Lawrence of Arabia

After the outbreak of World War I, the British man Thomas Edward Lawrence recruited into the Bristish army, and got a job in the military intelligence service in Cairo, Egypt. This would suit the archeologist - who had worked for a couple of years in Syria and learnt the Arabian language - well.

The British wanted permission to organize a revolt against the vast Ottoman Empire - which collaborated with the Central Powers during World War I - and Lawrence would come to play an important role as a liaison. In October 1916, he was sent to Arabia to learn more about the Arabian National Movement. During this time, he fought together with an arabian guerrilla against Ottoman forces. Lawrence convinced Arabian leaders (who usually were very split and did not work together) to coordinate their fight against the Ottomans, so that the Ottomans would have to send troops of their own to fight back. This would ease the pressure on the British, who were fighting against the Ottomans elsewhere.
In 1917 Lawrence succeeded in making the arabian guerilla collaborate with fighters from the Bedouin tribe Howeitat, and together attack the city of Akaba. The Brits didn't think this was a possible task, since the city was heavily protected by an artillery staged by the sea, ready to defend at any time. What Lawrence and the arabs did was to cross the desert instead, in order to enter the city from another way. No one thought it was possible to cross the desert, but they succeeded, and they managed to overthrow the city. Lawrence returned to Cairo to deliver these news to the British general Edmund Allenby, who thereafter took over the cause of defeating the Ottoman empire.

Lawrence returned to London, where he advocated a division of the Ottoman Empire's arabian territories, where the arabs would have the main influence. He participated in the Treaty of Versailles, where he found out that Great Britain and France had already secretly divided up the area.
He would come to be very disappointed of the treatment of arabs in the future.

After his experiences he wrote the famous book "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom", which was not published until after his death. He also gained a lot of fame during his lifetime because of the journalist Lowell Thomas, who found Lawrence's story fascinating and decided to tell it to audiences. At first Lawrence was fine with all the attention he received, but eventually turned more bothered by it. He withdraw from public, changing his name numerous times.

He died in a motorcycle accident in 1935.

Source: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.E._Lawrence