A Woman in Arabia

by Gertrude Bell

  Basra, March 18, 1916

  . . . If I went away it wouldn’t matter, or if I stay it wouldn’t matter.

  Basra, June 12, 1916

  It’s not easy here—some day I’ll tell you about it. But the more difficult it is the more I feel I ought to stay.

  With Hardinge’s letter in mind, Cox decided to throw Gertrude in at the deep end. He arranged for her to have lunch with Generals Lake, Cowper, Money, and Offley Shaw, who had regarded her, until then, as just a little woman who had done a bit of traveling. That she surprised and impressed them is clear from her letter home.

  Basra, March 9, 1916

  To-day I lunched with all the Generals . . . , and as an immediate result they moved me and my maps and books on to a splendid great verandah with a cool room behind it where I sit and work all day long. My companion here is Captain Campbell Thompson, ex-archaeologist . . . delighted to benefit with me by the change of workshop, for we were lodged by day in Col. Beach’s bedroom. . . . a plan which was not very convenient either for us or for him.

  Gertrude was soon followed to Basra by Lawrence and Aubrey Herbert, on a brief visit from Cairo to bring an end to the siege of Kut, where eleven thousand British soldiers were stranded and starving. Lawrence and Herbert were authorized to offer the Turks up to £2 million ($189,000,000 RPI adjusted) to break the siege. It was a demeaning exercise and would fail.

  Basra, April 9, 1916

  This week has been greatly enlivened by the appearance of Mr. Lawrence, sent out as liaison officer from Egypt. We have had great talks and made vast schemes for the government of the universe. He goes up river tomorrow, where the battle is raging these days. . . . And who do you think is political officer? Aubrey! the ubiquitous Aubrey. Oh how glad I shall be to see him! One’s extraordinarily lonely with no one of one’s own. That’s why even Mr. Lawrence was such a godsend. He speaks the same language at any rate.

  Although Gertrude and Lawrence were never close personal friends, their occasional encounters as united colleagues sharing a mission to give the Arabs some degree of self-determination proved momentous. This visit from Lawrence gave the two nearly a fortnight together in which to talk on many aspects of the future of the Middle East. Judging from the date of those conversations, it seems to be that Lawrence was able to return to Cairo and convince General Edmund Allenby to lend his support to the Arab Revolt. The subversive intention of the Intrusives, to infiltrate the corridors of power to foster the new Arab world, was set in motion. In January 1917, Lawrence and Faisal, a son of the sharif of Mecca, began their triumphant march north with the Arab army. With the taking of Damascus, the Ottoman Empire finally came to an end. An armistice was signed, and in 1919 the Paris Peace Conference was convened at Versailles.

  Awarded Commander of the British Empire (CBE), Gertrude was now based in Baghdad, working rather unhappily for A. T. Wilson, struggling in his role of acting civil commissioner. Promoted to Oriental secretary under Cox, she had found her duties restricted by Wilson once Cox had been posted to Tehran. She attended the Paris Peace Conference to battle for the peoples of the abandoned Turkish Empire in Mesopotamia, now without boundaries, identity, or government.

  The chief contenders among the exhausted leaders assembling in Paris were President Woodrow Wilson for America, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain, and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau of France. But all eyes were on two international figures: Lawrence, sometimes in full Arab dress, sometimes in keffiyeh over his army uniform, appointed as adviser to the dignified and charismatic figure of Amir Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein. No one there could have been ignorant of the glorious story of Faisal’s epic journey to Damascus at the head of ten thousand tribesmen, taking Aqaba and progressing north by means of just those terrorist tactics described by Gertrude in Cairo. Tribes taking over from tribes as they advanced, they finally marched into Damascus, where Faisal unfurled the flag of the Hejaz on October 3, 1918.

  At last Lawrence was able to introduce Gertrude to Faisal. She sat for hours talking to the emir as he was having his portrait painted by Augustus John,* feeling increasing admiration and respect for him. He combined the air of command and the mystique she had expected but surprised her with his warmth, humor, and perfect command of French and English. A veteran warrior and thirty-three years old, Faisal captivated her as he had captivated Lawrence with his pensive air and melancholy expression. Gertrude and Lawrence resented the cavalier treatment of Faisal by the majority of the leaders at the conference. He had not been officially invited but had been sent by his father, Hussein, to speak for independent Arab government in the Middle East. Once in Paris, his representations were ignored despite Lawrence’s best efforts. His predicament united Lawrence and Gertrude more closely than ever: they were now deeply involved as missionaries for the promise of independence that had been given to the Arabs in return for the triumphant tribal revolt against the Turks.

