The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 13, 2025


PREVIEW： Epochs #206 ｜ Lawrence of Arabia with Luca Johnson： Part V

Topics
Versailles conference
Hosted by
Callum Edmunds Carl Benjamin Connor Tomlinson Harry Robinson John Wheatley Joshua Ferme Edward McLaren Elizabeth Heverin
Mentioned
Make Faisal Winston Churchill King Hussein Make Abdullah Ibn Saud Woodrow Wilson Lloyd George Versailles Robinson Crusoe Mustafa Kemal Minot Zagin Mark Sykes Moby Dick Al Sayed Clemenceau Gallipoli Jordan Turk Ruhr Zaid
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1141 The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1142

Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

170.66

Word count

4,045

Sentence count

421

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

34

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we take a deep dive into one of the most important events in history, the peace conference at Versailles in 1919, and the Arab-American Liaison Officer, Faisal Al-Faisal.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 We're in 1918 at this point.
00:00:02.360 The Germans have done their big attack. 1.00
00:00:04.940 The Kaisershracht in the Western Front and it's failed.
00:00:08.940 Even two weeks before the end of World War I in the West,
00:00:12.800 even two weeks before, no one knew it would be done in two weeks.
00:00:17.000 It sort of came out of the blue, the German request for a full armistice.
00:00:22.760 It sort of came out of the blue.
00:00:24.080 I mean, everyone knew it was on the cards, but the exact time of it.
00:00:27.100 So, yeah, even a month before the end of World War I,
00:00:30.720 you would be forgiven for thinking we're going to be fighting into 1919.
00:00:35.300 And the war in the East, similar-ish.
00:00:38.140 The Ottomans collapsed pretty quickly after Damascus 0.98
00:00:41.500 because we don't get armies all the way to Constantinople
00:00:44.560 because the Ottomans give in.
00:00:48.080 When the Germans give in, the Ottomans give in. 0.82
00:00:50.440 Although, of course, you know, a few years later,
00:00:52.500 there is that whole international forces do.
00:00:56.440 Am I right in thinking they do occupy Constantinople? 0.50
00:00:59.240 And that's when the Turkish, under Ataturk, takes place. 0.64
00:01:02.820 And so, just to finish out the Turkish story,
00:01:04.340 the young Turk government of the three passions flee. 0.63
00:01:08.000 They all flee to Germany, don't they? 0.95
00:01:09.340 Yeah, they flee on a German U-boat.
00:01:12.140 And then we get the era of Mustafa Kemal, Ataturk, 0.52
00:01:16.140 controlling a now secular Turkey.
00:01:19.820 There's no more Ottoman. 1.00
00:01:21.340 We don't talk about Ottomans anymore.
00:01:23.020 It's Turkey.
00:01:23.600 And the modern, more or less the modern state of Turkey.
00:01:29.700 Okay, so that's that.
00:01:31.900 So the next thing, the next main set of events is Versailles.
00:01:35.580 What's going to happen after the war?
00:01:38.480 Yes.
00:01:39.520 So it's not, this is another one, isn't it,
00:01:42.160 at the Peace Conference where it's not entirely clear
00:01:45.680 what Lawrence's purpose is there.
00:01:49.940 Like, whether, is he there as part of the British delegation?
00:01:54.900 Is he there as part of Faisal's delegation?
00:01:57.300 He spends most of his time with Faisal, doesn't he?
00:01:59.600 As Faisal's liaison translating for him,
00:02:02.320 getting him private meetings with influential people,
00:02:05.920 particularly, of course, the American delegation with Woodrow Wilson,
00:02:10.060 because he thinks that his best chance in order to shore up any hopes
00:02:15.800 of an independent Arab state is to appeal to the Americans.
00:02:21.400 Yeah, Woodrow Wilson's 14 points about self-determination.
00:02:24.560 Yes.
00:02:24.980 And all these sorts of things.
00:02:25.860 And the Americans are already, in 1919, among the most powerful,
00:02:30.460 if not the most powerful, single voice and faction.
00:02:33.360 They've got all the fresh armies and all the money in the world.
00:02:36.660 So Woodrow Wilson has got massive sway at Versailles,
00:02:40.780 whereas the British and the French sort of want to keep the old world 0.99
00:02:44.980 going as much as possible, want to keep their colonial projects
00:02:47.600 and empires going as much as possible.
