thegreat48:

The dashing Lawrence of Arabia learned everything he knew from Gertrude Bell.  She first got bitten by the travel bug when she went to Persia to visit an uncle (he was an ambassador there).  Over the next thirty years, she would prove an invaluable asset to the British Empire in Arabia and a loyal ally to the new nation of Iraq.  Previously, during World War I, the British Army had hired her to lead soldiers across the deserts.  When the Allies won the war and Ottoman Empire fell, Bell was asked to take charge of the political situation in the area, since she was the most physically familiar with it and was widely respected by the desert nomadic tribes.  Bell was closely involved in the Iraqi administration and advised the newly crowned King Faisal on everything from cabinet appointments to flag design (she even sketched the borders of the new country on a paper napkin at tea).  She was also deeply committed to preserving Iraqi cultural history and founded the Baghdad Archaeological Museum (later the Iraqi Museum).

 

Further reading:

Gertrude Bell: From Her Personal Papers 1914-1926

Gertrude Bell: The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914 edited by Rosemary O’Brien

Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell