GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY
Jerusalem became supremely happy.
It had passed through the trials, if not the perils, of war. It had
been the headquarters and base of a Turkish Army. Great bodies
of troops were never quartered there, but staffs and depôts were
established in the City, and being in complete control, the military
paid little regard to the needs of the population. Unfortunately a not
inconsiderable section of Jerusalem's inhabitants is content to live,
not by its own handiwork, but on the gifts of charitable religious
people of all creeds. When war virtually shut off Jerusalem from the
outer world the lot of the poor became precarious. The food of the
country, just about sufficient for self-support, was to a large extent
commandeered for the troops, and while prices rose the poor could not
buy, and either their appeals did not reach the benevolent or funds
were intercepted. Deaths from starvation were numbered by the
thousand, Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike suffering, and there
were few civilians in the Holy City who were not hungry for months at
a time.
When I reached Jerusalem the people were at the height of their
excitement over the coming of the British and they put the best face
on their condition, but the freely expressed feeling of relief that
the days of hunger torture were nearly past did not remove the signs
of want and misery, of infinite suffering by father, mother, and
child, brought about by a long period of starvation. That a people,
pale, thin, bent, whose movements had become listless under the lash
of hunger, could have been stirred into enthusiasm by the appearance
of a khaki coat, that they could throw off the lethargy which comes
of acute want, was only to be accounted for by the existence of a
profound belief that we had been sent to deliver them. Some hours
before the Official Entry I was walking in David Street when a Jewish
woman, seeing that I was English, stopped me and said: 'We have prayed
for this day. To-day I shall sing "God Save our Gracious King, Long
Live our Noble King." We have been starving, but what does that
matter? Now we are liberated and free.' She clasped her hands across
her breasts and exclaimed several times, 'Oh how thankful we are.' An
elderly man in a black robe, whose pinched pale face told of a long
period of want, caught me by the hand and said: 'God has delivered us.
Oh how happy we are.' An American worker in a Red Crescent hospital,
who had lived in Jerusalem for upwards of ten years and knew the
people well, assured me there was not one person in the Holy City who
in his heart was not devoutly thankful for our victory. He told me
that on the day we captured Nebi Samwil three wounded Arab officers
were brought to the hospital. One of them spoke English--it was
astonishing how many people could speak our mother tongue--and
while he was having his wounds dressed he exclaimed: 'I can shout
Hip-hip-hurrah for England now.' The officer was advised to be
careful, as there were many Turkish wounded in the hospital, but he
replied he did not care, and in unrestrained joy cried out, 'Hurrah
for England.'
The deplorable lot of the people had been made harder by profiteering
officers. Those who had money had to part with it for Turkish paper.
The Turkish note was depreciated to about one-fifth of its face value.
German officers traded in the notes for gold, sent the notes
to Germany where, by a financial arrangement concluded between
Constantinople and Berlin, they were accepted at face value. The
German officer and soldier got richer the more they forced Turkish
paper down. Turkish officers bought considerable supplies of wheat and
flour from military depôts, the cost being debited against their pay
which was paid in paper. They then sold the goods for gold. That
accounted for the high prices of foodstuffs, the price in gold being
taken for the market valuation.
In the middle of November when there was a prospect of the Turks
evacuating Jerusalem, the officers sold out their stocks of provisions
and prices became less prohibitive, but they rose again quickly when
it was decided to defend the City, and the cost of food mounted to
almost famine prices. The Turks by selling for gold that which was
bought for paper, rechanging gold for paper at their own prices,
made huge profits and caused a heavy depreciation of the note at the
expense of the population. Grain was brought from the district east of
the Dead Sea, but none of it found its way to civilian mouths except
through the extortionate channel provided by officers. Yet when we got
into Jerusalem there were people with small stocks of flour who were
willing to make flat loaves of unleavened bread for sale to our
troops. The soldiers had been living for weeks on hard biscuit and
bully beef, and many were willing to pay a shilling for a small cake
of bread. They did not know that the stock of flour in the town was
desperately low and that by buying this bread they were almost taking
it out of the mouths of the poor. Some traders were so keen on getting
good money, not paper, that they tried to do business on this footing,
looking to the British Army to come to the aid of the people. The Army
soon put a stop to this trade and the troops were prohibited
from buying bread in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As it was, the
Quarter-master-General's branch had to send a large quantity of
foodstuffs into the towns, and this was done at a time when it was a
most anxious task to provision the troops. Those were very trying days
for the supply and transport departments, and one wonders whether
the civilian population ever realised the extent of the humanitarian
efforts of our Army staff.