00:02:49.500 So, okay, so Versailles, 1919, Paris, 1919.
00:02:52.880 I've heard it described as, and I think this is fair description,
00:02:56.580 as the biggest, deepest attempt ever to sort of reshape the world.
00:03:05.800 Nowadays, we have like G20 summits and things.
00:03:09.600 They're tiny, tiny, tiny, pale in comparison to what was done
00:03:14.860 at Paris in 1919.
00:03:16.760 At Versailles, they tried to rework the map of the world.
00:03:22.880 In loads of different ways.
00:03:24.160 They were, I mean, there's sort of the conference of Vienna
00:03:27.700 after the Napoleonic Wars.
00:03:29.400 And there's been various things like it before,
00:03:32.660 but this was the biggest ever, the biggest ever thing.
00:03:35.880 And it lasted for ages.
00:03:37.000 Like it lasted a year, didn't it?
00:03:38.580 And everyone's there.
00:03:40.480 Literally, there's delegations from sort of everyone in the world
00:03:44.500 is there trying to get their voice heard.
00:03:46.880 When the map is being redrawn.
00:03:50.280 But the three big players by far are Britain, France, and America.
00:03:55.100 So Lloyd George, Clevensoe, and Wilson.
00:03:57.820 If you can't get their ear, you probably won't get what you want.
00:04:02.980 And so it's sort of quite important about if you've got credentials there
00:04:09.840 to speak or be recognised.
00:04:11.580 So if you really need to be a formal part of someone's delegation.
00:04:17.820 Now, Lawrence had credentials.
00:04:19.980 He was chosen as part of the British delegation.
00:04:23.240 Yes.
00:04:23.800 But in fact, when he turns up, he wears the Arab headdress, at least, 0.86
00:04:28.460 if not the full robes.
00:04:29.960 He's nearly always with Faisal.
00:04:32.180 He's there with one of his giant Sudanese slaves. 1.00
00:04:34.960 There's photos of this.
00:04:37.580 Arabs still had slaves. 1.00
00:04:38.680 Yeah.
00:04:39.340 So I think Saudi Arabia didn't abolish slavery to, like, the... 0.71
00:04:42.940 1967.
00:04:44.140 The 60s.
00:04:45.440 Wow.
00:04:47.920 Okay.
00:04:49.060 They want to try and pour scorn on us for the slave trade.
00:04:51.380 Okay.
00:04:51.840 The Jose Mourinho.
00:04:53.680 I cannot speak.
00:04:54.420 If I speak, I'm in trouble.
00:04:56.020 All right, yeah.
00:04:56.540 Yeah.
00:04:57.580 So Faisal's got slaves.
00:04:58.620 Yeah.
00:04:58.920 Arabs and Lawrence is with him.
00:05:00.580 And so it's part of Lawrence's job is, at the moment when it comes up,
00:05:06.080 when the big powers, there's the big three, but there's actually sort of eight,
00:05:10.520 or is it eight or ten powers that really count?
00:05:13.360 So, like, the Italians count a bit.
00:05:15.140 Anyway, when it's Lawrence's shot or the Arabs' moment to make a speech 0.99
00:05:20.300 and make their argument, Lawrence is their front man.
00:05:22.900 And is it actually talked about much in Seven Pillars?
00:05:29.640 I don't think he does talk about it.
00:05:31.960 Seven Pillars ends before Versailles, right?
00:05:35.000 Yes.
00:05:35.500 Yeah.
00:05:35.760 Yeah.
00:05:35.980 Ends not long after the hospital.
00:05:37.940 Right.
00:05:38.220 That's right.
00:05:38.760 Yeah, yeah.
00:05:39.540 So all this you'd have to pick up from other biographies.
00:05:43.000 But when it's Lawrence's time to speak, he does that,
00:05:46.920 that he casts his spell where all the great men,
00:05:51.420 including Wilson and Clemenceau and Lloyd George,
00:05:55.220 they sort of forget themselves.
00:05:56.920 They sort of, they're just sort of in his thrall listening to his story.
00:06:00.480 He's the most impressive man at the entire conference.
00:06:03.240 Yeah.
00:06:03.440 Because everyone's talking about him to begin with.
00:06:06.100 Yeah.
00:06:06.440 To begin with.
00:06:07.100 And all the papers are filled with Lawrence of Arabia at Paris and at Versailles.
