The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 03, 2025


PREVIEW： Epochs #205 ｜ Lawrence of Arabia with Luca Johnson： Part IV


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

171.61665

Word Count

2,972

Sentence Count

309

Hate Speech Sentences

13


Summary

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the life and career of T.E. Lawrence. He was a British Army Major, an intelligence officer, a war hero, and a man of many talents. He is best known for his role as Lawrence of Arabia, but there is much more to his story than meets the eye.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 So once the British take Jerusalem, Lawrence has a little bit of a break from sort of desert warfare, right?
00:00:06.220 He actually resides in Jerusalem.
00:00:09.260 And although when they first entered, as we mentioned, he's got a uniform of a major coming together from somewhere either.
00:00:16.780 His rank is always a question of exactly what he is.
00:00:19.860 But he reverts back quite quickly to just wearing the Arab robes.
00:00:24.760 Because it's in Jerusalem that he first comes across the American journalists.
00:00:28.960 Oh, yes.
00:00:30.000 Yes, Lowell Thomas, isn't it?
00:00:31.820 Lowell Thomas.
00:00:32.600 Yes.
00:00:33.180 And Harry Chase.
00:00:34.280 Oh, yeah, the photographer.
00:00:35.460 He's a photographer, cameraman, yeah.
00:00:37.560 So this is the point where we've got to say that Lawrence becomes famous.
00:00:42.100 He was already famous of a type within the British Army as this sort of extremely successful officer, staff officer, intelligence officer.
00:00:51.980 But now he starts transcending into being famous back home.
00:00:57.160 In the end, world famous.
00:00:58.400 Because Lowell Thomas shoots basically a documentary and takes loads of pictures of Lawrence over the course of a few months, actually.
00:01:11.500 And then later also writes a book about when he was with Lawrence in Arabia.
00:01:18.400 And anyway, there's just this legend of Lawrence goes up.
00:01:22.060 And Lawrence wouldn't have known at the time that this one American journalist, what he was doing would blow up his star.
00:01:31.100 Because Lawrence of Arabia becomes really, really famous.
00:01:35.780 A household name.
00:01:36.540 In his own lifetime.
00:01:37.320 Yeah.
00:01:38.040 Yeah.
00:01:38.240 So we might know, well, we know, most people are live now, we might be watching this.
00:01:43.180 Be aware of Lawrence of Arabia probably from the 1972, sorry, 1962 film.
00:01:47.900 Yes.
00:01:48.580 Right.
00:01:49.020 So that brought it to a whole new audience.
00:01:51.440 There was films and things, or a matinee film, or feature-length film, in the 20s, right, in the early 20s.
00:01:58.540 And apparently everyone saw it.
00:02:00.480 Apparently when it was shown, they were queuing around the block and the cinema was full every single time it showed.
00:02:05.360 Yeah, I think they hosted it in Covent Garden originally.
00:02:08.580 And then it went to the Royal Albert Hall and on and on.
00:02:11.060 But I think over a million British citizens ended up attending it.
00:02:15.800 And then Thomas took it on a more global tour.
00:02:18.900 And I think it ended up being seen by about four million people.
00:02:22.240 Right.
00:02:22.540 Which back then, you know, that was, yeah, quite extraordinary.
00:02:25.640 So he would have been a household name.
00:02:28.760 So although he's sort of famous-ish now, a lot of people would have heard of him a few decades ago.
00:02:37.760 Back then at the time, he was sort of touted as one of the main heroes of the war.
00:02:43.500 Because there weren't that many heroes, right?
00:02:46.780 Particularly in the Western Front.
00:02:48.020 It was just an endless list of casualties and no heroes, particularly.
00:02:52.420 So the way it often works, isn't it?
00:02:54.380 Like the Prieto effect.
00:02:55.440 One person ends up, one thing ends up getting nearly all the attention.
00:02:59.840 Sure.
00:03:00.060 It's just the way it works, always.
00:03:01.660 Yes.
00:03:02.600 So Lawrence was like that guy.
00:03:04.160 He was that lightning rod.
00:03:06.360 We'll talk about that after the war, when it happens.
