Desert Queen (52 page)

Then came her inescapable conclusion: “An Arab State in Mesopotamia … within a short period of years is a possibility, and …the recognition or creation of a logical scheme of government on these lines, in supercession of those on which we are now working on Mesopotamia, would be practical and popular.”

T
he report threw Wilson into a rage. And it hardly pleased most of her other colleagues in Baghdad. Britain’s commercial interest in Mesopotamia was long and deep, emmeshed in a marketplace that imported nearly half its goods—including coal and iron, textiles and manufactured goods—from British supplies, and provided Britain with some thirty-five percent of its exports, including dates, figs, olive oil and grain. In addition, Britain’s navy and its newly emerging air force needed to find substantial sources of oil. Unlike the United States, which was already producing 376 million barrels a year, England had no oil of its own; to retain her independence, she had to develop her own fields.

The same month that Gertrude called for self-rule in Mesopotamia, the General Staff in Baghdad issued a memorandum stating Mesopotamia’s critical importance to the British Empire: “The future power of the world is oil,” they wrote. “The oil fields of southern Persia, now under British control, are the most inexhaustible ‘proved’ fields in the world. The Mosul province and the banks of the mid-Euphrates promise to afford oil in great quantities, although the extent of the fields is not yet proved.… With a railway and pipeline in the Mediterranean, which is forecast within the next ten years, the position of England as a naval power in the Mediterranean could be doubly assured, and our dependence on the Suez canal, which is a vulnerable point in our line of communication with the East, would be considerably lessened.”

A. T. Wilson was well aware of the value of oil; he would not take the risk of losing Mesopotamia. When Gertrude’s report reached his desk, he seethed with anger. Writing a cover letter to Whitehall that said, politely, “I have the honour to enclose herewith an interesting and valuable note by Miss G. L. Bell CBE, entitled ‘Syria in 1919,’ ” Wilson went on to include a few of his own observations to London:

“The fundamental assumption throughout this note and, I should add, throughout recent correspondence which has reached me from London, is that an Arab State in Mesopotamia and elsewhere within a short period of years is a possibility, and that the recognition and creation of a logical scheme of Government along these lines …would be practicable and popular; in other words the assumption is that the Anglo-French Declaration of November 18th, 1918, represents a practical line of policy to pursue in the near future. My observations in this country and elsewhere have forced me to the conclusion that this assumption is erroneous.”

The dispute was irreparable; the bridge that Gertrude and Wilson had built between them was shattered.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
FOUR

Desert Storms

S
hunned by most of the British staff, who were vehemently opposed to her Syrian report, Gertrude could at least take solace in the Arabs who flocked to her office seeking advice. Umm al Muminin, they called her, the Mother of the Faithful. “The last person who bore that name was Ayishah, the wife of the Prophet,” she wrote proudly to Hugh. But by December 1919, all sorts of problems were cropping up. Small personal matters, like her need for household supplies: sheets, blankets, pillowcases and towels, and damask cloths for her new dining room table. And oh, the high cost of living since the end of the war! Meat was very expensive, eggs less, but as a civilian no longer receiving army rations, she had suddenly come face to face with the price of food. She was paying her cook a hundred and eight pounds a year, her butler eighty-four pounds, and he was due for a raise. Even Harrods had sent her a bill for four pounds, but she’d paid it “somehow!” she swore.

She felt saddened too over the sudden death of her generous landlord, Musa Pachachi. He was one of Baghdad’s most prominent families and along with the Naqib, had been her earliest Baghdad friend. “It wasn’t only unvarying affectionate kindness I got from him,” she explained to her father, “but a very frank and valuable appreciation of politics. He was fearless and outspoken, had no axe to grind and I could go to him for information and advice as I could go to no one else. I do grieve for him—Baghdad isn’t the same place without him.”

His wise political counsel might have saved her heartache over the difficult issues arising in the north. But he was gone, and the tribes along the Euphrates were becoming of some concern. There were signs that a major uprising was about to begin. An Arab force had seized Dair al Zor, a Euphrates town four hundred miles north of Baghdad, where the border with Syria was still undefined. The local tribes were caught up in the Syrian nationalist movement. A question had arisen over who would administer the territory: a British Political Officer from Mesopotamia or a representative of the Arab Government in Syria. When it was rumored that an Arab force was moving down to attack the area, the British Political Officer in Dair rushed to the scene to make a recconaissance. Finding no trace of any unusual movement, the Political Officer tried to return to his post, but on the way back he was ambushed and fired at by tribesmen. Only with difficulty did he reach Dair.

