When A.T. was made a KCIE in May 1920, Gertrude thought he deserved it and was genuinely glad, but commented: “I confess I wish that in giving him a knighthood they could also endow him with the manners knights are traditionally credited with!” Both of them were writing to their absent chief, Sir Percy Cox, during this time. Gertrude kept him in touch with every turn and twist of Iraqi events, fretting at his absence and trusting that he would return before it was too late. “Sir P.C. is a very great personal asset and I wish the Government would let him come back at once. The job here is far more important than Persia.”
A.T. had begun to complain of Gertrude to Cox, in an attempt to get rid of her. Lest she should discover this correspondence, he employed coded references to his political officer, referring to her as “the individual” or “him,” and their troubled relationship as “the problem.” Six months after Cox’s departure, A.T. had disbanded the Baghdad branch of the Arab Bureau, under whose auspices she had technically been appointed, and had intimated to Cox that he did not know what there would be for her to do if she returned after the Paris Peace Conference and her protracted leave. Cox played the diplomat: he wanted to get back to Baghdad and he needed Gertrude.
Meanwhile, A.T.’s rages dominated the Secretariat. There was much shouting and slamming of doors, and his brooding presence put a dampener on the office lunches, where Gertrude made a point of talking to other officers in order to avoid his heavy silences. But there was no going back after mid-June, when they had a worse row than usual. She confided in a letter to Hugh:
. . . my own path has been very difficult. I had an appalling scene last week with A.T. We had been having a sort of honeymoon and then most unfortunately I gave one of our Arab friends here a bit of information I ought not, technically, to have given. It wasn’t of much importance and it didn’t occur to me I had done wrong till I mentioned it casually to A.T. He was in a black rage that morning and he vented it on me. He told me my indiscretions were intolerable, and that I should never see another paper in the office. I apologized for that particular indiscretion, but he continued: “You’ve done more harm than anyone here. If I hadn’t been going away myself I should have asked for your dismissal months ago—you and your Amir!” At this point he choked with anger.
The underlying differences between them had been brought to the boil by their disagreement over a draft of a Mesopotamian constitution suggested by the nationalist Yasin Pasha, destined to become a future prime minister of Iraq. Gertrude found it quite reasonable and said so. A.T. replied with the now customary blast: anything of the kind was entirely incompatible with British control, he said, and he would never accept it. Obliged, nevertheless, to follow the guidelines from London, he shortly made a speech to a deputation in which he conceded the possibility of an Amir of Iraq. Gertrude wrote:
Of course we can’t prevent it, nor have we any interest in doing so. But I know well that if this attitude had been adopted 8 months ago, we should not now be in the very delicate position in which we find ourselves. And I expect A.T. knows it too. I think myself that he ought to go now, because he never can be in real sympathy with the policy which was laid down from home in 1918 . . . Meantime it may be I who goes. But I shall not send in my resignation. I shall only go if I am ordered.
There was, however, light at the end of the tunnel. Sir Percy Cox was at last requested to return from Teheran. He passed through Baghdad on his way to London in June, stopping off for a long discussion with Gertrude and leaving her to look after his parrot until his return to Iraq in the autumn. A few days previously, A.T. had received a deputation from a committee of Baghdadis, asking that a constituent assembly be formed to decide the future form of government. Cox concurred, in an announcement that Mesopotamia be constituted an independent state under the guarantee of the League of Nations and subject to the British mandate—by which Britain was obliged to govern Iraq until the country qualified for independence and for joining the League of Nations. He announced that he would return to Baghdad in the autumn to establish a provisional Arab government.
