Mr. Dryden was the head of the Arab Bureau of the United Kingdom at the time of World War I and the Arab Revolt. He was the man responsible for sending T.E. Lawrence as a liaison to Prince Faisal (the future Faisal I of Iraq) to help the Arabs fight the Ottoman Empire.
Biography[]
Dryden was from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, and he became a bureaucrat, becoming the leader of the Arab Bureau. Based in Cairo, Egypt at the start of World War I's Middle Eastern theater, Dryden convinced General Archibald Murray to send T.E. Lawrence as a liaison to the Arabs that were rebelling against the Ottoman Empire, and he plotted to have the British take over the Middle East as the Turks left. He promised Lawrence that Britain had no hidden motives behind supporting the revolt, but he later revealed that the British had signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement with France, agreeing to divide Arabia after the war's end. At the end of the war, the agreement was enacted, betraying Lawrence's dreams of having the Arabs being independent.