00:06:12.840 Yes.
00:06:13.420 And stuff.
00:06:13.740 And he tells this great story and makes the argument for why the Arabs 1.00
00:06:19.480 should have their independent sovereignty and why you should set up Iraq 0.77
00:06:25.400 and Syria and Transjordan and do X, Y, Z. 0.50
00:06:29.660 And Israel, of course, to actually enforce the Balfour Declaration. 0.58
00:06:33.740 And so Faisal has to juggle with all of those, you know,
00:06:37.580 the Zionist question as well, which gives him a great deal of anxiety.
00:06:41.100 But, of course, there was literally could do about it.
00:06:43.740 A very quick word on Zionism then and the Jews is that, of course,
00:06:47.880 they don't set up an Israel.
00:06:49.760 There's a mandate and in the mandate there's special provisions for the Jews
00:07:01.200 in Jerusalem or in and around what becomes Israel.
00:07:05.000 Yes.
00:07:05.700 And you mentioned the Balfour Declaration and all that sort of thing.
00:07:08.140 But Lawrence mentions the Jews hardly at all in Seven Pillars.
00:07:12.500 Yeah, not very often.
00:07:13.320 I think they're mentioned three or four times and only ever in passing.
00:07:16.020 Yes.
00:07:16.500 And it's like, oh, and the Zionists think this and want this. 0.98
00:07:18.880 And it's almost like that, like three or four times.
00:07:20.700 Yeah.
00:07:21.140 It hardly gives any space to them.
00:07:25.640 And he mentions every now and again, oh, this guy is sort of a Zionist,
00:07:28.600 pro-Zionist or not.
00:07:30.120 But there's hardly any mention of it, really.
00:07:33.180 So one of his friends is Minot Zagin.
00:07:38.200 He talks about a guy called Minot Zagin, a British officer who was really,
00:07:42.200 he was one of the very, very few sort of arch-Zionists,
00:07:46.320 pro-Zionist people in the delegation.
00:07:48.780 But anyway, anyway, at Versailles, he makes the Arab case.
00:07:54.680 And apparently all the power, the top eight, ten power brokers are just sort of
00:08:01.400 in his thrall for a while, are just sort of listening in sort of silenced awe.
00:08:06.600 He's sort of more famous than they are, in a sense, in a way.
00:08:09.900 Yes.
00:08:10.220 And he's a real war hero, a genuine, genuine sort of war hero.
00:08:13.960 Yeah.
00:08:14.680 And when he's not speaking in front of committees,
00:08:18.340 when he's not trying to get the case across,
00:08:19.940 he's, of course, back at his hotel beginning to write Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
00:08:24.780 Right.
00:08:25.300 The first draft of it.
00:08:26.380 The first copy of it he's writing.
00:08:29.200 There's one point, just again, to illustrate his sort of, his genius.
00:08:32.160 After he finishes his speech, one or two of them say,
00:08:35.340 that was great, could you do it again in French?
00:08:38.840 Oh, yeah.
00:08:39.260 And he just says, yes, and just delivers the same amazing thing in French.
00:08:43.980 So, yeah, he's a world-class linguist.
00:08:47.780 Yes.
00:08:48.380 On top of everything else.
00:08:49.940 Obviously, it's whilst Lawrence is at the peace conference
00:08:53.120 that his father passes away.
00:08:55.860 The influenza.
00:08:57.060 Yes.
00:08:57.920 Yeah, it's from the Spanish flu, isn't it? 0.92
00:08:59.980 Yeah.
00:09:00.360 His father's killed by the Spanish flu.
00:09:02.600 Or Lawrence receives the word that his father is dying.
00:09:06.880 And so Lawrence drops everything at the conference
00:09:09.520 and goes back to Oxford to try and catch his father.
00:09:13.480 And apparently he misses him.
00:09:15.640 He gets back, his father's died, and he misses him by about two hours.
00:09:18.920 Something really, like a really small window like that.
00:09:21.940 And so with his father dying, he just is like, well, he misses a funeral.
00:09:31.840 He doesn't have time for the funeral.
00:09:33.500 It says Faisal needs him.
00:09:34.780 He goes back to Paris.
00:09:35.460 He just goes straight back to the peace conference.
00:09:37.160 And there's a part from Faisal's diary here where he says,
00:09:41.720 The greatest thing I have seen in him, which is worthy of mention as one of his principal
00:09:46.280 characteristics, is his patience, discretion, zeal, and his putting the common good before
00:09:52.300 his own personal interest.
