[22 November 1920] Baghdad Nov 22 Dearest Parents. I've had letters from you both dated Oct 20 and 21, describing your wonderful high school function - what a business it must have been to organize it and how lucky the strikes didn't complicate matters. You wrote at the beginning of the coal strike and I don't wonder you feel anxious. I did. It seems to me very remarkable that it should have all happened, and ended without any disturbance. It's an encouraging thought that English people don't look to red revolution as a settlement. It is, I think, as bad a solution as war of any quarrel. I trust we shall have sense enough never to turn to it.
Today we have the extraordinarily interesting news of the defeat of Venezelos. I wish it had happened a year and a half ago - but there! I suppose you can't expect monkeys to time their bites with so much circumspection. With Venezelos out it's possible that some conclusion may be reached in Turkey, for the Greek occupation of Smyrna [Izmir] was at the bottom of the whole trouble and he was its author and supporter. Unfortunately nationalist Turkey has now linked itself with Bolshevism and it may be too late to undo the mischief. Developments are certain to be upon us - whether they will make for peace or for more revolution it's impossible to say, but at least if Greek imperialism vanishes with Venezelos there will be one obstacle the less to the former. If Turkey would settle down to put her own house in order (a thing you could scarcely expect when you hadn't left her what might reasonably be called a house) she would perhaps cease from stirring up trouble elsewhere and we in Iraq would find our task considerably easier.

I am sending you a document (private) which I hope will interest you. I put down the whole talk for Sir Percy because the more we know what an adventure we've engaged on the better. The Arab Govt must win its spurs and it will take a long time doing it - i.e. it will be long before anyone has real confidence in it or in the likelihood of our making it into anything. We may be able to do it and we may not. We're bound to try. If we fail I can see no alternative but the return of the Turk and I should accept it - if for no other reason, than because I must. But I shouldn't like it. Man for man we may say without fear that the British advisor is better than the Turkish and I want to give this country the best chance I can. The thing is to induce the Arabs to accept the chance. I believe we can if events beyond our frontiers don't unseat us. A Turko-Bolshevist offensive might do that. If we had done 18 months ago what we're doing now the problem would have been infinitely more simple. On the whole I'm inclined to think that if none of the work that AT Wilson did had ever been done it would have been to the good, since we couldn't have it without having also his obstinate opposition to the facts that rule our relations with the East. The work was good up to a point but beyond that point it was so harmful that the good weighs light in the balance. Practically it has all to be undone. But one can't yet form a final judgement - we may reap some profit from it in the end.

I had a vastly entertaining dinner party last week - 3 magnates of Mosul [Mawsil, Al], two of them in the Council, and Capt Clayton and Major Bullard. Muhd 'Ali Fadhil, Minister of Auquf, is a most jovial turbanned party and he and the Xian, Daud Eff. Yusufani, kept the conversational ball not rolling but spinning. I don't think the host can be so much amused by the guests and the guests entirely bored. They provided their own entertainment - and mine. I also gave an English dinner party, a little couple whom you don't know, namens Miller and both very charming, Gen. Hambro and Capt Cheeseman [i.e. Cheesman]. It wasn't nearly so amusing as the other, however.

Mhd 'Ali Fadhil belongs to the Zaidi sect, a branch of Moslems which looks to the Imam of the Yaman as its head. Odd, isn't it, to be hobnobbing on such terms of cordiality with a follower of the Imam of the Yamam! He and Daud Yusufani have been Turkish MPs since 1908 and know C'ple [Istanbul (Constantinople)] intimately. They talked of and praised the Amir 'Abdullah whom Mosul generally favours. But I doubt, nevertheless, whether the Constituent Assembly will choose him or anyone else as Amir. They are more likely to choose the line of least resistance and ask that things may go on pretty much as they are. Always supposing there's no cataclism. I do not, however, pose as a prophet, being almost always defeated by events.

