Baghdad. Oct 2 Darling Father. I shall have to keep a sort of diary to you now, for with fortnightly letters the intervals are too long. I shall be much annoyed if they do not reach you, but we have once again had experience that aeroplane communications have not that certainty which one might desire. Major Young, whom you saw at Cairo, and Mr Vernon from Palestine were due to arrive here yesterday by air. Instead of them we got a wireless message to say that Mr Vernon had crashed and was badly injured. Today we hear that he is doing well but we have not yet heard whether Major Young is still coming. It is provoking, for there were a number of big questions of policy and administration which have been saved up to be explained to them that they might throw light on them to the office at home and the Secretary of State.
We send an immense amount of despatches home by every airmail and the 14th and 30th of each month are days of feverish finishing off of work. Added to which they are the days when my Fortnightly Report has to be finished, so that Sir Percy may see it on the 15th and 1st before it goes to the press. I am doing little less than writing a history of Mesopotamia in fortnightly parts. I myself find it an invaluable record but I've not heard what they think of it at home. The first of October saw the 22nd number. Each number is divided into the following parts: 1. Proceedings of the Council of Ministers (as you might say Hansard compressed) 2. Public opinion - all significant events or propaganda or newspaper campaigns or anything {of political} that shows how the currents are setting; 3. Notes on Provincial Affairs, the actual history of the provinces, tribal unrest, irrigation, everything that is going on. 4. Frontiers - whatever affects us in the doings of Ibn Sa'ud in Arabia, the French in Syria, the Kamalists in Anatolia and the Kurds on our northern and eastern frontiers. It's a great work, it really is. It goes to all our provincial officers as well as to India, Egypt, Aden [('Adan)], Jaffa [Tel Aviv-Yafo (Joppa)], Constantinople [Istanbul], Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)] and London. Also Tehran [(Teheran)]. If they don't know everything they ought to know about us, it's not my fault.

Last night the King had his first dinner party - the Coxes, the Sindersons (she is the woman whose conversation with Mrs Rosita Forbes I reported) the C.G.S., Ja'far, Sasun Eff and Yusuf Suwaidi. The last was one of the leaders of last year's revolt and is the father of Naji, Minister of Justice. Faisal had asked me to persuade Sir Percy to be kind to him, to which the good Sir Percy suggested he should be asked to dinner to meet him. I arranged the table and placed him between Sir Percy and me. I have in no way altered my opinion that he is a silly old windbag and every talk I have with him confirms it. However, Sir Percy and I were both very nice to him. It was a most pleasant dinner party. They had arranged it all very well and Faisal was a charming host. I'm teaching the ADCs how to shift people about a little, so that every guest may have his talk with the King. One has to explain everything, you realize; not only whom to ask but how to address the envelopes and how to fill up the invitation cards which I've had printed. The letters after people's names puzzle them dreadfully. I look forward to their conferring on the Commander in Chief the order of G.H.Q. Also they were immensely surprised when they found that the letter had to be sent to the wife not to the husband.

At the end of the dinner, Faisal, Sir Percy and I had a nice three-cornered talk; it was the first time I had assisted at their conversations with one another.

Today being Sunday and I, Major Wilkinson (Wireless) Major Greenhouse (in our office) and Saiyid Husain Afnan went out to Fahamah to shoot. It wasn't very successful as a shoot because it was far too hot - it happened to be a very still close day. After beating through the scrub at the edge of the palm gardens we all wandered back to a delicious untenanted house where we often picnic and spent the middle of the day in a deep verandah looking onto a shady orange grove. I had brought out lunch and we were a very well-assorted party so that it was most agreeable. But the temp. must have been well up to 100 again.

