Letters From Baghdad

by Bell, Gertrude

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, July 16th, 1921.

  The heat is terrific, day after day over 121 and the nights hot too... Sir Percy and I think we ought to put at end of difficult telegrams home: N.B. temp. 121.8. On the other hand, politics are running on wheels greased with extremely well melted grease and Sir Percy and Faisal are scoring great triumphs. On Monday the 11th the Council, at the instance of the Naqib ...unanimously declared Faisal King, and charged the Ministry of the Interior with the necessary arrangements. I was dining alone that night and feeling anxious — the heat makes one not quite normal, I think. You may fancy what it was like to get to the office next morning and hear this news from Sir Percy, the moment I arrived. He added that he felt, good as this was, that it wasn't enough and that we must have an election by Referendum to be able to prove that Faisal really had the voice of the people. With that, one of Faisal's A.D.C.'s telephoned to me and asked me to go round. I found him radiant- very different from my first early morning visit the day after he arrived! but eagerly insisting on the need of a referendum through the machinery of the Ministry of the Interior which I was able to assure him was exactly what Sir Percy wanted too... His ante-chamber was a sight to gladden one — full of Bagdad nobles and sheikhs from all parts of the Iraq. I went back to Sir Percy to report. The thing we have been looking for seems to be in a fair way to fulfilment. Sir Percy and Faisal between them are making a new Sharifian party composed of all the solid moderate people... Faisal has played his part; he has handled his over- zealous adherents with admirable discretion...

  The office of a morning is flooded with tribal sheikhs. Today they were sitting in rows on the ground under the awning of the courtyard. They come up to see Faisal and pay their respects to Sir Percy and incidentally to me. What they come to learn is whether Faisal has our support. They hear it first from me and then from Sir Percy and I think they go away satisfied. This week it has been the Euphrates; next week it will be the Tigris. To-night Faisal has fifty of them to dinner. Dinners! in this weather they really are a trial. The Coxes gave one to Faisal on Wednesday. I was well off for I sat by Air Marshal Sir John M. Salmond who has flown over from Cairo in 9 hours and says he never suffered so much as he has in being transplanted so rapidly from the temperate climate of Egypt to our torrid zone...

  To H.B.

  Wednesday, July 20th, 1921.

  Really these days are so packed with incident that I must quickly record them before one impression overlays another. In an atmosphere which has been uninterruptedly at a maximum of over 120 for the last three weeks — I may mention that for the first time in my life I've got prickly heat- not very bad however. Well — on Monday the Jewish community gave a great reception to Faisal in the Grand Rabbi's official house. The Garbetts and I represented the Residency and Mr. Cornwallis came with the Amir. The function took place at 7:30 a.m. in the big courtyard of the house — a square court round which the two storied house stands. It was filled with rows of seats, with rows of notables sitting in them, the Jewish Rabbis in their turbans or twisted shawls, the leading Christians, all the Arab Ministers and practically all the leading Moslems with a sprinkling of white-robed, black-cloaked Ulama. The Court was roofed over with an awning, the gallery hung with flags and streamers of the Arab colours. The Jewish school children filled it and the women looked out from the upper windows. They put me on the right hand of the chair prepared for Faisal — you know the absurd fuss they make about me, bless them. Faisal was clapped to the echo when we came and we all sat down to a programme of 13 speeches and songs interspersed with iced lemonade, coffee, tea and cakes and ices! It took two hours by the clock, in sweltering heat...The Rabbi is a wonderful figure, stepped straight out of a picture by Gentile Bellini. The speeches on this occasion are all set speeches...But yet they were interesting because one knew the tensions which underlay them, the anxiety of the Jews lest an Arab government should mean chaos, and their gradual reassurance, by reason of Faisal's obviously enlightened attitude. Presently they brought the Rolls of the Law in their gold cylinders, they were kissed by the Grand Rabbi, and then by Faisal, and they presented him with a small gold facsimile of the tables of the law and a beautifully bound Talmud. I whispered to him that I hoped he would make a speech. He said he hadn't meant to say much but he thought he must, and added "You know I don't speak like they do. I just say what is in my thoughts." Towards the end he got up and spoke really beautifully; it was straight and good and eloquent...He made an immense impression.

