A Woman in Arabia (4 page)
Authors: Gertrude Bell
October | Cox signs treaty with Ibn Saud defining boundaries to limit his military incursions into Iraq |
November | GLB arranges visit of Ibn Saud to Basra |
Hashemite emir Hussein, Sharif of Mecca, proclaimed king of the Hejaz | |
December | Lloyd George becomes Prime Minister of Britain |
1917 JanuaryâMarch | GLB continues in Basra as Oriental secretary to the civil administration of Cox, as well as head of the Arab Bureau (Iraq) |
January | In western Arabia, Emir Faisal with Lawrence starts march of Arab army northward |
March | Turkish army vacates Baghdad; British occupy |
April | President Wilson asks U.S. Congress to declare war on Germany; American troops engaged in France |
GLB moves to Baghdad after nine-day journey up the Tigris | |
May | GLB occupies her permanent home in Baghdad |
Cossack troops commit atrocities in northern Mesopotamia | |
June | Lawrence takes Aqaba with Arab irregulars |
Maurice invalided out of active service permanently deafened | |
July | Cox appointed civil commissioner of Mesopotamia reporting to the secretary of state for India in |
August | British defeat Turkish army in Gaza |
October | Bolsheviks take control of the Russian Revolution |
British Cabinet approves Balfour Declaration favoring Palestine as a national home for the Jews (announced November 2) | |
GLB awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) | |
Suffering from exhaustion, GLB admitted to convalescent hospital | |
Appointed editor of newspaper | |
December | British take Jerusalem |
1918 January | President Wilson makes his “fourteen points” speech outlining his principles for world peace including a “general association of nations” |
March | Russia makes peace with Germany; Allied troops fight Red Army in Russia; GLB awarded Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society |
May | GLB starts Tuesday soirees for wives of prominent Arabs |
July | Holidays on horseback in Persian mountains |
Women over 30 gain the vote in Britain if they were either a member of or married to a member of the Local Government Register, were a property owner, or were a graduate voting in a university constituency | |
September | GLB arranges durbar of sheikhs in Iraq |
Cox posted to Tehran; provisionally replaced by Sir Arnold Wilson as acting civil commissioner; GLB's role restricted | |
Lady Florence made Dame Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (DCIE) for her work for the Red Cross; Sir Hugh awarded Companion of the Order of the Bath | |
October | Emir Faisal's army takes Damascus with Lawrence; Turks fight last battle at Sharqat, then withdraw; Turks sign Mudros Armistice, end of Ottoman Empire |
November | Allies sign armistice with Germany; First World War ends |
December | Influenza pandemic reaches Baghdad |
1919 Februaryâ | GLB prepares a paper for the Paris Peace Conference |
March | on the future of Mesopotamia, attending the conference in March |
AprilâMay | GLB tours France and visits Algiers with Sir Hugh; returns to Peace Conference until A. T. Wilson arrives |
MayâSeptember | GLB in England |
June | Germany signs Treaty of Versailles accepting peace conditions; Covenant of the League of Nations signed by 44 nations on the 28th |
September | GLB visits Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, Beirut, and Aleppo |
President Wilson collapses while campaigning for the United States to join the League of Nations | |
October | President Wilson suffers massive stroke on the 2nd, leaving him permanently incapacitated |
November | U.S. Senate fails to ratify the Treaty of Versailles on the 19 |
GLB returns to Baghdad; starts writing | |
GLB's maid, Marie Delaire, joins her permanently in Baghdad | |
1920 January | Sir Frank Lascelles dies on the 2nd |
Arab Bureau in Cairo winds down | |
GLB takes archaeological trip to the site of Babylon | |
February | GLB organizes funding for a women's hospital in Baghdad |
March | Emir Faisal elected and crowned king of Syria |
MarchâApril | Sir Hugh visits Baghdad |
April | San Remo Conference agrees to terms of British mandate over Iraq while instituting self-government |
GLB to compile annual reports on the state of Iraq required by the League of Nations | |
June | Cox makes official visit to Baghdad |
July | French occupy Damascus; King Faisal deposed |
August | Treaty of Sevres between Allies and Turkey confirms terms for end of hostilities |
October | Cox returns to Baghdad as high commissioner to Iraq |
