T. E. Lawrence

Contents lists

1888-1910

1911

1912

1913

1914

1915-16

1917-18

1919-20

1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

Updated June 2012

T. E. Lawrence to his family

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Military Intelligence Office
Cairo

31.8.15

I'm going to write only a little, as Macdonnell has gone to the Dardanelles on a visit, Newcombe has been appointed to a R.E. Company there, and leaves on Friday, and everybody is working hard to clear things up for his successor, who is a Colonel Parker, nephew of Lord Kitchener's, and an authority on Sinai and not much else. In any case there is nothing to write about. Jimmy Strong turned up about 6.30 one night, but I only saw him for a very few minutes. He looked very well:

Today is Mother's birthday, which is why I am writing: I believe there is a post out also. For the next one there will probably be peace. I gathered from Father's letter that you had nearly all of
you, been unwell. I hope it was not really serious? They say that the weather has been very bad in England lately. Salute Arnie from me. Ask him to search at Blackwell's for a copy of The Twilight of the Gods by Richard Garnett, and if it's not dear, to send it me. The book must be out of print long ago, but is probably common.

The Dardannelles expedition wasted a great chance it got. I don't like the look of things up there: and the worst is, it was such an easy business till we blundered. We are two to one there, as compared with the Turkish forces, and they have no more trained troops to send.

N.

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