00:03:09.560 But this is when he first meets Lowell Thomas.
00:03:12.440 And Lowell Thomas knew that straight away that this was a story.
00:03:16.900 So apparently he was walking along with, I think it might have been with, Ronald Storrs.
00:03:21.980 And he sees Lawrence walking along the street in Jerusalem with an entourage of, I think, Sudanese slaves and Arab followers.
00:03:30.020 And this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy with all white robes and the golden headpiece and everything.
00:03:36.960 And he says to Ronald Storrs something like, who's that?
00:03:42.120 Or something like that.
00:03:43.180 And Ronald Storrs just says, oh, that's the uncrowned king of Arabia.
00:03:47.540 That's T.E. Lawrence.
00:03:49.240 And so anyway, it went from there.
00:03:51.720 One of the things to say about it, though, is that both Thomas and Lawrence himself said that he never posed for any of the pictures.
00:04:02.520 He was always just caught mid-action.
00:04:04.140 And that's just not true.
00:04:06.660 That can't be true.
00:04:07.420 No.
00:04:08.260 No, I don't think.
00:04:09.020 And also, Lawrence did insist that lots of photographs were taken of the leaders of the Arab rebellion.
00:04:15.620 You know, that they'd be given their due credit and publicity that they were entitled to.
00:04:22.120 But obviously, yeah, Thomas was much more interested in telling Lawrence's story and Lawrence's struggle.
00:04:29.680 And obviously, conversely, the fact that all the time that Lawrence is fighting this war, Lowell Thomas is building him up as a hero when Lawrence feels like anything but a hero.
00:04:44.820 So there's this constant complexity within.
00:04:49.420 In one of the biographies, it says that basically Lawrence had, by this point, had some sort of deep distaste for himself.
00:04:57.380 Yes.
00:04:58.180 Sort of hated himself on some level for what he was doing.
00:05:01.380 That's why he keeps taking more and more risks, if anything.
00:05:04.140 So, yeah, just to finish up on the Lowell Thomas thing, it was thought of as kind of disgraceful in those days to be a self-publicist.
00:05:13.140 Nowadays, we don't have that at all.
00:05:15.220 You're encouraged to be a self-publicist, narcissist, you know, like TikTok and social media influencers.
00:05:23.100 It's all a big ego trip, right?
00:05:25.400 And there's no problem with that.
00:05:26.380 There's no social stigma.
00:05:27.480 It's like, go for your life.
00:05:28.880 Yeah.
00:05:29.160 Try as hard as you want.
00:05:30.200 It's like no one cares.
00:05:31.320 But back then, if you were thought of or seen of as a self-publicist, it was a bit disgraceful.
00:05:37.080 So it was sort of in Lawrence's interest to pretend that Harry Chase had just sort of captured him without him knowing and stuff.
00:05:47.640 But actually, they were staged portraits, a lot of these photos.
00:05:51.380 We'll put some of them up so you can see for yourself.
00:05:54.020 And it was in Lowell Thomas's interest to pretend that he was just sort of tagging along and was just sort of seeing things.
00:05:59.800 In his book, he writes it as though he rode with Lawrence behind enemy lines.
00:06:04.820 Yes.
00:06:06.020 Under fire against Turks.
00:06:07.560 But he never did.
00:06:08.260 No.
00:06:08.840 Lawrence later said, he never rode with me.
00:06:11.320 In fact, he's written out of Seven Pillars of Wisdom in Thailand.
00:06:14.640 Lowell Thomas and Harry Chase aren't mentioned in Seven Pillars.
00:06:17.680 But it's a big part of the story.
00:06:19.360 It's a big part of the story.
00:06:20.300 It really is.
00:06:21.880 Well, OK.
00:06:22.400 So that time in Jerusalem, so that's a great success.
00:06:27.920 The momentum is now firmly with the Allies and against the Ottoman.
00:06:31.260 But there's still a long way to go.
00:06:32.860 Oh, yeah.
00:06:33.360 Still a long way to go and many fights to be had.
00:06:36.900 It's around this stage, the next sort of raids that happen,
00:06:39.840 where Lawrence has sort of become a little bit jaded with some of the how the Arabs fight
00:06:48.560 and what they do.
00:06:49.580 So he asks for or gets some armoured cars.
00:06:53.480 I think they're like Rolls Royces.
00:06:55.240 Yeah, I think.