On Saturday I went out of town. I motored down to Zor, 2½ hours bad road - it's on the Tigris Bellow Ctesiphon - and there found the launch of Capt. Pedder, A.P.O. Suwairah and went on home up river to Suwairah [Suwayrah, As], leaving the motor at Zor station. It's a nice little place, Suwairah, built about 40 years ago by the Turks who did such things well - straight wide streets like Nasiriyah [Nasiriyah, An]. Before dinner we had the talk with 'Ajil recorded in the enclosed. Capt. Pedder, bless him, has the most primitive installation of any APO I've stayed with. He thinks that his little native house is the lap of luxury - but it isn't. After showing me round the few, and dark little mud rooms he said proudly "And it hasn't cost more than Rs 200 to do up." I answered dutifully "You don't say so!" wondering in my heart wherever Rs 200 had been expended. He put me into his best room, usually his study. It was lighted only from the door and when the door was shut there was no light at all. I felt a delicacy at having my bath with the door open, so I dressed in the morning with the help of a lantern. We set off on ponies at 9 into the heavenly Jazirah [Jazirah, Al] desert, accompanied by 'Ajil, and called on all the big Bait 'Abdullah shaikhs. One lives in a mud house - we drank coffee there - the other two in huge tents. At the furthest away we had lunch. Shaikh Faisal's encampment of about 100 tents lay in the thorn scrub - close to the Bad'at Hamad (their canal). About a third of his immense tent was the reception room, carpets and cushions all round and the tent walls made of flapping woollen hangings dyed and woven at home. They were in gorgeous crude colours, orange and scarlet, dark blue, or white grounds[?] with red and blue patterns on them. Hanging from the dull brown tent roof with the pale winter sun shining through them they looked splendid. The lunch consisted of at least 50 dishes with mountains of rice and lambs roasted whole in the middle of them. Afterwards I went to see the women, who were extremely pretty. Faisal's mother, a woman of about 50 with a finely cut face was the spokeswoman; the younger women were too shy to [do] anything but gaze out of their great black eyes, and giggle and cover their faces when talked to. Men and women, a more satisfactory collection of magnificent animals you couldn't hope to see. They are also well supplied with wits after their own fashion. As for 'Ajil he is one of the ablest men in Mesopotamia. We galloped back to Suwairah, greatly to the discomfort of the Arabs with us, for Arab dress is quite singularly unsuited for rapid riding. There's no part of it which keeps on, in fact the whole outfit is detachable, including the stirrups. Everything comes to bits. Capt. Pedder and I, however, enjoyed ourselves hugely. It was rough going through the thorns and over the little dry canals - it's flow[?] land, only watered at high flood - and it was the nearest thing to a good run out hunting which I've had in Mesopotamia. The great open space of the Jazirah, the fine clear air, the black tents and flocks - all were heavenly. I got straight into the launch and rejoined my motor at Zor at 3.45. We had something of a business getting home, for night fell on us as we passed Ctesiphon. The road to the Diyalah [Diyala (Sirwan)] bridge was none too easy to find. However we finally got in at 7.

Today my dogs had a similar adventure. They went out riding with me after office and on the way home I went to see Mrs Howell who has just had a son and is in the nursing home at the other end of the town. It was dark by this time and when I came out and got onto my pony there were no dogs. I rode home expecting to find them, but no dogs there either. About 8.30 Marie and I were beginning to feel perturbed when she heard a whining behind the wall by her room and as she looked they both came bounding over the wall from outside "comme des gros chats" said she. They had found the garden door locked by the stupid Mizhir and were so much pleased with themselves at having got in that they wholey [sic] forgot to be ashamed of not having waited quietly with the pony and come back with me.

My garden is a mass of chrysanthemums, brown and yellow and white and pink. It's very cold - the cold has come early - and the dogs have been obliged to wear last year's coats till Marie has time to make new ones; that will be after she has made a gown for me. They are disgracefully ragged and look like beggar dogs.

Mrs Philby and her baby have arrived. She is an attractive woman with beautiful red hair. I knew her before. I haven't seen the baby yet, but there's an English nurse and Mrs Philby and I devoutly hope that she and Marie will be friends. Ever darling Parents your very affectionate daughter Gertrude

A happy new year, if this reaches you in time, as it should.