It was a fine feat to get the two brigades of Londoners into their positions of deployment well up to time. The infantry had to get from Kustul down a precipitous slope of nearly a thousand feet into a wadi, now a rushing torrent, and up a rocky and almost as steep hill on the other side. Nobody could see where he was going, but direction was kept perfectly and silence was well maintained, the loosened stones falling into mud. The assault was launched at a quarter-past five, and in ten minutes under two hours the two brigades (the 181st Brigade being in reserve just south of Kustul) had penetrated the whole of the front line of the defences. The Queen's Westminsters on the left of the Kensingtons had cleared the Turks out of Ain Karim and then climbed up a steep spur to attack the formidable Khurbet Subr defences. They took the garrison completely by surprise, and those who did not flee were either killed or taken prisoners. The Queen's Westminsters were exposed to a heavy flanking fire at a range of about a thousand yards from a tumulus south-east of Ain Karim, above the road from the village to the western suburbs of Jerusalem. Turkish riflemen were firmly dug in on this spot, and their two machine guns poured in an annoying fire on the 179th Brigade troops which threatened to hold up the attack. Indeed preparations were being made to send a company to take the tumulus hill in flank, but two gallant London Scots settled the activity of the enemy and captured the position by themselves. Corporal C.W. Train and Corporal F.S. Thornhill stalked the garrison. Corporal Train fired a rifle grenade at one machine gun, which he hit and put out of action, and then shot the whole of the gun team. Thornhill was attacking the other gun, and he, with the assistance of Train, accounted for that crew as well. The two guns were captured and Tumulus Hill gave no more trouble. Both these Scots were rewarded, and Train has the unique honour of wearing the only V.C. awarded during the capture of Jerusalem.
At about the same time there was another very gallant piece of work being done by two men of the Queen's Westminsters above the Khurbet Subr ridge. When the battalion got to the first objective an enemy battery of 77's was found in action on the reverse slope of the hill. The guns were firing from a hollow near the Ain Karim-Jerusalem track, some 600 yards behind the forward trenches on Subr, and were showing an uncomfortable activity. A company was pushed forward to engage the battery. The movement was exposed to a good deal of sniping fire, and it was not a simple matter for riflemen to work ahead on to a knoll on the east of the Subr position to deal with the guns. To two men may be given the credit for capturing the battery. Lance-Corporal W.H. Whines of the Westminsters got along quickly and brought his Lewis gun to bear on the battery and, with an admirably directed fire, caused many casualties. Two gun teams were wiped out, either killed or wounded, by the corporal. At the same time Rifleman C.D. Smith, who had followed his comrade, rushed in on another team and bombed it. Smith's rifle had been smashed and was useless, but with his bombs he laid low all except one man. His supply was then exhausted, but before the Turk could use his weapons Smith got to grips and a rare wrestling bout followed. The Turk would not surrender, and Smith gave him a stranglehold and broke his neck. The enemy managed to get one of the four guns away. The battery horses were near at hand, but while this one gun was escaping at the gallop the Westminsters' fire brought down one horse and two drivers, and I saw their bodies on the road as evidence of how the Westminsters had developed the art of shooting at a rapidly moving target. The two incidents I have described in detail merely as examples of the fighting prowess, not only of one but of all three divisions alike in the capture of Jerusalem. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that they were examples of the spirit of General Allenby's whole force, for English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, had all, during the six weeks of the campaign, shown the same high qualities in irresistible attack and stubborn defence.
The position of the 179th Brigade at this time was about one mile east of Ain Karim, where it was exposed to heavy enfilade fire from its right and, as it was obvious that the advance of the 53rd Division had been delayed owing to the fog and rain, the brigadier decided not to go further during the early part of the day but to wait till he could be supported by the mountain batteries, which the appalling state of the ground had prevented from keeping up with him.
Now as to the advance of the 180th Infantry Brigade. Their principal objective was the Deir Yesin position, the hill next on the northern side of Subr, from which it was separated by a deep though narrow valley. The trenches cut on both sides of this gorge supported Subr as well as Deir Yesin, and the Subr defences were also arranged to be helpful to the Deir Yesin garrison by taking attackers in flank. The 180th Brigade's advance was a direct frontal attack on the hill, the jumping-off place being a narrow width of flat ground thickly planted with olive trees on the banks of the wadi Surar. The 2/19th Londons, the right battalion of the 180th Brigade, had not got far when it became the target of concentrated machine-gun fire and was unable to move, with the result that a considerable gap existed between it and the 179th Brigade. The stoppage was only temporary, for, with the advance of the centre and right, the 19th battalion pushed forward in series of rushes and, with the other battalions, carried the crest of Deir Yesin at the point of the bayonet, so that the whole system of entrenchments was in their hands by seven o'clock. The brigade at once set about reorganising for the attack on the second objective, which, as will be remembered, was a wheel to the left and, passing well on the outside of the western suburbs of Jerusalem, an advance to the rocky ground to the north-west of the city down to the wadi Beit Hannina. The commander of the 2/18th Londons in his preparations had pushed out a platoon in advance of his left, and these men at half-past nine saw 200 of the enemy with pack mules retiring down a wadi north-east of Kulonieh. The platoon held its fire until the Turks were within close range, and then engaged them with rifles and machine guns, completely surprising them and taking prisoners the whole of the survivors, 5 officers and 50 men. The Turks now began to develop a serious opposition to the 180th Brigade from a quarry behind Deir Yesin and from a group of houses forming part of what is known as the Syrian colony, nearly a mile from the Deir Yesin system. There were some Germans and a number of machine guns in these houses, and by noon they held up the advance.
