The Ottomans and the Arabs

Lawrence's observations on the psychological effect of guerilla opera s are far more reliable. He claimed that the unfavorable military situation he had observed compelled him to reconsider the relative importance of material and psychological factors. The ottomans retained a garrison in medina, not because lawrence and the arabs had fixed them, but to deter any further movement into palestine. Even the british forces in mesopotamia were of greater concern than the hashamite uprising. Lawrence calculated that the ottoman could not defend the 100 forty thousand square miles of arabia,. particularly if the arab forces were a thing invulnerable, intangible, without front or back, drifting