Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to A. B. Watt
Military Intelligence
Office
War Office, Cairo
[undated but c. June 1916]
Dear Watt
This is only a little scribble: of course I'd want your help if we were going to A: and I think the French would also; (mixed force, with enough of ours to justify an extra Intelligence Officer). You would get local and temporary rank - if my will was done, and be attached to the Intelligence Dept. No unit, but a Staff job. Your Company would recognise this. You would be able to look after their root interests in the province, meanwhile, or in your spare time.
No spying: Intelligence is mostly topography, (guiding, advising as to products, routes, people, etc.) and interpretation: interrogation of prisoners.
This is all in the air: nothing is proposed, settled or intended at present.
Pay would be about 15/- a day: and some £50 for outfit. Discharge when you wished, practically, at any rate as soon as local operations ended.
Don't say anything about it.
Yours sincerely
T. E. Lawrence
| Source: | DG 198-9 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 1 January 2006 |
T. E. Lawrence chronology
1888 16 August: born at Tremadoc, Wales
1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys
1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909
1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish
1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo
1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt
1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference
1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office
1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF
1923 January: discharged from the RAF
1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps
1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant
1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah
1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven Pillars, published
1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey
1929-33: stationed at Plymouth
1931: started working on RAF boats
1932: his translation of the Odyssey published
1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe
1935 February: retired from the RAF
1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May
1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset