Page 264 - Life of Gertrude Bell

240 GERTRUDE BELL
that in his efforts to implement McMahon’s pledges to the Sharif
he was tearing up the Balfour Declaration by degrees, and that he
should put a time limit of seven years on Abdullah’s kingship.
Churchill thought the idea ‘might work’. Gertrude meanwhile got
on with the business of seeking public approval for Faisal in Iraq
and preparing for his coronation on the assumption that such
support was a foregone conclusion—which it was. On July 17th
she wrote to Frank Balfour again, giving him an amusing account
of the procession of suppliants and sycophants, doers and dream­
ers, to the ante-chamber of Faisal’s palace where they waited for
hours on end for a chance to declare their loyalty ‘in the name of
the people’. And she remarked: ‘My reports will give you a
general idea of how tilings are going—it has been most skilfully
managed by Sir Percy, no less so by Faisal, and the Naqib has
contributed ... like the old gentleman he is. I haven’t a shadow
of doubt that we are on the right track. The only cloud has been
the Philby episode ... He has been out of focus ever since the
deportation of Talib, and he adhered obstinately to his conception
of a republic —surely the most complete reduction to the absurd
in this country —even after PIMG had declared against it. I hope
he may not be lost to us ... He may find a job later in land settle­
ment work ... ’In fact, the disgraced Philby was sent to Abdullah
in Transjordan to help control that corner of the growing
Hashemite empire, where he spent much of his time in corre-
spondence with Ibn Saud until, after three years, an R. A.F. censor
unsuspectingly intercepted a letter and informed the authorities
that he was in touch with the Saudi Amir, whereupon he turned
his back on all the mandates and went to serve the only Arab
leader he genuinely admired at the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
The so-called election of Faisal was no more than a referendum
in the event, though even with a single candidate standing, the
claim of the High Commission that 96 per cent of the people
: voted for Britain’s nominee for the throne must be viewed with
some suspicion, especially since the majority of the population
: was illiterate. Faisal was eventually crowned on August 23rd,
1921. The ceremony at the sarai on the bank of the Tigris was the
stuff of which Gertrude’s most descriptive letters were made, but
on this occasion she wrote in a relatively low key.

... we’ve got our King crowned and Sir Percy and I agree that
i
we’re now half seas over, the remaining half is the Congress an