In 1917, with a wealth of Middle East experience under her belt (among her many triumphs was the award of the Royal Geographical Society’s Founder’s Medal), she was appointed Oriental Secretary to Sir Percy Cox and settled in Baghdad. ‘We shall, I trust, make it a centre for Arab civilisation and prosperity,’ she wrote to her father as British troops entered the city in March 1917. Yes, of course, the parallels with 2003 are irresistible, but it is utterly unreasonable of Winstone to expect Bush and Blair to have learned from past mistakes. Human beings, least of all politicians, hardly ever do.
The end of the war presaged the remaking of the deceased Ottoman empire into something a little neater and more orderly. At least that was the idea. And so came the state-making which so thrilled Bell, the delineation of Iraq’s borders — encompassing Kurds, Sunni and Shia Arabs — which remains problematic to this day. Then the equally gratifying procession of ambitious sheikhs sweeping through her office and home. ‘They are the people I love,’ she wrote, ‘I know every Tribal Chief of any importance throughout the whole length and breadth of Iraq.’
She did, but with Iraq created and King Faisal installed on the throne Bell had practically outlived her usefulness to HMG. She felt it, and there was no family to fall back on. For a while, the national museum and library she founded, and her position as Director of Antiquities, sustained her. But it was not enough. Her heart rebelled against the solitude, no longer so poetic. An overdose of sleeping pills on the night of 12 July 1926 ended it.
Justin Marozzi is the author of Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World, published recently by Harper- Collins. He is seeking donations for restoration and conservation work at Babylon, together with other community projects in Iraq. Spectator readers are invited to contact him about this on jsmarozzi@aol.com.
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