Desert Queen

by Janet Wallach

  “I’ll tell you about our Conference,” Gertrude wrote to Florence two weeks later. “It has been wonderful. We covered more work in a fortnight than has ever before been got through in a year. Mr. Churchill was admirable, most ready to meet everyone halfway and masterly alike in guiding a big political meeting and in conducting small political committees into which we broke up.”

  On the first day of the sessions, as the Political Committee convened at the table, Gertrude puffing on her cigarette, Churchill puffing on his cigar, Percy Cox described the events in Baghdad over the past five months: a Provisional Government had been established, and the Naqib invited to form a Cabinet. Now without delay, he said, an announcement had to be made that a new authority would soon replace the provisional Council of State. The delegates concurred that the new authority must be an individual ruler. But who? The Naqib of Baghdad was mentioned, and the names of Sayid Talib, the Sheikh of Muham-marah, even a relative of the Turkish Sultan were tossed around; almost without argument, they were dropped. With the McMahon-Hussein promises of an Arab kingdom for the Sharifian family still hanging over them like a cloud of conscience, the best choice, the group agreed, was a son of the Sharif.

  But why, Churchill demanded to know, would Faisal, the younger son, be better than his older brother, Abdullah?

  Cox explained that it was important to establish an Arab army to control any incipient rebellions; Faisal’s experience in leading the desert revolt, and his involvement with the Allied army under Allenby, made him better qualified than Abdullah. The fact that Faisal was no longer in Damascus made him available. That he had been let down by the British did not need to be said.

  The conversation moved around the table. “The first ruler should be an active and inspiring personality,” Lawrence observed. It was important to have a charismatic figure to “counteract the claims of rival candidates and pull together the scattered elements of a backward and half-civilized country.” Abdullah, he added, “was lazy and by no means dominating.”

  Churchill pointed out that choosing Faisal to lead Iraq would give the British some leverage over the rest of the Sharifian family. If Faisal knew that his own behavior (that is, his cooperating with the British) affected not only his father’s subsidy and the protection of the holy places from attacks by Ibn Saud, but also influenced the position of his brother Abdullah in TransJordan, he would be much easier to deal with. And his father and brother, in turn, would also behave in acceptable ways.

  Gertrude acknowledged that if Faisal were chosen, they might encounter opposition from Sayid Talib. He was, after all, one of the most powerful men in Iraq. But, she assured the group, it would be negligible compared to the acclamation Faisal would receive.

  By the end of the day, as Gertrude had hoped, they voted in favor of Faisal. Churchill cabled home: “Prospects Mesopotamia promising.” The Sharif’s son Faisal, he wrote, offered “hope of best and cheapest solution.”

  Gertrude had changed her opinion completely about Winston Churchill. And no wonder: the meetings had gone almost exactly according to her plan. It was she who had set her sights on Faisal as King of the new Arab state; it was she who had fought to include the vilayets of Basrah, Baghdad and Mosul, and to embrace Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds; it was she who had decided the borders and drawn the lines in the sand around Iraq. All that she had envisioned was beginning to take shape.

  At the following session Gertrude and Lawrence laid out plans for bringing Faisal to Iraq. As a Sunni ruler in a country with a Shiite majority, Faisal would have to base his legitimacy on his Sharifian roots; he was, most important, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Thus, they explained to Churchill, although the Emir was currently in London, he would need to travel to Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad, the holiest site in Islam and the symbol of Faisal’s religious importance. There it would be announced that Faisal had been invited by the Iraqi people, and as he journeyed from Mecca, north toward Baghdad, Gertrude felt sure that, with help from British and Arab sympathizers, support for him would snowball.

  The Iraqi delegates, Jafar Pasha al Askari and Sasun Effendi Eskail, were called into the room and asked what they thought. As Gertrude knew they would (she had already spent hours with them discussing this very same subject), the two men wholeheartedly agreed with the decision.