  The Jews were delighted at his insistence on their being of one race with the Arabs, and all our friends ...were equally delighted with his allusion to British support ...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, July 27th, 1921.

  I'm immensely happy over the way this thing is going. I feel as if I were in a dream...On our guarantee all the solid people are coming in to Faisal and there is a general feeling that we made the right choice in recommending him. If we can bring some kind of order out of chaos, what a thing worth doing it will be!

  Our great heat is over, the temp. has fallen to about 115 more or less which is quite bearable, and I'm very well.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, July 31st, 1921

  I must now give you an account of our doings. Overshadowing all else was the display at Ramadi. Fakhri jamil Zadah and I left at 4 a.m. but Faisal was a little in front of us. We caught him up at Naqtah, half way to the Euphrates and asked leave to go ahead so that I might photograph his arrival at Fallujah. Outside that village a couple of big tents were pitched in the desert and for several miles crowds of tribal horsemen gathered in and stood along the track as he Passed...Then we drove through Fallujah which was all decorated and packed with people. The tribesmen lined the road to the ferry some 6 miles — rode round, after and beside the cars (I was immediately behind Faisal) amid incredible clouds of dust...

  Under the steep edge of the Syrian desert were drawn up the fighting men of the Anazeh, horsemen and camel riders, bearing the huge standard of the tribe. We stopped to salute it as we passed. Ali Sulaiman the Chief of the Dulaim, and one of the most remarkable men in Iraq came out of the Ramadi to meet us. He has been strongly and consistently pro- British...

  We drove to the Euphrates bank where Ali Sulaiman had pitched a huge tent about 200 ft. long with a dais at the upper end and roofed with tent cloth and walled with fresh green boughs. Outside were drawn up the camel riders of the Dulaim, their horsemen and their standard carried by a negro mounted on a gigantic white camel; inside the tribesmen lined the tent 5 or 6 deep from the dais to the very end. Faisal sat on the high diwan with Fahad on his right while Major Yetts and I brought up people to sit on his left — those we thought he ought to speak to. He was supremely happy, a great tribesman amongst famous tribes and, as I couldn't help feeling, a great Sunni among Sunnis...Faisal was in his own country with the people he knew. I never saw him look so splendid. He wore his usual white robes with a fine black abba over them, flowing white headdress and silver bound Aqal. Then he began to speak, leaning forward over the small table in front of him, sitting with his hand raised and bringing it down on the table to emphasize his sentences. The people at the end of the tent were too far off to hear; he called them all up and they sat on the ground below the dais rows and rows of them, 400 or 500 men. He spoke in the great tongue of the desert, sonorous, magnificent — no language like it. He spoke as a tribal chief to his feudatories. "For four years," he said "I have not found myself in a place like this or in such company" — you could see how he was loving it. Then he told them how Iraq was to rise to their endeavours with himself at their head. "Oh Arabs are you at peace with one another?" They shouted "Yes, yes, we are at peace." "From this day — what is the date? and what is the hour?" Someone answered him. "From this day the 25th July (only he gave the Mohammedan date) and the hour of the morning (it was 11 o'clock) any tribesman who lifts his hand against a tribesman is responsible to me — I will judge between you calling your Sheikhs in co
uncil. I have my rights over you as your Lord." A grey bearded man interrupted, "And our rights" "And you have your rights as subjects which it is my business to guard." So it went on, the tribesmen interrupting him with shouts, "Yes, yes," "We agree . ...Yes, by God." It was the descriptions of great tribal gatherings in the days of ignorance, before the prophet, when the poets recited verse which has come down to this day and the people shouted at the end of each phrase, "The truth, by God the truth."

  When it was over Fahad and Ali Sulaiman stood up on either side of him and said, "We swear allegiance to you because you are acceptable to the British Government." Faisal was a little surprised. He looked quickly round to me smiling and then he said, "No one can doubt what my relations are to the British, but we must settle our affairs ourselves." He looked at me again, and I held out my two hands clasped as a symbol of the Union of the Arab and British Governments. It was a tremendous moment, those two really big men who have played their part in the history of their time, and Faisal between them the finest living representative of his race — and the link ourselves. One after another Bali Sulaiman brought up his sheikhs, some 40 or 50 of them. They laid their hands in Faisal's and swore allegiance...The afternoon's ceremony was the swearing of allegiance on the part of the towns. From Fallujah to Qaim, the northern frontier, all the Mayors, Qazis and notables had come in. The place was a palace garden. There was a high dais built up against a blank house wall which was hung with carpets. On this Faisal and the rest of us sat while the elders and notables, sitting in rows under the trees, got up, stepped to the dais and laid their hands in his...The beauty of the Setting, the variety of dress and colour, the grave faces of the Village elders, white turbaned or draped in the red Arab kerchief and the fine dignity with which Faisal accepted the homage offered to him made the scene almost as striking as that of the morning...