The brigade was seriously handicapped by the difficulty in moving guns. The road during the morning had got into a desperate state. It was next to impossible to haul field guns anywhere off the road, and as the Turks had paid no attention to the highway for some time—or where they had done something it was merely to dump down large stones to fill a particularly bad hole—it had become deeply rutted and covered with a mass of adhesive mud. The guns had to pass down from Kustul by a series of zigzags with hairpin bends in full view of enemy observers, and it was only by the greatest exertion and devotion to duty that the gunners got their teams into the neighbourhood of the wadi. The bridge over the Surar at Kulonieh having been wholly destroyed, they had to negotiate the wadi, which was now in torrent and carrying away the waters which had washed the face of the hills over a wide area. The artillery made a track through a garden on the right of the village just before the road reached the broken bridge, and two batteries, the 301st and 302nd, got their guns and limbers across. They went up the old track leading from Kulonieh to Jerusalem, when first one section and then another came into action at a spot between Deir Yesin and Heart Redoubt, where both batteries were subjected to a close-range rifle fire.
For several hours the artillery fought their guns with superb courage, and remained in action until the fire from the houses was silenced by a brilliant infantry attack. At half-past one General Watson decided he would attack the enemy on a ridge in front of the houses of the Syrian colony with the 18th and 19th battalions. With them were units of other battalions of the Brigade. Soon after three o'clock they advanced under heavy fire from guns, machine guns, and rifles, and at a quarter to four a glorious bayonet charge, during which the London boys went through Germans and Turks in one overwhelming stride, sealed the fate of the Turk in Jerusalem. That bayonet charge was within sight of the Corps Commander, who was with General Shea at his look-out on Kustul, and when he saw the flash of steel driven home with unerring certainty by his magnificent men, General Chetwode may well have felt thankful that he had been given such troops with which to deliver Jerusalem from the Turks. The 74th Division, having taken the whole of its first objectives early in the morning and having throughout the day supported the left of the London Division, was ready to commence operations against the second objective. The dismounted yeomanry, whose condition through the wet and mud was precisely similar to that of the 60th Division troops, for they, too, had found the hills barren of shelter and equally cold, did extremely well in forcing the enemy from his stronghold on the hill covering Beit Iksa and the Kulonieh-Jerusalem road, from which, had he not been ejected, he could have harassed the Londoners' left. The Beit Iksa defences were carried by a most determined rush. A gallant attempt was also made to get the El Burj ridge which runs south-east from Nebi Samwil, but owing to strong enfilade fire from the right they could not get on.
There was no doubt in any minds that Jerusalem would be ours, but the difficulties the 53rd Division were contending with had slowed down their advance. Thus the right flank of the 60th Division was exposed and a considerable body of Turks was known to be south of Jerusalem. Late in the afternoon the advance was ordered to be stopped, and the positions gained to be held. With a view to continuing the advance next day the 181st Brigade (2/21st London, 2/22nd London, 2/23rd London, and 2/24th London) was ordered to get into a position of readiness to pass through the 179th Brigade and resume the attack on the right of the 180th Brigade. On the evening of December 8 the position of the attacking force was this. The 53rd Division (I will deal presently with the advance of this Division) was across the Bethlehem-Hebron road from El Keiseraniyeh, two miles south of Bethlehem, to Ras el Balua in an east and west direction, then north-west to the hill of Haud Kibriyan with its flank thrown south to cover Kh. el Kuseir. The 10th Australian Light Horse were at Malhah. The 179th and 180th Brigades of the 60th Division occupied positions extending from Malhah through a line more than a mile east of the captured defences west of Jerusalem to Lifta, with the 181st Brigade in divisional reserve near Kustul. The 229th and 230th Brigades of the 74th Division held a due north and south line from the Jaffa-Jerusalem road about midway between Kulonieh and Lifta through Beit Iksa to Nebi Samwil. The 53rd Division had not reached their line without enormous trouble. But for the two days' rain and fog it is quite possible that the whole of the four objectives planned by the XXth Corps would have been gained, and whether any substantial body of Turks could have left the vicinity of Jerusalem by either the Nablus or Jericho roads is doubtful. The weather proved to be the Turks' ally. The 53rd Division battled against it. Until fog came down to prevent reconnaissance in an extremely bad bit of country they were well up to their march table, and in the few clear moments of the afternoon of the 7th, General Mott, from the top of Ras esh Sherifeh, a hill 3237 feet high, the most prominent feature south of Jerusalem, caught a glimpse of Bethlehem and the Holy City. It was only a temporary break in the weather, and the fog came down again so thick that neither the positions of the Bethlehem defences nor those of Beit Jala could be reconnoitred.
