A Saudi once said to me what a good thing it was that khawajas (foreigners) had written about the Arabian Peninsula in the late 19th and early 20th centuries since so few Arabs had. And indeed, when we consider Doughty, Lady Anne Blunt, Lawrence, Philby, Bertram Thomas, Harold Dickson, David Hogarth, Freya Stark and Thesiger, we realize the truth of his statement. To that impressive list, we must certainly add Gertrude Bell, the subject of this new edition of HVF Winstone’s masterly and meticulously researched biography. His credentials as a biographer are formidable. He has written biographies of Britons who made names for themselves in the Arab world: Lady Anne Blunt, Byron’s granddaughter whose love of horses and desert travel took her to Ha’il in the 1870’s, Captain Shakespear, who was a great friend of King Abdul Aziz and who died at the Battle of Jarab in 1915, Harold Carter, the discoverer of Tutankhamun’s tomb and Colonel Leachman, known as “O.C. Desert,” who was murdered near Falluja in 1920. Falluja is sadly familiar today to millions who know nothing of Leachman or Gertrude Bell (1868-1926). And Bell’s fame rests primarily on what she did in Iraq from 1917 until her death in 1926.
Winstone has written a very cogent, logical and lucid introduction to this edition; he notes how many events and situations which occurred in her day have been sadly, tragically and perhaps needlessly repeated in our own. Surprisingly, his introduction has received more publicity in some quarters than the book itself; it infuriated the establishment in both Washington and London for simply pointing out that neither had learned the lessons of history for the very good reason that neither had taken the trouble to look for them.
Gertrude Bell was from a very rich family of Victorian industrialists. She was blessed with money, brains and a family which encouraged her to follow her inclinations —all the way to Oxford where she took a starred first in history. Even as a young woman, she gained the reputation of being unafraid to disagree with her elders. Because of her family connections, the elders were often men of some intellectual and political clout but Gertrude nonetheless spoke her mind, often surprising them with the clarity and precision of her arguments and beliefs. It was after several such incidents that an aunt deplored her niece’s “Oxfordy manner” and suggested a European tour. The travels of Gertrude Bell had begun.
By 1900, she was 32 and “fluent in English, French and German and in addition she could speak and write Arabic and Persian, was passably proficient in Turkish and could hold a tolerable conversation in most of India, and in China and Japan.” Her deep involvement with the Arab world began in February 1909 (not her first trip to the Middle East) when she landed in Beirut and, with guides, servants and camels, made her way overland as far as the Shatt Al-Arab at the northern end of the Arabian Gulf.
On the way, she began to assemble immense stores of information about the desert tribes, their histories, grazing lands and leaders. She was also able to indulge her life-long interest in archaeology, particularly that of the land then known as Mesopotamia which we know today as Iraq. She made several journeys there, increasing her knowledge of the area, her familiarity with the inhabitants as well as her knowledge of its ancient history and ruins. In addition to trips to Mesopotamia, she made a journey from Damascus to Hail and then on to Baghdad — a journey which began in December 1913 and ended in April 1914. Her knowledge of the area and its tribes, their alliances, rivalries and loyalties, was by now encyclopedic and soon to be used by the British government. When World War I broke out, she was in England and by June, 1915, it became obvious that her knowledge and expertise were needed in “Arabia.” In December, 1915, she went to Cairo, working for what became the Arab Bureau.
Among her colleagues was a young man known to us as “Lawrence of Arabia” and the two became friends. By the end of January, 1916, she had left Cairo as “the first woman officer in the history of Britain’s Military Intelligence” having been put “in charge of the Mesopotamian office of the Bureau.” As the author tells us, she was given the “courtesy rank of army major and was accounted a GS02 (General Staff Officer 2nd Grade) in the official pecking order.”
From this point until her death in 1926, she was intimately involved with the creation of the state that became Iraq. She wrote prodigiously and with great understanding about the problems of uniting the country; her descriptions of the tribes, sectarian difficulties and armed resistance are eerily similar to the stories coming out of Iraq today. Winstone is, however, far too acutely intelligent to believe that Bell and those she worked with made no mistakes; however good their intentions, mistakes were made. The sad thing is that as we read the biography, we are left wondering if anyone in Washington had even heard of Gertrude Bell and the events in Iraq in the first quarter of the 20th century. She may not have been able to supply Bush and Company with answers but she could certainly have prepared them — and their allies in London — not only with an accurate assessment of what they were up against but also what they could expect. What a pity she went unread!