00:09:54.320 When he came to take a leave, I asked the reason for his departure.
00:09:58.120 He said, I regret to say that my father has died and I want to go and see my mother.
00:10:03.020 I inquired when his father had died and he said, a week ago.
00:10:08.000 I received a telegram saying that he was ill and left straight away.
00:10:12.200 But when I arrived, I found that he had died two hours previously.
00:10:16.040 I did not stay in England until the funeral because I realised that you were here alone
00:10:20.700 and that there was much work to be done.
00:10:23.400 I didn't want to be far from you in case things happened in my absence.
00:10:27.200 I didn't tell you at the time in case it upset you.
00:10:29.980 So I tell you now, I shall return on Friday.
00:10:33.300 Consider such honesty, faithfulness, such devotion to duty and such control of one's personal
00:10:40.300 feelings.
00:10:41.200 These are the highest qualities of man, which are found in but few individuals.
00:10:46.060 So that's what Faisal said about him in reaction to what he'd heard.
00:10:50.940 Yeah.
00:10:51.240 So there's that Spanish flu outbreak in 1919, which killed more people than the war.
00:10:55.240 Even Sir Mark Sykes died of it.
00:10:57.540 Oh, did he?
00:10:57.980 I didn't know that.
00:10:59.080 Wow.
00:10:59.520 Okay.
00:11:00.440 But Lawrence's father dies.
00:11:04.180 So, I mean, his mother, who's apparently a bit of a dragon, a bit of a battle act, a bit
00:11:09.220 of a very, very difficult woman, actually.
00:11:11.000 She'd had two of her sons killed in it and her husband taken away in 1919.
00:11:17.120 So, yeah, a harsh period for her.
00:11:20.280 And, yeah, so Lawrence is sort of, once again, super stoic about it.
00:11:23.960 And again, Faisal recognises that in him.
00:11:28.660 But it must have been, you know, because they were a very tight family before the war.
00:11:32.600 Yeah, they were.
00:11:33.080 Apparently, they were an extremely close family.
00:11:35.620 So, and I think it's in this period where Lawrence goes back to see his mother, that his mother finally speaks to him about the truth of his upbringing, his background, his father's, the mystery behind his father's circumstances.
00:11:51.200 And everything's cleared up for Lawrence.
00:11:54.260 Right.
00:11:54.580 Yeah.
00:11:54.820 So, but then he, so he goes back, misses his father's death, immediately returns to France.
00:11:59.960 But then about a week later, does take a few days, a good few days off to go back and visit his mother and console his mother as best as possible.
00:12:09.080 But then, after a few days of that, goes back to Versailles again.
00:12:14.300 Well, Paris.
00:12:15.320 I mean, a lot of them.
00:12:16.240 It's the Versailles Treaty and it's signed in Versailles.
00:12:18.100 But actually, a lot of the work over the years was done in Paris itself.
00:12:22.560 But they were staying in hotels in the middle of Paris.
00:12:24.820 Yes.
00:12:25.320 Okay.
00:12:25.800 So, there's a few high jinks.
00:12:26.740 There's one, one, I think it's funny, to show Lawrence's sense of humour, his sort of schoolboy, undergrad sense of humour.
00:12:33.900 At one point, there's some really, really important dignitaries in the lobby of a hotel.
00:12:37.820 Like, I think it might be Lloyd George and, like, the Foreign Secretary and some super, super important people.
00:12:43.180 Some of the most important people in the world.
00:12:45.100 And him and Meinetzar can just throw toilet rolls.
00:12:47.680 You know, when you unroll a toilet roll and throw it.
00:12:50.060 And, like, they do that all over.
00:12:51.380 So, they teepee some of the most powerful men in the world in a hotel lobby.
00:12:56.640 Well, who wouldn't?
00:12:58.400 So, that's sort of Lawrence.
00:12:59.920 Despite everything, he's still got, like, a boyish sense of humour about him.
00:13:04.380 But, I suppose the end of the story, in terms of Versailles, is that Faisal doesn't get, and the Arabs don't get what they want. 0.96
00:13:14.380 No.
00:13:15.140 The fact that they got to Damascus first and did a superb job during the war in the deserts, in the end, doesn't really count for a great deal because of Clemenceau.
