W.T. Massey - How Jerusalem Was Won. Allenby's Campaign in Palestine
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
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