|
|
KING FAISAL, head of the Arab kingdom of Iraq, paid an astonishing tribute to Gertrude Bell after her death in 1926.
|
Descendant of the Prophet,
waiting to be king
|
:
In an interview, granted to a popular English women’s magazine in 1930 he said:
"Gertrude Bell is a name that is written indelibly on Arab history - a name which is spoken with awe - like that of Napoleon, Nelson or Mussolini "One might say that she was the greatest woman of her time. Without question her claim to greatness is on a footing with women like Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell, Madame Curie and others.”
There you are then. It’s not just her old girl-friends at school who thought she was great.)
King Faisal said of Gertrude“She ventured alone and disguised into the remotest districts . . . I do not think she knew what fear was. . . No danger or exploit was too great for her to face.”
The king spoke of her ‘unerring loyalty to all that was just and good’, and of her ‘genius for warfare and strategy. He went on:
”I think I may reveal now the fact that in one of the critical phases of our history, when some of our men were wavering, the great white woman herself led them in an attack on the Turks. At least once in her strange career she was at the mercy of her enemies and had before her the certainty of a terrible death.
"She had been betrayed to the Turks by a treacherous Arab while on the way back from one of her perilous missions into the desert, and she was seized, disguised as an Arab tribesman, by a Turkish patrol. . . this woman preferred to face torture. .. rather than betray anyone. Happily, she was able to make her escape before her captors had a chance of carrying out their threats. . .”
He described her facility for disguise, her ability to make herself up as an Arab of any tribe she chose, and so skillfully that it was undetectable.
“Once my men brought me a picturesque looking Arab camel driver, who answered all my questions in the vernacular as though his whole life had been spent in following this humble occupation. After I had questioned the captive and had obtained from him all the information I sought. . . the camel driver owned to being Miss Bell.”
[Extract from 1930s British magazine, Everybody’s Weekly]
Well now, how does that tribute to Bell - "greatest woman of all time" - ring?
] |
