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| Lawrence Driving Talbot Automobile in Wadi Itm with Emir Feisal bin Husain al-Hashimi Seated in the Front Passenger Seat |
From the Arab Bulletin, 20 August 1917
- 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 (ruler or prince). 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 (tribal leaders), 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.
Also see: "Eight Rules of Leadership from T.E. Lawrence" HERE
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