Opinion: The Arab Revolt as Portrayed in Battlefield One

I've just finished Dice's latest game, Battlefield 1. Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed it; it went out of its way to humanize the First World War and honor all of those who gave their lives during that conflict. The game has... a LOT of inaccuracies to put it bluntly. Experimental, prototype, or limited-production weapons and equipment are shown as being commonplace, many events being portrayed are inaccurate or unrealistic, and sometimes in an effort to be fun the game goes totally crazy. Most of this I can forgive or write off as simple artistic license and an effort to make the game or balanced, cinematic, and fun. If there's interest, I may dig deeper into the game overall, but for now I'll leave it at that.


What I DO want to talk about is how the game portrays the Arab Revolt. As an undergraduate, my focus was on Ottoman history, I am currently a military historian, and I've always had a fascination with T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), and so I was looking forward to this part of the game more than any other. And woo-boy did I get let down. What bothers me about this section is that, compared to the other liberties taken with the history, this segment goes all out and because the front is little known (aside from the film Lawrence of Arabia which in itself is deeply historically flawed) I worry that some people will interpret it as being an actual representation of the conflict.

The game's female Bedouin protagonist, Zara. Armed with a German Blucher Pattern saber
instead of an Arab weapon. For some reason.

 
This portion of the game takes place during 1918, during the Arab campaign against the Ottoman rail network. With the help of British and French officers, the Arabs conducted numerous raids and attacks on Ottoman rail lines and trains, disrupting the flow of supplies, killing Ottoman soldiers, and tying up huge numbers of Ottomans that may have been of more use elsewhere. In this story you play as Zara Ghufran, a female Bedouin fighter and one-person army killing Ottomans, destroying outposts, etc. The campaign, fittingly, ends with a note about how the Franco-British promises of Arab independence were reneged upon at the end of the war.

At one point you destroy an armored train from horseback essentially single-handedly. Seriously. 

I have a few big problems. The first one is the main character, Zara. As far as I am aware, women took no direct part in the fighting during the Arab revolt. In Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, his account of the campaign, women are mentioned only around 70 times in a 600+ page volume, usually as wives, servants, or victims of Ottoman or Arab attacks. As a note, the edition that I'm using is the 1991 Anchor Books edition and it clocks in at 661 pages not counting indexes etc. In fact, Lawrence comments on the differences between women in Bedouin culture compared to those in the west on a few occasions. And in chapter 13 while discussing the Arab distaste for Turkish tactics, he specifically notes:

The Bitter taste of the Turkish mode of war sent a shock across Arabia; for the first rule of Arab war was that women were inviolable... (Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Page 93).

I've also never seen women fighting during the revolt in any other work on the subject, unless you count the exception of women fighting off attackers during raids on trains and villages and the like. Zara is also portrayed throughout wearing western-looking clothing. This is something that many of the Bedouin fighting in the revolt were deeply distrustful of, and it's the reason we see the famous pictures of Lawrence wearing Bedouin dress during the conflict. He noted a request made to him by Prince Faisal, then the leader of the Arab revolt in the areas of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria:

Suddenly Feisal asked me if I would wear Arab clothes like his own while in the camp. I should find it better for my own part, since it was a comfortable dress in which to live Arab-fashion, as we must do. Besides, the tribesmen would then understand how to take me. The only wearers of khaki (Referring to western-style desert uniforms worn by most armies during the conflict) in their experience had been Turkish officers, before whom they took up an instinctive defence. If I wore Meccan clothes, they would behave to me as though I were really one of their leaders... (Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Page 126).

Lawrence in Arab clothing given to him by Prince Faisal. Interestingly, according to Lawrence himself, this garment
which was pure white and highly ornate, was given to Faisal by a relative who was hoping to get the Prince to settle down
and wear the garment to his wedding ceremony.

I understand the urge to include a playable female character in the game, but the fact that they chose to do so during the Arab revolt is mind boggling. The Bedouin were (and remain) a deeply patriarchal society for whom women weren't even supposed to be touched by an honorable man in the course of a raid. Now I would like to note here that is is POSSIBLE there were female Bedouin fighters during the war; female Arabs took part in other conflicts in the area after the war, including during the 1936 revolt against the British who took the area over after WWI. However, as far as I am aware these later women didn't become politically or militarily active until after various Arab feminist organizations began to be formed in the late 1920s by figures like Tarab Abdul Hadi. Before this, I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary. If you know of any, PLEASE let me know! I'd love to read about it!

What makes this especially perplexing is that there WERE some women who took an active part in the fighting during the war. Both the Russians and the Serbs had a small number of female fighters, some of whom became quite famous either during or after the war. In 1917 the Russian Provisional Government formed battalions made up solely of women, and there were some female Russian soldiers even before this. These included Eugenie Mikhailovna Shakhovskaya (who served as a recon pilot for the Russian military starting in 1914) and Marina Yurlova who served with a Cossack unit while still a teenager. Yurlova won several awards, including the Cross of St. George 3 times for bravery, and after the war wrote a famous book of her experiences.

