Who Was Lawrence of Arabia?

After attending Jesus College at Oxford, Thomas Edward Lawrence became a working archaeologist for the British Museum in Syria, until the outbreak of World War One.

Lawrence soon enlisted into the British Army, where he was assigned to an intelligence unit in Egypt. He soon found himself fully engaged in intelligence-gathering missions that quickly thrust him into the Arab Revolt, which began in June of 1916.

TE Lawrence in the Arab Revolt

Working as a liaison to Arab forces under the command of Umir Faisal, their goal was to overthrow Turkish forces of the Ottoman Empire, which had sided with the Germans early on in the war. Lawrence’s primary contributions to the Arab Revolt was in the area of strategy and coordination with British forces, but in the process he became directly involved in twelve major guerrilla-style engagements from January of 1917 to September of 1918, including an attack on Ottoman forces at Hejaz, an attack on rail lines at Aba el Naam, the destruction of a vital supply line bridge at Ras Baalbek at the outskirts of Damascus and the defeat of Ottoman forces at Aqaba.

Lawrence’s intelligence-gathering reports were regarded by the British as important enough to consider him for the Victoria Cross, but in the end, he was inducted into the Order of the Bath and promoted to the rank of Major. After the war, Lawrence returned to Great Britain, where he was made a full colonel, working for the Foreign Office while attending the Paris Peace Conference as a member of Faisal’s delegation.

After surviving a plane crash in Italy, the British public grew evermore fascinated by Lawrence’s war stories and photographs of his wartime Bedouin disguises, leading to a stint as a stage actor in a play about the Arab Revolt. In an attempt to shun his growing reputation as a war hero, in 1922, Lawrence enlisted in the Royal Air Force under the assumed name of John Hume Ross, later forced out in 1923 after his alias was exposed. He changed his name to T.E. Shaw, and after an unhappy stint with the Royal Tank Corp, he was readmitted to the RAF after repeated petitions.

How Did Lawrence of Arabia Die?

Following the 1926 autobiographical publication of his involvement in the Arab Revolt, entitled Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence retired from the RAF, only to be killed in a motorcycle crash on May 15th, 1935, at the still tender age of 46, ending the life of one of the most colorful figures of the First World War.