葛特露·贝尔

生平

1868年7月14日，格特鲁德·贝尔出生于英格兰达勒姆郡华盛顿新会堂（Washington New Hall）。她出生于一个大铁器制造商家庭，家境良好。贝尔的个性聪明绝顶、精力充沛，对学术充满热情，勇于冒险患难。

1886年，贝尔进入牛津大学，成为牛津历史上第一个获得一等学位的女性。贝尔满身的学究气，于是她开始学习波斯语，并于1892年去了她的叔父出任大使的伊朗。在伊朗，她写了第一本游记，翻译了波斯诗人哈菲兹的诗集，并与一位英国外交官亨利·凯·杜根坠入了爱河，亨利带领她认识沙漠，开启了她对沙漠的热爱。但其父以亨利嗜赌、不稳重等理由反对两人成婚，使得贝尔只能黯然回国。在八个月试图说服父亲的过程中，传来亨利不慎坠入冰冷河水感染肺炎病逝的消息。

1926年7月12日，服下过量安眠药自杀身亡。

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist. She spent much of her life exploring and mapping the Middle East, and became influential in British imperial policy-making as an Arabist due to her knowledge of the region and the contacts built up during her extensive travels there. She was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials such as High Commissioner for Mesopotamia Percy Cox, giving her great influence. She participated in both the 1919 Paris Peace Conference (briefly) and the 1921 Cairo Conference, which helped decide the territorial boundaries and governments of the post-War Middle East as part of the partition of the Ottoman Empire. Bell believed that the momentum of Arab nationalism was unstoppable, and that the British government should ally with nationalists rather than stand against them. Along with T. E. Lawrence, she advocated for independent Arab states in the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and supported the installation of Hashemite monarchies in what is today Jordan and Iraq.

Bell was raised in a privileged environment that allowed her an education at Oxford University, to travel the world, and to meet future influential policy-makers. In her travels, she became an accomplished mountain climber and equestrian. She expressed great affection for the Middle East, visiting Qajar Iran, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. She participated in archaeological digs during a time period of great ferment and new discoveries, and personally funded a dig at Binbirkilise in Asia Minor.……

Early life

Gertrude Bell was born on 14 July 1868 in Washington New Hall—now known as Dame Margaret Hall—in Washington, County Durham, England. Her family was wealthy, which enabled both her higher education and her travels.……

Personal life

Bell never married or had children. After graduating from Oxford, she spent two and a half years, from 1890 to 1892, attending the London social rounds of balls and banquets where eligible young men and women paired off, but failed to find a match.……

Travels and writings

Bell's uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, was British minister (similar to ambassador) at Tehran, Persia. Bell travelled to Persia to visit him, arriving in May 1892. She stayed for around six months and loved the experience; she called Persia "paradise" in a letter home.……

War and political career

Outbreak of war

The British entered World War I in August 1914, and the Ottoman Empire entered the war in late October to early November. At the suggestion of Wyndham Deedes, the British War Office asked Bell for her assessment of the situation in Ottoman Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia.……

Cairo, Delhi, and Basra

In November 1915, Bell was summoned to Cairo in the British protectorate of Egypt;……

Final years

The stress of authoring a prodigious output of books, correspondence, intelligence reports, reference works, and white papers; of recurring bronchitis attacks brought on by years of heavy cigarette smoking; of bouts with malaria;……

Views and positions

Bell's upper-class background and training in history led her to hold views that were considered old-fashioned for the time, seeming to pine for an older, nobler aristocratic age. Her historical training did aid in understanding the Middle East;……

Legacy

Later influence

The boundary lines of Iraq that emerged during the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the 1921 Cairo Conference, and the 1922 addition of Southern Kurdistan still hold today for the modern state of Iraq.……

Writings

Bell wrote voluminously during her life. After her death in 1926, her stepmother Florence Bell made the first attempt to curate a selection of her writing from over 2,400 pages of letters.……