Gertrude Bell and T E Lawrence did their best, whilst disagreeing over fundamental issues such as the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine. Bell foresaw endless struggle and war – and what she saw in France, the fear and the grief and the pain and the suffering, especially of the young, made her wearily cynical of her generation getting it right. She died in 1926; but, like many, by 1915 she’d already seen and felt enough. It was far from ‘all over by Christmas’ - it was never over.