Baghdad Feb. 1. Dearest Father. It is very lucky that you and Mother wrote by the air mail for the overland mail is locked in the mud and won't be in for days and days. So I've got your letter ending Jan. 21 before going away tomorrow.
It was a most interesting letter. Hugo's relapse must have been very perturbing and the inevitable delay in his getting well is so tiresome. However, you ended on a cheerful note and since I've heard nothing more I conclude that all is well.

I long to hear of the luncheon with W.T., Edward Grey and Sir G. Paish. Russia is a tremendous problem. What I doubt is - but then I don't know - whether it is possible to get that very unvocal peasantry to take a line of their own. They submitted to the tyranny of the Romanoffs and now they are enduring that of the insane group of communists who were the product of the old regime. There's more hope, I should say, in getting the people at the top to see advantage in changing their policy towards us. I guess from what I see at this end that there is some sign that they may, just a shadow of an indication. The treaty with Turkey was such a very jejune business and we are assured from C'ple [Istanbul (Constantinople)] that the Russians haven't the least intention of fighting for the Turks or for anyone. I daresay W.T. told you this. At the same time wherever we come into contact with Russian official activities they are as hostile as ever. In Persia for instance, but then in Persia it's natural for the Soviet Govt adheres to the old line of penetration while we are giving what diplomatic support we can to a regime which seems to be more vigorous than that of the Shahs. There's the usual gossip (secret) of Russian intrigues across our northern frontier but our C.I.D. doesn't think there is much in it.

I wish that France could set her house in order. I can only echo your despondency as to her European aspect by repeating that there is no sign of her being able to do so in Syria. De Jouvenel has done everything wrong and so stupidly wrong. The piece-meal elections which he is holding under the strictest French control are just as much a farce as was the amnesty. {They} He can't get any Syrian to take on the job of President and he has been obliged to extend direct French control. They talk of a campaign against the Jabal Druze [Duruz, Jabal ad] in the spring. The Druzes intend to fight to the last ditch and then hop over it into the lava wastes to the east - anything rather than submit to the French whom they profoundly mistrust. They say that if we would guarantee French promises they would accept them, or if the League, including us, would do so. I would be sorry to guarantee any French promise to anyone.

The point is (did I write this before?) that the French are going to put the League of N. into a very tight place. The League can scarcely pretend to take the very thin French explanations at the foot of the letter; too much information has come through by means of foreign journalists - not least those of the French right wing press when it attacked Sarrail. The news gets through. Following on a paragraph in Reuters yesterday saying that the French Govt was wholly satisfied with the rapid steps which had been made in the pacification of Syria, came another recounting a fresh breach in the Damascus [Dimashq (Esh Sham, Damas)]-Beyrout [Beyrouth (Beirut)] railway on the part of the insurgents. The Syrian nationalists are making a determined effort to be heard by the League. One of them, now at Geneva [Genève], I know, Ihsan Jabri Beg. He was Mayor of Aleppo [Halab] in 1919, an able man who could put up a case good enough to make de Jouvenel very uncomfortable. The League has refused to hear him, but I saw in the telegrams that he had been interviewed by Scialoja, the Italian member of the Council. The Syrians won't have the French; they have always said so and they always will. And they are right; they naturally want to be an independent Arab state and the French want them to be a bad immitation of several French departments. What I ask is what you asked Wilson, A.T.