  At further conference sessions, debates ensued over Mosul, the Kurds and the costly size of the British military presence. When they turned to the turbulent area in the north of Iraq, Churchill proposed autonomy; a Kurdish region would serve as a buffer zone between the Arabs and the Turks. He feared that an Iraqi ruler might “ignore Kurdish sentiment and oppress the Kurdish minority.” Gertrude disagreed. The north was too important to Iraq, she insisted: Mosul not only had oil; it had long been the breadbasket of Mesopotamia, its fertile soil providing grain for the entire country. Moreover, its population provided a substantial number of badly needed Sunnis to counterbalance the Shiite majority. As for the Kurds (who were also Sunnis), she believed that within six months they would be eager to join the Arab Government. But Lawrence objected: the Kurds should not be placed under an Arab Government, he warned. The issue was left in abeyance; for the immediate future, Kurdistan would be kept separate, overseen by the High Commissioner.

  In the midst of the week-long debate, Lawrence, who had been on his best behavior, began to revert to his old ways. When, becoming obstreperous, he made an impudent remark, no one knew what to say. Finally, Gertrude shot him a look with her piercing eyes. She brooked no insolence. “You little IMP!” she jeered. His ears and face turned red, and Lawrence, rarely if ever taken aback, retreated in silence.

  A discussion arose on the annual allowances paid to influential Arab chiefs to keep them loyal to Britain. The subsidy for Fahad Bey, whose desert provided landing strips for airplanes and roadways for the motor cars traveling between Palestine and Iraq, was kept at thirty-six thousand pounds. The Sharif Hussein of the Hejaz was to receive one hundred thousand pounds, and although Cox pushed for more for Ibn Saud, who had received sixty thousand pounds, he was to be given the same amount as Hussein. But, it was agreed, Ibn Saud would receive his raise only if he promised to stop his warring campaign against Hussein, make peace with the Shammar tribe on the southern border of Iraq and avoid the threat of war with the Emirate of Kuwait.

  The troubling size of the British military presence was high on Churchill’s list. Churchill (who still retained the title of Air Minister) believed that through the use of airplanes instead of land troops, Iraq could be controlled at less expense and in a more efficient manner. Furthermore, the same air bases used in Iraq could provide a strategic link to India. Since the British army would be replaced by both the Royal Air Force and an Arab army, and since they would have armoured cars and an effective Intelligence system, British interests would still be secure. As for the Kurds: the members of the conference were all sure that air power and a few squadrons overhead would be enough to contain the rebellious tribes.

  The last item on the Mesopotamian agenda, once again, was Faisal and the timing of his entry into Iraq; it was agreed that he should be invited to Baghdad before the Iraqi elections for a ruler took place. Churchill wired home: “Both Cox and Miss Bell agree that if procedure is followed, appearance of Faisal in Mesopotamia will lend to his general adoption.” But it would be tricky business to make the Iraqis believe that Faisal was their personal candidate and not the proxy of the British.

  Decisions still had to be made on the remaining mandates of Palestine and TransJordan and on the rest of the Sharifian family. Hussein, who had already declared himself a king and was considered “tyrannical,” “autocratic” and greedy by the British, and his son Ali were left to rule in the Hejaz (although they would be driven out within four years by Ibn Saud); Abdullah was awarded TransJordan, the Arab area that stretched from the east bank of the Jordan river to the western border of Iraq (and where his grandson King Hussein rules today); and although Churchill supported the Balfour
Declaration, the fate of Palestine was left ambiguous.

  Taking a break from the wearying sessions, the peripatetic Churchill could not resist a trip to the Pyramids. Gertrude, invited to join him, climbed onto a waiting camel at Giza, but Churchill was a mass of sliding gelatin as he struggled onto the wooden saddle resting atop the hump. The animal rose from its knees, and as the bulbous Churchill reached for the thin cord, the camel lurched. Churchill fell to the ground. “How easily the mighty are fallen!” his wife, Clementine, chided. But when a horde of Egyptian riders rushed forward to offer their horses, the stubborn Churchill brushed them away. “I started on a camel and I shall finish on a camel,” he growled. A little later, with the Sphinx behind them, the group sat poised on their camels, Gertrude flanked by Churchill and Lawrence, as they posed for one the few photographs taken at the conference.