During the period when no attempt was made to alleviate the lot of the
people the Turks gave them a number of lessons in frightfulness. There
were public executions to show the severity of military law. Gallows
were erected outside the Jaffa Gate and the victims were left hanging
for hours as a warning to the population. I have seen a photograph of
six natives who suffered the penalty, with their executioners standing
at the swinging feet of their victims. Before the first battle of Gaza
the Turks brought the rich Mufti of Gaza and his son to Jerusalem,
and the Mufti was hanged in the presence of a throng compulsorily
assembled to witness the execution. The son was shot. Their only crime
was that they were believed to have expressed approval of Britain's
policy in dealing with Moslem races. Thus were the people terrorised.
They knew the Turkish ideas of justice, and dared not talk of events
happening in the town even in the seclusion of their homes. The evils
of war, as war is practised by the Turk, left a mark on Jerusalem's
population which will be indelible for this generation, despite the
wondrous change our Army has wrought in the people.
When General Allenby had broken through the Gaza line the Turks in
Jerusalem despaired of saving the City. That all the army papers were
brought from Hebron on November 10, shows that even at that date von
Kress still imagined we would come up the Hebron road, though he had
learnt to his cost that a mighty column was moving through the coastal
sector and that our cavalry were cutting across the country to join
it. The notorious Enver reached Jerusalem from the north on November
12 and went down to Hebron. On his return it was reported that the
Turks would leave Jerusalem, the immediate sale of officers' stocks of
foodstuffs giving colour to the rumour. Undoubtedly some preparations
were made to evacuate the place, but the temptation to hold on was too
great. One can see the influence of the German mind in the Turkish
councils of war. At a moment when they were flashing the wireless news
throughout the world that their Caporetto victory meant the driving of
Italy out of the war they did not want the icy blast of Jerusalem's
fall to tell of disaster to their hopes in the East. Accordingly on
the 16th November a new decision was taken and Jerusalem was to be
defended to the last. German officers came hurrying south, lorries
were rushed down with stores until there were six hundred German lorry
drivers and mechanics in Jerusalem. Reinforcements arrived and the
houses of the German Colony were turned into nests of machine guns.
The pains the Germans were at to see their plans carried out
were reflected in the fighting when we tried to get across the
Jerusalem-Nablus road and to avoid fighting in the neighbourhood
of the Holy City. But all this effort availed them nought. Our
dispositions compelled the enemy to distribute his forces, and when
the attack was launched the Turk lacked sufficient men to man his
defences adequately. And German pretensions in the Holy Land, founded
upon years of scheming and the formation of settlements for German
colonists approved and supported by the Kaiser himself, were shattered
beyond hope of recovery, as similar pretensions had been shattered at
Bagdad by General Maude. The Turks had made their headquarters at the
Hospice of Notre Dame in Jerusalem, and, taking their cue from the
Hun, carried away all the furniture belonging to that French religious
institution. They had also deported some of the heads of religious
bodies. Falkenhayn wished that all Americans should be removed from
Jerusalem, issuing an order to that effect a fortnight before we
entered. Some members of the American colony had been running the Red
Crescent hospital, and Turkish doctors who appreciated their good work
insisted that the Americans should remain. Their protest prevailed in
most cases, but just as we arrived several Americans were carried off.
