A Woman in Arabia (29 page)

As a Sunni ruler in a country with a Shia majority, the emir's descent from the Prophet would be his trump card. The small committee that Gertrude, Cox, and the Iraqi ministers now
formed set themselves to work out the timing and geography. Faisal should immediately be invited to Baghdad, but he would need to go to Mecca first, and have his candidature announced from the holy city, where his father was sharif. Support would grow as he progressed east. Now she was preoccupied with the business of making him welcome.

June 19, 1921

Here was Faisal arriving at Basrah on the 23rd. . . . On Thursday afternoon the Naqib . . . made a sound move. He informed the Council of Ministers that Faisal was coming and that they must make preparations to receive him properly and see that he was suitably lodged. Thereupon they appointed a reception committee of 5 ministers. . . .

Unfortunately, the committee caused so much controversy that the members almost came to blows. Gertrude attended the first meeting and, sighing, left it to its arguments and went about arranging the details herself. She called on the railway officials and had a train specially decorated for the emir. She arranged for a deputation of sixty notables to greet Faisal at the station, found competent servants for him, and arranged for the distribution of the new flags.

There remained the question of his lodging here which they proposed to solve by putting him into some rooms in the Sarai (the Government offices) which were now under repair . . . if they could be got ready in time. Public Works declared that it couldn't be done. Jafar telephoned to me in despair on Saturday morning; I telephoned to Public Works, made suggestions for covering bare walls with hangings and finally the thing was arranged . . .

Faisal arrived on Iraq on June 23, 1921. Charismatic and a natural orator, he was able to win over hearts and minds whenever he made a speech; he left most of Basra under his spell. With his entourage he then set off for Baghdad on a train covered
with flags. After innumerable delays, the train drew into the station, a guard of honor presented arms, the crowd cheered, and a band struck up. Faisal inspected the guard and progressed to the reception including the city's notables.

Sidi Faisal stood at the carriage door looking very splendid in full Arab dress, saluting the guard of honour. Sir Percy and Sir Aylmer
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went up to him as he got out and gave him a fine ceremonious greeting, all the people clapped. . . . Sir Percy began to present the Arab Magnates, representatives of the Naqib. I hid behind Mr. Cornwallis,
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but Faisal saw me and stepped across to shake hands with me. He looked excited and anxious—you're not a king on approbation without any tension of the spirit—but it only gave his natural dignity a more human charm. . . .

This morning on my way to the office I went to the Sarai and gave my card to Faisal's A.D.C. He said would I wait a minute, the Amir would like to see me; it was a little past seven, rather early for a morning call. I waited, talking to the A.D.C. and presently Faisal sent for me. They showed me into a big room and he came quickly across in his long white robes, took me by both hands and said “I couldn't have believed that you could have given me so much help as you have given me.” So we sat down on a sofa. . . .

Mr. Cornwallis came into the office later and I told him I had called on Faisal. He said “That was quite right. All the way up he had been hearing your praise and he gave me a message for you in case he didn't see you to speak to to-day. I was to tell you how grateful he was.”

July 2, 1921

The next event was that evening's banquet in the Maude gardens. It was really beautifully done. The place lighted with electric lights looked lovely.

Faisal carried on a little conversation in French with Sir Aylmer, but mostly he and I and Sir Percy talked across the table. . . . Faisal looked very happy and I felt very happy and so did Sir Percy. . . .

Then got up our great poet, of whom I've often told you, Jamil Zahawi, and recited a tremendous ode in which he repeatedly alluded to Faisal as King of the Iraq and everyone clapped and cheered. And then there stepped forward into the grassy space between the tables a Shi'ah in white robes and a black cloak and big black turban and chanted a poem of which I didn't understand a word. It was far too long and as I say quite unintelligible but nevertheless it was wonderful. The tall, robed figure chanting and marking time with an uplifted hand, the starry darkness in the palm trees beyond the illuminated circle—it hypnotized you.

The naqib followed the banquet with a welcoming dinner, a magnificent occasion on which Gertrude was seated at Faisal's right.

July 8, 1921

. . . It was a wonderful sight that dinner party. The robes and their uniforms and the crowds of servants; all brought up in the Naqib's household—the ordered dignity of it and the real solid magnificence and the tension of spirit which one felt all round one as one felt the burning heat of the night. For after all to the best of our ability we were making history.

