Baghdad July 26 Dearest Father. I have this week your letter of June 17 and a delightful letter from Mother of June 14. I'll answer them both together though I'm very grateful for separate letters as it gives me more news. First to Mother: I'm deeply impressed by the success of the flower makers. How enormously our women must have enjoyed the exhibition. The thing is getting onto its own feet. Only it is a bore that the excellent Miss Davies should be entirely taken up by work at Rounton. It's much too much for Mother to be her own secretary in London. And I feel rather agitated at her voice being such a tiresome nuisance - isn't there any active step which could be taken, such as some sort of cure? It ought not to go on perpetually like that. Mrs Hambro sent an ecstatic[?] account of her visit to the General. I'm so glad Mother liked her and I hope you will see her too. I've got the legal document but not the memo. You tell me to wait for the latter before returning the former so I'll do so - it will come by next mail. But in principle I'm delighted to give you any kind of power of attorney you think convenient and you're fully at liberty to do anything you like with my properties, they having all originated from you. I'm troubled about what you say re doctors' bills. I don't know what you allude to when you talk of financing D.L. and Co but it's clear that there's a shortage of ready money, which is not uncommon in this universe. Therefore please please make Mother draw a cheque out of my cheque book - which she has - and repay you whatever sum it was that you paid for me to the doctors and for my part I will be very strictly economical. I can't as you know live on my pay here. I shall probably have to entertain a good deal these next months as my house makes a good meeting place for Arab notables and British officials. But I think £30 a month ought easily to cover my extra expenses. Happy to tell you that since you left I've never once run into temptation by going to the bazaar, that dangerously engaging place! Things have moved a little since I wrote last week. We have relieved Rumaithah [Rumaythah, Ar] - and at the same time our own minds, for the couple of hundred people who had been shut up there for 3 weeks were a great anxiety. But we fought a rear guard active all the way back and the country between Diwaniyah [Diwaniyah, Ad] and Samawah [Samawah, As] is abandoned to disorder. We haven't troops enough to tackle it at present. Hillah [Hillah, Al] has remained quiet - I was wrong in saying that 'Umran of the Bani Hasan has left us; he has held firm. But his position is very difficult, for his brother 'Alwan is out and all the southern part of the tribe round Kufah [Kufah, Al]. Capt. Hopkins and others were besieged in Abu Sukhair [Abu Sukhayr] for 4 days but part of their besiegers were in favour of letting them get away safely to Kufah and constrained the other part in that sense. Capt. Mann also has come in to Kufah; he is down with very bad fever, I should think a good deal due to strain and anxiety. The Fatlah made two attempts on him but his own tribes protected him. A curiously united situation, isn't it. Saiyid Talib arrived yesterday. It was Sunday and I wasn't in the office but he came round in the afternoon to see me. He has come up on the invitation to the ex-Deputies; they are supposed to meet here on the 31st. The Nationalist party have set their face against the scheme which they look upon as an attempt on our part to cut the ground under their feet. What they want is to proceed at once to a Constituent Assembly of their own choosing in which all moderate elements would be swamped, if not entirely excluded from it. The cliché they have adopted is that it's well known that in Turkish times the deputies were appointed by the Committee of Union and Progress and are not therefore representative of the people. The comic thing is that this line is taken by people who were themselves ardent adherents of the C.U.P. The answer to their objection is firstly that it was their fault if they allowed themselves so to be represented; we take ex-Turkish institutions at their face value in this as in other matters. Secondly - and this is the real argument - the CUP made its selection with considerable ease and the ex-Deputies are a body of men who might (and probably would) very suitably have been chosen if there had been real election. But a loophole has been left by giving the commission of ex-deputies the right of co-option to their number, so as to admit some of the advanced Nationalists, such as Yusuf Suwaidi, who don't happen to be ex-Deputies. Also there are no Shi'ahs among the number - no Shi'ah held any form of office in Turkish times - and they must co-opt some. Saiyid Talib holds a peculiar positon. He began by being an adherent of the CUP and then turned violently against them and led the advanced Nationalist party of pre-war days. The new people regard him with suspicion, partly because they rightly suspect him of aiming