A Woman in Arabia

by Gertrude Bell

  I dined with Sir Percy, armed myself with a loaf of bread for breakfast and returned to my empty house to sleep. By good luck my servant turned up late. . . . I confess however that after having done my hair and breakfasted on the floor I felt a little discouraged.

  She set off in search of a better house by the river.

  The first thing I stumbled onto was a rose garden with 3 summer houses in it, quite close to the Political Office and belonging foreby, to an old friend of mine, Musa Chalabi. I decided at once that this was the thing. But a kitchen had to built, a bathroom, sun blinds to be put up—a thousand things. I got Musa Chalabi to help me, and summoned in an old man . . . and after five days’ work I’m in. . . . And my roses, I must tell you, are glorious. . . .

  I’m going to have an exciting summer. . . . The rest for another time—I’m so busy.

  Baghdad, May 11, 1917

  This is how I pass my days: I’m out riding before 6, . . . a gallop in the desert and home through the bazaars. Occasionally I inspect an ancient monument on the way back. . . . A bath and breakfast and so to the office before 9. I’m there till after 7. . . . There’s always just a little too much to do. I come back to dinner in my garden at 8 and I generally go to bed at 9.30.

  May 17, 1917

  Oh my dearest ones, it’s so wonderful here—I can’t tell you how much I’m loving it . . . I wonder what inheritance from Cumbrian farmers can have developed unexpectedly into so compelling an at-home-ness with the East?

  May 17, 1917, Letter to Sir William Willcocks

  I have grown to love this land, its sights and its sounds. I never weary of the East, just as I never feel it to be alien. I cannot feel exiled here; it is a second native country.

  May 18, 1917

  Nowhere in the war-shattered universe can we begin more speedily to make good the immense losses sustained by humanity. . . . It’s an immense opportunity, just at this time when the atmosphere is so emotional; one catches hold of people as one will never do again, and establishes relations which won’t dissolve. It is not for my own sake, but because it greases the wheels of administration—it really does, and I want to watch it all very carefully almost from day to day, so as to be able to take what I hope may be . . . a decisive hand in [the] final disposition. I shall be able to do that, I shall indeed, with the knowledge I’m gaining. It’s so intimate. They are beyond words outgoing to me. What does anything else matter when the job is such a big one? There never was anything quite like this before. . . . It’s the making of a new world.

  The difficulties faced by the administration were formidable. Arabs spoke a common language but were not one people. Mesopotamia was not a country but a province of a derelict empire, not formally recognized as Iraq until full independence was gained in 1932. As the Turks had withdrawn northward, they had followed a scorched earth policy, smashing dams and destroying agriculture. Disease was spreading, and the one hospital in Baghdad was discovered to be in an indescribable condition. In spite of these and other massive problems, there was a noble determination on the part of Sir Percy Cox and his staff to do well for the people of the Basra and Baghdad vilayets. It was this ambition above all that inspired Gertrude.

  Self-determination remained a vague concept. To the Shia mujtahids, the religious representatives, it meant a theocratic state under Sharia law; to the Sunnis and freethinkers of Baghdad, it meant an independent Arab state under an emir; to the desert and mountain tribes, it meant no government at all.

  The first overtures of the sheikhs and notables to the administration were made in the spirit of insurance, in the hope that the British would stay. Who was there, other than Gertrude, who would recognize and be recognized by so many of them, who could extend the traditional courtesies and interview them in their own language or dialect, who knew the differences between mujtahid, Sunni cleric, mufti, mukhtar, or mutawalli? As they were welcomed and reassured, enormous numbers descended on the secretariat. Gertrude, greeted as “Khatun” (“queen” in Persian and “noble lady” in Arabic) or “Umm al-Muminin” (Mother of the Faithful) would welcome them and usher them into the waiting room for Sir Percy, with a note explaining who they were, where they came from, and what they wanted.

  Gertrude’s most important political paper, the book-length Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia, was written at the request of the India Office. It took nine months of her spare time and was a magnificent summary of the concerns that made this work the most important of her life. Giving a detailed insight into the work of the administration in establishing a functioning and prosperous land, it was received with great appreciation in London, particularly in Parliament where it was applauded by the House of Commons.

  January 17, 1921

  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.

  FROM REVIEW OF THE CIVIL ADMINISTRATION OF MESOPOTAMIA

  Any administration . . . must bring to the task . . . singular integrity and diligence, combined with a just comprehension of the conflicting claims of different classes of the population. It must also command the confidence of the people so as to secure the co-operation of public opinion, without which so complex a tangle could not be unraveled.

  Reconstruction

  A profound impression was produced among the tribes by the rebuilding of Kut. This work, . . . an act of piety in memory of those who had given their life in the defence of the town, Arab as well as British, was undertaken immediately after the occupation. . . . Houses were cleaned out as fast as possible and disinfected, rubbish was carted away . . . the battlefields were searched and the dead buried or re-buried. . . . The crowning glory of the new Kut was an arcaded bazaar along the river front. . . . Thus before the oncoming of winter the refugees were lodged, and the town had become a more flourishing market than it had been before its destruction.

