Page 189 - Life of Gertrude Bell

ORIENTAL SECRETARY 171
to returning to Cairo, to that intellectual elite of the Grand
Continental Hotel which she found so congenial. She does not
seem to have needed too much persuasion, however.
Two letters of the time exemplify the argument that was going
on between Cairo, London and India. On November 3rd, 1915
Aubrey Herbert, back in London from his visit to Basra, wrote
to Clayton in Cairo: ‘My dear Colonel, I got back here four days
ago ...I have seen Eric Drummond, Nicolson and George
Clarke ... Also Gabriel and Fitz. Lord Lansdowne has told me to
see him. Tomorrow I hope to sec Grey ... FO have got pretty
cold feet... They trust Egypt with the running of the Arabian
Question. They realise that Arabia ought to fall under Egypt and
not under the India Office ... One of the difficulties lies with the
Government of India, as you know ...’ Herbert ended his note
with a colourful observation: ‘There is one tiling I ought to tell
you about the FO. They have been pretty hard taskmasters in the
past and unjust to their servants ... Now, however, after this
muddle, they are ready to give a much freer hand in many parts.’
On November 28th, 1915 Lord Hardinge had written to
Wingate, following a note he had received on the ‘second mission’
of Arab Bureau officers to the Sharif on November 1st:
My dear General. The principal objection which I have to the
memorandum is contained in the translation of a note on the
boundaries, where the limits of the proposed Arab state are on
the east to be the Persian frontier to the Gulf of Basra, and
thence to the Indian Ocean. This means the surrender of all the
advantages for which India has been fighting in Mesopotamia
during the past year and the creation of an Arab state lying
aside our interests in the Persian Gulf, which would mean
commercial ruin for many of our undertakings, and probably
chaos in those provinces. Moreover, what appears not to have
been realised is that two thirds of the population in Baghdad
and Basra are Shias, and the Shia holy places of Karbala and
Nejef are in the province of Baghdad and have no connection
whatever with Mecca or the Sharif thereof.
After dealing with the religious aspects of the matter, Lord
Hardinge, in one of the most revealing and sensible letters in this
long-drawn-out dispute, went on to say that Wingate and his
colleagues could try to help the Sharif if they wanted to, but that
India should not be asked to make sacrifices for Arabs who ‘have