  The Hotel Majestic, Paris, March 7, 1919

  Meantime we’ve sent for Col. Wilson from Baghdad and Mr. Hogarth from Cairo—the latter at my instigation—and when they come I propose to make a solid bloc of Near Eastern, including Mr. Lawrence, and present a united opinion. They have all urged me to stay and I think for the moment that’s my business.

  Paris, March 16, 1919

  We had a very delightful lunch today with Lord Robert and T. E. Lawrence. . . . Lord Robert is, I think the salient figure of the Conference and T. E. Lawrence the most picturesque. I spend most of my time with the latter. . . .

  Paris, March 18, 1919

  I sat in Sir Arthur Hirtzel’s* office all morning . . . huddled as near as I could get to the hotwater pipes and wrote some pages of comments on French complaints of our behaviour in Mesopotamia. Nothing more absurd than this document has met my eye—they really are an amazing people. T. E. Lawrence and I arranged to lunch together. As we were standing in the hall Lord Milner* came in. Said Mr. Lawrence “You go and ask him to lunch with us.” So I, as bold as brass, invited him; he accepted and we had a delightful and most unofficial hour during which we got a good many useful things said. He also talked very interestingly . . . but as he bound us over not to quote him as an authority I won’t go into details. We assured him that people who lunched with us always were indiscreet. It’s Mr. Lawrence, I think, who induces a sort of cards on the table atmosphere.

  Gertrude and Lawrence were among those invited to meet the French press at a dinner given by the editor of The Times, Henry Wickham Steed, and her great friend Chirol.

  March 26, 1919

  After dinner T.E.L. [T. E. Lawrence] explained exactly the existing situations as between Faisal and his Syrians on the one hand and France on the other, and outlined the programme of a possible agreement without the delay which is the chief defect of the proposal for sending a Commission. He did it quite admirably. His charm, simplicity and sincerity made a deep personal impression and convinced his listeners. The question now is whether it is not too late to convince the Quai d’Orsay and Clemenceau and that is what we are now discussing.

  While Lloyd George supported the Arab right to self-determination through Faisal, M. Picot of France declared that British prearrangements with the Arabs were nothing to do with France and warned that if France were entrusted with the mandate for Syria, Faisal’s claims would be ignored. Faisal left Paris deeply disappointed, and in due course Syria was put under French mandate. Faisal’s betrayal was complete. With ninety thousand French troops in Syria, Arab nationalists defiantly elected Faisal king of Syria. His reign, so promising and well deserved, lasted only three months before the first experiment in Arab self-determination was stamped out by the French army boot.

  Meanwhile, by July 1920, Gertrude was greatly concerned over the methods employed by her temporary chief, A. T. Wilson, in dealing with the Mesopotamian insurgencies. Interminable delays in the delivery of decisions over borders and policies fanned the disaffections, which “A.T.”
mishandled, overruling Gertrude’s more diplomatic negotiations with the tribes and using punitive measures to put down uprisings. It was during this period that Lawrence angered Gertrude by his public criticism of the British administration in Iraq.

  Baghdad, July 1920, Letter to Lawrence

  What curious organs [the newspapers] you choose for self-expression! . . . However whatever the organs I’m largely in agreement with what you say.

  June 27, 1920

  What makes me furious is the rot that’s served up to the British public about us.

  September 5, 1920

  The thing isn’t made any easier by the tosh T. E. Lawrence is writing in the papers. To talk of raising an Arab army of two Divisions is pure nonsense. Except for officers, we haven’t got the materials. Intermittently during the war we raised labour corps, with a considerable amount of pressure, up to 20,000 odd. Everybody admits that the drain on the agricultural population was more than it could stand. . . . You can’t make them into an army under five years. . . .

