Page 119 - Life of Gertrude Bell

ASIA MINOR 105
At the end of July she was in Constantinople once more,
writing first to her father. ‘Beloved father. I arrived last night-
with Fattuhl The tale of bringing him here amounts to an epic ...
I shall have to be a few days here ... I can’t leave Fattuh all alone
here till I am satisfied that he is out of the wood.’ The ambassador
Sir Nicholas O’Conor placed the embassy yacht Imogen at her
disposal and her next letter was written to her stepmother while
cruising in the Bosporus. In it she said she was having a fine time
and had met Ferid Pasha, the Grand Vizier. ‘He is a very great
man, and I strongly suspect that he will play a large part in Turkey,
very possibly mould Turkish history at some time or another.
Moreover he was kinder to me than words can say ... ’ As she
wrote those words the exiled Young Turks were gathered in
secret enclaves in Macedonia, Paris and Switzerland; within a year
the Sultan Abdul Hamid II and his ministers were to become the
victims of a palace revolution and the Turkish Empire was to find
a new master, Mehemet V. Gertrude added: ‘Fattuh is rapidly
recovering, and I very much hope that he’ll be out of hospital by
the time I leave.’
By early August she was on her way back to Britain. ‘I expect
I shall be back in London about the 7th or 8th and I should be
most grateful if Marie [her maid] could be sent up to meet me
there. I shall have to stay a day or two to get some clothes.’
Among the first visitors when she got back to Sloane Street was
Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary in the Campbell-Bannerman
administration and shortly to join Asquith in the new Liberal
government. There would probably have been a post in the
government for Gertrude’s father but his political ambitions
seemed condemned to failure despite his being offered good
constituencies.
Gertrude wrote to Chirol following Grey’s visit, discussing
the possibility of an election and its likely outcome. She noted
the rising power of Labour and thought it no bad thing.