00:06:56.320 Or certainly Rolls Royce engines.
00:06:58.040 Yes.
00:06:58.380 But these big old, you'll see, they're like big, chitty, chitty, bang, bang style.
00:07:03.440 Well, it's like it's 1917, 1918.
00:07:05.960 So they're primitive automobiles, but beautiful machines.
00:07:10.060 Of course.
00:07:10.540 Big, heavy armoured cars.
00:07:12.760 And like he takes with him loads of explosives and machine guns.
00:07:19.140 And because if the ground is OK, that the cars can go across, that's better than camels.
00:07:24.260 Having professional British soldiers drive these armoured cars behind enemy lines
00:07:29.060 and doing hit and run raids, that is as long as the cars can go across the ground.
00:07:34.340 Because, you know, you can't get these cars up sand dunes.
00:07:36.980 Of course.
00:07:37.780 But that's really, I mean, what does that remind you of?
00:07:40.820 Armoured cars deep behind enemy lines in the desert,
00:07:43.500 manned by British people with heavy machine guns hitting and raiding things.
00:07:49.200 Well, if they're Australian.
00:07:50.240 Well, because of the Australian divisions fighting the war,
00:07:53.680 I would say it reminds me of Mad Max.
00:07:55.920 Oh, right.
00:07:57.320 Yeah, yeah.
00:07:58.680 But also what the SAS did, the long range days at Patrol Group in North Africa,
00:08:03.360 in World War II.
00:08:06.120 It's a lot different by World War II.
00:08:07.780 They're sort of Jeeps or Land Rovers type things with twin Vickers machine guns.
00:08:12.520 And they've refined it and it's moved on 20 years or whatever.
00:08:15.380 But that's sort of what David Sterling did.
00:08:17.900 And of course he got the idea from Lawrence.
00:08:20.860 Again, just one more thing, one more innovation Lawrence did in war.
00:08:24.920 It's like, well, why depend on these pretty undependable Bedouin soldiers who aren't great?
00:08:32.800 They're actually quite good shots.
00:08:33.920 That is one thing.
00:08:35.060 Apparently they're quite good marksmen.
00:08:36.540 But they can't be relied upon in a number of ways.
00:08:40.220 And camels, you have to walk to them and let them graze.
00:08:44.080 And they're not that fast.
00:08:45.560 They still just plod along.
00:08:46.800 Right.
00:08:47.600 So, yeah, an armoured car with machine guns on it.
00:08:51.500 Turn up out of nowhere.
00:08:53.060 On the Turkish lines.
00:08:54.680 Yeah.
00:08:54.820 Yeah.
00:08:55.240 Turn up out of nowhere.
00:08:56.720 Do a massive drive-by, essentially.
00:08:58.500 And then speed off again.
00:09:03.080 That's sort of what the SAS were doing in the deserts of Libya in World War II.
00:09:09.640 I'm also right in thinking that this is where the RAF starts to play a bit more of a crucial role in the war as well.
00:09:16.800 In fact, even when he was back at the intelligence office in Cairo back in those days, I think Lawrence played an instrumental part also in perfecting taking photographs from the planes in order for scouting and reconnaissance missions, particularly during the time of the Gallipoli campaign.
00:09:41.780 And so this is now the RAF is becoming more instrumental as well in fighting in the east.
00:09:48.240 One tiny point.
00:09:48.900 So I know for Dorotip is out there, we'll say it's not actually the RAF yet.
00:09:52.220 Oh, right.
00:09:52.780 OK.
00:09:53.300 It's still because there's no royal flying service that isn't created till just after the war.
00:09:58.700 So it's connected to the army.
00:10:00.200 And I think they called it like the just like the Royal Flying Corps or something.
00:10:04.740 OK.
00:10:05.180 But anyway, it's a tiny, tiny little pedantic point.
00:10:08.320 But yeah, it's interesting to note that we talk about Harry Chase and Lowell Thomas is taking photos.
00:10:14.320 Lawrence took loads of photos.
00:10:15.580 Oh, yeah.
00:10:15.780 He loved photography.
00:10:16.840 Yeah.
00:10:17.200 And photography was still fairly primitive, wasn't it still?
00:10:20.100 But the things he was brought up with was bicycles, riding bicycles and mending bicycles and photography.
00:10:27.420 For some reason, his father was really interested in it and he passed that on to all his sons.