  Revenue

  It was necessary to set up temporarily some sort of revenue and fiscal administration. To this end it was decided to keep intact the Turkish system, to which the people were accustomed, but to free it from corruption and abuses and increase its efficiency. The number of alien officials introduced was deliberately kept low. All other appointments were filled by the more honest of the ex-official people of the country, the large majority being Mussalmans. This would have been in any case inevitable, as the records of the departments were all in Turkish; the language of vernacular records and receipts, together with all other official business, was, however, changed to Arabic, a measure which satisfied local sentiment.

  The initial difficulties in setting up civil administration in the occupied territories were greatly enhanced by the fact that, except for a few Arab subordinates, all the former Turkish officials had fled, taking with them the most recent documents and registers. . . . The British military authorities had at first no leisure to make any arrangements with regard to fiscal and revenue matters except in respect of customs, but towards the middle of January a Revenue Commissioner, Mr. Henry Dobbs, I.C.S., arrived in Basrah from India, and such records as had been left by the Turks were overhauled. They were mostly out of date and were lying mixed with masses of lumber on the floors of the Turkish offices. . . . The administration was confronted with the task of setting the whole of a strange and complicated system on its legs as quickly as possible. . . . Moreover, the exactions of the Turks before leaving, the confusion into which the administration had for some months been thrown, and the dislocation of trade by the stoppage of commerce with Baghdad on the one side and with India and Europe on the other, coupled with an unusually
bad date season, had temporarily deprived the population of cash and credit.

  Public Health

  The sanitary condition of the towns made a notable advance during 1916. Latrines and incinerators were everywhere in use, butcheries and markets inspected, a successful campaign was carried on against flies and rats, and infectious diseases checked. In the villages of Qurnah, Qal ’at Salih and ’Ali Gharbi hospitals and dispensaries were served by the medical military officer of the station, usually with an Indian Sub-Assistant Surgeon, but at Suq, owing to the extreme shortage of medical staff, it was impossible to start regular medical work till 1917, and the absence of a dispensary was regarded by the inhabitants as a grievance, though no such institution would have been dreamed of in Turkish times. The readiness to submit to treatment in hospitals was very remarkable. The fame of the British doctors spread through the districts and patients came in from afar, willing to accept operation and even loss of limb when they were told that it was necessary. Among their other uses, hospitals and dispensaries provided a more convincing form of propaganda than any which could have been invented by the most eloquent preacher or the most skilful pamphleteer.

  The people accepted inoculation and other precautions against plague, and were eager for vaccination.

  Education

  In the Baghdad Wilayat the Turkish educational programme was more comprehensive than at Basrah. It comprised a school of law, a secondary school, a normal school, a technical school, and 71 primary schools. The scheme, as set forth in the official Turkish Education Year Book, full of maps and statistics, might have roused the envy and despair of the British authorities of the Occupied Territories but for the knowledge that, provided a school were shown correctly as a dot on a map, the Turk cared not to enquire whether the pupils enrolled ever attended, or whether the system of education pursued in it was that of Arnold of Rugby or of Mr. Wopsle’s great aunt. . . .

  With the departure of the Turkish authorities in March 1917, the law, sultani* and technical schools ceased to exist as institutions, for nearly all the teachers were Anatolian Turks and left with the rest of Stambul officialdom, while in the case of the technical school the Turks blew up the machinery and burned the building. As to the primary schools, they were nearly all looted by the mob. If it took rather longer to open some of the Baghdad schools than might have been expected, the delay may be attributed to the people themselves, who looted all the furniture and equipment of the schools and carried off the doors, windows and other portable fittings. . . .

  The principal language taught was Turkish, Arabic being treated as a secondary language. The teachers were mostly Turks, often with only a scanty knowledge of Arabic; they were men of bad character, highly paid and incompetent. The school buildings were dirty and insanitary, and the schools hotbeds of vice to which respectable Arabs hesitated to send their boys. No one who was not of the Sunni sect was recognised as a teacher, and this, in a population predominantly Shi’ah, discouraged attendance. The registers were filled with fictitious entries. . . .

  On these considerations it was decided that the medium of instruction should be Arabic throughout with English taught as a foreign language. . . . Primary text-books were carefully selected from the official primary text-books in use in Egypt, and class-room furniture was purchased from abroad.

  The Law

  This system of local justice was recognised by us to be a strong weapon on the side of order and good conduct. Just as it was the habit of the British Military Governors when hearing cases to call in the mukhtars, the headmen of the town quarters, and ask them to take part in the proceedings, so the Political Officers turned to the shaikhs of tribe and village and obtained their opinion. . . .

  In one respect tribal custom, as administered by the majlis,* is not wholly satisfactory in our eyes. The tribesman regards the exaction of blood money payable to the relations of the murdered man as of greater moment than the punishment of the murderer, and is apt to be content with the fine without any further retribution.

