Page 256 - Gertrude Bell (H.V.F.Winstone)_Neat

232 GERTRUDE BELL

political opinion. He has done his best to ingratiate himself with
the Shias and Nationalists but few have confidence in him and
none trust his intentions.’ The newspaper Istiqlal, ‘Independent’,
was meanwhile propagating the cause of Faisal or alternatively of
his brother Abdullah. ‘Sayid Talib now urges its suppression on
the grounds of Bolshevik and Kcmalist tendencies, but he was
anxious that the order should come from anyone but the Ministry
of the Interior.’
For five years her weekly reports were to summarise the course
of events in the country in remarkable detail, and they were fitted
in between countless other tasks. She resumed her old position of
Oriental Secretary which, though it had not, like the Iraq branch
of the Arab Bureau, been abolished by Wilson, had become
no tiling more than a formal title. Together with Philby she went
energetically about the arrangements for a Provisional Assembly
and the setting up of an Arab Government with British advisers,
and for the time being they worked in close harmony. On January
3rd, 1921 she wrote: ‘I really think you might search over history
from end to end without finding poorer masters of it than Lloyd
.
George and Winston Churchill.’
According to Churchill, his first step on taking over the
Colonial Office was to summon the Cairo Conference. That is not
quite true. On January 8th, 1921 the Council of State met in
Baghdad under its President the Naqib. The chief ministers were
Sayid Talib, Interior; Sasun Effendi Haskail, Finance; Sayid
Mustafa Effendi Alusi, Justice; Izzat Pasha, Education. Their
British counterparts were Philby, Interior; Sir Edgar Bonham
Carter, Justice; General Atkinson, Commerce; Colonel Slater,
Finance. They discussed plans for an election. Outside, the walls
of Baghdad were decorated with the graffiti of the people.
‘Woe betide you O Ministers-rotten O prisoners.’
‘Does your conscience not trouble you?’
‘O you Muhammadan Indian military brethren who are ignor­
ant of the events of the world’-written in Urdu.
cO countrymen Muhammadan and Hindu warrior brethren ...
You know that all the pomp and power of the British is due
to India ... They have treated you like beasts in Transvaal,
Egypt, Persia, Afghanistan, China
Gertrude wrote to her father: ‘Shortly
On January 10th, 1921
after I got to the office this morning, Sir Percy sent me a note
i