00:10:31.180 And so there's some pictures, photographs of Faisal and the Arabs that Lawrence took already back in 1916 that are miraculous photos, right?
00:10:44.620 So, yeah, Lawrence took a lot of photos himself.
00:10:47.360 In fact, after the war, he's still very, very interested in it, right?
00:10:50.560 Right.
00:10:50.720 His passions are motorbikes.
00:10:52.500 Yes.
00:10:52.900 And photography.
00:10:53.760 Yes.
00:10:54.140 So, yeah, which is, oh, because he's, that's, and engines and stuff.
00:10:59.140 We'll talk a bit about this a bit later where he fixes one of the cars.
00:11:03.240 That's not normal.
00:11:04.200 Like if he was an officer, because now he's something between a major and a colonel or something,
00:11:10.440 he gets another promotion quite soon.
00:11:12.620 And he gets awarded, he's got medals, he gets a DSO, doesn't he?
00:11:16.220 A Distinguished Service Order.
00:11:18.160 We'll talk about that in a moment.
00:11:18.960 A Knighted becomes Order of the Bath.
00:11:21.120 Again, we'll talk about that in a moment.
00:11:22.480 Those types of people, if you're a Knight of the Bath and a colonel, you don't tinker with engines.
00:11:29.520 Right?
00:11:29.840 It's not done.
00:11:30.740 Being a mechanic is beneath you.
00:11:32.220 Working class men tinker with engines.
00:11:34.840 Tinkering with engines is like clearing up the horse poo.
00:11:37.560 Right.
00:11:38.380 Right?
00:11:38.720 Now, the officer and the gentleman rise the horse and someone lowly clears up after it.
00:11:42.600 That's what mechanics were thought of.
00:11:45.260 Of course.
00:11:45.680 Another thing to mention at this point is the people, the immediate entourage around Lawrence that he builds around himself.
00:11:51.800 Oh, yes.
00:11:52.380 Right?
00:11:52.640 All the bodyguards.
00:11:53.740 Yeah.
00:11:54.160 Yeah.
00:11:54.420 Because obviously after Dera that he thinks, I can't just walk about on my own.
00:11:59.040 He actually does learn.
00:12:00.900 There's a price on his head, right?
00:12:02.020 Yeah.
00:12:02.300 A bounty of about, what is it?
00:12:03.460 20,000 lira, whatever the Turkish currency was.
00:12:06.680 Yeah.
00:12:06.920 Yeah.
00:12:07.160 20,000 alive, 10,000 dead.
00:12:08.960 Yes.
00:12:09.220 So the Turks want him big time.
00:12:12.060 So he decides this stuff of going behind enemy lines on your own or in a tomb.
00:12:17.080 You're not going to do that anymore.
00:12:18.440 No.
00:12:19.180 So there's two things to mention.
00:12:20.760 His actual band of cutthroats.
00:12:23.040 That's what they're actually called.
00:12:23.720 The scum of the earth.
00:12:24.940 Yeah.
00:12:25.240 The actual scum of the Arab world.
00:12:27.260 About 90 guys, which isn't inconsiderable.
00:12:29.760 No.
00:12:29.900 90 guys.
00:12:30.800 It's not like six dudes.
00:12:32.380 Yes.
00:12:32.640 90 guys.
00:12:33.240 It's quite a lot.
00:12:33.660 And he takes like the worst, most crazy dudes, even the Bedouin Arabs who are kind of, they're
00:12:41.960 kind of crazy cutthroats themselves.
00:12:44.040 And for them, they're the outcasts and the maddest ones.
00:12:48.440 So Lawrence creates this sort of band completely outside the rules of like how the British army
00:12:56.240 is done.
00:12:57.080 Right.
00:12:57.480 Completely, completely off the books.
00:12:59.200 And he equips them with like a Lewis gun or a Hotchkiss machine gun.
00:13:07.120 One of those for every two men.
00:13:10.240 So 45 odd, like Vickers machine guns or something.
00:13:14.160 Yeah.
00:13:14.260 This band of 90 guys.
00:13:15.420 That's incredible firepower.
00:13:17.500 That's madness.
00:13:18.660 Yeah.
00:13:18.940 God will get into Lawrence now.
00:13:21.440 40 fully automatic belt fed type machine guns blasting away at something.
00:13:26.340 Yeah.
00:13:26.500 He can defend himself in the desert against all comers there.
00:13:30.040 Short of perhaps a full Turkish division.
00:13:32.280 Right.
00:13:33.340 So that's massively well armed.
00:13:35.160 And then the other thing to mention is his two sort of personal valets he's got.
00:13:40.860 They've actually been following him around for a while already.
00:13:43.080 But we haven't mentioned them.
00:13:43.860 Yeah.
00:13:43.900 Since before the Aqaba campaign.
00:13:46.320 Yeah.
