This was also the size of the Arabs led by Lawrence, some of which did not have guns to fight the Turks with.
The movie does have earlier scenes where Turks were made prisoners and showed how humanely they were treated. When the US war correspondent asked questions about this, King Feisal tells of how the Arabs were treated by the Turks - which is just too harshly to describe.
With this in mind, I think Hollywood did overblow the fact that Lawrence's column did not take prisoners - the Turks had committed atrocities themselves.
I do remember a scene from I believe the movie The Longest Day where the US Rangers that took the cliffs with German gun emplacements.
In that scene, the Germans were trying to surrender saying bitte, bitte.
After one of the Rangers after killing the Germans saying that, asked another Ranger: I wonder what bitte means.
Bitte in German is not surrender but PLEASE...
In that case, since it was American soldiers it was slanted another way than what happened at Tafas...
A contrast of the new Liberal Hollywood versus the older, more traditional Hollywood - the traditional, conservative Hollywood knew how to make money at 10 cents a ticket rather than the new Liberal Hollywood that loses money with movie tickets costing 10 dollars...
Well, I think Lean was using that scene to really hammer home the idea of Lawrence (the movie version) descending into madness and egomania. It's interesting how the scene is so close to a straight depiction of the true events, but small tweaks added such a different meaning.
As far as the Turkish atrocities, I wonder if the depiction of the dead village had to be toned down to meet the standards of the day. Personally, I thought the blowing scarf and the upright sword were pretty powerful...
The scene between Feisal and the reporter is one of my favorites; especially the "with me, it is merely good manners" line...