  We are now waiting for the Mosul and Hillah papers to come in to declare Faisal King. He may possibly be crowned next week. Isn't that very remarkable! 5 weeks work.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, August 6th, 1921.

  We have had a great week. The plébiscite is nearly finished throughout the country. Many districts, Ramadi, Basrah, the Euphrates, Amarah, have added a rider to the papers, swearing allegiance to Faisal "on condition that he accept British guidance."...

  I had a terrific day on Tuesday. I got up at 4:45 motored at 5:45 with Mr. Cornwallis to Ctesiphon — we took Faisal there — office 10:30 to 3:30, with an interval for lunch, home to wash and change; visit to the Naqib 4:30 to 6, library Committee 6 to 7, visit to Sasun's sister-in-law 7 to 7:30. Hamid Khan to dinner 8 to 10. It was too much; I felt tired all next day — however it was worth it.

  The Ctesiphon expedition was an immense success. I invited Faisal and two of his A.D.C's, the Garbetts, Fakhri jamil and Mr. Cornwallis, and I took Zaya, with an excellent breakfast of eggs, tongues, sardines and melons. It was wonderfully interesting showing that splendid place to Faisal. He is an inspiring tourist. After we had re-constructed the palace and seen Khosroes sitting in it, I took him into the high windows to the South, when we could see the Tigris, and told him the story of the Arab conquest as Tabari records it, the fording of the river and the rest of the magnificent tale. It was the tale of his own people. You can imagine what it was like reciting it to him. I don't know which of us was the more thrilled. I had a good audience too in one of his A.D.Cs.

  Faisal has promised me a regiment of the Arab Army — the Khatun's Own." I shall presently ask you to have their colours embroidered. Nuri proposes that I should have an Army Corps!

  Oh Father, isn't it wonderful. I sometimes think I must be in a dream.

  Sorry to say that it's desperately hot again. As regards climate this is being the devil's own summer.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, Aug. 14th, 1921.

  The referendum is finished and we are only waiting for the last of the signed papers to come in from the Provinces, after which Faisal will be proclaimed King without delay. With one exception he has been elected unanimously...

  The difficulty this week has been the climate. Not that it has been so very hot — never over 119 I think — but it has been quite still with a lightly coloured sky. When you get up in the Morning and see a cloud your heart sinks, for it means a close oppressive day like the half hour before a thunderstorm carried to the Nth. There were a couple of days at the beginning of the week when I seriously considered whether I could bear it. Now it is better...

  The other day a young gentleman from Mosul who designs to start a paper there asked me to draw him up some directions for the guidance of the press. I did it with a will, and produced a minor masterpiece — with the more pleasure because I sent a copy to Faisal who was delighted.

  I swam the Tigris — not much of a feat you will rightly observe, but the current is very strong in places. Sorry to Say there are sharks in the Tigris; they haven't yet been reported higher than the mouth of the Diala where one bit an Arab boy this week.

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, August 21, 1921.

  There's no post in this week. I'm not only without letters but also without papers and books. However, thank God, I've got plenty to say. Wherein, as you'll note, I differ from My chief I heard a delightful saying about him the other day, quoted from the lips of one of the leading notables of Basrah. "Wallahi," he observed, "Sir Percy Cox has forty ears and only one tongue." I must tell you another nice tale about the Coxes. You know he is a great naturalist. He is making a collection of an Mesopotamian birds — sometimes they arrive dead and sometimes alive. The last one was alive. It's a huge eagle, not yet in its grown up plumage but for all that the largest fowl I've ever set eyes on. It lives on a perch on the shady side of the house and it eats bats, mainly. These bats are netted for it in the dusk when they obligingly fly across the river and over Sir Percy's garden wall. But the eagle likes to catch them in the morning, so the long suffering Lady Cox keeps them in a tin in her ice chest, and if ever you've heard before of an eagle that lives on iced bat you'll please inform me.