  In the evenings, she and the others dashed from one social event to the next. Her father had come out to Egypt to see her, and with Hugh as her escort, Gertrude went off to a tea at Shepheard’s arranged by a visiting sheikh and to a banquet at Gezira Palace given by King Fuad. They waltzed at a ball at High Commissioner Allenby’s residence and dined at the Semiramis Hotel, where their host was Herbert Samuel, the High Commissioner of Palestine, and on the last evening, they celebrated at a banquet at Abdin Palace. The Sultan’s home was an enchanted city with acres of luxurious gardens, private living quarters complete with sunken tubs in gilded bathrooms, and a samalek, where the royal ladies received their guests. In the palace’s great Byzantine hall, the forty delegates, now called jokingly by Churchill “the forty thieves,” clinked their glasses and dined in splendor, enjoying their great success.

  The Cairo Conference ended on March 25, 1921. A triumphant Churchill would soon tell Parliament that he had achieved what he had set out to do in Mesopotamia: the British garrisons would be reduced from thirty-three battalions to twenty-three battalions; expenditures would be dropped by five million pounds the first year and by twelve million pounds the next; communications lines would be installed and strategic air routes created to connect and strengthen the entire Empire.

  Always a loner, Lawrence had written to his brother only a few days before the end of the conference: “It has been one of the longest fortnights I ever lived.… We lived in a marble and bronze hotel, very expensive and luxurious—horrible place: makes me Bolshevik.”

  But Gertrude had had a marvelous time. Now, sitting on deck in the open air on the boat back to Iraq, she scrawled a letter to her friend Frank Balfour. She had been so pleased to see her father, she told him, and felt sad that she would not see him again for another year. Nevertheless, she wrote: “When we get our Amir he will need a great deal of help and guidance and it’s more than I could bear not to be there to give whatever hand I can. Oh Frank, it’s going to be interesting!” Almost everything she had wished for now had a chance of coming true. The country would consist of all three vilayets—Baghdad, Basrah and Mosul; the Sunnis, Shiites, Jews, Christians and Kurds would be united under a Sharifian king; and Iraq, rich, prosperous and led by Faisal, would prove a loyal protégé of Britain. If Gertrude could bring it all off, it would be more than interesting; it would be a model for the entire Middle East.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Resistance

  Gertrude’s challenge now was to put Faisal on the throne. Without allowing it to appear in any way that he was a British proxy, she had to convince the Iraqis that Faisal was their best and only choice. The plan was that the Sharif Hussein would announce his son’s candidacy for the position as ruler of Iraq; after that, Faisal would leave Mecca and travel by train from Basrah to Baghdad, delivering speeches, building a groundswell along the way. By the time he reached his destination, it was hoped he would have gained enough supporters to make it seem that the people themselves had chosen him as their leader; to those who wanted the British to rule, it would be made clear that Faisal had British approval. Iraqi elections were to be held, and with the British expressing their endorsement, Faisal would be crowned King.

  Thirteen centuries earlier the same scenario had been played out by Faisal’s ancestor Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. But as Gertrude was keenly aware, the results had been nothing short of disaster. Called from Mecca by the Iraqi people to become their Caliph, Hussein arrived at Karbala in A.D. 680, ready to assume the role of the highest religious leader. But in an unexpected turn of events, Hussein was savagely betrayed; instead of being welcomed by supporters, he was met by a rivalrous army. Only a handful of followers stayed with him, and almost all of them were killed; on the tenth of Muharram, Hussein himself was slain. Lighting torches, beating their breasts in somber processions, Shiite Muslims still mourn Hussein during that holy month. “Absit omen” (May it not be an omen), Gertrude murmured to herself.