When Cox left for London, he took the first half of a paper that would prove to be Gertrude’s magnum opus. It was a book-length report she had been writing for months that would show the spadework that had been done and convince the British government that, in spite of the insurrection, Mesopotamia had been enough of a success to justify the British staying on. The rest of Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia by Miss Gertrude Bell, CBE, was dispatched in the diplomatic bag. It had taken her nine months, writing mostly in her spare time, and when the whole document was presented as a White Paper to both Houses of Parliament, Gertrude—in her absence—received a standing ovation, an exceptional accolade. Florence wrote immediately, sending newspaper cuttings with the family’s heartfelt congratulations and her own question as to whether Gertrude had written it at Wilson’s instigation. She replied in unequivocal fashion:
I’ve just got Mother’s letter saying there’s a fandango about my report. The general line taken by the press seems to be that it’s most remarkable that a dog should be able to stand up on its hind legs—i.e. a female write a white paper. I hope they’ll drop that source of wonder and pay attention to the report itself . . . By the way, Mother need not think it was A.T. who asked me to write it—it was the India Office, and I insisted, very much against his will, on doing it my own way.
There would be four more difficult months before Cox returned, but they would be the last four months of having to work with A.T., who was now anxious to move on. There had been warnings from London that the state of affairs in Iraq could not be allowed to continue. A.T. had proved incapable of departing from his high-handed colonial methods when dealing with opposition, usually instigated and funded by the Turks, and early demands for Arab control. He would allow the situation to get out of hand, then react over-harshly, provoking yet more defiance. Nor could he bring himself to use Gertrude as Cox had used her, to bargain, persuade, and cajole the tribesmen into collaboration. There was so much that she could have done, but A.T. had sidelined her from the start. He intended to resign, but he also knew that he would not be pressed to stay once Cox was back in the saddle. And there would be one final devastating row between him and Gertrude.
Gertrude had always maintained a vigorous political correspondence with the influential people she knew in London, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Delhi. Cox had not objected, because he agreed with her aims and knew that her persuasive if maverick style increased understanding and brought beneficial results. It was something that a man, perhaps, would not have done, but Gertrude considered that she had earned the right to speak out, and she was highly respected in social milieux long before she had become a government employee. Her ambitions went far beyond any official promotions she might receive; in fact, there was no post possible for her, although she had been amused when colleagues had voted her second choice for High Commissioner after Cox. After that, when she wrote to Florence, she had signed herself “High Commissioner.”
To Florence in early 1920:
I’ve just written a long letter to Lord Robert [Cecil] giving an exhaustive criticism of the dealings of the [Paris Peace] Conference with Western Asia . . . For from first to last it’s radically bad and there can’t be any stability in existing arrangements . . .
I have written to Edwin Montagu an immense letter about the sort of government we ought to set up here and even sent him the rough draft of a constitution . . . At any rate I’ve done my best both to find out what should be done and to lay it before him. I sometimes feel that it’s the only thing I really care for, to see this country go right . . .
She could hardly have chosen a more prestigious correspondent. Montagu was Secretary of State for India, with ultimate responsibility for Mesopotamia. Did he enquire of A.T. whether the letter was endorsed by him as Acting Civil Commissioner, or did he assume that Gertrude was stepping out of line? In any event, her letter drew a stinging rebuke in the form of a long tel
egram:
From Mr. Montagu for Miss Bell. Private and Personal.
I hope you will understand from me that in the present critical state of affairs of Mesopotamia when the future of the country hangs in the balance we should all pull together. If you have views which you wish us to consider, I should be glad if you would either ask the Civil Commissioner to communicate them or apply for leave and come home and represent them. You may always be sure of consideration of your views but Political Officers should be very careful of their private correspondence with those not at present in control of affairs. Apart from all questions of usual practice and convention it may increase rather than diminish difficulties, a result which I know you would deplore.
If he thought this would crush her, he was wrong. She was not prepared to take it lying down. After all, she was pursuing the steps to self-determination that had been sanctioned, while A.T. was ignoring them as far as it was possible to do so. In April, in the teeth of the nationalist uprisings, he had executed a volte face and attempted to diffuse tension by drawing up a provisional constitution for Iraq, including a council of state composed of British and Arab members with an Arab president, to be chosen by the High Commissioner, and a legislative assembly chosen by election. It had been too little and too late.
