Gertrude Bell (64 page)

I dined with the King . . . After dinner we sat on the balcony overlooking the river and Faisal unburdened his heart. It arose out of my urging him to bring out his wife and children. He said he felt so uncertain of the future . . . he didn't know whether the British Government would not insist on terms in the future treaty which he felt he could not accept.

It was Cox's idea that London might accept a treaty in place of the mandate. The League of Nations would have to be satisfied that Britain would still meet its obligations to the fledgling nation; Iraq would have to be satisfied that the relationship with Britain would be one of equals, leading to self-government without British guidance, and with its own Iraqi army.

Work began on the tortuous negotiations. To draft the detail, the Colonial Office sent one Hubert Young. He led a team including Cornwallis, acting for Faisal; the Iraqi Cabinet's judicial adviser, Edward Drower; and Nigel Davidson, the legal secretary to the High Commissioner. An “instrument of alliance” would be added, spelling out how the two countries would work together, and they would move on to draft the Organic Law, or constitution. An electoral law would follow.

London demanded adherence to the mandate as a condition of the treaty. Faisal insisted that the treaty must stand alone, and the Iraqi Prime Minister said that he would refuse to acknowledge it if it did not. But Faisal had a wider agenda. He hoped that his rejection of the British mandate would lead the Syrians to reject theirs, and his mission was still to demonstrate to the world the viability of a Muslim sovereign state.

In and out of the palace every day, Gertrude found Faisal increasingly difficult to deal with. Intransigent, manipulative, even devious, he
condoned anti-mandate propaganda in the Hillah division almost to the point of rebellion. When the British sought the arrest of a certain sheikh who had murdered a British officer, he accused them of being his enemies. He told the press that no Arab noble should be asked to take orders from a foreigner. Each time his ministers agreed on the wording for the treaty, he found a new fault with it. Each time Cox sent a fresh version to Whitehall for approval, he would discover local opposition to it.

Gertrude was at her wits' end, Cox and Cornwallis hardly less so. Faisal was risking the loyalty of the moderate sheikhs and ministers who had given him their support; he was inviting the resignation of the British civil servants and advisers who kept his government working; and he was tempting Whitehall to abandon Iraq altogether. Relying on the affection that she knew the King had for her, she resolved to make a last personal appeal to him. As she wrote later, she would take advantage of

the emotional atmosphere of which he, with his acute perceptions, was fully conscious. For I was playing my last card, and I told him so. I began by asking whether he believed in my personal sincerity and devotion to him. He said he could not doubt it . . . I said in that case I could speak with perfect freedom and that I was extremely unhappy. I had formed a beautiful and gracious snow image to which I had given allegiance and I saw it melting before my eyes. Before every noble outline had been obliterated, I preferred to go; in spite of my love for the Arab nation and my sense of responsibility for the future, I did not think I could see the evaporation of the dream . . . I saw him, whom I had believed to be moved only by the highest principles, a victim to every form of malicious rumour . . . I would not wait until the villains in whom he put his trust inevitably blackened me in his eyes.

On this theme we had a terrific discussion—during which he kissed my hand at intervals, which is very disconcerting! . . . I'm still
sous le coup
of this interview. Faisal is one of the most lovable of human beings but he is amazingly lacking in strength of character . . . I've left him tonight convinced that my one desire is to serve him; tomorrow he will be full of doubts.

A few days later, she heard that the King had already changed his mind on one of the issues they had discussed. Sadly, she resigned herself to what she took to be Faisal's fluctuating loyalties. There would be more
and worse disagreements, but, like Cornwallis, she was in thrall to Faisal: she could never resign. The King worked his magic over both of them. He constantly demanded her company, listened calmly to her remonstrances, kissed her hand—and remained obdurate. She wrote:

Safwat Pasha [the King's old tutor] begged me to drop in to the palace as often as I could, as it was clear that I was the only person here who really loved the King or whom the King really loved. That does scant justice to Mr. Cornwallis who has given up his whole career for him . . . but Safwat held to it that I was different, and perhaps the King does hold my hand more, though he embraces Mr. Cornwallis oftener—we compare notes.

