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The 27
Articles of T. E. Lawrence
T. E. Lawrence
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 [note: plural
of "sherif" -- a member of the Hashemite family and a descendent of the
Prophet Muhammed. Generally equivalent to "prince" in other parts of
Arabia] 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 such 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. [note - "Abu" - Father (of), "Akhu" - brother of. These are
common Arabic nicknaming conventions.]
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 generations 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.
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