According to modern sources, after the United States entered World War I, American journalist Lowell Thomas was asked by Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane to go to Europe with a cameraman and record events of the war to arouse optimism in Americans. After receiving financing from twenty Chicago financiers, Thomas and cameraman Harry Chase filmed the war in Belgium, France and Italy before they received permission from the Foreign Office in London to film the campaign of Sir Edmund Allenby, commander in chief of the British forces in the Near East. There Thomas and Chase met and filmed Lieut. Col. Thomas Edward Lawrence, leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, who became known as Lawrence of Arabia. After the war ended, Thomas and Chase went to Germany where they filmed revolutionary activity. In New York, Chase and Thomas cut their footage into five or six distinct films about the various areas they visited. Thomas rented the Century Theatre in New York for three weeks in Mar 1919 and provided a lecture to accompany the exhibition of the films and slides. Because the films of the British campaign in Palestine were far more popular than the others, Thomas opened these films only at Madison Square Garden, where they played for nine weeks. Representatives of the Community Motion Picture Bureau viewed a ten reel version on 11 Apr 1919 which they called an "outdoor picture containing colored slides." According to Var, the "illustrated travelog" opened in London on 14 Aug 1919 to an enthusiastic audience including royalty at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Impresario Percy Burton backed the show, and it was given under the auspices of the English-Speaking Union. According to a contemporary source, the film was shown to the King and Queen privately, and later was moved to the Royal Albert Hall. Modern sources state that the showings opened with a sixty-piece orchestra and a dancer performing before Thomas began his lecture as the film was screened. During the next three years, Thomas lectured with the film around the world. Sources conflict concerning the title of the film. The Community Motion Picture Bureau called it both With Allenby in Palestine and Revolution in Holy Arabia, while modern sources refer to the Allenby film as With Allenby in Palestine and the Conquest of Holy Arabia and the Lawrence film as With Lawrence in Arabia. A contemporary source called the London showing With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia.