matters, Ulysses S. Grant, and Journey to a Revolution. He is Editor in Chief Emeritus of Simon & Schuster, and he lives in Dutchess County, New York.
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Advance Praise for
HERO
“ Herois a full-scale, major event, a great biography written with a sweeping understanding of history, military realities, geography, and politics, and filled with a wealth of character studies. The triumph of the book is Michael Korda’s brilliant, always balanced portrait of the infinitely fascinating Lawrence of Arabia, the relevance of which, now in our time, is of greater importance than ever.”
—David McCullough
“T. e. Lawrence is next to impossible to fix on the page. Yet Michael Korda has done so, delivering up a crowded, improbable life in a page-turning biography, every bit as rich as its protean subject. A splendid read.”
—Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra: A Life
“Michael Korda’s new biography of Lawrence of Arabia is bighearted and provocative—a page-turner that also helps us understand how the Middle east became the confused mess it is today. Herois a magnificent achievement.”
—Nathaniel Philbrick, author of The Last Stand
“Much has been written about him, but no one has succeeded in illuminating the quintessential Lawrence of Arabia so profoundly and as well as Michael Korda. Herois a work of brilliance, discernment, and meticulous scholarship that surely will be hailed as the gold standard.”