  And since I'm telling you stories, I must tell you one about the Naqib. It hangs on what I was relating to you last week on the subject of al Damakratiyah. It was the Naqib, to his huge delight — he's by every instinct an aristocrat, and an autocrat if ever there was one — who gave currency to the word, by announcing in the Council that Faisal should be King of a constitutional democratic state...The other day a Shammar Sheikh up from Hail, drops in to call. "Are you a Damakrati?" says the Naqib. "Wallahi, No!" says the Shammari, slightly offended. "I'm not a Magrati. What is it?" "Well," says the Naqib enjoying himself thoroughly, "I'm Sheikh of the Damakratiyah" (the Democrats). "I take refuge in God!" replied the Sheikh, feeling he had gone wrong somewhere. "If you are the sheikh of the Magratiyah, then I must be one of them, for I'm altogether in your service. But what is it?" "Damakratiyah," say the Naqib, "is equality. There's no big man and no little, all are alike and equal." With which the bewildered Shammari plumped on to solid ground. "God is my witness," said he, seeing his tribal authority slipping from him, "if that's it I'm not a Magrati."

  Well now to the History of the Iraq.

  Last Monday was the first day of the Id al Fitr, The Feast of Sacrifice, which is the great occasion of the Moslem year. It lasts four mortal days. At 7 a.m. on Monday, Mr. Cornwallis and I set out on a round of calls...

  That afternoon Faisal called on the Naqib to form his first Cabinet — a very very wise move. He's embarking on a promising political career at the age of 77. Good, isn't it.

  That evening I had got so tired of sitting in the office that in spite of the heat I went out riding, and coming home along the river bank for coolness, I passed Faisal's new house, up-stream,, a house they have rented for him which is being done up. I saw his motor at the door so I left my pony with one of his slaves and went up on to the roof where I found him sitting with his A.D.Cs. It was wonderful, the sun just set, the softly luminous curves of the river below us, the
belt of palm trees, and then the desert, with Agar Quf standing up against the fading red of the sky. We all ate and talked. Faisal uses no honorifics: "Enti, thou" he says to me — it's so refreshing after the endless "honours," and "excellencies" — Enti Iraqiyah, enti badawiyah — you're a Mesopotamian, a Bedouin."...

  The Colonial Office has sent us a cable saying Faisal in his Coronation speech must announce that the ultimate authority in the land is the High Commissioner...Faisal urged that from the first he is an independent sovereign in treaty with us, otherwise he can't hold his extremists...

  It is I suppose difficult for them to realise that we are not building. here with lifeless stones; we're encouraging the living thing to grow and we feel it pulsing in our hands. We can direct it, to a great extent, but we can't prevent it growing upwards. That is, indeed, what we have invited it to do...

  To H.B.

  BAGDAD, August 28th, 1921.

  We have had a terrific week but we've got our King crowned and Sir Percy and I agree that we're now half seas over,, the remaining half is the Congress and the Organic Law...

  The enthronement took place at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, admirably arranged. A dais about 2ft. 6in. high was set up in the middle of the big Sarai courtyard; behind it are the quarters Faisal is Occupying, the big Government reception rooms; in front were seated in blocks, English, Arab Officials townsmen, Ministers, local deputations, to the number of 1,500.

  Exactly at 6 we saw Faisal in uniform, Sir Percy in white diplomatic uniform with all his ribbons and stars Sir Aylmer, Cornwallis and a following of A.D.Cs descend the Serai steps from Faisals lodging an come pacing down the long path of carpets, past the guard of honour (the Dorsets, they looked magnificent) and so to the dais... We all stood up while they came in and sat when they had taken their places on the dais. Faisal looked very dignified but much strung up — it was an agitating moment. He looked along the front row and caught my eye and I gave him a tiny salute. Then Saiyid Hussain stood up and read Sir Percy's proclamation in which he announced that Faisal had been elected King by 96 per cent. of the people of Mesopotamia, long live the King! with that we stood up and saluted him. The national flag was broken on the flagstaff by his side and the band played "God save the King" — they have no national anthem yet. There followed a salute of 21 guns...It was an amazing thing to see all Iraq, from North to South gathered together. It is the first time it has happened in history...