Smartly, she sent back her own riposte to Montagu (she did not take a copy, but sent her father a duplicate from memory):
. . . Colonel Wilson gives me every opportunity of telling him any considerations which may occur to me. I am also wholly in agreement with policy which has been pursued since April. You are sufficiently aware of my general attitude towards the Arab question to know that I regret it was not embarked on earlier. To express this view in public would now however be valueless and even harmful. With regard to correspondence, except for private letters to my Father I cannot recall letters on political subjects to unofficial persons which have not been previously submitted to Colonel Wilson. Your remarks are however a useful warning.
A.T. followed Montagu’s telegram, of which he would have been sent a copy, with a stiff inter-office note:
Miss Bell. When Sir Percy Cox passed through he asked—à propos of events earlier in the year—whether my relations with you were happier. I said that I could not say they were—that your divergence of opinion was marked and a matter of public knowledge and indeed of comment . . . I said the position would be untenable but for the fact that I was hoping before long to be relieved. You have always maintained your right as an individual to write what you like—to whom you like . . . but I do not like their being written and the fact that I am cognizant of them must not be held to include approval. Otherwise I have no comment to make.
It was the breaking point. When they talked the following day, Gertrude reminded him that it had been inevitable that people knew their opinions diverged, because she had always said so—and to A.T. himself first and foremost. He told her that he objected to any private communications with the India Office, and she replied that she thought it preposterous but would comply with his wishes—“On this we shook hands warmly—you can’t shake hands anything but warmly when the temperature is 115.”
In spite of all, A.T. had been a good organizer, and the day-to-day administration had continued to build on the successes detailed by Gertrude in the White Paper. The country had become prosperous, as exemplified by a rise in taxes. The income of the administration had risen by 300 per cent in the three years before 1920. The fact that the tax revenue had balanced out with expenditure was all-important. Churchill’s administrative task as Secretary of State for the Colonies was to cut by half the £37 million currently spent ruling Palestine, Iraq, and Arabia, and to find an affordable system of government for the Middle East. In Iraq he would try to reduce the £20 million annual military expenditure to £7 million. He was soon to report to Lloyd George on the absolute need of “appeasing” Arab sentiment—“Otherwise we should certainly be forced by expense of the garrisons to evacuate the territories which each country had gained in the war.” Every project in the Middle East would now be subject to reducing military expenditure.
The night before A.T. left, at the end of September, he went into Gertrude’s office to say goodbye. It was an emotional moment in which the generous impulses of both came to the fore. She rose and moved towards him, saying that she was feeling more deeply discouraged than she could say, and regretting acutely that they had not made a better job of their relations. When he replied that he had come to apologize, she interrupted him—it was as much her fault as his, she said. She then paid him her greatest compliment, inviting him to call on her father and mother in London; he undertook to do so.
A.T.’s official career was soon over. He married a young widow and took up a post with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company as manager of their operations in the Middle East. A private letter he was to write to a friend from Muhammarah, in the Persian Gulf, a couple of years later shows that his anger encompassed Cox as well as Gertrude. He accuses his old boss of dishonesty and incompetence, of “promising all things and doing nothing,” and calls the Mesopotamia of 1922 “pitiful: no guidance—no decision.” He puts his own spin on events: “I rejoice daily that I took the plunge and left with colours flying, and that so many of the old gang left with me—all who could afford it . . . No-one trusts Cox now—and his reputation has slumped dreadfully.”
On 11 October 1920, Sir Percy returned to Baghdad. The station, beflagged and carpeted, was crowded with the great and the good, Arab and British. Guns were fired, the road was lined with well-wishers, and Sir Percy, in white and gold uniform, stood at the salute while the band played “God Save the King.”
After the welcoming address, he replied with a speech in Arabic. He had come by order of HMG, he announced, to enter into counsel with the people of Iraq for the purpose of setting up an Arab government under the supervision of Britain. He asked the people to cooperate with him in establishing settled conditions, so that he might proceed at once with his task. It was a new beginning, and as Gertrude made her curtsey to him she struggled not to let her emotions show. In her letter home of a few days later she wrote:
It is quite impossible to tell you the relief and comfort it is to serve under somebody in whose judgment one has complete confidence. To the extraordinarily difficult task which lies before him he brings a single-eyed desire to act in the interests of the people of the country . . .