The Division, after withstanding the repeated shocks of enemy attacks at Khuweilfeh immediately following the taking of Beersheba, had had a comparatively light time watching the Hebron road. They constructed a track over the mountains to get the Division to Dharahiyeh when it should be ordered to take part in the attack on the Jerusalem defences, and while they were waiting at Dilbeih they did much to improve the main road. The famous zigzag on the steep ridge between Dharahiyeh and Dilbeih was in good condition, and you saw German thoroughness in the gradients, in the well-banked bends, and in the masonry walls which held up the road where it had been cut in the side of a hill. It was the most difficult part of the road, and the Germans had taken as much care of it as they would of a road in the Fatherland—because it was the way by which they hoped to get to the Suez Canal. Other portions of the road required renewing, and the labour which the Welshmen devoted to the work helped the feeding of the Division not only during the march to Jerusalem but for several weeks after it had passed through it to the hills on the east and north-east. The rations and stores for this Division were carried by the main railway through Shellal to Karm, were thence transported by limber to a point on the Turks' line to Beersheba, which had been repaired but was without engines, were next hauled in trucks by mules on the railway track, and finally placed in lorries at Beersheba for carriage up the Hebron road. At this time the capacity of the Latron-Jerusalem road was taxed to the utmost, and every bit of the Welshmen's spadework was repaid a hundredfold. The 159th Brigade got into Hebron on the night of the 5th of December, but instead of going north of it—if they had done so an enemy cavalry patrol would have seen them—they set to work to repair the road through the old Biblical town, for the enemy had blown holes in the highway. Next day the infantry had a ten-miles' march and made the wadi Arab, a brigade being left in Hebron to watch that area, the natives of which were reported as not being wholly favourable to us. There were many rifles in the place, and a number of unarmed Turks were believed to be in the rough country between the town and the Dead Sea ready to return to take up arms. Armoured cars also remained in Hebron. The infantry and field artillery occupied the roads during the day, and the heavy guns came along at night and joined the infantry as the latter were about to set off again.
On the night of the 6th the Division got to a strong line unopposed and saw enemy cavalry on the southern end of Sherifeh, on which the Turks had constructed a powerful system of defences, the traverses and breastworks of which were excellently made. In front of the hill the road took a bend to the west, and the whole of the highway from this point was exposed to the ground in enemy hands south of Bethlehem, and it was necessary to make good the hills to the east before we could control this road. Next morning the 7th Cheshires, supported by the 4th Welsh, deployed and advanced direct on Sherifeh and gained the summit soon after dawn in time to see small parties of enemy cavalry moving off; then the fog and rain enveloped everything. The 4th Welsh held the hill during the night in pouring rain with no rations—pack mules could not get up the height—and the men having no greatcoats were perished with the cold. Colonel Pemberton, their C.O., came down to report the men all right, and asked for no relief till the morning when they could be brought back to their transport. The General went beyond Solomon's Pools and was within rifle fire from the Turkish trenches in his efforts to reconnoitre, but it was impossible to see ahead, and instead of being able to begin his attack in the Beit Jala-Bethlehem area on the morning of the 8th, that morning arrived before any reconnaissance could be made. He decided to attack on the high ground of Beit Jala (two miles north-west of Bethlehem) from the south, to send his divisional cavalry, the Westminster Dragoons, on the infantry's left to threaten Beit Jala from the west and to refuse Bethlehem.
Before developing this attack it was essential to drive the enemy off the observation post looking down upon the main road along which the guns and troops had to pass. The fog enabled the guns to pass up the road, although the Turks had seven mountain guns in the gardens of a big house south of Bethlehem and had registered the road to a yard. They also had a heavy gun outside the town. The weather cleared at intervals about noon, but about two o'clock a dense fog came down again and once more the advance was held up. Late in the afternoon the Welsh Division troops reached the high ground west and south-west of Beit Jala, but the defences of Bethlehem on the south had still to be taken. Advance guards were sent into Bethlehem and Beit Jala during the night, and by early morning of the 9th it was found that the enemy had left, and the leading brigade pressed on, reaching Mar Elias, midway between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, by eleven o'clock, and the southern outskirts of Jerusalem an hour later.
Meanwhile the 60th and 74th Divisions had actively patrolled their fronts during the night, and the Turks having tasted the quality of British bayonets made no attempt to recover any of the lost positions. We had outposts well up the road above Lifta, and at half-past eight they saw a white flag approaching. The nearest officer was a commander of the 302nd Brigade Royal Field Artillery, to whom the Mayor, the head of the Husseiny family, descendants of the Prophet and hereditary mayors of Jerusalem, signified his desire to surrender the City. The Mayor was accompanied by the Chief of Police and two of the gendarmerie, and while communications were passing between General Shea, General Chetwode and General Headquarters, General Watson rode as far as the Jaffa Gate of the Holy City to learn what was happening in the town. I believe Major Montagu Cooke, one of the officers of the 302nd Artillery Brigade, was the first officer actually in the town, and I understand that whilst he and his orderly were in the Post Office a substantial body of Turks turned the corner outside the building and passed down the Jericho road quite unconscious of the near presence of a British officer. General Shea was deputed by the Commander-in-Chief to enter Jerusalem in order to accept the surrender of the City. It was a simple little ceremony, lasting but a minute or two, free from any display of strength, and a fitting prelude to General Allenby's official entry. At half-past twelve General Shea, with his aide-de-camp and a guard of honour furnished by the 2/17th Londons, met the Mayor, who formally surrendered the City. To the Chief of Police General Shea gave instructions for the maintenance of order, and guards were placed over the public buildings. Then the commander of the 60th Division left to continue the direction of his troops who were making the Holy City secure from Turkish attacks. I believe the official report ran: 'Thus at 12.30 the Holy City was surrendered for the twenty-third time, and for the first time to British arms, and on this occasion without bloodshed among the inhabitants or damage to the buildings in the City itself.'