Still not suspecting serious trouble, but just to be safe, he alerted Baghdad and arrested the Mayor of Dair (who he thought had been conniving with the agitators). Early the following morning, a force of tribesmen marched in from the south, joined the townsmen and ransacked Dair: they raided the hospital, the church, the mosques and the Political Office, where they broke open the safe and stole the contents. They blew up the oil dump, wounding ninety people, released all the prisoners in the jail and attacked the British army barracks. When the Political Officer tried to make peace in the town, the sheikhs attacked him in a fury. Just as they were about to kill him, two British airplanes flew overhead, spraying the town with machine-gun fire. “The sheikhs changed their note at once,” Gertrude reported. Minutes after the airplanes left, the notables signed an armistice with the British. But it was only a temporary truce.

That afternoon, Ramadhan al Shallash, a leader of Mesopotamian origin and a member of al Ahd al Iraqi, the nationalist group, arrived from Damascus. He promised the British officers safe passage, but then, changing his mind, kept them hostage. He quickly established himself in authority, called in the local sheikhs from the region around the Euphrates, gave them generous payments and incited them to rebel against the British. He even encouraged them to carry the war to India. Fortunately, a few of the sheikhs, including Fahad Bey, the Paramount Chief of the Anazeh, remained loyal to the British. For two weeks the situation in Dair remained extremely tense. In Baghdad the mood was hardly better. Gertrude and Wilson were sliding farther apart. He ignored her in the mess and belittled her in front of colleagues. In a letter to a friend, Wilson wrote, “I am having some trouble with Miss Bell. On political questions, she is rather fanatic.” At about the same time, on December 20, Gertrude wrote home: “Rather a trying week, for A. T. has been overworked—a chronic state—and in a condition when he ought not to be working, which results in making him savagely cross and all our lives rather a burden in consequence.”

Things seemed to improve, briefly. Faisal’s government in Syria protested strongly against the mutinous Arab takeover in Dair, and the British authorities were released on December 25. That same evening, Wilson was giving a Christmas party for all the Political Officers and their wives. Prepared to shiver from the cold, Gertrude dressed in her evening gown and set off for the dinner. But the sight of her colleagues only irked her. “To judge from appearances most of them have two wives,” she bridled, “and I wish I could get their names and faces by heart.” When the music started and the guests got up to dance, she said her good nights and left. “I dance no longer,” she explained.

I
nstead, she caught a special train the next morning to celebrate the New Year in Babylon. Away for a week, she sailed by motor launch down the Euphrates to Shamiyeh, where the sheikhs were seething with anger over the taxes the British were forcing them to pay. Then it was on to the holy city of Najaf, where she listened carefully for unsaid words of
jihad
. With the tribes rebellious in the north, she had to assess how far the trouble was spreading, how great the threat of holy war.

The visit gave her a new perspective. Having seen the sheikhs and other notables, her ideas had crystallized. She sent a note to her father when she returned to Baghdad: “I have written to Edwin Montagu [Secretary of State for India] an immense letter about the sort of government we ought to set up here and even sent him the rough draft of a constitution.… I’ve done my best both to find out what should be done and to lay it before him. The rest is, as we say,
alla Allah
, on God. I sometimes feel that it’s the only thing I really care for, to see this country go right.”

Gertrude’s private correspondence with Montagu and others infuriated A. T. Wilson. Not only was she advising Whitehall to form an Arab government, blatantly contradicting him; she was writing to friends in high places, undermining his authority. Unsaid, but far worse, she was indisputably a woman. A woman! An interfering, emasculating woman. Officially, Wilson was her chief, and the rigid officer of the India Service seethed at her gall. He sent off a letter to Cox, suggesting she be fired.

T
he return mail carried sad news. Her favorite uncle, Frank Lascelles, her host in Bucharest and Persia, who had introduced her to Domnul Chirol, Lord Hardinge, Henry Cadogan and so many others, and who had opened her eyes to the East, was dead. “I do grieve so much,” she wrote to Florence in January 1920. “When I remember how much I owed him, how many delightful experiences and how much sympathy, my heart aches with the thought that I didn’t give him enough in return.”