Gertrude Bell

by Georgina Howell

  Before any public arrangements could be made in regard to Faisal, there followed the inevitable delay while Churchill consulted with the Cabinet and obtained HMG’s consent for Faisal to run as a candidate. The period of waiting was by way of a short holiday for the British in Baghdad, who were in a cheerful mood. It had been a long time since jokes had run around the office, but now there was laughter again. Gertrude contributed the remark of a sheikh who had been among a number invited to a concert at which a musician, one Captain Thomas, had performed the Pathétique sonata. “At the end he asked what they thought of it. ‘Wallahi’ said one ‘khosh daqqah’—‘by God a good thumping!’ ”

  During this interval, Gertrude busied herself with the current debate on what should be done at Ctesiphon, Iraq’s most famous archaeological site, to save the great façade wall, which was developing a marked outward tilt. She also saw something of her friend Haji Naji, a fruit and vegetable grower at nearby Karradah, whose pleasant company was the object of many of her rides and drives out into the country—“Haji Naji . . . is the salt of the earth . . . an odd substitute for a female friend, but the best I can find.” They would walk and sit under the apricot and mulberry trees whose fruit was now ripening, and picnic on fresh salads. Sometimes he would call at her house in town to talk politics, or to deliver a basket of fruit and vegetables topped with a bouquet of flowers. The fruit-farmer was a staunch supporter of the British and wholly in favour of a Sharifian amir. His friendship with Gertrude was both a help and a hindrance to him. Living alone with his family, deep in the country, he was to some extent targeted by nationalist extremists and occasionally had to post guards around the house at night. Unofficially, she began to make use of Haji Naji as her eyes and ears in the countryside. Later, when the Amir arrived at Basra, she gave the elderly man an introduction to Kinahan Cornwallis, who had been appointed Faisal’s aide, and Haji Naji and his party gave Faisal an early welcome.

  Three months after the Cairo Conference, the holiday ended and events began to move quickly. Faisal set off from Mecca for Iraq, and would arrive in Baghdad at the end of June. Gertrude was consulted about the design for a temporary flag for Iraq, to decorate the streets for his arrival, and began to display uncustomary nerves. “I believe Faisal is statesman enough to realize that he must capture the older more steady going people while at the same time not chilling over much the enthusiasm of his more ardent supporters.”

  In Cairo, Churchill had asked whether the administration could deliver an election vote in favour of Faisal—“Can you make sure he is chosen locally?” Western political methods, he remarked, “are not necessarily applicable to the East, and the basis of the election should be framed.” It was more than a recommendation, it was an order. A rejected Faisal would be a disaster and would open up the whole Arab question again. Cox would follow his directive to the letter. There could be no doubt that Faisal presented the best hope for stability in Iraq. Cox and Gertrude would have to see that he came to power as the country’s own choice, but he had to be seen to be elected independently of British wishes. “I don’t for a moment hesitate about the rightness of our policy,” Gertrude commented. “We can’t continue direct British control . . . but it’s rather a comic position to be telling people over and over again that whether they like it or not they must have Arab not British government.”

  Her upbringing and her education, and her experience of Arabia, had given her a pragmatic view of democracy. In her Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia she wrote:

  The rank and file of the tribesmen, the shepherds, marsh dwellers, rice, barley and date cultivators of the Euphrates and Tigris, whose experience of statecraft was confined to speculations as to the performances of their next door neighbours, could hardly be asked who should next be the ruler of the country, and by what constitution. They would in any case have done no more but re-echo by command the formula prescribed by their immediate chiefs, and it was just as profitable besides being more expeditious to refer those questions to their chiefs only.

  Modern critics of the procedures whereby the British were to gain support for the selection of Faisal as king might reflect on the much vaunted democracy of today. Every European country has its own brand of democracy. At the time of writing, the “free and fair” election system has produced in Britain a government that only 36 per cent of the voters wanted; in the United States, it is not the weight of numbers that carries an election, but the vote for marginal interests.

