Friday, February 15, 2013

Arabs vs Turks in WWI and the intervention of TE Lawrence

Lawrence's journey -

- London
- English Channel
- Atlantic
- Strait of Gibraltar
- Mediterranean
- Cairo
- Red Sea
- Jidda, the Arabian Desert
- An Nefud Desert
- Aqaba, Jordan
- Sinai Peninsula
- Jordan
- Syria
- Damascus

Guerilla fighting: using ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to dominate a larger and less-mobile traditional army.

Inshallah: "If God Wills it."

Bedouins later called Arabs.
Ottoman Empire: Turks controlled the entire Mid East.

WWI: Germans partnered w Turks against the Arabs, who partnered with Britain.

Col. Brighton on the reason the small nation of Britain was great: "Discipline."

"Allah favors the compassionate."

Islamic Golden Age: From about 700 to 1200 CE. Notes wikipedia: During this period the Arab world became an intellectual center for science, philosophy, medicine and education; the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge and established the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic.[2] Many classic works of antiquity that would otherwise have been lost were translated into Arabic and Persian and later in turn translated into Turkish, Hebrew and Latin.[2] During this period the Arab world was a collection of cultures which put together, synthesized and significantly advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, and Byzantine civilizations.