Plain Talk
The war on Iraq has brought back memories of an earlier invasion of the same country. In 1917 the British invaded Iraq, which was then under Ottoman control. I was reminded of this when I read an article in the Independent Review with the title "The Nights before the Battle".
This piece included extracts from the diaries of those participating in that earlier conflict, recording their feelings, hopes and fears on the eve of war.
One of the diarists was Gertrude Bell, the traveller, administrator and writer who played an important role in establishing the Hashemite Kingdom. She was born in Durham, England, in 1868, and died in 1926 in Baghdad.
She produced several books, including a massive report on the administration of Iraq. And among several things for which she will be remembered is the establishing of an archaeological museum in Baghdad, the origins of the present day National Museum of Iraq. One should note here that during her work as an administrator she forbade the export of any artefacts from excavations conducted in Iraq.
On 10 March, 1917 she wrote from Basra: "We are now hourly awaiting the news of our entrance into Baghdad. I had a letter from Sir Percy today, from the front, full of exultation and confidence. I do hope I may be called up there before very long. It's a wonderful thing to be at the top of the war after all these months of marking time, and say what you will, it's the first big success of the war and I think it is going to have varied and remarkable consequences. We shall, I trust, make it a great centre of Arab civilisation..."
This apparent love for Iraq was shared by other English personalities. In his 1836 poem Recollections of the Arabian Nights Tennyson wrote:
When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Togros I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold...To the west of Baghdad was the home of the Arabian Nights which, by the end of the 18th century, had been accorded the singularly inappropriate status of a children's classic. Possibly it was familiarity with the Arabian Nights that made Tennyson imbue Baghdad with such images, and then allowed him to let them stand in for Arabia itself.
As Kathryn Tidrick wrote in her fascinating book Heart Beguiling Araby:
"Arabia was a country of the mind more real than any place on map, and drew like a magnet those whose journeys were undertaken in search of themselves."
Baghdad was at its zenith during the rule of the Abbasids, and especially under the Caliph Haroun Al-Rashid, who is mentioned in Tennyson's poem. It was the centre of political power and of culture, a flourishing hot house of the arts and of science.
As mentioned above, Gertrude Bell was one of many English travellers who became deeply interested in Iraq, or Mesopotamia. Kathryn Tidrick describes her as "a relatively simple soul" with no particular axe to grind, or any grand theory about the Arabs. She had "simply an unremitting delight in their company and the glories of their past".
Among other titles Bell published are Syria: The Desert and the Sown, published in 1907, and Amurale to Amurati, which appeared in 1911. Her knowledge of the region led to her being summoned to Cairo in 1915 "to give military intelligence the benefit of her knowledge".
But this is not the time to dwell on her political role in the area of the region and the future of Iraq. When it was decided by the British that Feisal should be made king of Iraq and a council of ministers appointed Bell was jubilant. In September, 1921 she wrote home: "It's not at all true that I've determined the fortunes of Iraq but it is true with an Arab government I've come into my own."
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 27 March - 2 April 2003 (Issue No. 631)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/631/cu3.htm