at the position of authority which they want for themselves, and partly because they know he is on very good terms with us, and is not likely to go for a free Arab Govt without a mandate. They are however afraid of him - rightly again; he is the ablest man in the country. He is also, it must be remembered, entirely unscrupulous, but his interests and ours are the same as he openly said to me last night. What he is really aiming at is a guarantee from us that if he succeeds in getting together a moderate party we will back him for the highest place. This of course we can't give him as we cannot bind the Arab Govt, once we've established it, to select any particular person as its head. We should and must back anyone whom they agree upon - at least that's how I see it - and it's up to Saiyid Talib to make his own position. It will be extemely curious to see what line he takes. After he left I went with the Tods on a big launch with all the children and one or two other people some way down river. We drew up to a little sandy island, and there we all bathed - it was most delicious. I hadn't swum for years and loved doing it again. We came back by moonlight and supped on the launch. And we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. The above was written before breakfast. When I got to the office I found that the whole complexion on the Euphrates had changed. All the tribes are out; we've evacuated the Barrage and are evacuating Diwaniyah. Whether we can hold Hillah or not I don't know. Major Norbury is shut up at Kufah. Where however he has troops and plenty of provisions so he's all right. But it's a bad business. The military authorities seem to me all through to have [been] more inept than it's possible to conceive. The crowning scandal was the despatch two days ago of a battalion of the Manchesters from Hillah to Kifl [Kifl, Al]. They were ordered to leave at 4 am and left at 10, with one day's rations and water bottles. You remember that hot and barren road? think of marching down it in July at midday! 17 miles out of Hillah they were dropping about with heat stroke. The tribes attacked - not viciously, I gather, but it was more than enough for the Manchesters, for there wasn't a kick left in them. The tribes carried off the artillery and ammunition they were convoying down to Kifl and then made no objection to ambulances from Hillah coming out to pick up the casualties, whether from sun or bullets. I believe there are more troops coming from India but unless they send a new higher Command with them, I think they may easily send 20 divisions in vain. Meantime the Baghdadis who are the authors and begetters of all this trouble, have created a monster which they now can't control. The tribes are in full enjoyment of reBellion and they're not going to listen to anyone. They look forward to a prolonged period of bliss in which they'll pay no taxes. But the Baghdadis don't like it at all - indeed they're very much alarmed. Soon after I got to the office today I was visited by two distinguished Sunni magnates, fathers of turbans, one of them an advanced nationalist. I made them welcome and said it was long since I had had the pleasure of seeing them. "Yes" they said "we've come to you because you're Belloved. Everyone in Baghdad praises you. What they say is 'if only their men were like their women!'" This prelude indicated that there was something in the wind so I put a few tactful questions and discovered that they had come to find out if anything could be done to pacify the tribes. The upshot of it was that we sketched out a scheme for a joint Sunni and Shi'ah commission to go to Karbala and Najaf [Najaf, An] and I took it to A.T. [Wilson]. He was visibly put out and said he could only listen if the matter came to him through Capt. Clayton. I replied that I was more than ready to bring Capt. Clayton (whom I love and see eye to eye with) into touch with anyone, but I thought I had better take a part because as he's a newcomer he didn't know the people we were talking about, nor could he offer any suggestions. AT had to climb down. I brought in dear Capt Clayton and he sat there as audience while we finished the scheme. It's my scheme from end to end, I must tell you. I wrote a memo. to AT 10 days ago on the subject. But my two turbaned magnates think it's theirs, thanks to the extreme delicacy of the handling they received this morning, and AT thinks it's theirs too. The two are coming tomorrow to give a final decision, but I'm rather afraid they'll say they can't take it on. Their desire is to put the whole blame onto the Shi'ahs and then to leave the latter to get out of the hole which in point of fact the Sunnis have dug just as eagerly as they. They hate the idea of a joint commission with Shi'ahs though they can't trust the Shi'ahs to do the business alone. But they couldn't refuse to work with Shi'ahs because during the whole of Ramadhan they've preached the complete unity of Islam - as against us, you understand. I used