Lawrence - 27 Articles.pdf - Strategia - materiały po ang - bezpieczny88

"27 ARTICLES"

by: T.E. LAWRENCE

from The Arab Bulletin, 20 August 1917

The following notes have been expressed in commandment form for greater clarity and to

save words. They are, however, only my personal conclusions, arrived at gradually while I

worked in the Hejaz and now put on paper as stalking horses for beginners in the Arab

armies. They are meant to apply only to Bedu; townspeople or Syrians require totally

different treatment. They are of course not suitable to any other person's need, or

applicable unchanged in any particular situation. Handling Hejaz Arabs is an art, not a

science, with exceptions and no obvious rules. At the same time we have a great chance

there; the Sherif trusts us, and has given us the position (towards his Government) which

the Germans wanted to win in Turkey. If we are tactful, we can at once retain his goodwill

and carry out our job, but to succeed we have got to put into it all the interest and skill we

possess.

1. Go easy for the first few weeks. A bad start is difficult to atone for, and the Arabs form

their judgments on externals that we ignore. When you have reached the inner circle in a

tribe, you can do as you please with yourself and them.

2. Learn all you can about your Ashraf and Bedu. Get to know their families, clans and

tribes, friends and enemies, wells, hills and roads. Do all this by listening and by indirect

inquiry. Do not ask questions. Get to speak their dialect of Arabic, not yours. Until you can

understand their allusions, avoid getting deep into conversation or you will drop bricks. Be

a little stiff at first.

3. In matters of business deal only with the commander of the army, column, or party in

which you serve. Never give orders to anyone at all, and reserve your directions or advice

for the C.O., however great the temptation (for efficiency's sake) of dealing with his

underlings. Your place is advisory, and your advice is due to the commander alone. Let

him see that this is your conception of your duty, and that his is to be the sole executive of

your joint plans.

4. Win and keep the confidence of your leader. Strengthen his prestige at your expense

before others when you can. Never refuse or quash schemes he may put forward; but

ensure that they are put forward in the first instance privately to you. Always approve them,

and after praise modify them insensibly, causing the suggestions to come from him, until

they are in accord with your own opinion. When you attain this point, hold him to it, keep a

tight grip of his ideas, and push them forward as firmly as possibly, but secretly, so that to

one but himself (and he not too clearly) is aware of your pressure.

5. Remain in touch with your leader as constantly and unobtrusively as you can. Live with

him, that at meal times and at audiences you may be naturally with him in his tent. Formal

visits to give advice are not so good as the constant dropping of ideas in casual talk. When

stranger sheikhs come in for the first time to swear allegiance and offer service, clear out of

the tent. If their first impression is of foreigners in the confidence of the Sherif, it will do the

Arab cause much harm.

6. Be shy of too close relations with the subordinates of the expedition. Continual

intercourse with them will make it impossible for you to avoid going behind or beyond the

instructions that the Arab C.O. has given them on your advice, and in so disclosing the

weakness of his position you altogether destroy your own.

7. Treat the sub-chiefs of your force quite easily and lightly. In this way you hold yourself

above their level. Treat the leader, if a Sherif, with respect. He will return your manner and

you and he will then be alike, and above the rest. Precedence is a serious matter among

the Arabs, and you must attain it.

8. Your ideal position is when you are present and not noticed. Do not be too intimate, too

prominent, or too earnest. Avoid being identified too long or too often with any tribal sheikh,

even if C.O. of the expedition. To do your work you must be above jealousies, and you lose

prestige if you are associated with a tribe or clan, and its inevitable feuds. Sherifs are

above all blood-feuds and local rivalries, and form the only principle of unity among the

Arabs. Let your name therefore be coupled always with a Sherif's, and share his attitude

towards the tribes. When the moment comes for action put yourself publicly under his

orders. The Bedu will then follow suit.

9. Magnify and develop the growing conception of the Sherifs as the natural aristocracy of

the Arabs. Intertribal jealousies make it impossible for any sheikh to attain a commanding

position, and the only hope of union in nomad Arabs is that the Ashraf be universally

acknowledged as the ruling class. Sherifs are half-townsmen, half-nomad, in manner and

life, and have the instinct of command. Mere merit and money would be insufficient to

obtain suc h recognition; but the Arab reverence for pedigree and the Prophet gives hope

for the ultimate success of the Ashraf.