Simple as was the surrender of Jerusalem, there were scenes in the streets during the short half-hour of General Shea's visit which reflected the feeling of half the civilised world on receiving the news. It was a world event. This deliverance of Jerusalem from Turkish misgovernment was bound to stir the emotions of Christian, Jewish, and Moslem communities in the two hemispheres. In a war in which the moral effect of victories was only slightly less important than a big strategical triumph, Jerusalem was one of the strongest possible positions for the Allies to win, and it is not making too great a claim to say that the capture of the Holy City by British arms gave more satisfaction to countless millions of people than did the winning back for France of any big town on the Western Front. The latter might be more important from a military standpoint, but among the people, especially neutrals, it would be regarded merely as a passing incident in the ebb and flow of the tide of war. Bagdad had an important influence on the Eastern mind; Jerusalem affected Christian, Jew, and Moslem alike the world over. The War Cabinet regarded the taking of Jerusalem by British Imperial troops in so important a light that orders were given to hold up correspondents' messages and any telegrams the military attachés might write until the announcement of the victory had been made to the world by a Minister in the House of Commons. This instruction was officially communicated to me before we took Jerusalem, and I believe it was the case that the world received the first news when the mouthpiece of the Government gave it to the chosen representatives of the British people in the Mother of Parliaments.
The end of Ottoman dominion over the cradle of Christianity, a place held in reverence by the vast majority of the peoples of the Old and New World, made a deep and abiding impression, and as long as people hold dearly to their faiths, sentiment will make General Allenby's victory one of the greatest triumphs of the war. The relief of the people of Jerusalem, as well as their confidence that we were there to stay, manifested itself when General Shea drove into the City. The news had gone abroad that the General was to arrive about noon, and all Jerusalem came into the streets to welcome him. They clapped their hands and raised shrill cries of delight in a babel of tongues. Women threw flowers into the car and spread palm leaves on the road. Scarcely had the Turks left, probably before they had all gone and while the guns were still banging outside the entrances to Jerusalem, stray pieces of bunting which had done duty on many another day were hung out to signify the popular pleasure at the end of an old, hard, extortionate regime and the beginning of an era of happiness and freedom.
After leaving Jerusalem the enemy took up a strong position on the hills north and north-east of the City from which he had to be driven before Jerusalem was secure from counter-attack. During the morning General Chetwode gave orders for a general advance to the line laid down in his original plan of attack, which may be described as the preliminary line for the defence of Jerusalem. The 180th and 181st Brigades were already on the move, and some of the 53rd Division had marched by the main road outside the Holy City's walls to positions from which they were to attempt to drive the enemy off the Mount of Olives. The 180th Brigade, fresh and strong but still wet and muddy, went forward rapidly over the boulders on the hills east of the wadi Beit Hannina and occupied the rugged height of Shafat at half-past one. Shafat is about two miles north of Jerusalem. In another half-hour they had driven the Turks from the conical top of Tel el Ful, that sugar-loaf hill which dominates the Nablus road, and which before the end of the year was to be the scene of an epic struggle between Londoner and Turk. The 181st Brigade, on debouching from the suburbs of Jerusalem north-east of Lifta, was faced with heavy machine-gun and rifle fire on the ridge running from the western edge of the Mount of Olives across the Nablus road through Kh. es Salah. On the left the 180th Brigade lent support, and at four o'clock the 2/21st and 2/24th Londons rushed the ridge with the bayonet and drove off the Turks, who left seventy dead behind them. The London Division that night established itself on the line from a point a thousand yards north of Jerusalem and east of the Nablus road through Ras Meshari to Tel el Ful, thence westwards to the wadi behind the olive orchards south of Beit Hannina. The 74th Division reached its objective without violent opposition, and its line ran from north of Nebi Samwil to the height of Beit Hannina and out towards Tel el Ful. The 53rd Division was strongly opposed when it got round the south-east of Jerusalem on to the Jericho road in the direction of Aziriyeh (Bethany), and it was necessary to clear the Turks from the Mount of Olives. Troops of the Welsh Division moved round the Holy City and drove the enemy off the Mount, following them down the eastern spurs, and thus denied them any direct observation over Jerusalem. The next day they pushed the enemy still farther eastwards, and by the night of the 10th held the line from the well at Azad, 4000 yards south-east of Jerusalem, the hill 1500 yards south of Aziriyeh, Aziriyeh itself, to the Mount of Olives, whence our positions continued to Ras et Tawil, north of Tel el Ful across the Nablus road to Nebi Samwil. This was our first line of positions for the defence of Jerusalem, and we continued to hold these strong points for some time. They were gradually extended on the east and north-east by the Welsh Division in order to prevent an attack from the direction of Jericho, where we knew the Turks had received reinforcements. Indeed, during our attack on the Jerusalem position the Turks had withdrawn a portion of their force on the Hedjaz railway. A regiment had passed through Jericho from the Hedjaz line at Amman and was marching up the road to assist in Jerusalem's defence, but was 'Too late.' The regiment was turned back when we had captured Jerusalem. Our casualties from November 28 to December 10—these figures include the heavy fighting about Tahta, Foka, and Nebi Samwil prior to the XXth Corps' attack on the Jerusalem defences—were: officers, 21 killed, 64 wounded, 3 missing; other ranks, 247 killed, 1163 wounded, 169 missing, a total of 1667. The casualties of the 60th Division during the attack on and advance north of Jerusalem on December 8-9 are interesting, because they were so extremely light considering the strength of the defences captured and the difficulties of the ground, namely: 8 officers killed and 24 wounded, 98 other ranks killed, 420 wounded and 3 missing, a total of 553. The total for the whole of the XXth Corps on these days was 12 officers killed, 35 wounded, and 137 other ranks killed, 636 wounded and 7 missing—in all 47 officers and 780 other ranks. The prisoners taken from November 28 to December 10 were: 76 officers, 1717 other ranks—total, 1793. On December 8 and 9, 68 officers and 918 other ranks—986 in all—were captured. The booty included two 4-2 Krupp howitzers, three 77-mm. field guns and carriages, nine heavy and three light machine guns, 137 boxes of small-arms ammunition, and 103,000 loose rounds.
