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 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 46 railway route. He would frequently mount sections of drainage pipes on small mounds of sand on top of the hills. When the German engineers observed the innocent pipes through their field-glasses they mistook them for British cannon. On at least two occasions they wired to Con- stantinople and to Berlin that the British were fortifying the most commanding posi- tions in the country. The young archæologist was laughing up his sleeve, but, seriously, he was disappointed, because he felt that his own Government had gone to sleep and had allowed the Germans to acquire almost complete control of the territory between the Bavarian border and the Persian Gulf. In 1912, England, Germany, Russia, France, and Turkey signed a Treaty which gave the Germans the right to go ahead with the Berlin to Bagdad line, and what was even more significant, gave them control of Alexandretta, perhaps the most strategical point in the Near East. As soon as Lawrence learned the outcome of that conference, he rushed to Cairo to see Lord Kitchener, and asked him why England had permitted Germany to get control of Alexandretta. Kitchener replied: "I warned our Foreign Office constantly that their policy would be a fatal one, but they failed to heed me. Within two years there will be a world war. We can't stop it, so run along, young man, and sell your papers." Lawrence went back to his ancient ruins and toiled lovingly over inscriptions that unlocked the secrets of civilizations that flourished and crumbled to dust thousands of years ago. But with many other scientists and scholars, he was called back to Cairo by the British military authorities in August, 1914. At that time he was twenty-six years old. He had already spent seven years wandering through Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Persia, and had acquired a more intimate knowledge of the peoples of Aleppo, Beirut, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Bagdad than almost any other European. HE JOINS THE ARMY AGAINST THE TURKS. Because the military authorities knew that Lawrence had lived among Arabs, Kurds, and Turks, and that from his explora- tion expeditions he might be expected to have a fairly good knowledge of the un- familiar regions of the Near East, he was given a commission as a second lieutenant in the Map Department. The British generals spent many hours poring over maps and discussing the possibilities of different plans for breaking up the Turkish Empire. Frequently they would outline a Digitized by Google scheme for a campaign, and then ask the young lieutenant if he had any suggestions to make. He would often reply: There are many good points in your plan, but I believe it is fundamentally wrong. I think the campaign should be carried out as follows," and he would point, by way of explanation, to short cuts across valleys, which he alone knew from his years of bare- foot travelling. The most staid old Regular army officers on the staff put their confidence in this junior lieutenant, who hardly knew the A B C of army tactics. His suggestions were adopted. In a short time he had established a considerable reputation for himself at headquarters, and became known to all the commanding officers of the British forces in the East. Later on, in Arabia, Lawrence frequently outwitted the Turks because of his superior knowledge of the topography of the country. Whenever he attacked the enemy he tried to outflank them in the rear when they were not expecting an attack, as at the battles of Akaba and Aba el Lissan. Although he had never had much previous military experience, he was a born strategist, and out-thought and outwitted the Turkish and German commanders in practically every engagement from the time he joined Emir Feisal in the desert east of Wedj until he swept into Damascus. From 1914 to 1916 young Lawrence kept the War Office informed regarding the move- ments of the various units of the Turkish Army. He had native agents acting as spies under his orders. In the summer of 1916 the Arabs broke out in revolt against the Turks in the country of the Hejaz, which is that part of Arabia between the Forbidden City of Mecca and the southern end of the Dead Sea. Because of the scarcity of munitions, the revolutionary Arabs ran out of supplies after their first success, and it would have been impossible for them to have gone on if the Allies-particularly Great Britain had not come to their rescue. The British not only sent supplies to the Arabs, but gave them important military encourage- ment; they sent them a number of their most brilliant young officers to co-operate with the Arabs and offer them suggestions. HOW HE DETERMINED TO RAISE AN ARMY OF ARABS. The way in which Lawrence came to be associated with the Arab uprising is a typical illustration of the irregular way in which he does everything. Chafing under the red-tape of Army regulations, quite a number of differences had come up between General Sir Archibald Murray, Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the East, the members Original from CORNELL UNIVERSITY