On December 11, 1917, General Edmund Allenby’s forces
officially liberated Jerusalem.
What began as a farce ended in the creation of the State of
Israel with Jerusalem restored as its capital city.
A Jerusalem delegation, led by the mayor, surrendered the
city to a pair of British army cooks on December 8. Thus began a comical farce
of who received the surrender of the Holy City.
The Turkish army and their German commanders had fled the
city ahead of the British advance, leaving the city officials nervously waiting
for the liberators.
The first uniformed men to arrive were privates Andrews and
Church, two cooks who got lost while searching for cooking water. They wandered
near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City and were confronted by a large
delegation of city officials. The cooks were so scared they ran back to their
unit.
At 8 a.m., the following morning, James Sedgewick and Fred
Hurcomb, two British sergeants, were scouting around the Old City walls when
they were approached by a group of Arab dignitaries holding a white flag. The
two soldiers were overwhelmed by the sudden responsibility of accepting the
surrender of Jerusalem that, after pictures were taken for posterity, they
apologized saying they were unable to accept the surrender but promised to send
a more senior officer.
Later the same day, two artillery officers, Majors Beck and
Barry of the 60th Division, were met by a party of officials and
asked to accept Jerusalem’s surrender. Again, they politely refused by saying
they had to bring one of their superiors.
Shortly after their departure, a Lieutenant-Colonel Bayley,
commander of the 303rd Brigade of the 60th Division
arrived. He wrote, “Arriving at the top of the road within sight of the
Jewish Hospital in Jerusalem and with my three battery commanders I was amazed
to see a white flag waving and a man coming towards me. He said the mayor of
Jerusalem was with the white flag. We sat on chairs outside the Jewish Hospital
and he informed me that the Turks had left Jerusalem heading towards Jericho.”
Bayley sent a message to the 60th Division
headquarters informing them that he had just accepted the surrender of
Jerusalem and that he was waiting for a general to come and take over the city.
Brigadier-General Charles Frederick Watson, the commander of
the 180th Brigade of the 60th Division, who Bayley
referred to as “an awful little ass who wanted to be the first to get there,”
insisted that the mayor again surrender the city to him. Watson was the
first British officer to enter the Old City and a photograph exists of him
astride his horse inside the Jaffa Gate. Watson got the mayor to sign the white
flag which can be found at the Imperial War Museum in London.
That was not the end of the comical chain of events. General
Shea, commander of the London Division, arrived on the scene and demanded that
the mayor surrender the town to his unit.
General Allenby, a man of quick temper, was not happy. As
Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, it would be him, and him alone, that
would officially accept the surrender of Jerusalem.
On December 11, 1917. General Edmund Allenby rode to the
gates of the Old City, dismounted, and led a phalanx of officers through the
Jaffa Gate entrance to the David’s Citadel where he addressed a large crowd of
Jerusalemites.
He deliberately chose to walk into the Old City because, he
said, only the Messiah should ride into the Holy City.
Among the officers marching behind him was T.E. Lawrence,
known later as Lawrence of Arabia. Despite his exploits on the other side of
the Jordan River, he was to write of his Jerusalem experience, “This was to
me the most supreme moment of the war.”
General Allenby, from the platform of the David’s Citadel,
read out a proclamation;
“To the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Blessed, and the
people dwelling in its vicinity. The defeat inflicted on the Turks by the
troops under my command has resulted in the occupation of your city by my
forces.
I therefore, here and now, proclaim it to be under
Martial Law, under which form of administration it will remain so long as
military considerations make it necessary.
However, lest any of you should be alarmed by reason of
your experiences at the hands of the enemy who has retired, I hereby inform you
that it is my desire that every person should pursue his lawful business
without fear of interruption.
Furthermore, since your city is regarded with affection
by the adherents of three of the great religions of mankind, and its soil has
been consecrated by the prayers and pilgrimages of devout people of those three
religion for many centuries, I make it known to you that every sacred building,
monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest or
customary place of worship, of whatever form of the three religion, will be
maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those
to whose faith they are sacred.
Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby. General. December 1917.”
Jews of Palestine, the Jewish Legion who fought in the 38th
and 39th Regiments of the British Army, had fought and died fighting
alongside their British and ANZAC comrades to drive the Turks out of the land.
The Jews of the NILI espionage network risked their lives, were tortured and
hanged, to bring vital intelligence to the British which led to this victory.
The Arabs of Palestine, west of the River Jordan, did not
express any national longing throughout the Palestine Campaign, nor did they
fight for national rights to the land. Asked why they did not lift a finger to
help remove the Turkish yoke from their impoverished necks, Arabs would look up
to the heaven and declare it was all up to Allah. When a mighty British commander
by the name of Allenby marched into the Old City to liberate them from the
Turks they were awe-struck. Allenby, in
Arabic was “Al Nabi,’ the prophet of god. To the Arabs of
Palestine, Allenby’s victory was Allah inspired. We know it was inspired by the
sacrifice of British, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, and Palestinian Jewish
fighters.
The liberation of Jerusalem on December 11, 1917, exactly a
century ago, was the final act in a triumvirate of three significant historic
events that year, the other two being the Balfour Declaration and the victory
at the Battle of Beer Sheba. During this auspiciously short period, Christian Zionist
politicians, generals, soldiers, and Jewish spies in Palestine, forced open the
door that paved the way for the restoration of the land of Israel for the
Jewish people.
That door began to close by 1919 when Jew hating British
administrators, brought up to Jerusalem from Egypt, reneged on their duty to
carry out orders. In a treasonable act of defiance and anti-Semitism, they ignored
official British policy.
General Money, the Chief Administrator, ordered that “The
walled city of Jerusalem is placed out of orders to all Jewish soldiers from
the 14th to the 22nd April inclusive.” It was no coincidence that this period was
the pilgrim festival of Passover. This outraged Colonel John Patterson, the
commanding officer of the Jewish Legion, who wrote, “I cannot conceive a
greater act of provocation to Jewish soldiers, or a greater insult. Not since
the days of Emperor Hadrian had such a humiliating decree been issued.”
The Balfour Declaration stipulated that His Majesty’s
Government would use their “best endeavours to facilitate the establishment
in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
Instead, in 1920, they defied British policy, ignored their
duty to implement the terms of the Declaration, and duplicitously colluded with
anti-Jewish Arab rabble-rousers, including Haj Amin al-Husseini, later to meet
with Adolph Hitler to plan the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in the Middle
East, to incite violence against Jews. They chose the annual Nebi Musa festival
to riot in the Old City while the British stood aside.
With cries of “Death to the Jews!” Jewish women were raped,
men were killed, and Jewish property destroyed. This British and Arab anti-Semitic
collusion and violence was the first major Palestinian act of terror attack against
Jews.
With typical British “even-handedness,” Ze’ev Jabotinsky,
who had been an officer in the British army, was sentenced to 15 years’
imprisonment for illegal possession of firearms, namely three rifles and two
pistols, despite the fact that the Governor, Colonel Ronald Storrs, was aware
that he possessed them. Al-Husseini who had fled Palestine, following the Arab
murder and rape of Jews and the destruction of Jewish property, was sentenced
in absentia to only ten years.
The rest is history.
Barry Shaw is the author of the best-selling book ‘1917.
From Palestine to the Land of Israel.’ Available on Amazon in paperback and
Kindle, and from Steimatzky bookstores in Israel.
Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy
at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
https://www.amazon.com/1917-Palestine-Land-Israel-extraordinary/dp/154230010X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512986530&sr=8-1&keywords=1917.+from+palestine+to+the+land+of+israel
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