How Jerusalem Was Won: Allenby's Campaign in Palestine

This narrative of the work accomplished for civilisation by General Allenby's Army is carried only as far as the occupation of Jericho. The capture of that ancient town, with the possession of a line of rugged hills a dozen miles north of Jerusalem, secured the Holy City from any Turkish attempt to retake it. The book, in fact, tells the story of the twenty-third fall of Jerusalem, one of the most beneficent happenings of all wars, and marking an epoch in the wonderful history of the Holy Place which will rank second only to that era which saw the birth of Christianity. All that occurred in the fighting on the Gaza-Beersheba line was part and parcel of the taking of Jerusalem, the freeing of which from four centuries of Turkish domination was the object of the first part of the campaign. The Holy City was the goal sought by every officer and man in the Army; and though from the moment that goal had been attained all energies were concentrated upon driving the Turk out of the war, there was not a member of the Force, from the highest on the Staff to the humblest private in the ranks, who did not feel that Jerusalem was the greatest prize of the campaign.

In a second volume I shall tell of that tremendous feat of arms which overwhelmed the Turkish Armies, drove them through 400 miles of country in six weeks, and gave cavalry an opportunity of proving that, despite all the arts and devices of modern warfare, with fighters and observers in the air and an entirely new mechanism of war, they continued as indispensable a part of an army as when the legions of old took the field. This is too long a story to be told in this volume, though the details of that magnificent triumph are so firmly impressed on the mind that one is loth to leave the narration of them to a future date. For the moment Jerusalem must be sufficient, and if in the telling of the British work up to that point I can succeed in giving an idea of the immense value of General Allenby's Army to the Empire, of the soldier's courage and fortitude, of his indomitable will and self-sacrifice and patriotism, it will indeed prove the most grateful task I have ever set myself.

April 1919.

CONTENTS

Chap.

I. PALESTINE'S INFLUENCE ON THE WAR

II. OLD BATTLEGROUNDS

III. DIFFICULTIES OF THE ATTACK

IV. TRAINING THE ARMY

V. RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE

VI. PREPARING FOR 'ZERO DAY'

VII. THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY

VIII. GAZA DEFENCES

IX. CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT

X. THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN

XI. TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES

XII. LOOKING TOWARDS JERUSALEM

XIII. INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS

XIV. THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY

XV. GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY

XVI. MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE

XVII. A GREAT FEAT OF WAR

XVIII. BY THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN

XIX. THE TOUCH OF THE CIVILISING HAND

XX. OUR CONQUERING AIRMEN

APPENDICES

INDEX

LIST OF MAPS

PLAN OF SOUTHERN PALESTINE

PLAN OF GAZA-BEERSHEBA LINE

PLAN OF THE BETH-HORON COUNTRY

PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF JERUSALEM

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

OFFICIAL ENTRY INTO THE HOLY CITY. GENERAL ALLENBY RECEIVED BY THE MILITARY GOVERNOR OP JERUSALEM, DECEMBER 11, 1917

KANTARA TERMINUS OF THE DESERT MILITARY RAILWAY

EAST FORCE H.Q. DUG-OUTS NEAR GAZA

WADI GHUZZE NEAR SHELLAL

OUR WATERWORKS AT SHELLAL

ON THE MOVE IN THE DESERT

THE GREAT MOSQUE AT GAZA

TURKISH HEADQUARTERS AT GAZA. Note the Crusader Lion in Wall.

A DESERT MOTOR ROAD NEAR SHELLAL

TURKISH DUG-OUTS AT GAZA

BEERSHEBA RAILWAY STATION WITH MINED ROLLING STOCK

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR HARRY CHAUVEL OUTSIDE BEERSHEBA MOSQUE, NOVEMBER 1, 1917