While the Cairo Conference of 1921 was a serious affair, there were more than enough eccentrics and events to view with humor and maybe a little dismay.
THE ANIMALS
The Zoo of Cairo: Dogs, Horses, Camels… and Two Lions
Bell (third rider from left) is flanked by Winston Churchill, on her right, and T E Lawrence at Giza during the 1921 Cairo Conference.
Churchill had been enthusiastically social the night before. Riding a camel is famously uncomfortable even under ideal conditions. Accounts from those present suggest Churchill endured the swaying journey with considerable determination and limited enthusiasm, the desert sun doing little to improve matters. Even so, he remained in good humor and later joked about the experience. It’s one of those moments that reminds us that the man who reorganized British Middle East policy that week was also clinging to a camel saddle after a long night of diplomacy, brandy and the cloud of his ever present cigars.
BIG CATS
The strangest animal story involved pet lions reportedly kept by a British officer in Cairo society circles. Colonial Cairo had a reputation for eccentric pets; visiting officials were occasionally introduced to animals that would be considered wildly inappropriate today.
Gertrude Bell was well known for her love of dogs and usually traveled with one or two throughout Iraq and maintained at her home in Baghdad.
While the delegates often lounged by the Shepheard’s Hotel pool, most of various support troops and Arabs were on horseback and ensconced in tents. Rather than rigid conference rooms, participants often found themselves talking policy over long late-night dinners while Cairo society flowed around them. One British officer joked that the Middle East was being redesigned “between cocktail and the dessert course.”
One evening during the conference, several participants attended a social gathering where the theme was Arab or Bedouin dress. British officials loved these theatrical moments. Some participants wore elaborate robes, headscarves, and tribal belts — sometimes with surprising enthusiasm. T. E. Lawrence, who had actually lived among Arab fighters, wore the clothing naturally and comfortably. Others looked more like British officers in costume at a masquerade ball. Accounts suggest the evening involved storytelling from desert campaigns and heavy drinking
While Churchill smoked cigars, diplomats debated policy beside a swimming pool, Gertrude Bell quietly rolled her eyes at imperial theatrics, and T. E. Lawrence slipped away from the crowds — the modern Middle East was being sketched into existence.
History rarely feels as tidy in the moment as it does in textbooks. Tomorrow the fallout we live with today.