  Even before she and Cox returned to Baghdad, the air was being poisoned; during their absence the scurrilous Sayid Talib had been hard at work campaigning for the aged Naqib. The wily Minister of the Interior hoped that the frail old man would be chosen Emir; after he died, Talib himself would likely be named his successor. With the slogan “Iraq for the Iraqis,” he stressed the Naqib’s (and his own) Mesopotamian roots, as opposed to Faisal’s distant origins in the Hejaz. Making an extensive tour around the Euphrates, Talib assured the public he was a British favorite, and, while making threats of intimidation against the opposition, gave away thousands of British pounds to potential friends.

  Indeed, one of the most powerful sheikhs in the region, Ali Suleiman of the Dulaim, supported the Naqib. But Gertrude believed that Talib had been less than successful. “He cut very little ice,” she wrote after her return on April 12. She suspected that because the recalcitrant tribes of the middle Euphrates mistakenly thought Talib was bolstered by the British, they would refuse to give him their support. On the other hand, she went on. “The last thing they think we should like would be a son of the Sharif.” After all, she recalled, the tribes had asked for a Sharifian the year before and were “jumped on” for their efforts.

  Suspicious that the British Government was backing Faisal, Talib hosted a dinner party for Percival Landon, a visiting English journalist with the Daily Telegraph. The thirteen guests at Talib’s that night included the Tods, the French and Persian Consuls, and two important Arabs. The Khatun was not invited.

  The morning after Talib’s dinner, Gertrude was greeted with news of the event by some of the guests. Plied with liquor, Talib had proclaimed himself “wholly satisfied” with Sir Percy Cox and the attitude of the British Government, but, he had said, “there were British officials in H.E.’s entourage [an obvious reference to Gertrude] who were known to be partisans and who were exercising undue influence.” Pointing out the power of his Arab guests (and, more important, his own power) to the English correspondent, Talib had threatened, “If any attempt is made to influence the elections, here is the Emir al Rabi’ah with thirty thousand rifles … and the Sheikh of Chabaish with all his men.” Then, reminding them all of the religious leader’s wide influence, he warned, “The Naqib will appeal to Islam, to India, Egypt, Constantinople and Paris.”

  Talib’s remarks made Gertrude livid, and she immediately wrote up a report for Percy Cox. “It was an incitement to rebellion as bad as anything which was said by the men who roused the country last year, and not far from a declaration of jihad,” she fumed. Talib was “capable of anything,” she warned. His reputation for evil had not diminished. His power came from ruthless medieval methods: blackmail, extortion and cold murder. Known to have given orders to eliminate a Turkish official before the onset of the war, he had now summoned to Baghdad the very man who had carried out the killing. She feared that, at the very least, Talib, using the power of the Naqib’s name, would organize a tribal rebellion, a jihad, against the British; worse, she felt certain he would attempt to assassinate Faisal. The man was too dangerous; something had to be done at once.

  Later that same afternoon, the innocent Lady Cox held
her regular Saturday tea. Although Sir Percy announced that he was too busy to come and went off to the races, a number of guests, including Gertrude and Major Bovill (who had been keeping a close surveillance on Talib for Cox), attended. At four-thirty Sayid Talib arrived, stayed half an hour to chat, and said goodbye. Gertrude escorted him to the front door of the Residency and, after seeing him to his car, walked back inside. With his chauffeur at the wheel, Talib drove off, but as soon as his car reached a nearby bridge, it was blocked by a broken-down truck. Talib’s automobile was forced to stop, and at the order of Major Bovill, who suddenly appeared—and who himself was under orders from Percy Cox—the putative candidate was arrested and removed to an armored car. Talib had driven directly into an ambush. “The wiliest man in Arabia had walked into the simplest of traps,” Philby said. Two days afterward Talib was deported to Ceylon.

  Cox had taken a big risk. By deporting Talib, he could have roused sympathy for the politician and turned him into a martyr. But instead, as Cox believed would happen, the public felt eased by Talib’s removal and reacted acquiescently to the show of British power. “Not a voice has been raised against Sir Percy’s coup, on the contrary the whole country is immensely relieved at Talib’s disappearance,” Gertrude wrote.