I have asked many men who were engaged in the fight for Jerusalem what
their feelings were on getting their first glimpse of the central spot
of Christendom. Some people imagine that the hard brutalities of war
erase the softer elements of men's natures; that killing and the rough
life of campaigning, where one is familiarised with the tragedies of
life every hour of every day, where ease and comfort are forgotten
things, remove from the mind those earlier lessons of peace on earth
and goodwill toward men. That is a fallacy. Every man or officer I
spoke to declared that he was seized with emotion when, looking from
the shell-torn summit of Nebi Samwil, he saw the spires on the Mount
of Olives; or when reconnoitring from Kustul he got a peep of the red
roofs of the newer houses which surround the old City. Possibly only a
small percentage of the Army believed they were taking part in a great
mission, not a great proportion would claim to be really devout men,
but they all behaved like Christian gentlemen. One Londoner told me
he had thought the scenes of war had made him callous and that the
ruthless destruction of those things fashioned by men's hands in
prosecuting the arts of peace had prompted the feeling that there was
little in civilisation after all, if civilisation could result in so
bitter a thing as this awful fighting. Man seemed as barbaric as in
the days before the Saviour came to redeem the world, and whether
we won or lost the war all hopes of a happier state of things were
futile. So this Cockney imagined that his condition showed no
improvement on that of the savage warrior of two thousand years ago,
except in that civilisation had developed finer weapons to kill with
and be killed by. The finer instincts had been blunted by the naked
and unashamed horrors of war. But the lessons taught him before war
scourged the world came back to him on getting his first view of the
Holy City. He felt that sense of emotion which makes one wish to be
alone and think alone. He was on the ground where Sacred History was
made, perhaps stood on the rock the Saviour's foot had trod. In the
deep stirring of his emotions the rougher edges of his nature became
rounded by feelings of sympathy and a belief that good would come out
of the evil of this strife. That view of Jerusalem, and the knowledge
of what the Holy Sites stand for, made him a better man and a better
fighting man, and he had no doubt the first distant glimpse of the
Holy City had similarly affected the bulk of the Army. That bad
language is used by almost all troops in the field is notorious,
but in Jerusalem one seldom heard an oath or an indecent word. When
Jerusalem was won and small parties of our soldiers were allowed to
see the Holy City, their politeness to the inhabitants, patriarch or
priest, trader or beggar, man or woman, rebuked the thought that the
age of chivalry was past, while the reverent attitude involuntarily
adopted by every man when seeing the Sacred Places suggested that no
Crusader Army or band of pilgrims ever came to the Holy Land under a
more pious influence. Many times have I watched the troops of General
Allenby in the streets of Jerusalem. They bore themselves as soldiers
and gentlemen, and if they had been selected to go there simply to
impress the people they could not have more worthily upheld the good
fame of their nation. These soldier missionaries of the Empire left
behind them a record which will be remembered for generations.
If it had been possible to consult the British people as to the
details to be observed at the ceremony of the Official Entry into
Jerusalem, the vast majority would surely have approved General
Allenby's programme. Americans tell us the British as a nation do
not know how to advertise. Our part in the war generally proves the
accuracy of that statement, but the Official Entry into Jerusalem will
stand out as one great exception. By omitting to make a great
parade of his victory--one may count elaborate ceremonial as
advertisement--General Allenby gave Britain her best advertisement.
The simple, dignified, and, one may also justly say, humble order of
ceremony was the creation of a truly British mind. To impress the
inhabitant of the East things must be done on a lavish ostentatious
scale, for gold and glitter and tinsel go a long way to form a
native's estimate of power. But there are times when the native is
shrewd enough to realise that pomp and circumstance do not always
indicate strength, and that dignity is more powerful than display.
Contrast the German Emperor's visit to Jerusalem with General
Allenby's Official Entry. The Kaiser brought a retinue clothed in
white and red, and blue and gold, with richly caparisoned horses, and,
like a true showman, he himself affected some articles of Arab dress.
He rode into the Holy City--where One before had walked--and a wide
breach was even made in those ancient walls for a German progress. All
this to advertise the might and power of Germany.
In parenthesis I may state we are going to restore those walls to the
condition they were in before German hands defiled them. The General
who by capturing Jerusalem helped us so powerfully to bring Germany
to her knees and humble her before the world, entered on foot by an
ancient way, the Jaffa Gate, called by the native 'Bab-el-Khalil,'
or the Friend. In this hallowed spot there was no great pageantry of
arms, no pomp and panoply, no display of the mighty strength of a
victorious army, no thunderous salutes to acclaim a world-resounding
victory destined to take its place in the chronicles of all time.
There was no enemy flag to haul down and no flags were hoisted. There
were no soldier shouts of triumph over a defeated foe, no bells in
ancient belfrys rang, no Te Deums were sung, and no preacher mounted
the rostrum to eulogise the victors or to point the moral to the
multitude. A small, almost meagre procession, consisting of the
Commander-in-Chief and his Staff, with a guard of honour, less than
150 all told, passed through the gate unheralded by a single trumpet
note; a purely military act with a minimum of military display told
the people that the old order had changed, yielding place to new. The
native mind, keen, discerning, receptive, understood the meaning and
depth of this simplicity, and from the moment of high noon on December
11, 1917, when General Allenby went into the Mount Zion quarter of the
Holy City, the British name rested on a foundation as certain and sure
as the rock on which the Holy City stands. Right down in the hearts of
a people who cling to Jerusalem with the deepest reverence and piety
there was unfeigned delight. They realised that four centuries of
Ottoman dominion over the Holy City of Christians and Jews, and 'the
sanctuary' of Mahomedans, had ended, and that Jerusalem the Golden,
the central Site of Sacred History, was liberated for all creeds from
the blighting influence of the Turk. And while war had wrought this
beneficent change the population saw in this epoch-marking victory a
merciful guiding Hand, for it had been achieved without so much as a
stone of the City being scratched or a particle of its ancient dust
disturbed. The Sacred Monuments and everything connected with the
Great Life and its teaching were passed on untouched by our Army.
