Arab Revolt Quotes

“We had deluded ourselves that perhaps peace might find the Arabs able, unhelped and untaught, to defend themselves with paper tools. Meanwhile we glozed our fraud by conducting their necessary war purely and cheaply. But now this gloss had gone from me. Chargeable against my conceit were the causeless, ineffectual deaths of Hesa. My will had gone and I feared to be alone, lest the winds of circumstance, or power, or lust, blow my empty soul away.”
― T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph

“The Arab revolt for which Hussein hoped never took place. No Arabic units of the Ottoman army came over to Hussein. No political or military figures of the Ottoman Empire defected to him and the Allies. The powerful secret military organization that al-Faruqi had promised would rally to Hussein failed to make itself known. A few thousand tribesmen, subsidized by British money, constituted Hussein’s troops. He had no regular army. Outside the Hejaz and its tribal neighbors, there was no visible support for the revolt in any part of the Arabic-speaking world. The handful of non-Hejazi officers who joined the Emir’s armed forces were prisoners-of-war or exiles who already resided in British-controlled territories.”
― David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and The Creation of the Modern Middle East

“Reginald Wingate… wrote that “Moslems in general have hitherto regarded the Hejaz revolt, and our share in it, with suspicion or dislike”; an that it was important to make Hussein look as though he had not been a failure in order to keep Britain from looking bad.”
― David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and The Creation of the Modern Middle East