Page 259 - Life of Gertrude Bell

faisal’s kingdom 235
—I was glad to see him. We retired at once to my bedroom ... and
had an hour’s talk, after which I had a long talk with Clementine
[Churchill] while Sir Percy was cosseted with Mr Churchill. A.T.
is herd — not at the Conference but as Managing Director of the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company. We had a cordial meeting but I’ve
not seen him to talk to and don’t much want to.’ The main deci­
sions of the Conference amounted to a nearly complete affirmation
of Britain’s war-time promises to Husain of Mecca. Faisal was
invited to proceed to Baghdad as a candidate for the throne of
Iraq, and his brother Abdullah, who had already declared himself
King of Iraq and who was conveniently in Jerusalem when
Churchill went on there, was invited to become sovereign of the
artificially created state of Transjordan. ‘Faisal,’ said Churchill,
‘was an ideal candidate.’ He had ‘very special qualifications for
the post... He had himself fought gallantly on our side and had
taken part in the various exploits of desert warfare with which the
name of Colonel Lawrence will always be associated.’
Gertrude described the conference to Frank Balfour who had
left his job as Military Governor of Baghdad to marry and was
now in England:

My beloved Frank, I’ll tell you about our Conference. It has
been wonderful. We covered more work in a fortnight than
has ever been got through in a year. Mr Churchill was admir­
able, most ready to meet everyone halfway and masterly alike
in guiding a big political meeting and in conducting the small
committees into which we broke up. Not the least favourable
circumstance was that Sir Percy and I, coming out with a
definite programme, found when we came to open our packet
that it coincided exactly with that which the Secretary of State
had brought with him. We are now going back to Baghdad to
square the Naqib and to convince Sayid Talib, if he is con-
vincible, that his hopes are doomed to disappointment...
She returned after a brief holiday in Egypt with her father and the
taking of a photograph with Churchill, Clementine and Lawrence
on camels in the shade of the Pyramids, the occasion on which
the Secretary of State fell from his steed to provide the world
with its most vivid picture of the Cairo gathering. The first of the
‘Politicals’ encountered by Gertrude on arriving back in Iraq was
Ronald Wingate and she greeted him widi the words: ‘We’ve
pulled it offl’ She proceeded to tell him that Churchill had agreed