00:13:25.740 The English are inclined to give them what they want.
00:13:30.400 To honour their world.
00:13:31.860 Yeah.
00:13:32.740 Yeah.
00:13:33.060 So, we're inclined to do the best we can for them.
00:13:36.360 Wilson's basically on board because he wants all peoples, all native indigenous peoples, to have their own bit of land and their own sort of...
00:13:45.360 Self-determination.
00:13:46.380 Self-determination.
00:13:46.760 Exactly.
00:13:47.120 That's exactly it.
00:13:48.260 But Clemenceau and the French are like, no, we won it fair and square. 1.00
00:13:51.080 We won that bit of land.
00:13:52.540 You agreed to it in the Saint-Picot agreement and we won it fair and square and they're not giving it up.
00:13:57.200 No.
00:13:57.420 They refuse to give it up.
00:13:58.360 Purely, absolute intransigence.
00:14:00.100 Yeah.
00:14:00.600 Yeah.
00:14:01.360 Because not just in the East, in all of the Versailles Treaty, the French are like, we've just been mauled by World War I. 1.00
00:14:12.540 Look what World War I has done to France.
00:14:14.580 We are going to get everything we can out of the people we beat.
00:14:19.400 We are going to wring them dry of every last...
00:14:23.180 Well, squeeze them until the pips go squeak.
00:14:25.100 Right?
00:14:25.980 And Clemenceau holds that opinion in the East just as much as in the Ruhr or whatever.
00:14:32.180 So, no, no.
00:14:32.720 We've taken everything we can out of this.
00:14:34.780 We lost a whole generation.
00:14:36.280 We ruined the whole northern France for this.
00:14:39.680 So, no, we're taking Syria. 0.78
00:14:41.680 Thank you.
00:14:42.400 Thank you.
00:14:43.380 Right?
00:14:43.580 That's their position.
00:14:44.200 Yeah.
00:14:44.580 So, okay.
00:14:48.240 I suppose the next few things to say before we just move on to the rest of Lawrence's life, the remainder of his life.
00:14:55.340 Yeah.
00:14:55.880 It's only this for, what, another, what, is it, 15 years?
00:14:58.500 Yeah, he dies in 35.
00:15:00.000 Right.
00:15:00.560 So, okay.
00:15:01.060 Yeah.
00:15:01.220 Right.
00:15:01.840 So, I just want to finish up with sort of what happens with the Arabs then. 0.79
00:15:05.880 Very, very, very quick whirlwind tour of that.
00:15:08.220 Sure.
00:15:08.340 So, where we mentioned near the beginning, there's sort of these four great Arab leaders.
00:15:12.180 And then two main ones in Arabia itself, in the Arabian Peninsula itself, is King Hussein in Mecca and Ibn Saud.
00:15:20.080 Yes.
00:15:20.360 And so, and so in like very soon after, I think like 1920 or 1921, they go to war with each other.
00:15:26.320 And Hussein refuses British backing and support.
00:15:29.640 Yeah.
00:15:30.380 Yeah.
00:15:30.740 Yeah.
00:15:30.920 And it's not Faisal in control of the army, it's, is it Abdullah or is it Zaid?
00:15:36.560 One of the other brothers is in control of King Hussein's army.
00:15:41.380 And politically speaking, we're backing both sides.
00:15:45.920 So, like the British Raj in India is backing Ibn Saud and Cairo and I think the Foreign or the Colonial Office, something or the war office, someone is backing Hussein still.
00:15:58.120 But they go to war in Arabia and Hussein loses.
00:16:03.100 And British Empire just playing chess against itself.
00:16:05.420 Yeah.
00:16:05.960 Yeah.
00:16:06.820 And Ibn Saud wins and becomes King of Arabia.
00:16:11.320 And thus, we've got the House of Al Saud and they rule to this day.
00:16:14.900 Yeah.
00:16:15.840 Right?
00:16:16.360 Yeah.
00:16:16.860 So, so Faisal's father and his family are sort of dispossessed, essentially.
00:16:22.500 But just going forward, they still made, it's complicated and there's all sorts of reasons, but they go on to become the kings and rulers of Iraq, Transjordan, as it was then known, and Syria.
00:16:33.940 Yeah.
00:16:34.460 And.
00:16:35.120 Has a lot to do with Churchill, doesn't it?
00:16:36.880 Yeah.