Marina Yurlova after being wounded

 The Serbs also employed female fighters; in 1914 a British woman, Flora Sandes arrived in Serbia to serve as a non-combatant ambulance driver. After being separated from her unit she joined a unit of Serbs for her own safety, and soon began taking an active part in the fighting. She attained the rank of Sergeant Major and won numerous awards, including the Order of the Karadorde's Star, equivalent to their Medal of Honor. She was wounded  in hand to hand combat in 1916 and spent the rest of the war running a hospital, but at the close of the conflict she was commissioned as an officer, the first to do so in the Serbian military. This of course, makes the exclusion of the eastern front from the game even more obvious, another niggle I had with Battlefield 1.

Flora Sandes in Serbian dress uniform

The other issue that I had was the Arab revolt is made out in the game to be about oil, an implication which is insulting to the Arab nationalists who fought and died during the conflict. After the war the European interest in the area was certainly based on this, but during the conflict military commander and especially fighters weren't thinking especially about it. The revolt was fought for two primary reasons, one both for the Europeans and the Arabs themselves. On the European side, the conflict would drain resources from the Ottoman empire, one of the main belligerents during the war. A weakened Turkish state would be unable to press an already badly pressed Russia, and more importantly they would be unable to take and hold the Suez canal, Britain's link with India, Australia, and New Zealand.

Ottoman troops during the war

On the Arab side, the big reason for the revolt was Arab nationalism and the desire for an independent state. The Arabs had begun to be repressed in recent years by the Ottomans, and the desire for an independent, Arab-led state in Arab-majority areas was already on the rise before the war broke out. With the outbreak of war, and encouraged by the British, the Arabs finally went into open conflict. It proved to be mutually-beneficial on the surface; the British would hamper their enemy and protect their assets in Egypt, while the Arabs gained funding, equipment, training, and diplomatic support for their revolution. Of course the European powers did about-face on their promises after the war, and this was largely motivated by the precieved ease of oil exploration in the area if it was under European control. But during most of the revolt itself this was not really a primary aim at all, and the game implying otherwise seems to me to be a comment on the modern politics of the region. If you've been with me from the beginning you know how much I dislike the politicization of history, and I dislike it just as much here as I do elsewhere.

Prince Faisal at teh Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. The Gentleman behind him in the kepi is a French adviser, Captain Pisani. Lawrence stands to Faisal's left (the short man in western uniform but Arab head dress). The black man in the rear of the picture is one of Faisal's slaves whose name is unknown. 

Finally, there's a quote at the end of the mission which just makes no sense at all. Lawrence, talking to Zara, mentions going to the Suez canal and asks her what she knows about battleships. What? The Ottomans made two attempts to take the Suez, one in 1915 (ironically, using many Bedouin levies and mercenaries which would later turn on them) and one in 1916, neither of which was successful. The Suez was held by the British throughout the conflict, so I'm not sure why Lawrence implies that he wishes for an attack there. Also, a minor note, but during the war the Ottomans possessed only a few battleships. Two were captured by the British almost immediately with the outbreak of the war in August 1914. One was sunk in 1915 by a British submarines, one wasn't even a battleship (the Germans had given the Turks the SMS Goeben, a Moltke-class Battlecruiser in 1914) which spent 1918 either in port or in the Aegean, and the final one was badly damaged in January 1918 and sat out the remainder of the war in port. So what is Lawrence referring to? I honestly have no idea.

To close, I should note that Lawrence's accounts of the campaign are frequently criticized, especially in regards to his personal role in the fight. The game sort of rolls with his interpretation, and portrays him as the leader of the whole revolt. I would have at least liked to see the Arab leaders referred to, and a nod to the other European advisers would have been nice too.

That's it, though. Several people have asked me what I think of the game, and I tell them it's fun, with a few caveats. These, along with the exclusion of the Eastern, African, and Pacific theaters of the war are my biggest complaints, and I'm hoping these other fronts will be covered by some DLC in the future. The other big complaint that I have is that the Entente are shown as the "good" guys, though the pre and post-level narration nullifies this to a certain degree. I would have loved to have played as an Ottoman defender and Gallipoli, a German during the Brusilov offensive, or another of the central powers, but again, I think DLC may eventually fix this. Let me know what you think of the game, and if you're having fun with it shoot me a message so we can play some multiplayer!

For more reading on the Arab revolt:

T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom is Lawrence's account of the conflict, and inspired the acclaimed film Lawrence of Arabia. For the abridged version, check out Revolt in the Desert. 

David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace discusses the aftermath of the revolt and the European backbiting on promises made to Arabs during the conflict.

James Barr, Setting the Desert on Fire: T.E. Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia, 1916-1918 and the sequel, A Line in the Sand: The Anglo-French Struggle for the Middle East, 1914-1948. 

That's it, see you next time!