10. Call your Sherif 'Sidi' in public and in private. Call other people by their ordinary names,

without title. In intimate conversation call a Sheikh 'Abu Annad', 'Akhu Alia' or some similar

by-name.

11. The foreigner and Christian is not a popular person in Arabia. However friendly and

informal the treatment of yourself may be, remember always that your foundations are very

sandy ones. Wave a Sherif in front of you like a banner and hide your own mind and

person. If you succeed, you will have hundreds of miles of country and thousands of men

under your orders, and for this it is worth bartering the outward show.

12. Cling tight to your sense of humour. You will need it every day. A dry irony is the most

useful type, and repartee of a personal and not too broad character will double your

influence with the chiefs. Reproof, if wrapped up in some smiling form, will carry further and

last longer than the most violent speech. The power of mimicry or parody is valuable, but

use it sparingly, for wit is more dignified than humour. Do not cause a laugh at a Sherif

except among Sherifs.

13. Never lay hands on an Arab; you degrade yourself. You may think the resultant

obvious increase of outward respect a gain to you, but what you have really done is to

build a wall between you and their inner selves. It is difficult to keep quiet when everything

is being done wrong, but the less you lose your temper the greater your advantage. Also

then you will not go mad yourself.

14. While very difficult to drive, the Bedu are easy to lead, if: have the patience to bear with

them. The less apparent your interferences the more your influence. They are willing to

follow your advice and do what you wish, but they do not mean you or anyone else to be

aware of that. It is only after the end of all annoyances that you find at bottom their real

fund of goodwill.

15. Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than

that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.

Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as

good as, perhaps, you think it is.

16. If you can, without being too lavish, forestall presents to yourself. A well-placed gift is

often most effective in winning over a suspicious sheikh. Never receive a present without

giving a liberal return, but you may delay this return (while letting its ultimate certainty be

known) if you require a particular service from the giver. Do not let them ask you for things,

since their greed will then make them look upon you only as a cow to milk.

17. Wear an Arab headcloth when with a tribe. Bedu have a malignant prejudice against

the hat, and believe that our persistence in wearing it (due probably to British obstinacy of

dictation) is founded on some immoral or irreligious principle. A thick headcloth forms a

good protection against the sun, and if you wear a hat your best Arab friends will be

ashamed of you in public.

18. Disguise is not advisable. Except in special areas, let it be clearly known that you are a

British officer and a Christian. At the same time, if you can wear Arab kit when with the

tribes, you will acquire their trust and intimacy to a degree impossible in uniform. It is,

however, dangerous and difficult. They make no special allowances for you when you

dress like them. Breaches of etiquette not charged against a foreigner are not condoned to

you in Arab clothes. You will be like an actor in a foreign theatre, playing a part day and

night for months, without rest, and for an anxious stake. Complete success, which is when

the Arabs forget your strangeness and speak naturally before you, counting you as one of

themselves, is perhaps only attainable in character: while half-success (all that most of us

will strive for; the other costs too much) is easier to win in British things, and you yourself

will last longer, physically and mentally, in the comfort that they mean. Also then the Turks

will not hang you, when you are caught.

19. If you wear Arab things, wear the best. Clothes are significant among the tribes, and

you must wear the appropriate, and appear at ease in them. Dress like a Sherif, if they

agree to it.

20. If you wear Arab things at all, go the whole way. Leave your English friends and

customs on the coast, and fall back on Arab habits entirely. It is possible, starting thus level

with them, for the European to beat the Arabs at their own game, for we have stronger

motives for our action, and put more heart into it than they. If you can surpass them, you

have taken an immense stride toward complete success, but the strain of living and

thinking in a foreign and half-understood language, the savage food, strange clothes, and

stranger ways, with the complete loss of privacy and quiet, and the impossibility of ever

relaxing your watchful imitation of the others for months on end, provide such an added

stress to the ordinary difficulties of dealing with the Bedu, the climate, and the Turks, that

this road should not be chosen without serious thought.

21. Religious discussions will be frequent. Say what you like about your own side, and

avoid criticism of theirs, unless you know that the point is external, when you may score

heavily by proving it so. With the Bedu, Islam is so all-pervading an element that there is

little religiosity, little fervour, and no regard for externals. Do not think from their conduct

that they are careless. Their conviction of the truth of their faith, and its share in every act

and thought and principle of their daily life is so intimate and intense as to be unconscious,

unless roused by opposition. Their religion is as much a part of nature to them as is sleep

or food.