00:16:37.260 Churchill being in the Colonial Office, he gets told to basically figure out how to shore up the expenses in the Middle East, particularly in Mesopotamia.
00:16:49.600 And he takes Lawrence on as a special advisor.
00:16:52.760 And actually, this is part of the reason why Lawrence is so complimentary towards Churchill, because he says that Churchill really listens to him.
00:17:01.540 And he actually really, you know, so when it's negotiated about could Abdullah potentially become king of Jordan and could Faisal, would the Mesopotamians accept Faisal as a king?
00:17:14.120 And of course, there's some fiddling to make sure the election goes the right way and everything.
00:17:18.860 But they do.
00:17:19.460 And Faisal does become king of Iraq.
00:17:22.020 And obviously, Abdullah's house is still the same house that rules Jordan to this day.
00:17:26.780 All right.
00:17:27.180 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:28.180 So Lawrence's first main job after Versailles is, well, one of the people that loves him, is just completely in awe of Lawrence, is Winston Churchill.
00:17:39.240 And Winston Churchill, even in 1920, is a power broker, a power player.
00:17:43.500 Very, very important.
00:17:45.060 He'd obviously, he'd been in government already a bunch of times.
00:17:48.600 He'd been first lord of the Admiralty.
00:17:50.980 After the Gallipoli affair, he went and commanded a battalion or something or other in the Western Front.
00:17:56.420 Then after that, straight after that, soon after that, he's back in government.
00:18:00.120 He's head of, is it the colonial office?
00:18:02.100 Yes.
00:18:02.240 The war office.
00:18:03.000 Colonial.
00:18:03.800 Right.
00:18:04.020 So one of the most powerful people in government, again, Churchill, 1920 onwards.
00:18:09.240 And he's like, and he loves Lawrence.
00:18:11.460 Like he, Churchill, like gushes like a schoolgirl about Lawrence.
00:18:15.740 He's like, he's one of the greatest men there's ever been.
00:18:18.460 That's what Churchill.
00:18:19.120 He later says, doesn't he, that Seven Pillars of Wisdom, it says it's up there with Robinson Crusoe and, you know, like the great classics.
00:18:25.660 Moby Dick.
00:18:26.180 Yeah.
00:18:26.720 It's one of the best things ever written.
00:18:27.940 Yeah.
00:18:28.100 And Lawrence, as a man, as a political mind, as a strategist, he's one of the best there ever was.
00:18:34.480 That's how much Churchill loved Lawrence.
00:18:35.940 So after, when Churchill was in the colonial office, he's like, Lawrence, come and be my, my special advisor.
00:18:45.100 Tell me how to rework the Middle East, the Near East. 0.99
00:18:48.420 Yes.
00:18:48.980 And Lawrence says, okay, do this, this, this, and this.
00:18:51.500 Make Faisal king here. 0.98
00:18:52.700 Make Abdullah king here. 0.53
00:18:53.640 So although the house of Hussein, the Hashemites, lose Arabia, they still actually remain the most important family, one of the most important families, because they hadn't found much or any real crude oil in Arabia at that point.
00:19:08.760 One of the books I was reading, they were saying, Al Saud could have never known how big his victory was.
00:19:14.360 Right.
00:19:14.760 No one knew that there was sort of endless reserves of crude oil in Arabia at that point.
00:19:21.800 They didn't know.
00:19:22.700 And so it wasn't long.
00:19:24.520 It was still by like the 1940s, they already knew.
00:19:28.060 So, but at this point, it was still sort of not clear that that was going to be the case.
00:19:32.680 Interesting.
00:19:33.820 Yeah.
00:19:34.400 Yeah.
00:19:35.420 So Saudi Arabia, even in the 20s, was like, it was still just a desert kingdom that no one really cares about or values. 0.65
00:19:40.900 Obviously, there's the religious cities of Mecca and Medina.
00:19:46.380 Sure.
00:19:46.640 But if you're not a Muslim.
00:19:47.720 Why do they matter? 0.66
00:19:48.880 No one cares about Arabia if you're not a Muslim. 1.00
00:19:51.020 Yes.
00:19:51.640 And then suddenly by the 40s, or by the 30s anyway, certainly by the 40s, it's like, oh, no, this is a global.
00:19:58.820 A gold mine.
00:19:59.780 Yeah.
00:20:00.380 Global key strategic importance.