  It was Gertrude’s job to ensure that nobody suffered as a member of an oppressed minority in a country split by racial, religious, and economic differences. These people were in safe hands. All of her writing suggests a guiding ambition to protect people, particularly minorities, from discrimination and persecution. So many of her letters express concern for injustice, particularly for the massacres of the Armenians, Kurds, and others within the Turkish Empire. She had witnessed the sick and starving stragglers from such slaughter as they limped into Baghdad (“O Domnul, the tide of human misery”). Her year in France at the Wounded and Missing Office had given her daily experience of barbarism on the greatest scale ever committed. And in her offices in Basra and Baghdad she had perforce to absorb reports of other atrocities. Her efforts to resolve boundaries and develop structures for new governments had been devoted to avoiding incompatible conjunctions of races and creeds. In Iraq, most of the population were minorities, either by religion or race. Any simple numerical majority voting system would have left great swaths of the country unrepresented. Had the British democratic system of the day been applied to Iraq the vote would have been the prerogative only of men of property, and the wealthy Sunni minority would have been back in charge as they had been under the Turks.

  On their return from Cairo, Cox and she had found that Sayyid Talib had been canvassing hard. At a dinner he gave in honour of a correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, he declared that there were officials in the British entourage who were well known to be partisan and who were exercising undue influence on the election. He asked the journalist whether he should appeal to King George to have these officials removed, while issuing a very definite threat: if any attempt should be made to influence the election, he declared, “here is the Amir al Rabiah, with 30,000 rifles, to know the reason why, and the Sheikh of Chabaish with all his men.” Gertrude, who was present at the dinner, commented: “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. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Talib may prosecute the electoral campaign so hotly as to find himself landed in gaol.”

  Gertrude had heard that Talib was collecting around him the hired assassins that he was believed to have employed at Basra under the Turks. She immediately informed Cox of what he had said. She shared with Cox her own horrific nightmare of Faisal’s being killed by Talib’s hired cut-throats. Cox was impelled into decisive action, of which he did not previously inform Gertrude. It was immediately after a tea party given the next day by Lady Cox, at which he had been a guest, that Talib was arrested. Cox reported to Churchill: “He was arrested in a public thoroughfare this afternoon and is being sent down river to Fao. I do not anticipate any trouble as I think the great majority of people are relieved. I trust you will be able to support me in my action and authorize me to send him to Ceylon.” Churchill replied that Talib’s speech was seditious, and that exile was in order. He would in fact spend most of his remaining days in Europe, subsidized by a British income, which would be withdrawn at once if he entered Iraq.

  Although Gertrude had not been consulted about this high-handed and uncharacteristic move on Cox’s part, and although removing a contender on the eve of an election was contrary to all democratic principles, she was immensely relieved: the more so, when Talib’s going revealed the extent of his fund-raising activities, much of it from blackmail. She argued that Talib’s threats had disqualified him from participation in the democratic
process. There was only one complaint made to the British about Talib’s deportation: that of Harry St. John Bridger Philby, political officer at Cox’s office, who had been the British adviser to Talib when he was Minister of the Interior. “Jack” Philby, formerly of the Indian Civil Service and an experienced traveller in the East, was a man of robust opinions, and had always mystified Gertrude and Cox by the extent of his admiration for Talib. Not surprisingly, he was appalled, and marched into the office for a tremendous row with Cox: as far as Gertrude was concerned he refused to speak to her, and cut her dead on all subsequent occasions.

