Page 266 - Life of Gertrude Bell

242 GERTRUDE BELL
pay the price,’ she wrote, adding: ‘I do not wish—nor could I —
to emulate Miss Rosita Forbes. In the matter of trumpet blowing
she is unique; but I have a feeling that we might at any rate be
loud enough to drown the penny whistles of people like Stanley
Reed [the letter-writer to The Tiwes\...’ On October 13th, having
presumably given the matter mature thought, Shuckburgh replied:
‘Dear Miss Bell,... I quite agree with what you say as to the need
for more propaganda ... We have now got here an officer (Mr
Caird) who acts as our publicity agent, and who serves up to the
press in suitable form such material as we arc able to give him.
We would like to have further notes from you. Your magnum opus
which we published as a Blue Book last year covers a great deal
of the ground but it is rather difficult to get people to read Blue
Books ... I am afraid I have been very bad at answering your
letters on general political matters in Iraq, but it is not because I
do not appreciate them ...’
Gertrude’s work was increasingly concerned with the King’s
comfort and with propaganda designed to counter criticism of the
new regime at home. Her output of articles and reports was enor­
mous and would have taxed the resources of many a person half
her age. But her role in the affairs of the High Commission
diminished. By October 1922 Bonar Law’s brief ministry had
taken over from Lloyd George’s, and Churchill was replaced at
the Colonial Office by the Duke of Devonshire. In London,
Meinertzhagen breathed a sigh of relief. On October 29th he
wrote: ‘So Winston is gone. He acts almost entirely by instinct
and is usually right, though easily led astray by some enthusiast.
i A hard master to serve, works like a Trojan himself and expects
equally hard work from his staff... CO will be restful after the
fulminations of Winston.’ Gertrude’s Intelligence Summary No.
24 arrived at the Colonial Office in late December. ‘It would have
impressed Churchill greatly,’ wrote Shuckburgh. Gertrude’s own
reaction to the change was predictable. ‘The news of the Cabinet
appointments reached us last night,’ she wrote on October 25 th.
‘I’m so enchanted to have the Duke as our Minister that I ve
written to tell him so ... ’
In February 1922 Cox had told the government that he proposed
to send to London the antiquities of Samarra which the German
archaeologists under Dr Hertzfeld had found before the war
during the excavations on the banks of the Tigris above Baghdad.
He was anxious to send them as ‘spoils of war’ he said before t e