00:20:03.000 And even presidents of the United States need to ingratiate themselves with the House of Al Saud. 0.97
00:20:08.880 So anyway, so the Near East is sort of reworked by the Colonial Office and Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia in like 1920, 1921, 1922.
00:20:18.620 Yes.
00:20:20.220 And so, and we're left today with still a lot of the, the fallout of all of that is still going on.
00:20:26.620 Of course, there's many more things have happened.
00:20:28.140 Of course.
00:20:28.700 Like Israel, for example.
00:20:29.960 Yes.
00:20:30.200 But still.
00:20:31.060 But those countries, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, they're still there.
00:20:35.520 Syria.
00:20:35.680 They're still, yeah.
00:20:36.480 Yeah.
00:20:36.660 Lebanon.
00:20:36.940 Syria.
00:20:37.320 Yeah.
00:20:37.560 Lebanon.
00:20:38.140 They're all still there.
00:20:39.360 Yeah.
00:20:40.140 Hundred years later.
00:20:41.700 Now, some people said, this is one criticism, some people said against Lawrence, which I think is completely unfair.
00:20:45.740 It's like, Lawrence is to blame for the mess that the Middle East is today because he had such a key role in making it that way. 1.00
00:20:55.140 It's like, well, that's not how it works.
00:20:56.580 No, that's not fair.
00:20:57.320 That's not fair.
00:20:57.940 Yeah, that's not fair.
00:20:59.140 Right.
00:20:59.540 All the, all the endless conflicts between Persians and Arabs and Syrians and Arabs and Jews and Arabs and Islam and Judaism and the Christians and the Armenians and the Kurds and the on and on.
00:21:15.340 Lawrence didn't create that.
00:21:17.720 No.
00:21:17.860 They did, they did the best they could to try and rework the Ottoman Empire.
00:21:23.180 Blame the Ottomans. 0.97
00:21:24.820 Like, blame religion itself.
00:21:28.820 Right.
00:21:29.380 Blame the thing that is inside the human heart, which causes conflict.
00:21:34.500 Right.
00:21:34.600 But Lawrence tried his best to transition that part of the world away, out of the Ottoman rule, which had lasted for centuries.
00:21:46.300 Whenever an empire like that falls apart, it's going to be one big mess.
00:21:52.240 Right.
00:21:52.640 Of course.
00:21:52.980 So they did, they actually did the best they could in the very, very early 20s.
00:21:57.360 They could have made, they could have, like, the way, for example, in the 18th and 19th century, Africa was carved up.
00:22:05.140 Quite often just drawing straight lines in a map.
00:22:07.340 Yeah.
00:22:08.060 Like, that was a terrible, terrible thing to do because it just didn't take account of tribes and ethnicities and religions and things.
00:22:14.280 We'll just draw a line on the map and this river is the border of this now.
00:22:17.640 It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:22:19.040 So that's not what they did.
00:22:20.160 They were smart about it.
00:22:21.720 They were like, well, these people exist here and these people exist there.
00:22:25.100 So the border, that would be problematic if we don't do this and that way.
00:22:28.800 It was actually the best they could have done.
00:22:30.880 The absolute best they could have done in 1920, 1921.
00:22:34.180 Yeah, it wasn't perfect.
00:22:35.520 Far from perfect, in fact.
00:22:36.840 But to hold Lawrence responsible for how things turned out 100 years later is a standard that you shouldn't really apply to someone's life.
00:22:47.040 Yeah.
00:22:48.180 It just doesn't hold water.
00:22:49.400 So when you look at the facts and you look at the chronology in detail of who said what when and whose armies went where.
00:22:56.920 Like, Lawrence wasn't responsible for Ibn Saud defeating Hussein in Arabia.
00:23:01.860 So like, Lawrence wasn't the, if Lawrence had been the final person of any importance to play a part in the Middle East, then maybe.
00:23:11.740 But he's not.
00:23:12.680 You know, he died.
00:23:13.360 He washed his hands of the entire thing shortly after his work with Churchill in 1921.
00:23:18.480 And then it became the responsibility of numerous other men of power.
00:23:24.120 And of the people on the ground that were living there, the rulers that were living there.
00:23:27.720 Don't they have any responsibility?
00:23:29.240 Yes.
00:23:29.820 No, it was Lawrence's fault, wasn't it?
00:23:32.160 It's just, it's just nonsense.
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