Rightly did the people rejoice.
When General Allenby went into Jerusalem all fears had passed away.
The Official Entry was made while there was considerable fighting on
the north and east of the City, where our lines were nowhere more than
7000 yards off. The guns were firing, the sounds of bursts of musketry
were carried down on the wind, whilst droning aeroplane engines in the
deep-blue vault overhead told of our flying men denying a passage to
enemy machines. The stern voices of war were there in all their harsh
discordancy, but the people knew they were safe in the keeping of
British soldiers and came out to make holiday. General Allenby motored
into the suburbs of Jerusalem by the road from Latron which the
pioneers had got into some sort of order. The business of war was
going on, and the General's car took its place on the highway on even
terms with the lorry, which at that time when supplying the front was
the most urgent task and had priority on the roads. The people had put
on gala raiment. From the outer fringe of Jerusalem the Jaffa road was
blocked not merely with the inhabitants of the City but with people
who had followed in the Army's wake from Bethlehem. It was a
picturesque throng. There were sombre-clad Jews of all nationalities,
Armenians, Greeks, Russians, and all the peoples who make Jerusalem
the most cosmopolitan of cities. To the many styles of European dress
the brighter robes of the East gave vivid colour, and it was obvious
from the remarkably free and spontaneous expression of joy of these
people, who at the end of three years of war had such strong faith in
our fight for freedom, that they recognised freedom was permanently
won to all races and creeds by the victory at Jerusalem. The most
significant of all the signs was the attitude of Moslems. The Turks
had preached the Holy War, but they knew the hollowness of the cry,
and the natives, abandoning their natural reserve, joined in loud
expression of welcome. From flat-topped roofs, balconies, and streets
there were cries of 'Bravo!' and 'Hurrah!' uttered by men and women
who probably never spoke the words before, and quite close to the
Jaffa Gate I saw three old Mahomedans clap their hands while tears of
joy coursed down their cheeks. Their hearts were too full to utter a
word. There could be no doubt of the sincerity of this enthusiasm. The
crowd was more demonstrative than is usual with popular assemblies in
the East, but the note struck was not one of jubilation so much as
of thankfulness at the relief from an insufferable bondage of bad
government. Outside the Jaffa Gate was an Imperial guard of honour
drawn from men who had fought stoutly for the victory. In the British
Guard of fifty of all ranks were English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh
troops, steel-helmeted and carrying the kit they had an hour or two
earlier brought with them from the front line. Opposite them were
fifty dismounted men of the Australian Light Horse and New Zealand
Mounted Rifles, the Australians, under the command of Captain
Throssel, V.C., being drawn from the 10th Light Horse regiment, which
had been employed in the capture of Jerusalem on the right of the
London Division. These Colonial troops had earned their place, for
they had done the work of the vanguard in the Sinai Desert, and their
victories over the Turks on many a hard-won field in the torrid heat
of summer had paved the way for this greater triumph. A French and an
Italian guard of honour was posted inside the Jaffa Gate. As I have
previously said, the Italians had held a portion of the line in front
of Gaza with a composite brigade, but the French troops had not yet
been in action in Palestine, though their Navy had assisted with a
battleship in the Gaza bombardment. We welcomed the participation of
the representatives of our Allies in the Official Entry, as it showed
to those of their nationality in Jerusalem that we were fighting
the battle of freedom for them all. Outside the Jaffa Gate the
Commander-in-Chief was received by Major-General Borton, who had
been appointed Military Governor of the City, and a procession being
formed, General Allenby passed between the iron gates to within the
City walls. Preceded by two aides-de-camp the Commander-in-Chief
advanced with the commander of the French Palestine detachment on his
right and the commander of the Italian Palestine detachment on his
left. Four Staff officers followed. Then came Brigadier-General
Clayton, Political Officer; M. Picot, head of the French Mission; and
the French, Italian, and United States Military Attachés. The Chief
of the General Staff (Major-General Sir L.J. Bols) and the
Brigadier-General General Staff (Brigadier-General G. Dawnay) marched
slightly ahead of Lieutenant-General Sir Philip W. Chetwode, the XXth
Corps Commander, and Brigadier-General Bartholomew, who was General
Chetwode's B.G.G.S. The guard closed in behind. That was all.