  I can’t think why the India Office lets the rot that’s written pass uncontradicted. T.E.L. again: when he says we have forced the English language on the country it’s not only a lie but he knows it. Every jot and tittle of official work is done in Arabic; in schools, law courts, hospitals, no other language is used. It’s the first time that that has happened since the fall of the Abbasids. . . .

  We are largely suffering from circumstances over which we couldn’t have had any control. The wild drive of discontented nationalism from Syria and of discontented Islam from Turkey might have proved too much for us however far-seeing we had been; but that doesn’t excuse us for having been blind. . . .

  Again I’m up against T. E. Lawrence. He says the Arab has character and needs intelligence. It’s the exact contrary. He has plenty of intelligence, what he lacks is character; and that, if people only knew, is what a mandatory power is called on to supply. Can it be done?

  September 19, 1920

  The fact that we are really guilty of an initial mistake makes it difficult to answer letters like those of T. E. Lawrence. I believe them to be wholly misleading, but to know why they’re misleading requires such an accurate acquaintance not only with the history of the last two years but also with the country and the people, apart from our dealings with them, that I almost despair of putting public opinion in England right. I can’t believe that T.E.L. is in ignorance and I therefore hold him to be guilty of the unpardonable sin of wilfully darkening counsel. We have a difficult enough task before us in this country; he is making it more difficult by leading people to think that it’s easy. How can it be easy when you’re called upon to reconcile the views and ideals of a tribal population which hasn’t changed one shade of thought during the last five thousand years, and of a crude and impatient band of urban politicians who blame you for not setting up universities. . . .

  And T.E.L. talks of two Divisions as if they could be created tomorrow. Where’s the money coming from?

  Lawrence and Gertrude had been equally shaken and angered by the humiliation of Faisal and the disregard of all promises made to him in return for his delivery of victory to the Allies. Both yearned to assuage their sense of guilt for what had happened, and in March 1921, at the Cairo Conference, they were given a last chance to do so.

  To Gertrude’s great relief, Sir Percy Cox returned as high commissioner for Iraq in October 1920. Just five months later, Churchill—now colonial secretary—summoned Iraq’s British officials to meet him for ten days in Cairo, from March 12, 1921. Lawrence was there as special adviser to the Colonial Office. Among the major figures assembling there were Cox and his party of six led by Gertrude, Air Marshal Hugh Trenchard, intelligence expert Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, Major General Sir Edmund Ironside, and A. T. Wilson. Churchill’s essential task was to substantially reduce the taxpayers’ £37 million ($2,374 billion RPI adjusted) bill for military control of the Middle East.

  Gertrude began by taking Lawrence to task for some of his comments in the newspapers about the civil administration in Baghdad. Lawrence had written in The Sunday Times (August 22, 1920), for instance, “The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows.” Gertrude confronted him with this, while acknowledging that mistakes had been made while A. T. Wilson had been acting civil commissioner.

  Cairo, March 12, 1921

  We arrived yesterday. . . . T. E. Lawrence and others met us at the station—I was glad to see him. We retired at once to my bedroom at the Semiramis and had an hour’s talk, after which I had a long talk with Clementine [Mrs. Winston Churchill] while Sir Percy was closeted with Mr. Churchill.

  But they were still great friends, still the old Intrusives, now major players in the Middle East and determined to see that Faisal had some kind of restitution for what he had suffered in Paris and Syria. The degree to which Lawrence and Gertrude had colluded is suggested in a subsequent letter of his: “GB swung all the Mespot. British officials to the Feisal solution, while Winston and I swung the English people.” Churchill liked the fact that Faisal would give the British leverage over the Hejaz and was soon cabling home to stress what was for him the chief point: “Sharif’s son Faisal offers hope of best and cheapest solution.” As a Sunni ruler in a country with a Shia majority, the emir’s descent from the Prophet would be his trump card; but Churchill insisted that Faisal be elected, and that would have to be arranged by Cox and Gertrude.

  The Intrusives had won the day: self-determination was going to become reality. Now it was up to Cox and Gertrude to mold Iraq into a nation, and Faisal into its king, while Lawrence grew more self-absorbed as the years passed, doubting that Iraq would “make good as a modern state.” In August 1922, he enlisted in the RAF as Aircraftman Ross, after which he changed his name again, to T. E. Shaw, and joined the Royal Tank Corps.

