Page 245 - Life of Gertrude Bell

THE MANDATE 225
to say the least, imprudent of him to prefer [her] private mis­
calculations to the measured misgivings ... of her official superior*.
Gertrude was by now an unashamed Sharifian. On July ioth
she wrote to Lawrence: ‘Beloved Boy, I’ve been reading with
amusement your articles in the papers; what curious organs you
choose for self expression! However, whatever the organs I’m
largely in agreement with what you say. I have for some time past
been bringing up very forcibly the contention that the argument
to the effect that we can’t put up an Arab Government here before
signing the peace with Turkey is quite obvious nonsense. I took
the example of Syria; Palestine is even better but we hadn’t
appointed a King of the Jews when I first began the campaign
here. We’ve paid for our failure to make good our promises ...
If you knew what an infernal time I’ve had here! however I
suppose I shall tell you some day ... ’
Then she admonished Lawrence for his remarks in the Press on
Ibn Saud. ‘Now about your treatment of the Ibn Saud question.
It’s all very well for you to talk as if the protection of the Hijaz
against Ibn Saud were an easy matter. It isn’t. I repeat what I told
you in Paris that I.S. is much the stronger of the two. It is only
the fact that he has acted in accordance with our wishes which has I
prevented him from gobbling up the Hijaz any time during the
past twelve months ... ’
Whitehall, having more or less ignored Ibn Saud since the days
of the Shakespear mission, now saw in him a threat to its entire
Sharifian commitment. Philby had been sent from Iraq to Riyadh
to meet the Amir of Najd in the spring of 1917, as the princes of
Mecca were gaining in prominence and self-esteem. At the time
Ibn Saud was engaged in a desultory campaign against his con­
stant rivals, the Shammar of Ibn Rashid. The Amir of Hail, in
alliance with the Turks, was harrying the Sharifian force around
the Hijaz railway at Madayin Saleh. Philby’s mission was intended
to gain Ibn Saud’s wholehearted support for Britain’s war effort
and to induce him to attack Hail. Philby gave him £20,000 from
a purse in his own keeping and left the warrior to his own devices,
going on to meet the Sharif at Mecca. In the meantime, Ibn Saud
had received appeals from the people of the oasis town of Khurma,
between Najd and the Hijaz, for protection from the Sharif’s
attacks. Hogarth was at Mecca at the same time on behalf of
Wingate, the new High Commissioner. ‘The King occasionally
burst into full-throated badawin accents,’ said Philby, *but he was