The procession came to a halt at the steps of El Kala, the Citadel,
which visitors to Jerusalem will better remember as the entrance to
David's Tower. Here the Commander-in-Chief and his Staff formed up on
the steps with the notables of the City behind them, to listen to the
reading of the Proclamation in several languages. That Proclamation,
telling the people they could pursue their lawful business without
interruption and promising that every sacred building, monument, holy
spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary
place of prayer of whatsoever form of three of the great religions
of mankind would be maintained and protected according to existing
customs and beliefs to those to whose faiths they are sacred, made
a deep impression on the populace. So you could judge from the
expressions on faces and the frequent murmurs of approval, and it was
interesting to note how, when the procession was being re-formed, many
Christians, Jews, and Moslems broke away from the crowd to run and
spread the good news in their respective quarters. How faithfully and
with what scrupulous care our promises have been kept the religious
communities of Jerusalem can tell.
The procession next moved into the old Turkish barrack square less
than a hundred yards away, where General Allenby received the notables
of the City and the heads of religious communities. The Mayor of
Jerusalem, who unfortunately died of pneumonia a fortnight later, and
the Mufti, who, like the Mayor, was a member of a Mahomedan family
which traces its descent back through many centuries, were presented,
as were also the sheikhs in charge of the Mosque of Omar, 'the Tomb
of the Rock,' and the Mosque of El Aksa, and Moslems belonging to the
Khaldieh and Alamieh families. The Patriarchs of the Latin, Greek
Orthodox, and Armenian Churches and the Coptic bishop had been removed
from the Holy City by the Turks, but their representatives were
introduced to the Commander-in-Chief, and so too were the heads of
Jewish communities, the Syriac Church, the Greek Catholic Church, the
Abyssinian bishop, and the representative of the Anglican Church. A
notable presentation was the Spanish Consul, who had been in charge of
the interests of almost all countries at war, and whom General Allenby
congratulated upon being so busy a man. The presentations over, the
Commander-in-Chief returned to the Jaffa Gate and left for advanced
General Headquarters, having been in the Holy City not more than a
quarter of an hour.
For succinctness it would be difficult to improve upon the
Commander-in-Chief's own description of his Official Entry into
Jerusalem. Cabling to London within two hours of that event, General
Allenby thus narrated the events of the day:
(1) At noon to-day I officially entered this City with a few of my
Staff, the commanders of the French and Italian detachments, the heads
of the Picot Mission, and the Military Attachés of France, Italy, and
the United States of America.
The procession was all on foot.
I was received by Guards representing England, Scotland, Ireland,
Wales, Australia, India, New Zealand, France, and Italy at the Jaffa
Gate.
(2) I was well received by the population.
(3) The Holy Places have had Guards placed over them.
(4) My Military Governor is in touch with the Acting Custos of Latins,
and the Greek representative has been detailed to supervise Christian
Holy Places.
(5) The Mosque of Omar and the area round it has been placed under
Moslem control and a military cordon composed of Indian Mahomedan
officers and soldiers has been established round the Mosque. Orders
have been issued that without permission of the Military Governor
and the Moslem in charge of the Mosque no non-Moslem is to pass this
cordon.
(6) The Proclamation has been posted on the walls, and from the steps
of the Citadel was read in my presence to the population in Arabic,
Hebrew, English, French, Italian, Greek, and Russian.
(7) Guardians have been established at Bethlehem and on Rachel's Tomb.
The Tomb of Hebron has been placed under exclusive Moslem control.
(8) The hereditary custodians of the Wakfs at the Gates of the Holy
Sepulchre have been requested to take up their accustomed duties in
remembrance of the magnanimous act of the Caliph Omar who protected
that Church.
As a matter of historical interest I give in the Appendix the orders
issued on the occasion of the Official Entry into Jerusalem, the order
of General Allenby's procession into the Holy City for the reading of
the Proclamation, together with the text of that historic document,
and the special orders of the day issued by the Commander-in-Chief to
his troops after the capture of Jerusalem.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Appendix VII.]