You can do nothing with Faisal unless he feels certain that he has your devoted affection. He has ours.

For once in her life, Gertrude had met her match.

The British gave way repeatedly over the terms of the treaty; but the sticking point remained the mandate. Gertrude summed up: “The Treaty is in
statu quo ante
. Sir Percy has sent an admirable telegram home strongly advising Mr. Churchill to give way.”

But Churchill refused to compromise. He demanded that Cox and Faisal come to London, where they knew he would confront them with an ultimatum. “My heart died within me.”

The battle was within a hair's breadth of being lost. Faisal would refuse to sign, and Iraq as she knew it would cease to exist. Cox, taking strength from the fact that he was close to retirement, now used his personal authority. He saw no advantage to be gained, he replied to Churchill, from their coming to London. He proposed publishing the treaty in Iraq as agreed with the King, adding a rider that the mandate was the only point of difference. The King could then show his people that he had fought for the best terms possible. “But will our government accept this suggestion?” Gertrude wondered. “That's what we want to know, for being all away grouse shooting we can get no answer to any telegrams.”

It was August 1922 and the anniversary of the coronation, preceded for Gertrude by a week of parties and celebrations. There was a day spent at
the King's cotton farm riding through the fields with Faisal and his party, followed by the mounted ADCs and a cavalcade of bodyguards; then in the evening they played bridge. She had organized an entertainment for the King in return, a riverside picnic on the shady banks of the Tigris: “We roasted great fishes on spits over a fire of palm fronds—the most delicious food in the world—I brought carpets and cushions and hung old Baghdad lanterns in the tamarisk bushes . . . in the rosy stillness of the sunset. ‘This is peace' said the King.”

Then came the reception at Faisal's Baghdad palace, the Residency party arriving together in two cars. Gertrude wore cream lace pinned with miniature orders that she was wearing for the first time, and two diamond tiaras—the Bell heirloom in her hair and the other around her neck as a sparkling choker. This last had been sent to her by Florence: “I opened a parcel in the office . . . and out of it rolled a large tiara. I nearly laughed aloud—it was such an unexpected object in the middle of office files. It's too kind of you to let me have it—I had forgotten how fine it is. I fear in wearing it I may be taken for the crowned Queen of Mesopotamia.”

At the palace, they joined a procession of three or four hundred people climbing the steps to the entrance. When they reached the stairs, there were indistinct shouts, and then a storm of clapping from the crowd. At first she thought they were applauding Cox, but everyone was perplexed. “As soon as we were back in the office the High Commissioner told me to get on to it at once . . . within an hour I had the information. It was a demonstration on the part of two extremist political parties.”

The dissidents were gathering power, and with Faisal refusing to allow any action to be taken against them unless the mandate was quashed, the entire Cabinet had resigned. The Naqib was left in solitary and ineffectual charge as the anti-mandate insurrection spread. But now fate took a hand, and provided Cox with the opportunity to break the impasse. The King developed appendicitis.

In agreeing to surgery, Faisal also, somewhat oddly, let it be known that he had no objection to any number of observers being present to watch the operation. A great number of notables and sheikhs took him up on the offer, and crowded the observation chamber. Meanwhile Cox—with no King and no Cabinet—took brief but sweeping control of
the country. He made good use of it. He had seven leaders of the Baghdad insurrection arrested—the rest escaped dressed as women—rounded up the agitators from the regions, and shut down two dissident newspapers as well as the two extremist political parties. Gertrude wrote on the twenty-seventh:

For once Providence has behaved like a gentleman . . . the King['s] illness was beyond words fortunate . . . Sir Percy has saved the situation and has given the King a loop-hole through which he can walk when he is able to walk. By that time—his convalescence if necessary can be prolonged—we shall have got a clear line from home . . . the moderates are lifting their heads sky high . . . and in the provinces the extremists will have to build an ark if they want to escape from the political flood.