that card for all it was worth and won a trick with it every time. Isn't [it] a strange and bewildering situation? But the Euphrates is a bad business, and very bad business. Once the tribes get out on the warpath it takes all the King's horses and all the King's men to bring them to order. In fact I don't know what's going to happen. We may presently have the Tigris tribes out too and then HMG may say that they've had enough of Mesopotamia. Whereupon everyone here, I'll take my oath, will be praying us to remain in any capacity we choose. Meantime there's the new situation in Syria, which I need not tell you I regard as damnable. Whatever initial successes the French may have, they're bound to go under in the end just as surely as we're bound to come to the top here, over time, if we carry out the programme we say we're going to carry out. Because there's a fundamental sympathy between us and the people here and there's a fundamental hatred between the Syrians and the French. I believe Faisal will fight and I believe he will have to call in Mustafa Kamal - what other help can he look to? And whatever happens it means a long continuance of anger and bitterness which must to some extent react on us here. Damn the French. I wonder how often we've all said that in the last year and a half? Well, if the British evacuate Mesopotamia, I shall stay peacefully here and see what happens. It will be very nice without all the British officers and their wives - just the Tods and me; like old times! Now a little bit of business. I got your memo this morning. I've consulted Sir Edgar and I shall send the power of attorney, signed with 2 witnesses (he says that's best) tomorrow. Your honoured name shall be in it - that's good enough for me; though I've every confidence in Maurice's prudence, I'll go a dash with you. Then when we're both in the workhouse we'll write our life and times. Mine will be rather interesting, at any rate the later years. I understand from what you say that I shall ultimately owe the bank £7200 which I shall progressively be better able to pay off as the Dorman Long shares begin to give returns. Meantime my scheme of economy is a good one and should be adhered to. If I want to buy this house - I forgot to ask Mr Tod how the negotiations are proceeding - I shall have to sell out in order to do so. If we evacuate Mesopotamia there's no doubt I shall get this house much cheaper, for there'll be a slump in land values as in everything else. So perhaps evacuation would suit me. On the other hand I shall no longer be a salaried official unless the Arab state takes me on. I fear its salaries won't be large. I will now make a confession to you. I gave Fattuh £100. My view was that I was under considerable obligations to him. He has always served me admirably and he has suffered for having been my servant. I think my debt to him is now discharged. I've done my best to put him on his feet and I don't propose to finance him further. But I shouldn't have had an easy conscience if I hadn't done as much as I have. And that's worth £100. Don't you think so? Darling Father, I do hope you enjoy my letters as much as I enjoy writing them! If they seem to you rather mad, I can only offer as excuse that I'm living in a perfectly mad world. Added to which the heat makes one a little light headed. You realize we may at any moment be cut off from the universe if the Tigris tribes rise. It doesn't seem to matter, in fact I don't mind at all. One just accepts what happens, from day to day, without any amazement. But we didn't foresee all this when we travelled about Mesopotamia together, did we? I am your insane but affectionate daughter Gertrude I am sending you confidentially a copy of the budget. Look at Appendix 1. Under the head receipts only the first 5 items can be rightly classed as Revenue, i.e. Rs 21,639,740 - rather over £2 million. Sir G. Buchanan writes the utmost bosh. He knows nothing about the subject - but there's no subject that Sir G.B. doesn't think he knows all about. One more thing I must write about and that's poor Strzyg [Strzygowski]. I have sent Mary Murray £10 and though it seems a very meagre contribution I really can't give more. I gave Fattuh £100 because I felt I had a personal responsibility for his misfortunes and that doesn't appply here. The cost of living here is so great that I've been cutting down expenses as much as possible. And incidentally I was horrified at the price of the chairs. I'm glad to give something nice to Aurelia because I do owe her a great deal but I wished that when you found them so expensive you hadn't sent one to me. And please dearest don't send me anything more - I forget if I asked you for anything else. It's true I'm earning about £700 a year - and it's certainly all I'm worth - but I have to run a house and entertain a good deal and I can't do it on my pay. Food is worth it's weight in gold, prices having doubled since the tribal revolt began and we shall probably have a very dear winter.