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Gertrude
Bell was the daughter of Sir Hugh Bell, from his first
marriage. Her grandfather was Isaac Lowthian Bell, the
founder of a large iron and steel industry in
Middlesbrough in England, and a distinguished scientist
and a fellow of the Royal society, who later was
knighted for his achievements and became Sir Lowthian
Bell. Gertrude Lowthian Bell was born in the year 1868
into the distinguished family of intellectuals and
scientists, and spent her childhood in her Yorkshire
home with her father and her stepmother, Lady Florence
Bell. Brought up in a liberal, freethinking atmosphere
of her house, she excelled in her studies and passed out
with a brilliant academic record, ranking first in the
History of Oxford in the year 1887. Her
contemporaries classed her as the best among the
intellectuals of those days, winning her place by
right in the elite group with her brilliant mind and her
radiant personality.
During her youth, Gertrude
threw herself into the midst of all the amusements of
the Victorian age – dancing, skating and fencing – and
was invited to attend all the smart, high-society London
parties. In the countryside, she rode on horseback along
with her hounds, hunting rabbits and entertaining
herself with other sports. In one of her travels she was
invited to visit her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, who at
that time was working for the British Embassy at Tehran,
and this vacation brought her into the magic spell of
the East – a spell that would bind her to the region for
the rest of her life. Enchanted by the Eastern culture,
she was bitten by wanderlust that made her into a
permanent traveler touring the country from one end to
the other, fascinated by the sights and sounds of the
Persian culture and the way of life. Later her travels
would take her on voyages to different parts of the
world, but it was the Middle Eastern countries that
charmed her, drawing her to the region that captivated
her like no other country in the world.
Although,
Gertrude Bell had an easy and outgoing personality,
there was a serious side in her that was forever
studying the world, in which she traveled, absorbing
everything that was mysterious and fascinating and
always studying and investigating everything that
captured her curiosity. Her inquiring mind knew no
limits for she took a serious interest in poetry,
history, art, nature and the politics of whole regions
visited by her, and soon she gained recognition as a
scholar with her writings and an authority in all these
fields. It is true that she was born into a wealthy
family and had the privilege of accessing all luxuries
that were available at her disposal. Nevertheless, her
restless mind and her inquiring spirit made her to
travel and study the life of other countries in the
world, offering a rare insight to the people of her
country about the style of living of the different parts
of the world and the people who lived in it. She hunted
for adventures and took delight in climbing the
difficult mountains of Switzerland, and exploring the
remote corners of the countries of the Asia Minor with
the nomads of the desert as her neighbors, and had plans
to scale the Kanchenjunga - the highest peak in the
Himalayas, which was not scaled by others over half a
century after her.
During the first
decade of the twentieth century, there was no scholar to
match Gertrude Bell in knowledge relating to the lands
of the Asia Minor and the countries that bordered the
northern part of the Land of Arabia, which was then a
part of the large Turkish Empire that stretched from
Istanbul to Iraq in the west, and to the south covered
the lands of Syria, Palestine and Arabia up to the coast
of Aden in Yemen. The Ottomans held control over the
countries of Hejaz and Asir, but had left the major part
of the desert land in Arabia to the desert tribes. These
tribes lived in an unexplored territory, inhabited by
many Bedouin Arabs that recognized no authority except
their own, and honored no other rules, but these of the
desert.
It was at this
time, in the early years of the twentieth century that
King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud was trying to assert his
authority over the Land of Arabia and he began to fight
the Turkish armies stationed in the fortifications of
the desert. He was trying very hard to extend his rule
over the Bedu tribes in an effort to bring them
all under a central authority, and was persuading them
to give up their nomadic way of life and settle down in
the greener pastures of the desert as an agricultural
community.
Gertrude Bell had
for a long time set her heart on making her journey
across the difficult terrain of the deserts of Northern
Arabia, which was an ambitious and challenging task for
a lady to take on, considering the dangers that lurked
in the burning sands of Arabia. First she set sail for
Alexandria, and from there traveled to Damascus in the
month of November in 1913. After reaching Damascus she
was reassured by the news that it would be safe for her
to make the crossing as the warring tribes of the desert
had come to terms of peace with one another. The great
desert landscape seemed safe for her to travel to Hail,
which was Ibn Rashid’s capital in the Najd Region, where
he held an uncertain control fighting the Turkish army
and in constant warfare with the armies of Ibn Saud, who
was determined to bring this part of the region under
his rule.
In Damascus,
Gertrude Bell set out to equip her caravan that would
carry her into the desert. On 12th December, a farewell
party was arranged for her entourage in the native
bazaar quarters of the city and she had in her company
the representative of Ibn Rashid who had sent an advance
notice to his master in Hail about the English lady’s
proposed visit to the capital. He also had got his
consent before her departure. Four days later, the
caravan was on its way crossing into the Syrian Desert.
Gertrude Bell had planned her journey in two stages. The
first leg of the journey was to investigate the ruins of
a Byzantine outpost in Burqa and investigate the spot of
an extinct volcano on Jabal Sais. Traveling in midwinter
into the Syrian Desert she was overwhelmed with intense
cold in the freezing nights when the temperature of the
desert fell down drastically, and the mornings brought
with them intense frost, cold rain and wind. To make
matter worse, her camels stumbled into the wet mud, and
everyone in the caravan was shivering and - despite the
warm clothing - chilled to the bone.