  Gertrude returned to the business of welcoming Faisal. She was pleased that it was the Naqib, and not the British, who took it on himself to see that the Amir would be suitably received and appropriately lodged. Unfortunately the committee chosen to arrange his reception caused so much controversy that the members almost came to blows. Gertrude attended the first meeting and, sighing, left it to its arguments and went about arranging the details herself. She called on the railway officials and had a train specially decorated, to fetch Faisal from Basra.* The only rooms suitable for the Amir and his party were the old government offices, the Serai, currently in need of renovation. She approached the Public Works Department, and gave them a timetable. She raised contributions from Baghdad’s nobles for the provision of good carpets, furniture, and wall hangings. Merchants were asked to produce other furniture, crockery, and silver. Competent servants were found, sixty notables directed to greet Faisal on his arrival, and the guard of honour drilled. She wrote home: “Yesterday we had news of Faisal’s arrival in Basra [23 June 1921] and an excellent reception, heaven be praised . . . Faisal has now gone off to Janaf and Karbala and gets here on Wednesday 29th.”

  It was fortunate that Faisal was a natural orator. He had already won over hearts and minds at a large function held in his honour in Basra. After spending the night on the train, he was due to arrive in Baghdad on the morning of the twenty-ninth. The city was decorated with triumphal arches and Arab flags, and packed with people. There was an immense crowd at the station, a guard of honour, and a band. Then it was announced that there was a delay on the line, and that the Amir would be arriving by motor. With everyone wilting in the heat of the day, Cox took command. He dispatched everyone back home, telling them to return to the station at 6 p.m. He sent a message to Faisal to wait on the train until the problem on the line was solved, then to resume his journey at such a time as would allow him to arrive in the cool of the evening. The crowd dispersed and reassembled. Faisal arrived at last.

  The reception went according to plan, Faisal crossing the room to shake Gertrude’s hand. But, standing by Kinahan Cornwallis, the Amir’s personal adviser, after the advance party had left, she heard that the visit to Basra had not gone as well as she had hoped. The political officers who had met him there had been discourteously aloof. The most offensive had been Philby. For Cox to have sent Philby to escort Faisal to Baghdad was, on the face of it, an odd decision. By doing so, he hoped to show that the British were even-handed and not already treating Faisal as the candidate. Perhaps he was giving Philby a second chance. He certainly thought that a few hours of exposure to his charm would convince Philby of Faisal’s superior qualities. That, unfortunately, had not happened. On the train Philby had angered the Amir by insisting on the merits of his Hashemite enemy Ibn Saud—after the death of Captain Shakespear, Philby had been Britain’s contact with Ibn Saud—and on his own conviction that Iraq should be a republic. Faisal had arrived in Baghdad annoyed and confused. Was the Iraq High Commissioner with him or wasn’t he, and if so, why did his officers adopt a different attitude?

  For Cox, it was the last straw. Philby had disembarked from the train early, supposedly unwell, and did not turn up for a few days. When he did, he was summoned to Cox’s office and dismissed. In Cox’s own diplomatic words: “I had to part company with Mr. Philby because at the stage of development at which we had then arrived his conception of the policy of HM’s government began to diverge too much from mine.”

  Gertrude was sorry, but felt Cox had been right. She had known Philby since her days in Basra, spent one Christmas with him on a launch among the Marsh Arabs, and had contributed many features to his Arabic newspaper. He had often been a trusted go-between with the Naqib; but clearly, he could no longer be trusted. She visited Philby and his wife, to express her sadness, and

  had a most painful interview. Mrs. Philby burst into tears, accused me of having been the cause of her husband’s dismissal, and went out of the room. I then reminded him of our long friendship and asked him to believe that I had done all I could . . . How he could embrace the cause of that rogue Talib passes all belief, but he had identified himself with him.

  As soon as she could, Gertrude left her card at Faisal’s quarters in the Serai; she was immediately followed out by his ADC, who told her that the Amir would like to see her: “Presently Faisal sent for me,” she wrote. “They showed me into a big room and he came quickly across in his long white robes, took me by both hands and said ‘I couldn’t have believed that you could have given me so much help as you have’ . . . so we sat down on a sofa.” A glittering banquet in the Maude Gardens followed. In honour of Faisal’s love of poetry, the poet Jamil Zahawi rose to his feet and recited a tremendous ode, full of allusions to Faisal as King of Iraq.