Oh, if we can pull this thing off; rope together the young hotheads and the Shiah obscurantists, enthusiasts, polished old statesmen and scholars—if we can make them work together and find their own salvation for themselves, what a fine thing it would be. I see visions and dream dreams . . .
Fourteen
FAISAL
In May 1885, when Gertrude was sixteen, a baby was born in his father’s castle at Taif in the deserts of the Hejaz, and named after the flashing downstroke of the sword: Faisal. What were the odds that a schoolgirl from Yorkshire and a son of the Hashemite Sharif of Mecca should ever meet, or that their lives would become interwoven?
Faisal was the third son of Sharif Hussain ibn Ali, continuing the bloodline of the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima, who married Ali of the Hashemite clan, and her elder son Hassan. Sharif was the family’s honorific title. The Prophet’s family had held temporal rule in Mecca for the last nine hundred years. Faisal was twice an aristocrat. His mother, Hussain’s first wife, Abdiyah Hanem, was also his father’s cousin and so also sprang from the Prophet’s bloodline. Following hallowed tradition, Faisal was taken from his mother at seven days old and carried off to the desert, to be brought up by a Bedouin tribe until he was seven years old. He never saw his mother again. She died when he was three. Gertrude had lost her mother at the same age.
Faisal, like his older brothers, Ali and Abdullah, lived in a black tent as a child of the tribe, learning to fight by taking part in rough games, which left him with a scar on his head and, once, a broken arm.
The Hashemites were regarde
d by the psychopathic Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Abdul Hamid, with a mixture of suspicion and respect. Lest these Sharifs should become pre-eminent, he periodically rounded up the most powerful and ordered them to Constantinople, where they were obliged to live in “honourable captivity” on frugal incomes, under the constant scrutiny of the Sultan’s sinister phalanx of spies, guards, and black eunuchs. This was the fate of Sharif Hussain, who would remain there with his family for eighteen long years.
In 1891, when he was six, Faisal was parted from his Bedouin foster family a year early, and taken with his brothers to join his father in a house on the Golden Horn in Constantinople. The household included the thirty-two women of his father’s harem, with their suites and slaves.
Hussain was a domestic despot, determined that his sons should never enjoy comforts or luxuries. He held several traditional Ottoman posts, but his income remained modest. The household, large as it was, could afford meat only once a week. Discipline was severe: above all, the sons had to learn self-control. The falaka was still being used, a rope with which a child’s feet were bound together and a cane for beating his soles. On the other hand, Hussain made sure that his sons were given a sound education: he employed tutors, four to begin with and many more as they grew up. The political atmosphere was highly charged and life was full of danger. The city was rife with the plotting of secret societies, and the Sultan, responsible for the deaths of perhaps half a million people over the course of his lifetime, had a nasty habit of ensuring that his victims were dead by getting their heads boxed up and delivered to him.
At eighteen, in 1903, Faisal began to learn the strategy and tactics of the Turkish army, which was trained on German lines and composed of both Turks and Arabs. As Gertrude reached Japan on her world tour with Hugo, Faisal was being sent out into the desert to patrol the sands with the Turkish camel corps. A few years later, he and Abdullah were called back to Constantinople. Hussain had been instructed by the Turks to quell a rebellion of Arab tribesmen in the southern region of Asir. Abdullah commanded the Turkish troops and Faisal led the Arab camel cavalry. They fought a desperate battle at Quz Abu-al-Ir, only to retreat with seventy survivors out of a total of three thousand. A fortnight later, they attacked the rebels again. The battle lasted two days and a night. The rebels broke up, but it was a hollow victory. The Sharif’s army had been reduced from seven thousand to seventeen hundred men. Faisal and Abdullah could not prevent the Turkish troops from burning villages and killing innocent people. Nor could they ever forget the mutilation of the dead Arab rebels. Complaints to their Turkish overlords met with disdain. It was then that Sharif Hussain determined to raise a revolt against the Turks: it would become known as the Arab Revolt.
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