Nevertheless,
Gertrude Bell enjoyed the ride in the desert lost in its
silence and solitude, which appeared to envelop her from
all sides, where the only reality was the sounds made by
her caravan animals and assistants accompanying her. On
the seventh day of the journey, Gertrude’s group came
upon a camping ground of Bedouins from Jabal Druze who
had pitched their tents at the site. At the first sight
of her caravan, a number of Arabs came from the camp,
galloping on their horses surrounding her cavalcade and
stripping her men of all their weapons. It was a
terrifying moment for Gertrude Bell who believed that
all the hopes of journeying further were now lost, and
sat on her camel calmly and watched her guide explaining
in Arabic to the disbelieving Arabs that the lady was
traveling on a personal invitation of Ibn Rashid to
Hail. Shortly, the leaders of the tribe arrived on the
scene, and took stock of the situation. They knew her
guides Ali and Muhammad. Order was restored and their
possessions were returned.
On December 25th
Gertrude and her caravan reached the ancient fort of
Burqa, a Byzantine outpost that had not been visited by
any European for centuries. After finishing her
archeological investigations of this site, she headed
her caravan towards the south and entered the Nafud
Desert in January 14, 1914. The desert was covered in
parts with green shrubs and flowering weeds in the
winter season and her camels fed as they traveled
further, slowing their progress greatly. For days, they
traveled across the red-golden colored sand hills, and
most of the desert tribes of Nafud treated her, and her
company with respect for they had never come across a
European before in this part of the world. In her
account, Gertrude compliments them for their perfect
desert manners. They passed through the Nafud desert to
enter into a rocky terrain, filled with thorny acacia
trees and desert palms to finally reach Hail on February
25, 1914.
At Hail, she was
told that the ruling Amir Ibn Rashid was away leading a
war party in the desert in an attempt to quell the
rebellious tribes in his region who had raised the
banner of revolt against his rule. She was escorted to a
palace, which appeared to her constructed after the
fashion of Arabian Nights stories that she had read in
her childhood days, to wait for the Emir’s return who
was not likely to return to Hail for another month.
In the palace,
she made friends with the royal ladies of the Emir’s
harem, and got the permission to go wherever she liked
and allowed to take photographs as she pleased. She was
promised guides and escorts and they would be provided
for her to conduct her safely to Baghdad, which she
decided would be the next stop of her journey. In order
to remain unharmed during her journey, she hired the
services of Rafiqs who would act as her
emissaries to make sure that she was treated as a guest,
and not as an enemy, for there was an unwritten law in
the desert under which the most hostile Arab tribes
would not hurt her if she was in the company of a Rafiq.
The Rafiqs made available to her service acted true to
the desert code and conducted her safely to Baghdad, and
they arrived in the city on February 29, 1914. From
there she journeyed to Damascus passing through the
fabled city of Palmyra.
Her journey,
apart from being a great adventure, was an extraordinary
achievement for a lady, and she had added to the map of
Arabia new lines of desert wells known and unknown,
tracing the desert frontiers under the Palmyrene, Roman
and the Umayyad rule, which provided information of
immense value to T.E Lawrence in his desert campaigns in
Arabia against the Turks in the year 1917 and 1918.
For the rest of
her life, Gertrude Bell devoted herself to the Arab
world. She became a powerful official in British
administration in Baghdad after the First World War and
helped carve the frontiers of the Post-War Iraq, which
would be made up of three provinces Mosul, Baghdad and
Basra as an independent country, and framed the policy
of modern Iraq with the help of her superior Sir Percy
Cox, who was the British High Commissioner. These
policies were to retain, if necessary, the Kurdish
territory to the north of Iraq, by force, and to promote
the Sunni Muslims in the surroundings of Baghdad to rule
over the Shias.The policies were also made to exercise
control over the Shia clergy and if they wished, help
them take permanent shelter among their own in
neighboring Iran. Gertrude Bell believed passionately in
Arab independence, and she firmly believed Iraq had able
men who could take over charge of the administration of
their country and its destiny.
In the spring of
1921, Winston Churchil, called for a conference on Iraq
in which Gertrude Bell – the only woman among the
delegates – had her way. It was through her untiring
efforts that the Hashemite Prince, Amir Faisal, who was
ousted by the French in Syria became the King of Iraq in
the year 1921, and during the early years of his rule,
she was the power of strength behind the throne, acting
as the king’s personal advisor in all matters relating
to the governance of his country and over his policy
in international affairs. Unwilling to leave the country
to which she had become so passionately devoted, she was
made the Honorary Director of Antiquities in Baghdad,
where she founded the main wing of the Iraq Museum,
which still bears her name. The Iraqi Arabs gave her the
name “Khatun,” a term that they used to describe a fine
lady and a gentlewoman. Tired by the long years of
strenuous work of championing for the Arab cause and
their independence, she died in July 1926, and was
buried in Baghdad. |
