Lawrence was an unusual character for his time, and although I'm not a historian of WWI, I've read almost everything that that has been written about him.

My reading of Lawrence's character and motivations has been shaped heavily by John E. Mack's A Prince of Our Disorder. It is a psychoanalytic biography of Lawrence, and it won the Pulitzer back in the mid 1970s. I'm a little skeptical of the concept of psychoanalytic biography as a whole, and Mack himself lost some professional credibility for his later work with people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, but his biography of Lawrence is so wonderful.

Lawrence had spent long periods of time among Arabs in the years before the Great War. He cycled solo through what is now Syria when he was twenty or twenty-one (c. 1909), to study castles and fortresses from the Crusades. His undergraduate thesis was on crusader castles. His letters home speak of incredibly positive experiences with the Arabs he encountered, including one who nursed him back to health after a bad bout of malaria. In the early 1910s, he worked as an archaeologist at the Hittite city of Carchemish, in the company of many Arab laborers. It was here that Lawrence had his much -discussed relationship with a water boy named Dahoum. Whether it was platonic or sexual, he cared very much about him, and wrote about him quite a bit. It is speculated that the cryptic poem at the beginning of Seven Pillars of Wisdom is dedicated to him, but I've never found the case for that to be particularly compelling.

All that to say, Lawrence had a considerable amount of experience with the Arab people. More than most of the other officers assigned to the Arab Revolt.

However, Lawrence was not immune to the influence of nationalism. He held off on enlisting in order to secure a commission and an assignment in Egypt, but two of his four brothers were killed on the Western front. Lawrence was undoubtedly loyal to Britain, be he had also never felt at home or at ease there. He was sensitive, introverted, and drawn to the ascetic lifestyle that the desert required of him.

Based on Mack's work, as well as my own reading of his letters, Lawrence was never happier than in his pre-war years in Arabia. His disillusionment from his war experiences, as well as the treatment of the Arabs at the Versailles peace conference, haunted him for the rest of his life. I would argue that his support of the Arab people was absolutely genuine, but that his deeply imprinted duties as a British officer created an insurmountable degree of cognitive dissonance within his psyche.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions. Lawrence is my favorite historical figure!