October 9. [9 October 1921] On Monday the C in C took the King, Ja'far Pasha and me for a picnic - that was the party, with the addition of a couple of a.d.c.s. We started by trolley on the railway at 7 and went up to the Jabal Hamrin [Hamrin, Jabal], where we arrived about 11. We ran up the Diyalah [Diyala (Sirwan)] gorge through the little Hamrin hills - I had never seen it before because the road doesn't follow the river and when one goes by train one passes through it at night. That's why you didn't see it when we went up to Khaniqin [Khanaqin]. We came back to the opening of the gorge and there lunched under the shadow of a rock. At this point the Ruz Canal takes off from the Diyalah and a little higher up is the Khalis canal head. These two canals with two lower down, make the fortune of the Diyalah division which is one of the most fertile and profitable in the Iraq, with its orange and date gardens, and acres and acres of barley - you remember the Naqib's gardens above Ba'qubah? They are on the Khurasan, the canal Bellow the Ruz. The Khalis and Ruz have good stony head works (built by us) so that the water is properly controlled. We have hitherto kept a company at the Ruz head but the day after we were there it was to be withdrawn and replaced by Levies - we have no troops now on the Diyalah. We had heavy fighting at the mouth of the Diyalah Gorge in 1917 and there is a monument on the hilltops on either side of the river to commemorate the men of (I think) the 16th and 17th Brigades who fell here. It was an extremely ill-managed affair on our part, I believe.
But we did not call that to mind. The dead slept on the hill top, the river, very blue and clear, in its summer slenderness, dawdled down the gorge into the wide dusty plain, and the Ruz slipped out from its side, a deep and narrow stream, hurrying away to do its appointed work in the fields and gardens Bellow. Ja'far chatted, ponderously simple and gentle mannered, with the General and Faisal talked eagerly to me about how we would make the women of Baghdad play their part in the 'Iraq state. It was pleasant and cool sitting under the rock but I'm free to confess that it was very hot indeed coming back in the trolley in the afternoon. We took refuge in the station master's office at Ba'qubah where the General's servant made tea for us, stopped to photograph the great bridge over the Diyalah - the only real bridge in the country - and got home at dusk. A most satisfactory day and everyone pleased.

But next day two very tiresome things happened. In the first place the post brought me the unspeakable article in the New York Herald. One ought to be able to give writers of such impertinent balderdash 6 months with hard labour. I have carefully concealed it from all eyes. The second was a letter from Mr Nalder saying he could not put me up when Faisal came to Mosul [Mawsil, Al]. I don't think I have been so much disappointed for quite a long time. I wanted to see my Mosulis, with whom I am great friends, making their fine reception for the King, and I wanted to write about it, about the old old Arab families up there, and the Kurds and the rest. But, most of all, we are all a trifle anxious about the visit. Mosul is very near the frontier and an agent of Mustafa Kamal's with a revolver or a bomb - well he could do a great deal of harm. The more of us who are round Faisal the better, and if I may say so, I'm as good as any because there would be such a great deal of chat if anything happened to me. Half the big families in Mosul would have taken me in if I had asked them for hospitality, but I gathered between the lines of Mr Nalder's letter that he did not want me to come, which makes me feel very sore. He isn't very popular - Faisal does not like him at all - I have backed him and defended him for all I'm worth, Bellieving him to be one of our best officers - as he is.

There! I'm unburdening my soul, which is never very wise; but the truth is I am hurt, angry and surprised.

Faisal left at dawn this morning. I went to tea with him on Friday to say goodbye. He and Rustam and I had a tremendous talk about how to create and foster the spirit of nationalism here which we all feel to be so much lacking. We have you see, the awkward and dangerous element of Turkish propaganda to deal with. I'm persuaded that it's only a question of time. We are now 6 weeks old and we're remarkably lusty; wait till the Arab, or let me say the 'Iraqi government, has been in existence a year and people will begin not only to believe in it, but to be proud of being 'Iraqis. But Faisal, with his extraordinarily vivid consciousness of national existence, wants everyone to be as whole-hearted as himself. That will never quite happen; not all men can be torch-bearers; but we will light their little candles from his flame, the little candles of self-interest and self-satisfaction and the rest, till there is a reasonable and sufficient illumination. And thank God for the flame.

Peace with the Kamalists would very greatly diminish our difficulties, for they are trying as hard as they can to blow our twinkling candles out.

Last night I dined with the Military College - our local Sandhurst, opened last July. They have already furbished up and turned out a batch of officers sufficient for the 1st battalion of 'Iraq infantry which takes over Hillah [Hillah, Al] and the Barrage this week. The second battalion is now being formed at Kadhimain [(Al Kazimiyah)] - not so bad, is it? They are crude, of course, but the officers are nearly all ex-soldiers and what they have at the outset to learn is to drop their Turco-German tradition and get hold of an Anglo-Arab. But they are doing it and the first batch of 27 is I'm told quite good.

