Baghdad Jan. 28. Dearest Mother. I think this letter ought to arrive before Father leaves, but to be safe I'll write it to you and if it misses him you will send it to him in Paris?
We are still having an amazing bout of cold weather. It has frozen almost every night since Xmas and for the last three nights the temp. has been down to 18°. By day it's little above freezing point with an excruciating north wind which cuts you like a knife. The sheep are dying like flies, the lemon trees and sweet limes are all killed (I shan't wear mourning for the latter) and all the young orange trees are dead. The people suffer horribly; the price of food has doubled and trebled, and they are not clad or lodged in a manner to resist cold. Lots of people in the desert and the villages have died. In the north we hear that there is deep snow. They say there has not been such prolonged cold for 40 or 50 years. Anyhow I hope it won't happen again in my time for it is extremely disagreeable even if it is salutory for those who have furs and fires like me. I live in a fur coat except when I'm sitting before the fire in my sitting room. It's rare in this country to be longing for a little sun and warmth.

We are living through a very agitating time, feeling all of us that our destinies are in the melting pot. If good comes out of the Frontier Commission it will be mainly due to Sir Henry's extraordinarily tactful handling and the charming courtesy with which he and Esme treated them. I haven't words to express my admiration of them both. Day and night they had the Commission on their hands and they never failed to roll up fresh and smiling. I, who had far less to do with them, was conscious of the strain, but {they} H.E. and Esme never showed any sign of it. After a long morning's work - and Sir Henry had had a far heavier morning than I had - to have to make gay conversation to them at lunch was a considerable tax on one's energies. Especially when one was really feeling so anxious and uncertain as to their attitude.

The Baghdadis played up splendidly. On Thursday there was a great Boy Scout function to which I went. I sat between Col. Paulis and Jawad Pasha (the Turkish Assessor) with Ken on the other side of Paulis. We were in the teeth of an almost unendurable north wind. There were 1500 'Iraqi scouts and all the Scout Masters were 'Iraqis. It was in the Sarai, the old Turkish military headquarters. All the balconies were crowded with people and the great open square too - there were some 5000 spectators. Besides the ordinary Scout excercises [sic] and tent pitchings - which they did extremely well - they took the opportunity of introducing a little nationalist propaganda. They made the 'Iraq flag in living boys dressed in the national colours, and they drew in chalk over the square a huge map of the 'Iraq, with frontiers formed by a line of boys - stretching north, I need not say far beyond the present boundary! - and boys with 'Iraq flags indicating the three towns, Basrah [Basrah, Al (Basra)], Baghdad and Mosul [Mawsil, Al]. Jawad Pasha, I was afterwards told, turned to someone behind him and said in Turkish: "This 'Iraq is going to be to us another Bulgaria."

At the end they hoisted the 'Iraq flag on a tall standard. It was wonderfully moving. Some boys ran forward with the flag staff and set it up; then all the boys who carried the various scout flags ran up and formed a circle round it, while the other boys crowded in in a huge semi circle, with the spectators crowding in behind them. When the chief Scout Master broke the flag a huge roar went up from the boys and the crowd and after it had died down, the Scout Master cried out "Three Cheers for King Faisal the First!" Even out of doors they made a great sound. Paulis turned to me and said "What are they cheering?" "The King" said I.

On Friday afternoon I took M. Roddolo for a walk in Haji Naji's garden. Haji Naji caught sight of me and hurried to welcome us. When he heard that Roddolo was part of the Commission, he began cursing the Turks and all their deeds and finally begged to be allowed to express his views to the Commissioners. He saw them next morning; I wasn't present at the interview, but he came to my office afterwards and told me with satisfaction that he had said his say.

I dined with the A.V.M. on Friday to meet them all - H.E. and Esme were there too, no one else but the staff. My hat it was cold! In Baghdad houses like the A.V.M.'s you have to walk in the open downstairs and through the court to get from the drawing room to the dining room - in an evening gown that's not fun. I played Bridge afterwards with Counts Teleki and Pourtales and Air Commodore Dowding. And lost. Teleki was my partner - I trust it may be of good omen, his losing.

On Saturday I had a night off and dined with the Joyces and a large party, including Ken and Colonel Girdwood (the new O.C. troops and very nice) after which we went to a rather tedious and far too lengthy amateur theatrical. The frost broke that night, out of spite, and it streamed with rain, so that we had a difficult business getting back in the mud. Next day it froze again as hard as ever.