CHAPTER XV
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.]
CHAPTER XVI
MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE
General Allenby within two days of capturing Jerusalem had secured a line of high ground which formed an excellent defensive system, but his XXth Corps Staff was busy with plans to extend the defences to give the Holy City safety from attack. Nothing could have had so damaging an influence on our prestige in the East, which was growing stronger every day as the direct result of the immense success of the operations in Palestine, as the recapture of Jerusalem by the Turks. We thought the wire-pulling of the German High Command would have its effect in the war councils of Turkey, and seeing that the regaining of the prize would have such far-reaching effect on public opinion no one was surprised that the Germans prevailed upon their ally to make the attempt. It was a hopeless failure. The attack came at a moment when we were ready to launch a scheme to secure a second and a third line of defences for Jerusalem, and gallantly as the Turks fought—they delivered thirteen powerful attacks against our line on the morning of December 27—the venture had a disastrous ending, and instead of reaching Jerusalem the enemy had to yield to British arms seven miles of most valuable country and gave us, in place of one line, four strong lines for the defence of the Holy City. By supreme judgment, when the Turks had committed themselves to the attack on Tel el Ful, without which they could not move a yard on the Nablus road, General Chetwode started his operations on the left of his line with the 10th and 74th Divisions, using his plan as it had been prepared for some days to seize successive lines of hills, and compelled the enemy, in order to meet this attack, to divert the fresh division held in waiting at Bireh to throw forward into Jerusalem the moment the storming troops should pierce our line. With the precision of clockwork the Irish and dismounted yeomanry divisions secured their objectives, and on the second day of the fighting we regained the initiative and compelled the Turks to conform to our dispositions. On the fourth day we were on the Ramallah-Bireh line and secured for Jerusalem an impregnable defence. Prisoners told us that they had been promised, as a reward for their hoped-for success, a day in Jerusalem to do as they liked. We can imagine what the situation in the Holy City would have been had our line been less true. The Londoners who had won the City saved it. Probably only a few of the inhabitants had any knowledge of the danger the City was in on December 27. Their confidence in the British troops had grown and could scarcely be stronger, but some of them were alarmed, and throughout the early morning and day they knelt on housetops earnestly praying that our soldiers would have strength to withstand the Turkish onslaughts. From that day onward the sound of the guns was less violent, and as our artillery advanced northwards the people's misgivings vanished and they reproached themselves for their fears.
It will be remembered how the troops of the XXth Corps were disposed. The 53rd Division held the line south-east and east of Jerusalem from Bir Asad through Abu Dis, Bethany, to north of the Mount of Olives, whence the 60th Division took it up from Meshari, east of Shafat to Tel el Ful and to Beit Hannina across the Jerusalem-Nablus road. The 74th Division carried on to Nebi Samwil, Beit Izza to Beit Dukku, with the 10th Division on their left through Foka, Tahta to Suffa, the gap between the XXth Corps to the right of the XXIst Corps being held by the 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade of the Australian Mounted Division. Against us were the 27th Turkish Division and the 7th and 27th cavalry regiments south of the Jericho road, with the 26th, 53rd, 19th, and 24th Divisions on the north of that road and to the west of the Jerusalem-Nablus road, one division being in reserve at Bireh, the latter a new division fresh from the Caucasus. The 6th and 8th Turkish cavalry regiments were facing our extreme left, the estimated strength of the enemy in the line being 14,700 rifles and 2300 sabres. Just as it was getting dark on December 11 a party of the enemy attacked the 179th Brigade at Tel el Ful but were repulsed. There was not much activity the following day, but the 53rd Division began a series of minor operations by which they secured some features of tactical importance. On the 13th the 181st Brigade made a dashing attack on Ras el Kharrabeh and secured it, taking 43 prisoners and two machine guns, with 31 casualties to themselves.
