Page 225 - Life of Gertrude Bell

THE MANDATE 207
In August 1918, Wilson had received a letter from Hirtzel of
the India Office congratulating him on his appointment as Acting
Civil Commissioner, and lie was somewhat surprised to find in it
a reference to ‘a letter from Miss Gertrude Bell which contains a
flaming testimonial to your qualities and to the success of your
administration ...’ It was the first intimation to Wilson that his
assistant was in touch with Whitehall on matters of government.
Their relationship remained tenable, if occasionally strained,
however. Meals in No. 1 Mess at the Political Office in Baghdad
were memorable events for many visitors at this time. Bertram
Thomas recalled the gatherings there of the ‘good and the great’,
who made the mess their home, with AT, as Wilson was always
called, taking the principal guests for a walk before dinner and
conferring on them a monologue on some chosen topic which
gave the impression that he had ‘swotted’ his subject ‘in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica’ before they arrived. Meals with the
brilliant chief and Miss Bell were much looked forward to by
visitors of the period.
In February 1919 Wilson sent to the India Office via the Foreign
Department at Delhi a memorandum by Gertrude entitled Self-
Determination in Mesopotamia, together with a note on the views of
the Naquib of Baghdad, an important figure in the community
though aged and representative of the Sunni minority. It was a
closely reasoned document and it showed that at this stage her
views and Wilson’s, though he expressed reservations in his
covering note to the Foreign Department, were far from being
irreconcilable. ‘The publication of the Anglo-French declaration,’
she wrote, ‘whatever may have been its political significance else­
where, was at best a regrettable necessity in the Iraq.’ She went on:

Previous to its appearance the people of Mesopotamia, having
witnessed the successful termination of the war, had taken it for
granted that the country would remain under British control
and were as a whole content to accept the decision of arms. The
declaration opened up other possibilities which were regarded
almost universally with anxiety, but gave opportunity for
political intrigue to the less stable and more fanatical elements...
its publication occurred very shortly after the return to Baghdad
under the terms of the Armistice of a number of persons un­
desirable in the interests of public tranquillity. Men of Arab race
who had been in Turkish Civil or Military employment and had