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

---

Arab Bureau
Savoy Hotel
Cairo

12.8.17

This is only a note, to catch what I believe is a post. I'm sending some photographs in hope that they will arrive: of course they are not mine, but some R.F.C. people who had taken them sent me copies. I've sent you a lot, one time and another, but I don't suppose many get through. I cannot send any enlargements, for printing paper is scarce.

Went down to Jidda a month ago, and saw Feisul at Wejh, and the Sherif himself at Jidda, and discussed things with them. Results satisfactory on the whole. I had never met the Sherif himself before, and liked him exceedingly: a very simple straightforward old man, clever enough too, but knowing so little. Upon us as a people is the responsibility of having made him a ruling power, and he is pitifully unfit for the rough and tumble of forming a new administration out of the ruins of the Turkish system. We will have to help him and his sons, and of the sons only Feisul and Zeid will play square to us. Abdulla is an intriguer, and poor Sidi Ali, the eldest son is a religious fanatic, and will be the tool of evil spirits. I do hope we play them fair.

I'm now going back to Akaba to look round at the country there: will start about the 16th from here. The average length of my last five visits to Cairo has been about 5 days! However it is more restful in Arabia, because one feels so nervous of what may happen if one goes away. I cannot ask for leave, as I know there is so much to do down there, and no one to do it. If I asked I would probably get it, but it would not be right at present. If ever things get safe there, it will be possible to rest. You know there are very few of us on the job.

N.

About writing:- please try to realise that one's thoughts for nearly two years have been fixed on one object. We have realised part of the scheme, and the situation is critical but hopeful. In the circumstances one has become a monomaniac, unable to do or think about anything else- and of the one thing I cannot write to you.

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