Any number of witnesses could testify that Faisal was unconscious while Cox set his initiatives under way. For quite a few days after the operation no one was allowed to see him. Cornwallis was the first to inform him of what had happened. When Cox and Gertrude visited him, his relief was visible, and he was fulsome in his appreciation of Cox's actions. He said: “You have spared me the blame.” The High Commissioner then took the treaty to the Naqib at his home, put a pen in his hand, and asked him to sign it. A flustered Naqib demanded that parts of the English version be read to him in Arabic, to make sure that both versions matched, and then he signed. It was 10 October 1922.

Three days later, Faisal proclaimed the treaty in a ringing speech that looked forward to “the continuance of the friendship of our illustrious ally, Great Britain, and to carrying out the elections for the convening of a Constituent Assembly to frame the Organic Law.” Ratifications would need to follow, but the game was over. It was also the second step towards membership in the League of Nations as an independent country.

Faisal had told Gertrude that after the debacle in Damascus in 1920, he had been cautious about bringing his wife and children with him to Iraq. Now, in 1924, settled into his two palaces and with the Hejaz suffering increasing aggression from Ibn Saud, he began to bring his family to
Baghdad, beginning with his favourite and youngest brother, Zaid. He had fought with Faisal in the Revolt, and was to be of great value in Kurdistan; he would leave for a year's study at Balliol College, Oxford, later in the year. After Zaid came the King's only son, the twelve-year-old Amir Ghazi, small for his age, accompanied by his slaves and with a shy dignity that went straight to Gertrude's heart. She felt that he had been neglected, in a household of slaves and unlettered women. He could barely read and write Arabic; he needed good tutors and the company of men. But before she began on his entourage, she was required to help choose his clothes. The King now wore European dress most of the time, and wanted his son to do the same. She told her parents:

I was called up to the palace to help to choose Ghazi's clothes. There was an English tailor from Bombay with patterns. So we chose his little shirts and suits, the tailor behaving like a tailor in Thackeray. He skipped about, pointed his toe and handed me patterns with one hand on his heart. Ghazi came in to be measured, half shy and half pleased.

Following the young Amir came his mother, the Queen, with Ghazi's three sisters, to live in the country villa at Harithya. In accordance with family tradition, Faisal had married his first cousin, the Amira Hussaina, who lived strictly in purdah with her daughters: the youngest had been an invalid from birth, and was never seen. When Gertrude had talked to Faisal about his wife earlier, he had prevaricated. “I asked him about his wife . . . and said I thought she too ought to be encouraged to make a position and a court. He was rather shy about her—they always are embarrassed about their women, thinking that they are too ignorant to be presentable, but he agreed that we must make a beginning.”

The fact that the Queen lived in seclusion would make the notion of a Western-style court impossible. Male visitors were entertained at dinners and receptions hosted by Faisal alone in the Baghdad palace, after which he would drive to Harithya to spend the night with his family. Gertrude was one of the first to be received by the Queen, who spoke only Arabic, although she understood a little English and French:

She's charming, I'm so happy to say. She has the delicate, sensitive Hashimi face and the same winning manner that he has. She had on a very nice,
long tunicked brown gown . . . a long long string of pearls, and a splendid aquamarine pendant. I saw the two eldest girls who are just like her, rather shy but eager to be outgoing.

As soon as Faisal's family was settled in Baghdad, Gertrude had the enormous fun of court-making. First, there were clothes to be made, tunics and gowns suitable for a queen and her all-female receptions and tea parties. Out of doors, the royal women and their suites wore the traditional black silk veil, but when they visited the houses of their women friends or relations, the veils would be left with a maid at the door. Gertrude recommended the dressmaker-nuns who had made her own clothes before she had Marie to sew them, and brought the sisters to the palace to introduce them. Later, Elsa and Molly would be dispatched to the London shops to buy suitable Western-style clothes (only ever to be seen in private) for the royal women: “The King sent for me on Monday,” Gertrude wrote home, “to discuss what arrangements should be made about the Queen's household. I was very glad he consulted me for there were some terrible pitfalls ahead . . . So I'm busy!”