00:13:46.580 It was at Daoud and Faraj.
00:13:48.880 Yeah.
00:13:49.760 Two boys.
00:13:50.500 Who I think are played really characterfully and very accurately to how Lawrence describes them in the film.
00:13:58.480 Even though their fates are slightly different in the film version.
00:14:02.620 Daoud is taken into a sinkhole and killed in that when he's trying to cross the Sinai after the Aqaba campaign.
00:14:09.300 But actually, by this point in the story, Daoud has actually died because whilst the winter was happening in Dera, whilst Lawrence was in Dera, yeah, Daoud died in the winter.
00:14:22.660 Just froze to death.
00:14:23.580 And apparently after that time, Faraj, who'd been such a jolly, happy, young, sweet, innocent boy, apparently Lawrence said he never smiled for the rest of the war, you know, because they'd been inseparable.
00:14:37.000 They were like an Arab Merry and Pippin, you know, who just lived together their entire lives and done everything together.
00:14:44.580 And, yeah, and so for one to lose the other was, yeah, just a remarkable loss.
00:14:50.040 So we'll describe them as boys, but they're grown men, just very young.
00:14:53.980 Yeah.
00:14:54.240 They're something like 18 or 20 years old, I think.
00:14:56.560 So they're grown guys, but they're still just boys.
00:15:00.840 And at one point, because they're really naughty, right?
00:15:02.660 They keep playing loads and loads of practical tricks on people.
00:15:05.120 Yeah.
00:15:05.660 There's one trick where you come up behind someone on a camel and sort of whip the camel's back or something at the right moment and force the camel to sort of run into a tree or something.
00:15:12.580 Things like this, and they just do, they just fool around and make people laugh.
00:15:18.000 But they're actually fiercely loyal to Lawrence.
00:15:21.340 Again, like his valets, anything he wants or needs, they'll do.
00:15:24.100 Yes.
00:15:24.480 Like if they stop and they're going to make some coffee or something, they'll do it all for him.
00:15:29.600 There's no suggestion that there's any sort of sexual relationship, but it's really, they're really, really close as a unit.
00:15:35.720 Yes.
00:15:37.660 And, okay, so sometimes that happens, especially sort of in war.
00:15:41.800 Well, you have sort of a buddy system.
00:15:43.800 And sometimes your best friend becomes your sort of ultra, ultra best friend and you're inseparable.
00:15:49.000 And if and when he gets killed, it's like half of you just got killed.
00:15:52.740 Yeah.
00:15:53.260 And yeah, they all just froze to death.
00:15:55.840 That's another thing to say about deserts.
00:15:59.140 Deserts, the difference in temperature often between the day and the night is incredible.
00:16:04.220 So the day can be glazingly hot, some of the hottest places on the planet.
00:16:07.500 And in the night, it's absolutely freezing cold.
00:16:09.640 Like you'll get frostbite or freeze to death.
00:16:11.880 And in the winter as well, obviously even worse.
00:16:14.340 So you think, how can you freeze to death in Arabia?
00:16:16.740 Well, in winter at night.
00:16:18.120 Yeah.
00:16:18.380 Yeah, you can.
00:16:19.100 Totally can.
00:16:19.740 Yeah.
00:16:21.060 So, yeah, that's just sort of really sad.
00:16:23.420 Lawrence beats himself up for it.
00:16:24.700 Yeah, he does.
00:16:25.120 Because Darude had been on some sort of mission that Lawrence had sent him on, some sort of other raid or whatever.
00:16:33.960 And he'd been really close, like his friend.
00:16:36.340 Because Lawrence has got like this, it says, we've told a number of times, he's got sort of a type of undergraduate, high jinx sense of humour.
00:16:44.480 He doesn't sort of allow his sense of humour to come out much, certainly in the desert on Behind Enemy Lines.
00:16:49.060 But still, his actual default sense of humour is sort of pure art and silly.
00:16:54.440 Yes, it is.
00:16:55.260 And like doing pranks on people.
00:16:59.220 So with these two boys, Darude and Farage, they're the only two he could sort of open up to and be sort of normal, be himself with.
00:17:07.740 Yeah.
00:17:08.160 So when one dies, he's terribly distraught.
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