July 20, 1921

. . . On Monday the Jewish community gave a great reception to Faisal in the Grand Rabbi's official house. . . . It was filled with rows of seats, with rows of notables sitting in them, the Jewish Rabbis in their turbans or twisted shawls, the leading Christians, all the Arab Ministers and practically all the leading
Moslems, with a sprinkling of white robed, black cloaked 'ulama
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. . . . The speeches on these occasions are all set speeches. . . . But yet they were interesting, because one knew the tension which underlay them, the anxiety of the Jews lest an Arab Govt should mean chaos and their gradual reassurance, by reason of Faisal's obviously enlightened attitude. . . . Towards the end he got up and spoke really beautifully; it was straight and good and eloquent. . . . He made an immense impression. The Jews were delighted at his insistence on their being of one race with the Arabs. . . .

Cox, though greatly relieved by Faisal's reception in Iraq and by the Council having unanimously declared him king, knew that a referendum must be held, so as to confirm Faisal as the choice of the people. He and Gertrude had already framed the question “Do you agree to Faisal as King and leader of Iraq?” and printed the papers. They were circulated to a great number of tribal representatives including three hundred notables, and only six weeks after Faisal's arrival, with all the papers in, the referendum proved heavily in his favor. He was already working with the naqib to form the first Cabinet; next he was to be crowned in Baghdad.

Baghdad, July 27, 1921

I'm immensely happy over the way this thing is going. I feel as if I were in a dream. . . . On our guarantee all the solid people are coming in to Faisal, and there's a general feeling that we made the right choice in recommending him. If we can bring some kind of order out of chaos, what a thing worth doing it will be!

Before Faisal's official coronation came the tribal celebrations in his honor at Ramadi. This would be his Bedouin coronation and the culmination of the gains of the Arab fight for independence. For Gertrude, too, it was the most triumphant moment
of her life, the pinnacle of her long fight for self-determination for the Arabs. Although not the only Briton present, she would take the prime place among them as she stood on the dais beside Faisal, flanked by Ali Sulaiman, the powerful pro-British sheikh of the Dulaim, and her great friend Fahad Beg of the Anazeh.

For three weeks beforehand, temperatures had been over 115 degrees. Gertrude and her chauffeur had to leave at 4 a.m. to cover the seventy miles to Ramadi. Just before the halfway mark, she saw the cloud of dust that signaled Faisal's cavalcade ahead. A few miles before Fallujah they came to the tents of the Dulaim, and from that point on, the road was lined with tribesmen roaring their salute and waving their rifles above their heads, kicking up a fog of dust like drifting cliffs on either side. As Faisal's car drew ahead, they wheeled away and galloped on, to form a continuous wild cavalcade escorting him through Fallujah to Ramadi on the edge of the Syrian Desert.

Baghdad, July 31, 1921

Under the steep edge of the Syrian desert were drawn up the fighting men of the 'Anazeh, horsemen and camel riders, bearing the huge standard of the tribe. We stopped to salute it as we passed. Ali Sulaiman the Chief of the Dulaim and one of the most remarkable men in 'Iraq came out of Ramadi to meet us. . . . We . . . drove to the Euphrates bank where Ali Sulaiman had pitched a huge tent of ten poles—ie about 200 ft. long—with a dais at the upper end roofed with tent cloth and walled with fresh green boughs. Outside were drawn up the camel riders of the Dulaim, their horsemen and their standard carried by a negro mounted on a gigantic white camel; inside the tribesmen lined the tent 5 or 6 deep from the dais to the very end. Faisal sat on the high diwan. . . . He was supremely happy—a great tribesman amongst famous tribes and, as I couldn't help feeling, a great Sunni among Sunnis. . . .