The dinner party consisted of 100 officer students, the Arab and British officers who run the school, a few Baghdad notables (Abdul Majid Shawi among them) one or two British civil officers ( and one other) and me. Oh yes and British and Arab staff officers. I sat between Major Eadie and the Director of the School, a capital little man called Ahmad Haqqi Beg. And after dinner I talked to Shakir Beg who is an instructor on their staff and Sami Beg, Colonel of the 2nd 'Iraq Infantry. Very nice people and I enjoyed it very much. Now they have the real thing in them; they are carrying more than candles.

Ahmad Haqqi had dined with me during the week. I had Fakhri Jamil also, and 'Abdul Majid Shawi, and the new Minister of Health, Dr Hanna Khaiyat and a Mosuli, one of the notables, who happened to be in Baghdad. The dinner was a trifle sticky because Fakhri, as far as his good manners would permit him, was inclined to snub Ahmad Haqqi. Fakhri takes unkindly to the Arab army; he would much prefer the British army and feels rather ruffled at the refusal of the British tax-payer to maintain it here. After dinner in the garden, however, they all talked at once and I sat by and listened, much entertained.

I rode with Ja'far on Friday morning. Ja'far's not a very active rider, but we jog sedately along and talk. On our way home we went in to see the widow and daughters of Muhammad Pasha Daghistani - I don't uppose you'll remember, but I had a terrific business last year getting their wastrel of a brother, Daud, to give the women their fair share of the property. It was one of these girls that 'Ali Sulaiman wanted to marry - I think I told you. They are the prettiest, most charming creatures, Circassians. Ja'far is their foster brother, which in Islam is like being a real brother. That's how he can see them. They are all devoted to him.

Mr Norman has passed through. He has been recalled from Tehran [(Teheran)], that grave of reputations. I don't suppose he could have done much better than he did. You can't do anything in Persia if you've got no money behind you and we can't be expected to send money there. But Lord Curzon is furious with him, and his sentiments are warmly reciprocated by Mr Norman! Percy Lorraine [i.e. Loraine] succeeds him and has an impossible task to face.

Last mail brought me Mother's letters of Aug 31 and Sept 6 with the delightful account of Frances, and your letters of the 31st and 7th, all about Paris, incidentally. You were the first, weren't you! Darling Father. But what a tale about you catching on the carpet and falling down! It seems to me most amazing that after a tumble like that, and your poor finger and all, you recovered with much celerity. I can only tell you it takes Marie weeks to recover when she falls off a pony!

Marie, by the way, is very tiresome with the Arab servants. She does nothing but quarrel with them, like the underbred little minx that she is. She nearly had, quite had, hysterics the other day and gave me notice. I told her she might go and welcome (which wasn't wholly true) but she doesn't really want to go at all. I don't think I shall bring her back with me again, if I can find some one else. Nevertheless she is very useful to me personally.

By the way you've said nothing about the death of Rosalind Lady Carlisle - if only it had happened 20 years ago! I do wonder what her will is like - as perverse as she was?

Oct 13. [13 October 1921] There's nothing further to record except the arrival of a letter from you dated Sep. 14 containing your delighful description of Frances. I am very sorry they have decided to go to S. Africa but I don't feel in a position to criticize since my "call" has taken me equally far away. But I must tell you that I myself do often wonder whether I'm right to stay. One is so much inclined to exaggerate one's own importance and if I went no doubt the Arab Kingdom would wag along, however much I may think it wouldn't! But when I've got to that point of reasonableness I'm carried back into vain glory or lunacy or whatever you may call it by the reflection that things of this kind aren't primarily dependent on cold logic, or that at least you can't leave out of the equation the personal sentiment and emotion which has somehow grown up round me - which I share so irresistibly. The other night at the Military School Shakir Beg was talking about patriotism in the army: "Khatun" he said "we say these things to you because we reckon you as one of us." And Faisal when I say I'm going home next summer replies with asperity "You're not to talk of going home - your home's here. You may say you're going to see your Father."
Well, you've got very unsatisfactory children! but in spite of all evidence to the contrary they love you very much.

The airmail goes tomorrow so I must cut short these unconvincing remarks. Your very devoted daughter Gertrude