Page 256 - Life of Gertrude Bell

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232 GERTRUDE BELL
political opinion. lie 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 Istiq/al, ‘Independent’,
was meanwhile propagating the cause of Faisal or alternatively of
i his brother Abdullah. ‘Sayid Talib now urges its suppression on
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the grounds of Bolshevik and Kcmalist tendencies, but he was
anxious that the order should come from anyone but the Ministry
1 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
HI in between countless other tasks. She resumed her old position of
Oriental Secretary which, though it had not, like die Iraq branch
of the Arab Bureau, been abolished by Wilson, had become
nothing 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 dian 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, Jusdce; Izzat Pasha, Education. Their
fi1 British counterparts were Philby, Interior; Sir Edgar Bonham
in 1 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.

fill!! ‘Woe betide you O Ministers—rotten O prisoners.’
‘Does your conscience not trouble you?’
‘O you Muhammadan Indian military brethren who are ignor­
1 ant of the events of the world’—written in Urdu.
: ‘O 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

On January 10th, 1921 Gertrude wrote to her father: ‘Shortly
after I got to the office this morning, Sir Percy sent me a note

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