T. E. Lawrence to Leonard Green

Jebail,
Syria

[Received January 14th, 1911]

Dear Green,

I am on a divan (anglicé - an American bent-wood chair) inhaling haschich (a tannery next door but five) and dreaming of odalisques (who were upper-housemaids) and bulbuls. Your letter is a breath of Europe and things spiritual and sensual: most comfortable. You seem to be well placed in your particular post: to be your own master as much as you are, and to be able to put into practice (on such subjects!) some of your more attractive novelties must be fairly satisfactory. Only, I wish I could help the 'master of method' - that is if your assistance is not limited to providing materials for him to set straight.

Politics are quite shocking; I would like to have been in your audience tho', and to be one of your out-of-works: cannot a little writing be made out of that? There are opportunities there for one who does not attack it in a G.R. Sims style? 

Evidently your health is not yet quite on its sea-legs (those are things that prevent sickness). Your youths are the people most to be comforted.

Re your request: that I am afraid will be rather out of time, and I am most sorry for I have heaps of stuff I would have poured out on you: photographs are mostly labelled in ink on the films, and as they are entirely technical, to illustrate a discussion of military architecture, they will not avail you much. My camera was stolen before I could take anything interesting - I really meant to. I am writing to Will (long brother) to ask him to send you my thesis if it reappears in time for next term: you may find some ideas in it.

As for books, he is going on that to one of the best historians in Oxford. Von Sybel says a few words, and Stevenson in a book published a year or two back gives a sort of commentary: very dull but correct. 'E. Barker' (St. John's) in the new Encyclopedia Brit. would be most useful: if not out yet he might (through Will who has been useful to him) send you proofs. I fancy the book most suggestive to you would be Smith's Historical Geography of Palestine. It concerns S. Syria which I don't know, and biblical history, but the land and the strategical situation stayed much alike. It's a book worth reading anyway. Besides these there is only 'Archer and Kingsford' (Story of Nations series) and the map in Poole's Historical Atlas. The man more of all others in England who could help you would be C.H.C. Pirie-Gordon, 43 Kensington Mansions, Trebovir Road, Earl's Court, London: he is a 'young' Magd. graduate (24 or so) and is writing a book on the military organisation (specially geographical) of the Holy Land. If you wrote to him (say I told you to:- he is most original too-) he might expand upon you: or go and see him if you are in town.

What I felt most myself in Syria, put shortly, was the extreme difficulty of the country. Esdraelon, and the plain in which Baalbek lies are the only flat places in it. The coast road is often only 50 yards wide between hills and sea, and these hills you cannot walk or ride over, because they are strewn over with large and small boulders, without an inch of cultivated soil: also numberless small 'wadies' (torrent-beds) deep and precipitous: not to be crossed without a huge scramble. In one day's march, from Lake Huleh to Safed, one ascends and descends 16,000 feet in hills and valleys, often 1,500 feet deep and only 200 yards or so across, and in all the way only a single track path on which one can ride without fear of smashing horses' legs. Make a point that for heavy-armed horse operations in such country are impossible: they can march in single file, but cannot scout, or prepare against surprise: the battlefield of Hattin (near Tiberias) is like a dried larva-flow, or the photograph (only in rock) of the pack-ice of the Arctic seas. Blame the pen and ink not me for this letter's illegibility. Even when there are no mountains or rivers there will be hills and valleys enough, with rock-stretches, to make an impassable tract. You will never, without seeing it, conceive of the difficulty of the country. On the main road from Antioch to Aleppo my escort walked with their horses (after Harim) for nearly four hours: and for a Syrian to fare afoot is much against the grain.

