FRANCE, Paris, 2017/1. Invalides War Museum. Exhibition about the history of spying and secret services. Lawrence of Arabia. WW1.

Caption:
Invalides War Museum, Paris. Still from David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia". A young archaeologist with academic expertise in crusader castles in Syria, TE Lawrence was despatched during the First World War to the staff of Faisal, the son of Hussein, King of the Hejaz and the Sharif of Mecca, to help his disparate forces launch the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. His brilliant use of guerrilla tactics secured the Red Sea port of Aqaba but Lawrence's promotion of Arab independence directly constradicted the secret Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916 which divided up the lands of the Fertile Crescent between the Entente powers at the end of the war. Lawrence, disgusted by what he saw as the betrayal of the Arab cause, refused a knighthood at the end of the war and changed his name to work in obscurity as an RAF clerk. "Blast the Lawrence side of things," he wrote to a friend after the war. "He's a cad I've killed."