Rome, Italy – A writer, orientalist, archaeologist, employee close to prime-minister Winston Churchill in the Middle East, key person for the creation of the states of Iraq, Syria and Jordan early last century, author of books that to date are studied by Intelligence Services of the United States and England and a strong defender of peace in the region. This is the English Gertrude Bell, the character whose rich, though little-known story is enacted at Belli Theatre, in Rome, in spectacle "La Regina Senza Corona" (Queen Without a Crown), by Massimo Vincenzi.
The play was inspired on "Desert Queen", by writer and orientalist Janet Wallach, published for the first time in 1999 and reedited in 2006, for the eightieth anniversary of the death of Gertrude Bell, who passed away in 1926, in Bagdad. "She is a fascinating and fundamental character to the history of the Middle East. Her writings and books, for example, are currently still being studied by the US military," explained Italian actress Francesca Bianco, who plays Gertrude on the Roman stage.
Gertrude was born in England in 1868, to a family rising in the steel industry in the country, the new nobles of England at the time. Having had an excellent education, at 18 she went on to Oxford University, a male environment, and was the first woman in England to graduate in Modern History from the university. In the academic universe, she suffered biases, as is shown in the play in the scene in which Gertrude recalls the day the university dean said, in an open address to freshmen, that women, despite being inferior, were now part of the university. But Gertrude proved him wrong.
Passion for the Middle East
At the age of 22, the young Gertrude started her travels through Europe. She went to Romania, Germany and Turkey, where she stayed with an uncle, a diplomat. Her passion for the Middle East was kindled after a trip to Persia, at age 24. Due to a love affair that fell through, Gertrude discovered a new world, which would seduce her more than any man, as the play shows. Based on her travel logs, Gertrude wrote “Persian Pictures” (reedited in 2005 by British publishing house Anthem). In 1899, she moved to Jerusalem to study Arabic and archaeology, and then started planning her future great voyage to Arabia, at the time dominated by the Ottoman Empire.
The trip took two years. Gertrude travelled the region that currently includes Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. She visited most of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa. In this period, Gertrude established important diplomatic ties with Arab sheikhs and nobles. Always elegant, well dressed, fluent in five languages (English, German, Italian, Turkish and Arabic), Gertrude easily travelled the Arab world. The desert, its magical colours, flavours and people stimulated her more each day and she wrote a best seller, "The Desert and the Sown" (reedited in 2001 by Cooper Square Press).
The adventurer
In the early 20th Century, the Arab world would become her land, her work and her raison d’être. In 1906, Gertrude went on one more long trip, this time in the Indiana Jones style, visiting unexplored regions, isolated tribes and warriors of the desert. She shot scenes, drew maps, crossed borders that would only exist years later, wrote and informed England of the situation in the region, working as a spy for the British. On her route, in Egypt, she met the young Thomas E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia (eternalized in the extraordinary movie by David Lean, of 1962), who, at age 23, was fascinated by a wise Gertrude, with a celebrity aura, respected in the Arab world and Europe. "She was like a teacher to Lawrence, who she called ‘my dear boy’," said Francesca.
With common interest in the region and fearful that Germany, helped by Turkey, would dominate the entire Middle East during the First World War, from where oil flowed to England, Gertrude and Lawrence joined forces. The object was to talk to the Arabs and convince them to come together against Turkish domain. It was up to Gertrude to talk to her noble friends, to the families capable of governing the countries that she thought of creating, among them Iraq. It was in a document written by Gertrude to the British intelligence that, for the first time, she presented the names of Hussein Ibn Ali (the leader of the Arab Revolt and father of the future kings of Iraq, Faisal, and Jordan, Abdullah) and Abdul Aziz Al Saud (or Ibn Saud, who was the first king of Saudi Arabia from 1932 to 1953), as the main leaders in the region.
Architecture of the Middle East
The following years were intense for Gertrude. With the First World War developing and the Arab Revolt taking shape, she was the English architect for the Middle East. And she performs well in the position, proposing the establishment of the Iraqi state. But the project was rejected. At the time, the idea was that of Greater Syria, under the command of king Faisal. Only some years later, in 1921, was the proposal accepted and Gertrude nominated Eastern secretary in the recently created country. The Syrian borders are also created, as was Transjordan (currently Jordan and the West Bank). That marked the end of the risk of Ottoman domain and of German danger.
Gertrude’s task with England seemed to have come to an end and she decided to stay in Baghdad to help establish the country, directly influencing Faisal in creating a constitutional monarchy, which resulted in Iraq being the first Arab nation in the League of Nations, in 1932. With the respect of the monarch, Bell created Baghdad’s Museum and turned to archaeology. But times of peace never seemed to arrive and Gertrude’s final years in Arab lands, according to her biographer, were unhappy. She isolated herself.
Arab nation
Due to her love for the Arab world and her tireless fight for peace in the region, she ended up severing ties with the government of England when Iraq called for independence (reached in 1932) and England threatened with another war. “Gertrude dreamt about and preached peace, dialogue and believed that it was not possible to impose freedom through weapons," said Francesca Bianco. This is the same dream as that of Francesca’s second character, a North American marine in the war on Iraq, in 2003.
In 1926, just before her 58th birthday, in Baghdad, due to an extra dose of sleeping pills, Gertrude Bell, the founder of Iraq, passed away. She left her entire inheritance – approximately 50,000 pounds sterling, a large value at the time – to the museum she established in the Arab world. She was buried in the English cemetery in Baghdad. "In 2003, her museum and the cemetery where she was buried were blown out of history, destroyed by the American bombing, with the support of the English," said Francesca.
*Translated by Mark Ament