It was about this time the Corps Commander framed plans for the advance of our front north of Jerusalem. There had been a few days of fine weather, and a great deal had been done to improve the condition of the roads and communications. An army of Egyptian labourers had set to work on the Enab-Jerusalem road and from the villages had come strong reinforcements of natives, women as well as men (and the women did quite as much work as the men), attracted by the unusual wage payable in cash. In Jerusalem, too, the natives were sent to labour on the roads and to clean up some of the filth that the Turks had allowed to accumulate for years, if not for generations, inside the Holy City. The Army not merely provided work for idle hands but enabled starving bodies to be vitalised. Food was brought into Jerusalem, and with the cash wages old and young labourers could get more than a sufficiency. The native in the hills proved to be a good road repairer, and the boys and women showed an eagerness to earn their daily rates of pay; the men generally looked on and gave directions. It was some time before steam rollers crushed in the surface, but even rammed-in stones were better than mud, and the lorry drivers' tasks became lighter.
General Chetwode's plan was to secure a line from Obeid, 9000 yards east of Bethlehem, the hill of Zamby covering the Jericho road three miles from Jerusalem, Anata, Hismeh, Jeba, Burkah, Beitun, El Balua, Kh. el Burj, Deir Ibzia to Shilta. The scheme was to strike with the 53rd and 60th Divisions astride the Jerusalem-Nablus road, and at the same time to push the 10th Division and a part of the 74th Division eastwards from the neighbourhood of Tahta and Foka. The weather again became bad on December 14 and the troops suffered great discomfort from heavy rains and violent, cold winds, so that only light operations were undertaken. On the 17th the West Kent and Sussex battalions of the 160th Brigade stalked the high ground east of Abu Dis at dawn, and at the cost of only 26 casualties took the ridge with 5 officers and 121 other ranks prisoners, and buried 46 enemy dead. One battalion went up the hill on one side, while the Sussex crept up the opposite side, the Turks being caught between two fires. The 53rd Division also improved their position on the 21st December. As one leaves Bethany and proceeds down the Jericho road one passes along a steep zigzag with several hairpin bends until one reaches a guardhouse near a well about a mile east of Bethany. The road still falls smartly, following a straighter line close to a wadi bed, but hills rise very steeply from the highway, and for its whole length until it reaches the Jordan valley the road is always covered by high bare mountains. Soon after leaving the zigzag there is a series of three hills to the north of the road. It was important to obtain possession of two of these hills, the first called Zamby and the second named by the Welsh troops 'Whitehill,' from the bright limestone outcrop at the crest. The 159th Brigade attacked and gained Zamby and then turned nearer the Jericho road to capture Whitehill. The Turks resisted very stoutly, and there was heavy fighting about the trenches just below the top of the hill. By noon the brigade had driven the enemy off, but three determined counter-attacks were delivered that day and the next and the brigade lost 180 killed and wounded. The Turks suffered heavily in the counter-attacks and left over 50 dead behind them; also a few prisoners. At a later date there was further strong fighting around this hill, and at one period it became impossible for either side to hold it.
By the 21st there was a readjustment of the line on the assumption that the XXth Corps would attack the Turks on Christmas Day, the 53rd Division taking over the line as far north as the wadi Anata, the 60th Division extending its left to include Nebi Samwil, and the 74th going as far west as Tahta. As a preliminary to the big movement the 180th Brigade was directed to move on Kh. Adaseh, a hill between Tel el Ful and Tawil, in the early hours of December 23, and the 181st Brigade was to seize a height about half a mile north of Beit Hannina. The latter attack succeeded, but despite the most gallant and repeated efforts the 180th Brigade was unable to gain the summit of Adaseh, though they got well up the hill. The weather became bad once more, and meteorological reports indicated no improvement in the conditions for at least twenty-four hours, and as the moving forward of artillery and supplies was impossible in the rain, General Chetwode with the concurrence of G.H.Q. decided that the attack should not be made on Christmas Day. The 60th Division thereupon did not further prosecute their attack on Adaseh. On the 24th December, while General Chetwode was conferring with his divisional commanders, information was brought in that the Turks were making preparations to recapture Jerusalem by an attack on the 60th Division, and the Corps Commander decided that the moment the enemy was found to be fully committed to this attack the 10th Division and one brigade of the 74th Division would fall on the enemy's right and advance over the Zeitun, Kereina, and Ibzia ridges. How well this plan worked out was shown before the beginning of the New Year, by which time we had secured a great depth of ground at a cost infinitely smaller than could have been expected if the Turks had remained on the defensive, while the Turkish losses, at a moment when they required to preserve every fighting man, were much greater than we could have hoped to inflict if they had not come into the open. There was never a fear that the enemy would break through. We had commanding positions everywhere, and the more one studied our line on the chain of far-flung hills the more clearly one realised the prevision and military skill of General Chetwode and the staff of the XXth Corps in preparing the plans for its capture before the advance on Jerusalem was started. The 'fourth objective' of December 8-9 well and truly laid the foundations for Jerusalem's security, and relieved the inhabitants from the accumulated burdens of more than three years of war. We had nibbled at pieces of ground to flatten out the line here and there, but in the main the line the Turks assaulted was that fourth objective. The Turks put all their hopes on their last card. It was trumped; and when we had won the trick there was not a soldier in General Allenby's Army nor a civilian in the Holy City who had not a profound belief in the coming downfall of the Turkish Empire.
