They were there to attend the 1921 Cairo conference which was an effort to resolve conflicting British wartime promises in the region. It led to the "Sharifian solution" in which the Hashemites Abdullah and Faisal were to be made heads of Jordan and Iraq, respectively, as well as a partial delineation of what the territory of Jordan would be.
For anyone who doesn't know Gertrude Bell, she was kind of like Lawrence with some intelligence work during the war. She also ended up being the founder of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad- the one that got destroyed after the invasion. There was a bust of her made originally decades ago that was later stored in the basement. After the invasion and everything, the Americans hauled the bust back up and put it back where it was originally.
![image showing Mr & Mrs Winston Churchill, T.E.Lawrence and Gertrude Bell on camels in front of the Sphinx. 15th February 1921 [962x1162]](e08b9d56-42ab-54df-ae5e-0afd6352ddb1.jpg)
liquidarts on July 16th, 2017 at 12:13 UTC »
I was surprised they were so heavily dressed. I searched and TIL that Egypt's weather around February is 10-20°C!
CptBuck on July 16th, 2017 at 14:39 UTC »
They were there to attend the 1921 Cairo conference which was an effort to resolve conflicting British wartime promises in the region. It led to the "Sharifian solution" in which the Hashemites Abdullah and Faisal were to be made heads of Jordan and Iraq, respectively, as well as a partial delineation of what the territory of Jordan would be.
Also, this picture is cropped, you can see the full photo here, albeit in lower res: http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/287b6ad47db8201e832001c9a2bfec05?width=1024
edit: found it in better quality: http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/pmp/styles/x_large/pmpshared/201706/1571a540-d45a-44ab-8c12-33e01546d109.jpg
edit 2: also the title is incorrect, per the label on the photo, it was taken 20 March, 1921, which makes sense given the dates of the conference.
Vio_ on July 16th, 2017 at 14:54 UTC »
For anyone who doesn't know Gertrude Bell, she was kind of like Lawrence with some intelligence work during the war. She also ended up being the founder of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad- the one that got destroyed after the invasion. There was a bust of her made originally decades ago that was later stored in the basement. After the invasion and everything, the Americans hauled the bust back up and put it back where it was originally.