  And then there stepped forward into the grassy space between the tables a Shiah in white robes and a black cloak and big black turban and chanted a poem of which I didn’t understand a word. It was far too long and as I say quite unintelligible but nevertheless it was wonderful. The tall robed figure chanting and marking time with an uplifted hand, the darkness in the palm trees beyond the illuminated circle—it hypnotized you . . .

  It was not plain sailing. The tribes of the lower Euphrates were preparing petitions in favour of a republic, and many of the Shia mujtahids were ranging themselves against Faisal. Gertrude found the growing tension hard to deal with; she was straining every nerve—talking, persuading, writing, carrying on the argument even in her sleep. Baghdad was won over, she thought; she could only hope the rest of the country would fall into line.

  The receptions and dinners continued, most magnificently at the Naqib’s house, the old man tottering to the head of the stairs as Faisal approached, where they formally embraced, then walked hand in hand towards the standing guests. Gertrude sat at Faisal’s right. “It was a wonderful sight, that dinner party,” she recorded, “. . . on the open gallery, the robes and their uniforms and the crowds of servants, all brought up in the Naqib’s household, the ordered dignity, the real solid magnificence, the tension of spirit which one felt all round one, as one felt the burning heat of the night.”

  On 11 July the Council of State, at the request of the Naqib, unanimously declared Faisal King. Cox, though greatly relieved, knew that a referendum must be held, so as to confirm Faisal as the choice of the people. He and Gertrude had already framed the question—“Do you agree to Faisal as King and leader of Iraq?”—and printed the papers; they would be circulated to a large number of tribal representatives, including three hundred notables.

  Gertrude was becoming a frequent visitor at Faisal’s apartments. She would be ushered straight in through a thronged waiting-room by his British adviser, the tall and handsome Kinahan Cornwallis, whom she was beginning to regard as “a tower of strength.” Faisal spent his days in meeting people from all corners of the country, and his evenings attending or hosting dinners, entertaining as many as fifty guests at a time. The important Jewish community honoured the Amir with a large reception in the Grand Rabbi’s official house. Many of them had had reservations about an Arab king, but were reassured that night as Faisal rose to his feet and extemporized, delivering a marvellous speech in which he told them warmly that they were of one race with the Arabs. He thanked them for their gifts, a beautifully bound Talmud and a gold facsimile of the Tablets of the Law. Gertrude commented: “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!”

  And then came the celebrations at Ramadi. If Faisal’s coronation, to be held in Baghdad some weeks later, was a formal European ceremony, Ramadi was the Bedouin equivalent, a tribal gathering in his honour, and the culmination of the gains of the Arab fight for independence. For Gertrude, too, it was the culmination of her long fight for the Arabs, the sensational climax of tribal joy and triumph; and an occasion on which she, though not the only Briton present, took the prime place amongst them as she stood on the dais beside Faisal, Ali Sulaiman, the powerful pro-British Sheikh of the Dulaim, and her great friend Fahad Beg of the Anazeh.

  For three weeks, temperatures had been over 115 degrees. Ramadi was seventy miles away, on the Euphrates. Gertrude and her chauffeur had to leave at 4 a.m. Just before the halfway mark, Fallujah, she saw the rising cloud of dust that signalled Faisal’s cavalcade just ahead. Drawing level with his car, she asked permission to drive on so that she might photograph his arrival there. A few miles before Fallujah they came to the tents of the Dulaim, and from that point on, the road was lined with tribesmen roaring their salute and waving their rifles above their heads, kicking up a fog of dust like drifting cliffs on either side. As Faisal’s car drew ahead of them they wheeled away and galloped on, to form a continuous wild cavalcade alongside the car. Thus they escorted him into Fallujah, where they found every house decorated and the population crowded out into the streets and on the rooftops.