Faisal was in his own country with the people he knew. I never saw him look so splendid. He wore his usual white robes
with a fine black abba over them, flowing white headdress and silver bound 'aqal. Then he began to speak, leaning forward over the small table in front of him, sitting with his hand raised and bringing it down on the table to emphasize his sentences. The people at the end of the tent were too far off to hear; he called them all up and they sat on the ground below the dais, . . . 400 or 500 men. He spoke in the great tongue of the desert, which I had never heard him use before, sonorous, magnificent—no language like it. He spoke as a tribal chief to his feudatories. “For four years,” he said, “I have not found myself in a place like this or in such company”—you could see how he was loving it. Then he told them how Iraq was to rise on their endeavours with himself at their head. “Oh Arabs are you at peace with one another?” They shouted: “Yes, yes, we are at peace.” “From this day—what is the date?—and what is the hour?”—someone answered him. “From this day the 25th of July (only he gave the Mohammadan date) and the hour of the morning 11 (it was 11 o'clock) any tribesman who lifts his hand against a tribesman is responsible to me. I will judge between you, calling your shaikhs in counsel. I have my rights over you as your Lord.”

A grey bearded man interrupted: “And our rights?” “And you have your rights as subjects which it is my business to guard.”

So it went on, the tribesmen interrupting him with shouts of “Yes, yes,” “We agree,” “Yes, by God.” It was like the descriptions of great tribal gatherings in the Days of Ignorance, before the Prophet, when the poets recited verse which has come down to this day and the people shouted at the end of each phrase: “The truth, by God the truth!”

When it was over Fahad and Ali Sulaiman stood up on either side of him and said, “We swear allegiance to you because you are acceptable to the British Government.” Faisal was a little surprised. He looked quickly round to me, smiling, and then he said, “No one can doubt what my relations are to the British, but we must settle our affairs between ourselves.” He looked at me again and I held out my two hands clasped together as a symbol of the union of the Arab and British Governments.

It was a tremendous moment, those two really big men who have played their part in the history of their time, and Faisal
between them, the finest living representative of his race—and the link ourselves.

One after another Ali Sulaiman brought up his shaikhs, some 40 or 50 of them. They laid their hands in Faisal's and swore allegiance.

Gertrude was a frequent visitor at Faisal's apartments, coming and going as she chose and always ushered straight through the waiting room. There was an affection between them: he called her his sister. Knowing that he had never seen the great archway of Ctesiphon, she invited him to have breakfast there in the cool of the day, where they sat on fine carpets, drank coffee, and ate eggs, tongue, sardines, and melons.

Baghdad, August 6, 1921

It was wonderfully interesting showing that splendid place to Faisal. He is an inspiring tourist. After we had reconstructed the palace and seen Chosroes sitting in it, I took him into the high mounds to the South, whence we could see the Tigris, and told him the story of the Arab conquest as Tabari records it. . . . You can imagine what it was like reciting it to him. I don't know which of us was the more thrilled.

Faisal has promised me a regiment of the Arab army—the Khatun's Own. . . .

Oh Father, isn't it wonderful. I sometimes think I must be in a dream.

Baghdad, Two Days Before Faisal Was Crowned, August 21, 1921

That evening I had got so tired of sitting in the office that in spite of the heat I went out riding, and coming home along the river bank for coolness, I passed Faisal's new house up stream. . . . I saw his motor at the door so I left my pony with one of his slaves and went up onto the roof where I found him sitting with his ADCs. It was wonderful, the sun just set, the softly
luminous curves of the river below us, the belt of palm trees, and then the desert, . . . the fading red of the sky. We all sat and talked. Faisal uses no honorifics: “Enti, thous” he says to me—it's so refreshing after the endless “honours” and “excellencies,”—“Enti Iraqiyah, enti badawiyah—you're a Mesopotamian, a Beduin.”

With only days to go before the official coronation, a major problem emerged. In the same letter, she wrote:

Meantime . . . there's a breeze on. The Col. Office has sent us a most red-tapy cable saying that Faisal in his coronation speech must announce that the ultimate authority in the land is the High Commissioner. Faisal refuses and he is quite right. We are going, as you know, to drop the mandate and enter into treaty relations with Mesopotamia. Faisal says that from the first we must recognize that he is an independent sovereign in treaty with us, otherwise he can't hold his extremists. . . . My view was that, . . . in the end, there was no point in claiming an authority we could not enforce. . . . Faisal drafted an admirable statement which was telegraphed home, and Sir Percy a still better [one] which accompanied Faisal's. H.M.G. had said that, if Faisal didn't accept their view, the coronation must be delayed. It is fixed for Tuesday, the day after tomorrow, and the whole universe is assembling here for it. Sir Percy telegraphed firmly that in his opinion it could not be delayed and it is going on.