“The Arabian Revolution had just broken out, but after a preliminary success it collapsed. Lawrence knew the Arabs and believed in them. So instead of spending his vacation at the races in Alexandria he went down to Arabia and started out across the desert to raise an army, accompanied by Emir Feisal and three companions. I don't know of a more hopeless task. They had no money, no means of transportation except a few camels. They were trying to raise and equip and army in a country which has no manufacturing interests, which produces very little food and less water. In many places water holes were five days apart. They were trying to raise an army among the nomadic Bedouin of the desert, tribes have been separated from one another by blood feuds for hundreds and hundreds of years. But in spite of all these obstacles this blue-eyed poet of Gaelic ancestry succeeded in accomplishing what no caliph and no sultan had been able to do in over a thousand years. He wiped out the century old blood feuds and built up an army and drove the Turks from Holy Arabia. The Arabs in order to show their appreciation made Lawrence a member of their royal house — a Prince of Mecca, and honorary descendant of the Prophet Mohammet.”

-Lowell Thomas
“With Lawrence in Arabia” (1919)