Troops in the line and in bivouac spent the most cheerless Christmas Day within their memories. Not only in the storm-swept hills but on the Plain the day was bitterly cold, and the gale carried with it heavy rain clouds which passed over the tops of mountains and rolled up the valleys in ceaseless succession, discharging hail and rain in copious quantities. The wadis became roaring, tearing torrents fed by hundreds of tributaries, and men who had sought shelter on the lee side of rocks often found water pouring over them in cascades. The whole country became a sea of mud, and the trials of many months of desert sand were grateful and comforting memories. Transport columns had an unhappy time: the Hebron road was showing many signs of wear, and it was a long journey for lorries from Beersheba when the retaining walls were giving way and a foot-deep layer of mud invited a skid every yard. The Latron-Jerusalem road was better going, but the soft metal laid down seemed to melt under the unceasing traffic in the wet, and in peace time this highway would have been voted unfit for traffic. The worst piece of road, however, was also the most important. The Nablus road where it leaves Jerusalem was wanted to supply a vital point on our front. It could not be used during the day because it was under observation, and anything moving along it was liberally dosed with shells. Nor could its deplorable condition be improved by working parties. The ground was so soft on either side of it that no gun, ammunition, or supply limber could leave the track, and whatever was required for man, or beast, or artillery had to be carried across the road in the pitch-black hours of night. Supplies were only got up to the troops after infinite labour, yet no one went hungry. Boxing Day was brighter, and there were hopes of a period of better weather. During the morning there were indications that an enemy offensive was not far off, and these were confirmed about noon by information that the front north of Jerusalem would be attacked in the night. General Chetwode thereupon ordered General Longley to start his offensive on the left of the XXth Corps line at dawn next morning. Shortly before midnight the Turks began their operations against the line held by the 60th Division across the Nablus road precisely where it had been expected. They attacked in considerable strength at Ras et Tawil and about the quarries held by our outposts north of that hill, and the outposts were driven in. About the same time the 24th Welsh Regiment—dismounted yeomanry—made the enemy realise that we were on the alert, for they assaulted and captured a hill quite close to Et Tireh, just forestalling an attack by a Turkish storming battalion, and beat off several determined counter-attacks, as a result of which the enemy left seventy killed with the bayonet and also some machine guns on the hill slopes.
The night was dark and misty, and by half-past one the Turks had developed a big attack against the whole of the 60th Division's front, the strongest effort being delivered on the line in front of Tel el Ful, though there was also very violent fighting on the west of the wadi Ed Dunn, north of Beit Hannina. The Turks fought with desperate bravery. They had had no food for two days, and the commander of one regiment told his men: 'There are no English in front of you. I have been watching the enemy lines for a long time; they are held by Egyptians, and I tell you there are no English there. You have only to capture two hills and you can go straight into Jerusalem and get food. It is our last chance of getting Jerusalem, and if we fail we shall have to go back.' This officer gave emphatic orders that British wounded were not to be mutilated. Between half-past one and eight A.M. the Turks attacked in front of Tel el Ful eight times, each attack being stronger than the last. Tel el Ful is a conical hill covered with huge boulders, and on the top is a mass of rough stones and ruined masonry. The Turks had registered well and severely shelled our position before making an assault, and they covered the advance with machine guns. In one attack made just after daybreak the enemy succeeded in getting into a short length of line, but men of the 2/15th Londons promptly organised a counter-attack and, advancing with fine gallantry, though their ranks were thinned by a tremendous enfilade fire from artillery and machine guns, they regained the sangars. For several hours after eight o'clock this portion of the line was quieter, but the Turk was reorganising for a last effort. A very brilliant defence had been made during the night of Beit Hannina by the 2/24th Londons, which battalion was commanded by a captain, the colonel and the majors being on the sick list. The two companies in the line were attacked four times by superior numbers, the last assault being delivered by more than five hundred men, but the defenders stood like rocks, and though they had fifty per cent, of their number killed or wounded, and the Turks got close to the trenches, the enemy were crushingly defeated.
The morning lull was welcome. Our troops got some rest though their vigilance was unrelaxed, and few imagined that the Turks had yet given up the attempt to reach Jerusalem. We were ready to meet a fresh effort, but the strength with which it was delivered surprised everybody. The Turk, it seemed, was prepared to stake everything on his last throw. He knew quite early on that morning that his Caucasus Division could not carry out the role assigned to it. General Chetwode had countered him by smashing in with his left with a beautiful weighty stroke precisely at the moment when the Turk had compromised himself elsewhere, and instead of being able to put in his reserves to support his main attack the enemy had to divert them to stave off an advance which, if unhindered, would threaten the vital communications of the attackers north of Jerusalem.
It was a remarkable situation, but all the finesse in the art of war was on one side. Every message the Turkish Commander received from his right must have reported progress against him. Each signal from the Jerusalem front must have been equally bitter, summing up want of progress and heavy losses. With us, Time was a secondary factor; with the Turk, Time was the whole essence of the business, so he pledged his all on one tremendous final effort. It was almost one o'clock when it started, and it was made against the whole front of our XXth Corps. It was certainly made in unexpected strength and with a courage beyond praise. The Turk threw himself forward to the assault with the violence of despair, and his impetuous onrush enabled him to get into some small elements of our front line; but counter-attacks immediately organised drove him out. Over the greater portion of the front the advance was stopped dead, but in some places the enemy tried a whirlwind rush and used bomb against bomb. He had met his match.