  . . . In accepting tribal usage the Political Officer might find himself called upon to impose penalties which are foreign to British judicial tradition. Thus in cases of blood feud the tribes of the Euphrates almost invariably require the guilty party, in addition to the payment of blood money, to hand over a virgin to the family of the deceased, and they value this custom not only as a punishment, but also a safeguard, for, as they justly observe, the payment of fines does nothing towards allaying animosity, whereas inter-marriage provides a community of interests. . . .

  Humanitarian Aid

  The occupation of the Mosul Wilayat [where the Turks had held on, ten thousand people died of starvation in the winter of 1917–18] brought the British Administration into direct relations with the Kurds. . . . In no part of Mesopotamia had we encountered anything comparable to the misery which greeted us at Khaniqin. The country harvested by the Russians had been sedulously gleaned by the Turks, who, when they retired, left it in the joint possession of starvation and disease. The work of administration was at first little more than a battle with these formidable adversaries. . . . No sooner did the Kurds on both sides of the frontier hear that help was to be had, than they poured down the mountains, starving and typhus-stricken, to be brought slowly back to health, or else to die in our camps and hospitals. . . .

  In the surrounding districts cultivation had for the last two years been completely suspended, and the population had been reduced by about 75 per cent of its pre-war figure. So severe was the famine that in some districts the inhabitants were living entirely on herbs and the few acorns which were left, and had been constrained to devour cats and dogs, and even in some cases human flesh.

  Steps were taken at once to deal with the famine, grain was imported from Arbil, poor relief started, agriculture encouraged, and a measure of law and order secured.

  Agriculture

  On the Tigris from Samarra to the vicinity of Baghdad all cultivation had been destroyed. . . . What the Turks had not eaten they had destroyed. Nearer Baghdad the rain and flood had failed. This was the third bad season in succession, and stocks of vegetable seeds, cereals, and, most important of all, fodder, had been reduced to a minimum. . . . From Baghdad to Kut there was no cultivation except on a few lifts and an area in the Jaznah, where the ground was still moist from the flood of 1915. . . . The Turks had deliberately removed the tribes from the river banks and forbidden agriculture. . . .

  The chief duties of the Irrigation Directorate are flood protection, a heavy item with rivers which have a spring rise of 20 feet or more, the control and conservancy of rivers and canals, the provision of an adequate water supply at the heads of watercourses, and the distribution of water as between different watercourses. . . . Several canals have been re-aligned or extended, the new lands commanded by them being eagerly taken up. An important piece of work is now in progress between two of the Euphrates channels which it is hoped will bring back into cultivation large tracts which have long lain barren.

  . . . The necessity of controlling irrigation was at once apparent. . . . Canal clearance had also to be arranged. . . . By far the most important irrigation work which claimed attention was the great dam at the offtake of the Hindiyah channel from the Euphrates . . . subject to destructive fluctuations. . . . British engineers visited it in May 1917, and as the military irrigation services extended . . . water flowed down the two loop canals in time to permit the winter sowings of wheat and barley, and the country on either side of the Hindiyah, after having lain barren for several years, was in January 1918 covered with springing barley. . . .

  It would be difficult to estimate the proportion of the crop of 1918 which was due directly to the Agricultural Development Scheme combined with the operations of the Irrigation Department, but the army was able to procure between 50,000 and 60,000 tons of grain from the spring crop, and the needs of the civil population were supplied. . . . Not only was Mesopotamia safegu
arded from famine, but by releasing the grain which had been stored against another lean year we were able to feed the Bedouin, and thereby to keep them in order, and to succour the Kurds on both sides of our frontier.

  Oil

  Abadan, the refinery of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, was henceforth safe, and from being an object the protection of which was one of the primary duties of the Force, it assumed for the rest of the war the role of purveyor of crude oil, kerosene and petrol to every branch of His Majesty’s services. The record of its work is one of which all those associated with it, as well as with the distant oil fields on which it depends, may well be proud.

  From its tiny beginnings in Basra in 1915, the British administration grew in size as it settled into its role in Baghdad. Its remit extended over 150,000 square miles and some 3 million people. The secretariat remained small: Sir Percy Cox, Gertrude, and three other Cabinet-level officials. In total, there were five hundred executive staff including doctors, nurses, irrigation specialists, and agricultural researchers. The policies of the government were pursued throughout the country by a mere seventy Political Officers, each with a couple of Indian clerks, a sergeant, and a handful of riflemen. The income obtained by taxes grew tenfold during the five years. All of it was used to fund the medical, agricultural, veterinary, judicial, and other government services. The army, paid for by London, rebuilt and extended roads, railways, canals, ports, and public buildings, although the cost of this became a debt for the future government to pay off. Naturally, import and export trade collapsed in 1915 as the Turks retreated, but by 1919 it was more than four times greater than when they were in power.