Women in the Great War by Stephen Wynn

Author:Stephen Wynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2017-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

With the war into its second year, Bell was summonsed to Cairo and assigned to the Army Intelligence Headquarters there, beginning her work in November 1915. Initially her contribution was to process her own information, and that of others, on the topic of Arab tribes, to see which would be likely to fight alongside the British, against troops of the Ottoman Empire. On 3 March 1916, Gertrude was sent to assist the British army in Basra, where she set about drawing detailed maps of the country for military purposes.

Like Sarah Aaronsohn, Gertrude also witnessed at first hand the shocking images of the Armenian Genocide. An intelligence report that she submitted contained the following information that painted a definitive picture of how the Armenian population were systematically being brutally murdered:

The battalion left Aleppo on 3 February and reached Ras al-Ain in twelve hours. Some 12,000 Armenians were concentrated under the guardianship of some 100 Kurds. These Kurds were called gendarmes, but in reality were mere butchers; bands of them were publicly ordered to take parties of Armenians, of both sexes, to various destinations, but had secret instructions to destroy the males, children and old women. One of these gendarmes confessed to killing 100 Armenian men himself. The empty desert cisterns and caves were also filled with corpses. No man can ever think of a woman’s body except as a matter of horror, instead of attraction, after Ras al-Ain.

Bell carried on her work throughout the war, receiving the Order of the British Empire in 1917, and remained in service after the signing of the Armistice. She was, in part, one of those responsible for the post war reshaping of the Middle East, which came out of the Cairo Conference in 1921, and which Bell attended.

Her health had been an issue for a few years before her death. She had bronchitis, made worse no doubt, by her heavy smoking, and in 1925 she developed pleurisy. Gertrude Bell was found dead on 12 July 1926 in Baghdad from an apparent overdose of sleeping tablets, which will always leave the unanswerable question, of whether her death was a suicide or an unfortunate accident.

Her funeral took place at the British Cemetery in Baghdad and was well attended, by her friends, colleagues and the newly appointed King of Iraq, King Faisal. The Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet, Sir Henry Dobbs, the High Commissioner, Air Vice Marshal Sir John Higgins, a number of Sheiks and the British and Iraqi officers who were advisers to the Army of Iraq. Troops lined the entire route of the cortege, with massive crowds out on the streets to pay their last respects, to a much loved and much respected woman.

Louise de Bettignies

Louise Marie Jeanne Henrietta De Bettignies was born on 15 July 1880. She was a French woman who spied for the British during the First World War, using the pseudonym of Alice Dubois.

She was an intelligent girl and well educated at both the Sister of the Sacred Hearts in

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