  In 1919, the year of the Paris Peace Conference, Lawrence’s celebrity completely eclipsed that of Gertrude’s, making it difficult to remember that up to then she was the more famous figure, lionized by the West, mobbed in the East. Fortunately, she could not have cared less. While she loathed publicity and warned her family not to give information about her to the press, Lawrence was both flattered and tortured by it. He reviled it but was spotted slipping into the back row of a cinema to watch a film feature about himself. His elevation to world status was largely due to the efforts of journalist Lowell Thomas, who wrote a fulsome biography of Lawrence and then toured the world giving lectures about his hero.

  The bond between Lawrence and Gertrude remained strong, in spite of everything. He had, only half joking, suggested her as his replacement in 1918, in case he was killed in the Arab uprising, and he was to write to her sister Elsa, after Gertrude’s death: “She stood out as the one person who, thinking clearly, saw the true ultimate goal of our work with the Arabs and, daunted by nothing, worked unsparing of herself toward it.”

  During this period, Gertrude wrote a collection of essays for an instruction manual for the newly appointed political officers arriving in the country, “The Arab of Mesopotamia.” Written at the behest of the War Office, it contained a series of pieces on subjects ranging from the serious to the eccentric. Published anonymously, the book was generally assumed to have been written by a man. In answer to a question from her family, she said: “Why yes of course I wrote all the ‘Arab of Mesopotamia.’ I’ve loved the reviews which speak of the practical men who were the anonymous authors etc. It’s fun being practical men isn’t it. . . .”

  Two of the essays from the manual follow:

  The Arab Tribes of Mesopotamia

  The cultivated delta watered by the Tigris and Euphrates is inhabited by Arab tribal confederations, more or less settled, who are immigrants from the Arabian deserts. Some have been establi
shed in Mesopotamia from a remote period, others have come in during the last two or three hundred years, but all are originally nomads of the interior wilderness. The unbroken drift of her peoples northwards is one of the most important factors in the history of Arabia. The underlying causes were probably complex, but chief among them must have been a gradual change in the climatic conditions of the peninsula, involving slow desiccation, together with the pressure of an increasing population on a soil growing steadily poorer. To the hunger-bitten nomad, the rich pastures of the Syrian frontier, the inexhaustible fertility of Mesopotamia, offered irresistible attractions, and opportunities for expansion were found in the weakness and political exhaustion of the neighbouring northern states, whether they were Turkish, Byzantine, Persian or yet earlier empires. The long records of Babylonia enable us to trace the process in its earlier historical phases, a study of existing conditions shows that until a recent period it was still going on, and if a forecast may be hazarded, it will not be arrested in the future, though the nature of the migration may be altered. Instead of devastating hordes, sweeping like locusts over cornfield and pasture, the surplus population of Arabia may find in a Mesopotamia reconstituted by good administration not only abundant means of livelihood but far-reaching possibilities of social and intellectual advance; and they will be received with welcome in a land of which the unlimited resources can be put to profit in proportion to the labour available.

  The conversion of the wandering camel breeder and camel lifter into a cultivator of the soil, in so far as it has taken place in Mesopotamia, was an inevitable process. In their progress northward the tribes found themselves ultimately upon the limits of the desert; the wide spaces essential to nomadic existence no longer stretched before them, while the pressure of those behind forbade any return. They were obliged to look to agriculture as a means of livelihood. Thereby they lost caste with the true Badawin, yet, though these last would scorn to intermarry with tillers of the earth, shepherds and herdsmen of buffaloes, they are nevertheless of the same blood and tradition, and not infrequently fragments of very ancient and famous Arabian tribes are present among the cultivators upon the outer limits of Arabian migration. Thus in Mesopotamia the Bani Tamim, who are divided among various big tribal groups, were masters of the whole of Central Arabia before the time of the Prophet and still form a large part of the Oasis population—their first appearance in Mesopotamia dates from about the beginning of the Mohammedan era; and the Khazraj, now found chiefly on the Persian frontier, supplied by their martial exploits in the southern deserts much of the romantic stock in trade of the pre-Mohammedan poets.