On Sunday I spent most of the morning at the Sarai - a long time comparing notes with the C.I.D. as to all that was happening. Lionel came to lunch and was perfectly delightful. I'm turning over in my mind whether I will or won't write the 'Iraq book for Benn's Modern World Series. In a wild moment, I promised Herbert Fisher 9 months ago to do the volume on the Arab states. A month ago I wrote and said I wouldn't (not having written a line) because I was so much at variance with H.M.G.'s policy in Palestine and Syria that I could not touch the subject. Whereat, far from being discouraged, they replied that that was all right and wouldn't I write a book about the 'Iraq only. So I'm rather caught, for they have already advertised me as the author of the other and I feel some reluctance as to letting them down entirely - though far greater reluctance to write the book. Lionel is urging me to do it, and I'm feeling that I haven't enough time, energy or knowledge. I'm postponing decision for a week.

That night the Prime Minister gave an official dinner to the Commission - some 50 people. I was there on H.E.'s staff - no other women, so I set my own fashion and didn't put on an evening gown. (I was well advised for it was icy and a black velvet afternoon gown with orders and things looked quite nice.) They put me between Teleki and Ken, which was very pleasant. Teleki is as clever as he can be and most interesting to talk to. He told me the whole tale of the way the decision about Hungary was reached at Paris, much as I had heard it from Arthur Grenfell, do you remember Father - that morning at the Lawleys? It was perhaps the most ignorant and unjust thing that was done at the Peace Conference. It hasn't sweetened Teleki. In the middle of dinner Ken told me that Jawad Pasha had with him an outrageous book by an American (Powell, it has recently come out) called The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia. The 'Iraq chapter is a tissue of lies and misrepresentations. So I turned to Teleki and gave him a short account of the book, and in order to refute Powell's statements, I further detailed to him the inner history of the adoption of Faisal as a candidate here by H.M.G. - a tale which probably only Sir Percy and I know in all its details. Teleki listened and at the end said: "Who were his supporters here?" I said: "The men who had fought with [him] in the Hijaz and the Shi'ahs of the 'Iraq." That was entirely true, but it was rather a facer, for the Commission are trying to make out that the Sunni Faisal was forced on the Shi'ahs by us. We then sheered off politics and talked of the beginnings of civilization, especially here. It is a subject on which he is an authority and I was immensely interested by what he said. I took him to the Museum next day and we spent a wonderful hour there.

But I'm convinced, I'm positive, that he is definitely pro-Turk and that he is going to do his damnedest to get the Commission to give recommendations which will be pleasing to the Turks. He is not out to learn local conditions - it's chose jugÇe. All depends now on whether the attitude of Mosul itself counters his design.

They went there on Monday night and there was an incident the moment they arrived. While the Mutasarrif and the Administrative Inspector were discussing with de Wirsen (the President) the measures that should be taken with regard to the movements of the Turkish delegation (you remember that they have two 'Iraqi outlaws with them as "experts"!) Teleki slipped out with Jawad Pasha, the latter in full Turkish uniform. A crowd began to assemble and one man cried out: "Long live Turkey!" whereat the rest of the crowd began to shout: "Long live the 'Iraq!" There might well have been a brawl but the police, who were on the alert, escorted the two back to their house. I expect there is going to be some fun in Mosul. The Interior has issued an excellent proclamation forbidding demonstrations and ordering the people to facilitate the work of the Commission. That ought to make a good impression.

There! my mind is all full of this and I can't write of anything else. There's one point to the good - I heard it first from Pourtales and Sir Henry afterwards from Paulis. The Turks at Angora [Ankara (Ancyra)] declared that whatever way the territorial decision went, it would not affect the giving of the oil concession to the International Company we favour, the Turkish Petroleum Co. The Commission is therefore now convinced that we are not pressing for the inclusion of Mosul in the 'Iraq in order to forward our own oil interests.

Before he left Baghdad, de Wirsen wrote to Branting (President of the Council of the League) and represented to him (so he says) the impropriety of having on the Commission the two outlaw "experts". If the League were to protest against their presence the effect would be admirable. (NB this is all quite secret.) Meantime Angora is indignantly protesting that their "experts" were quite properly chosen and that the "British authorities" want to get rid of them only because they are too well versed in local conditions.

To Father in particular: Don't pay any attention to the National Political League - they belong to the great clan of busy bodies and count for nothing. I'm surprised to hear that [I] spent over ú1000 last year - the flyleaf of my cheque book showed only about half that amount. I shall ask Dennigton how that can be. Our post goes on Thursday so I'll write to you at Port Said on Feb 12. I've got it carefully noted down. Ever dearest parents your very loving daughter Gertrude.

Mother - I'm glad you read the ChÉtelaine du Liban. I'm a dangerous character, you see. I'll see what I can do about the Red X article - I'm feeling rather overwhelmed with writing and I know nothing at all about their work here. Never heard of them here.

Mind, all about Teleki and his attitude is profoundly secret.