22. Do not try to trade on what you know of fighting. The Hejaz confounds ordinary tactics.

Learn the Bedu principles of war as thoroughly and as quickly as you can, for till you know

them your advice will be no good to the Sherif. Unnumbered gene rations of tribal raids

have taught them more about some parts of the business than we will ever know. In

familiar conditions they fight well, but strange events cause panic. Keep your unit small.

Their raiding parties are usually from one hundred to two hundred men, and if you take a

crowd they only get confused. Also their sheikhs, while admirable company commanders,

are too 'set' to learn to handle the equivalents of battalions or regiments. Don't attempt

unusual things, unless they appeal to the sporting instinct Bedu have so strongly, unless

success is obvious. If the objective is a good one (booty) they will attack like fiends, they

are splendid scouts, their mobility gives you the advantage that will win this local war, they

make proper use of their knowledge of the country (don't take tribesmen to places they do

not know), and the gazelle-hunters, who form a proportion of the better men, are great

shots at visible targets. A sheikh from one tribe cannot give orders to men from another; a

Sherif is necessary to command a mixed tribal force. If there is plunder in prospect, and the

odds are at all equal, you will win. Do not waste Bedu attacking trenches (they will not

stand casualties) or in trying to defend a position, for they cannot sit still without slacking.

The more unorthodox and Arab your proceedings, the more likely you are to have the

Turks cold, for they lack initiative and expect you to. Don't play for safety.

23. The open reason that Bedu give you for action or inaction may be true, but always

there will be better reasons left for you to divine. You must find these inner reasons (they

will be denied, but are none the less in operation) before shaping your arguments for one

course or other. Allusion is more effective than logical exposition: they dislike concise

expression. Their minds work just as ours do, but on different premises. There is nothing

unreasonable, incomprehensible, or inscrutable in the Arab. Experience of them, and

knowledge of their prejudices will enable you to foresee their attitude and possible course

of action in nearly every case.

24. Do not mix Bedu and Syrians, or trained men and tribesmen. You will get work out of

neither, for they hate each other. I have never seen a successful combined operation, but

many failures. In particular, ex-officers of the Turkish army, however Arab in feelings and

blood and language, are hopeless with Bedu. They are narrow minded in tactics, unable to

adjust themselves to irregular warfare, clumsy in Arab etiquette, swollen-headed to the

extent of being incapable of politeness to a tribesman for more than a few minutes,

impatient, and, usually, helpless without their troops on the road and in action. Your orders

(if you were unwise enough to give any) would be more readily obeyed by Beduins than

those of any Mohammedan Syrian officer. Arab townsmen and Arab tribesmen regard

each other mutually as poor relations, and poor relations are much more objectionable

than poor strangers.

25. In spite of ordinary Arab example, avoid too free talk about women. It is as difficult a

subject as religion, and their standards are so unlike our own that a remark, harmless in

English, may appear as unrestrained to them, as some of their statements would look to

us, if translated literally.

26. Be as careful of your servants as of yourself. If you want a sophisticated one you will

probably have to take an Egyptian, or a Sudani, and unless you are very lucky he will undo

on trek much of the good you so laboriously effect. Arabs will cook rice and make coffee for

you, and leave you if required to do unmanly work like cleaning boots or washing. They are

only really possible if you are in Arab kit. A slave brought up in the Hejaz is the best

servant, but there are rules against British subjects owning them, so they have to be lent to

you. In any case, take with you an Ageyli or two when you go up country. They are the

most efficient couriers in Arabia, and understand camels.

27. The beginning and ending of the secret of handling Arabs is unremitting study of them.

Keep always on your guard; never say an unnecessary thing: watch yourself and your

companions all the time: hear all that passes, search out what is going on beneath the

surface, read their characters, discover their tastes and their weaknesses and keep

everything you find out to yourself. Bury yourself in Arab circles, have no interests and no

ideas except the work in hand, so that your brain is saturated with one thing only, and you

realize your part deeply enough to avoid the little slips that would counteract the painful

work of weeks. Your success will be proportioned to the amount of mental effort you

devote to it.

Lawrence - 27 Articles.pdf

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