The 60th Division which bore the brunt of the onslaught, as it was bound to do from its position astride the main road, was absolutely unbreakable, and at Tel el Ful there lay a dead Turk for every yard of its front. The enemy drew off, but to save the remnants of his storming troops kept our positions from near Ras et Tawil, Tel el Ful to the wadi Beit Hannina under heavy gunfire for the rest of the day. The Turk was hopelessly beaten, his defeat irretrievable. He had delivered thirteen costly attacks, and his sole gains were the exposed outpost positions at the Tawil and the quarries. All his reserves had been vigorously engaged, while at two o'clock in the afternoon General Chetwode had in reserve nineteen battalions less one company still unused, and the care exercised in keeping this large body of troops fresh for following up the Turkish defeat undoubtedly contributed to the great success of the advances on the next three days. Simultaneously with their attack on the 60th Division positions the Turks put in a weighty effort to oust the 53rd Division from the positions they held north and south of the Jericho road. Whether in their wildest dreams they imagined they could enter Jerusalem by this route is doubtful, but if they had succeeded in driving in our line on the north they would have put the 53rd Division in a perilous position on the east with only one avenue of escape. The Turks concentrated their efforts on Whitehill and Zamby. A great fight raged round the former height and we were driven off it, but the divisional artillery so sprinkled the crest with shell that the Turk could not occupy it, and it became No Man's Land until the early evening when the 7th Royal Welsh Fusiliers recaptured and held it. The contest for Zamby lasted all day, and for a long time it was a battle of bombs and machine guns, so closely together were the fighting men, but the Turks never got up to our sangars and were finally driven off with heavy loss, over 100 dead being left on the hill. The Turkish ambulances were seen hard at work on the Jericho road throughout the day. There was a stout defence of a detached post at Ibn Obeid. A company of the 2/10th Middlesex Regiment had been sent on to Obeid, about five miles east of Bethlehem, to watch for the enemy moving about the rough tracks in that bare and broken country which falls away in jagged hills and sinuous valleys to the Dead Sea. The little garrison, whose sole shelter was a ruined monastic building on the hill, were attacked at dawn by 700 Turkish cavalry supported by mountain guns. The garrison stood fast all day though practically surrounded, and every attack was beaten off. The Turks tried again and again to secure the hill, which commands a track to Bethlehem, but, although they fired 400 shells at the position, they could not enter it, and a battalion sent up to relieve the Middlesex men next morning found that the company had driven the enemy off, its casualties having amounted to only 2 killed and 17 wounded. Thus did the 'Die Hards' live up to the traditions of the regiment.
Having dealt with the failure of the Turkish attacks against the 60th and 53rd Divisions in front of Jerusalem, let us change our view point and focus attention on the left sector of XXth Corps, where the enemy was feeling the full power of the Corps at a time when he most wished to avoid it. General Longley had organised his attacking columns in three groups. On the right the 229th Brigade of the 74th Division was set the task of moving from the wadi Imeish to secure the high ground of Bir esh Shafa overlooking Beitunia; the 31st Brigade, starting from near Tahta, attacked north of the wadi Sunt, to drive the enemy from a line from Jeriut through Hafy to the west of the olive orchards near Ain Arik; while the left group, composed of the 29th and 30th Brigades, aimed at getting Shabuny across the wadi Sad, and Sheikh Abdallah where they would have the Australian Mounted Division on their left. The advance started from the left of the line. The 29th Brigade leading, with the 30th Brigade in support, left their positions of deployment at six o'clock, by which time the Turk had had more than he had bargained for north and east of Jerusalem. The 1st Leinsters and 5th Connaught Rangers found the enemy in a stubborn mood west of Deir Ibzia, but they broke down the opposition in the proper Irish style and rapidly reached their objectives. The centre group started one hour after the left and got their line without much difficulty. The right group was hotly opposed. Beginning their advance at eight o'clock the 229th Brigade had reached the western edge of the famous Zeitun ridge in an hour, but from this time onwards they were exposed to incessant artillery and machine-gun fire, and the forward movement became very slow. In five hours small parties had worked along the ridge for about half its length, fighting every yard, and it was not until the approach of dusk that we once more got control of the whole ridge. It was appropriate that dismounted yeomen should gain this important tactical point which several weeks previously had been won and lost by their comrades of the Yeomanry Mounted Division. Descending from the ridge the brigade gave the Turk little chance to stand, and with a bayonet charge they reached the day's objective in the dark. At two o'clock, when the Turks' final effort against Jerusalem had just failed, the 60th and 74th Divisions both sent in the good news that the Turkish commander was moving his reserve division from Bireh westwards to meet the attack from our left. Airmen confirmed this immediately, and it was now obvious that General Chetwode's tactics had compelled the enemy to conform to his movements and that we had regained the initiative. At about ten o'clock the 24th Royal Welsh Fusiliers of the 231st Brigade captured Kh. ed Dreihemeh on the old Roman road a mile east of Tireh, and at eleven o'clock advanced to the assault of hill 2450, a little farther eastward. They gained the crest, but the enemy had a big force in the neighbourhood and counter-attacked, forcing the Welshmen to withdraw some distance down the western slope. They held this ground till 4.30 when our guns heavily bombarded the summit, under cover of which fire the infantry made another attack. This was also unsuccessful owing to the intense volume of fire from machine guns. The hill was won, however, next morning.