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