The naqib of Baghdad agrees to form a provisional Arab government and selects cabinet members | |
A. T. Wilson leaves public service | |
GLB prepares fortnightly reports to the Colonial Office on the progress of the administration in Iraq | |
November | GLB resumes duties as Oriental secretary |
First meeting of Iraqi Council of State; future meetings frequently held at GLB's house | |
December | Publication of |
1921 February | Churchill appointed secretary of state for the colonies (including responsibility for the Middle East) |
March | GLB attends Churchill's Cairo Conference |
Holidays in Egypt with Sir Hugh; returns to Baghdad | |
June | Faisal arrives in Basra; he greets GLB upon his arrival in Baghdad |
GLB elected president of new Baghdad Public Library | |
Ibn Saud takes Hayyil; Rashid dynasty ends; Shammar tribesmen flee into Iraq | |
Three-month British miners' strike hits steel industry | |
July | GLB announces result of Iraq referendum; naqib declares Faisal king-elect on behalf of Iraqi Council of State |
August | Faisal ibn Hussein ibn Ali crowned Faisal I of lraq |
September | King invites the naqib to form a cabinet |
November | GLB's half-brother Hugo marries Frances Morkill |
1922 AprilâMay | Iraq's Constituent Assembly passes electoral law |
Sir Hugh joins GLB for break in Jerusalem | |
July | GLB drafts antiquities law for Iraq |
August | Bell finances diminish during international economic recession |
October | Aiming to comply with the terms of the mandate, Cox and the naqib as prime minister sign a Treaty of Alliance between Iraq and Great Britain giving 20 years of British occupation in advisory capacity |
Faisal proclaims Treaty of Alliance on the 13th | |
November | Allies and Turkey sign peace treaty officially ending war with Turkey |
Macmillan Company donates books to Baghdad Public Library | |
Lloyd George's wartime coalition government collapses; Bonar Law's Conservatives win election; Churchill is replaced by the Duke of Devonshire with responsibility for Middle East | |
GLB's brother-in-law Charles Trevelyan elected member of Parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne | |
Faisal, with Iraq Cabinet approval, appoints GLB honorary director of antiquities for Iraq | |
Air Marshal Sir John Salmond takes command of British forces in Iraq; RAF tasked with controlling tribal dissension | |
December | Sir Henry Dobbs arrives as prospective high commissioner, in charge while Cox visits London |
GLB asked to continue as Oriental secretary | |
Cox signs treaties with Ibn Saud | |
1923 April | Cox signs treaty reducing British advisory occupation of Iraq to four years |
Cox retires, leaves Iraq | |
May | Transjordan declared independent under Faisal's elder brother Emir Abdullah by treaty with Britain, later to be the Kingdom of Jordan |
July | League of Nations ratifies Turkish Peace Treaty at Conference of Lausanne |
Constituent Assembly passes the draft constitution of Iraq (signed as the Organic Law by Faisal in March 1925) | |
JulyâAugust | GLB travels to England via Haifa, stays with Sir Herbert Samuel, high commissioner for Palestine |
John Singer Sargent draws a portrait of GLB | |
GLB corresponds with Lawrence on publication of | |
September | GLB amends her will, leaving £6,000 ($478,000 RPI adjusted) to the British Museum for a British School of Archaeology in Iraq |
October | GLB founds the Iraq Museum |
1924 January | Ramsay MacDonald forms first Labour government in coalition with Liberals; Charles Trevelyan in Cabinet as president of Board of Education |
February | First national elections in Iraq |
March | King Faisal opens Iraq National Assembly |
King Hussein of the Hejaz proclaims himself caliph of Islam following abolition of the title by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, but without pan-Islamic acclamation | |
Dorman Long wins contract to prepare final design and supply nearly 50,000 tons of steel components for the Sydney Harbour Bridge; Hugh Bell as director | |
September | Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of Alliance accepted by League of Nations as meeting the League's covenant |
Ibn Saud's Wahhabis raid the Hashemite summer palace of Taif in the Hejaz; townspeople massacred | |
October | Mecca falls to Ibn Saud; King Hussein of the Hejaz abdicates in favor of his son Ali |
December | Faisal ratifies the Treaty of Alliance following its approval by George V in November |
1925 January | GLB prepares briefs and translates for the League of Nations Commission of Inquiry investigating the unresolved Iraq-Turkey frontier |