The next point is the rivers: the Jordan is hardly passable except at three points: just below Lake Huleh (Gisr Benat Yakub, to-day: Castle Jacob or le Chastellet in the Crusade authorities) a bridge and ford. Another ford just below lake Tiberias, (near Semakh) and one more (very difficult) near Jericho. The first two were available for or against the Damascenes. From Lake Huleh northwards is a swamp and the river Litani, until the hills get steep enough and high enough to be impassable: and then (very quickly) comes the Orontes, which is nearly always impassable (from Riblah downwards) to Esh Shogr, on the road from Latakia (Laodicea) to Aleppo. There is a ford there, and after a bridge near Antioch (the Iron Bridge). Above Antioch came a large lake, and then very hilly ground from the Kara Su to Alexandretta. So you see W. Syria is pretty well defended. In the early days of the Latin kingdom they held all this, and as well pushed across the Euphrates (via Harim, Tell Bashar, and Biredjik) to Urfa, (Edessa). This was a sort of outpost, which kept apart the Arabs of Mesopotamia and the hills to the north (Kurdistan) from the Arabs of E. Syria (Aleppo, Homs, Damascus) and the Arabians. While the Crusaders held Edessa, which is a tremendous fortress (of Justinian's) they were unassailable except through the Damascus gap, and one opposite Homs (Emesa) extending to Tripoli. This last gap (which I forgot to mention before) is a nearly sea-level pass between Lebanon and the Nozairiyeh hills. It was defended by three tremendous Crusader castles (Crac des chevaliers, in Arabic Kalaat el Hosn; Safita, Chastel blanc in the French authorities; and Aarka, just above Tripoli). These three places made this gap tolerably harmless, except from Arab raids: these were continuous: but only did temporary harm: still they neutralised the force of the county of Tripoli from 1140 onwards. The Damascus gaps were also blocked: the northern one by Banias beyond Huleh, by Hunin, above the lake, by Safed, and by Chastel Jacob, just beside the ford, which last castle only existed a few months. Stevenson in his book points out its importance rather more cheerfully than usual with him. The Southern ford, below Lake Tiberias, was defended by the town of Tiberias by Kaukab el Hawa (one of the Belvoirs, just above Beisan) and by an outpost, el Husn, occasionally held beyond Jordan: it is not marked on any map. The Jericho ford was never very important. There were some little Crusader castles on its Syrian side.

The whole history of the Crusades was a struggle for the possession of these castles: the Arabs were never dispossessed of Aleppo, or of Hamah, or of Homs, or of Damascus, and so they had all possible routes open to them: they had unlimited resources to draw upon, as soon as the Mesopotamians had recovered Urfa (Edessa), which the Crusaders could not hold on account of its isolated position (Euphrates 10 feet deep, 150 yards wide, very rapid, and often flooded, much difficult hill thence to Seruj, and even nearer Edessa) and the shiftiness of the Greek Armenian population, who were allies, at times, but fighting men not at all: more harm than good usually. The native population of Syria very much sympathised with the Arabs, except the Maronite Christians and the Armenians; and news travels amazingly in the East: so that the Latins were more often surprised than not. Any counter stroke in the nature of ambush against the Arabs was impossible, since half their people were spies. Then in the hills above Safita lived the Assassins (Haschishīn) sometimes at war with the Arabs, more often confederate, and linked with them by an Orontes-bridge at Shaizar (Kalaat Seidjar). They could not attack Tripoli because of the 'Gap' castles (see before) and Markab (Margat) a huge fortress north of Tartus (another stronghold): but they could and did hold Antioch in check from the South, while the Aleppines pressed on the Iron Bridge, and the Greeks and Arabs attacked by Alexandretta and Beilan and Bagras (the two last big castles). So Antioch could only just hold its own, and the Tripoli castles, and when Damascus (Noureddin) joined with the north, and added Egypt, Syria was ringed round. The battle of Hattin was lost in an attempt to relieve Tiberias, the second of the great 'gap' fortresses. Banias (the first) was lost about 1150. For most of the occupation the Latin sphere of influence was limited to their castles: the peasantry paid them taxes, and wished for the Mohammedans to come: and come they very often did, to plunder such Christian villages as were left. So far as one can see they spared the Mohammedans. Latin Syria lived on its fleets.

This is horribly condensed, and much platitudinous: if only I could tell you what you wanted to know: and there is no book written by a man who has been out, except Baedeker! Do emphasise the importance of the fortresses, which are all marked in a map in my 'thesis'.

Salaams,

E.L.