Gen. Edmund Allenby’s Conquest of Jerusalem

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

One of my favourite streets in Tel Aviv is Rehov Allenby. It starts at the Mediterranean promenade and runs through the centre of the city, bisecting other important thoroughfares such as Sderot Rothschild.

During the day, it is a commercial street with many small businesses and clothing stores, and serves as the entrance to the Carmel Market. In the evening, it becomes a hub of nightlife, known for its cafés, pubs and restaurants.

The street is named in honour of British Field Marshal Sir Edmund Allenby, the British general who directed the Palestine campaign in the First World War. He captured Jerusalem exactly one century ago.

Born in 1861, he enjoyed a privileged education and was commissioned into the army in 1882. He had already fought in many of Britain’s wars when, in June 1917, Allenby took command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in the Middle East, with orders to capture Palestine from the Ottoman Empire.  

Known as ‘‘the Bull,” Allenby was instructed by Prime Minister David Lloyd George to take Jerusalem before Christmas.

Allenby won decisive victories over the Turks at Beersheba and Gaza that autumn and by early December his troops had advanced to the outskirts of Jerusalem.

On Dec. 8 the battle for the city began. By the next day, it was in the hands of the British, and Allenby entered the Old City on Dec. 11. 

Understanding the symbolic sensitivity of Jerusalem to both its residents and religious adherents the world over, Allenby, the first Christian conqueror of the Holy City since the Crusades, elected to make his entrance through the Jaffa Gate on foot.

He deliberately chose to walk into Jerusalem 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. “This was to me the most supreme moment of the war.” he would write of his Jerusalem experience.

At David’s Citadel, Allenby met the heads of the different communities in the city and declared martial law. Allenby stated that, while “Jerusalem the Blessed” would now governed by the British military, its inhabitants need not be unduly alarmed.  

He noted that “the population received me well” and assured them of his desire “that every person 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 multitudes of devout people of these three religions for many centuries, therefore “every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary place of prayer of whatsoever form of the three religions will be maintained and protected.”

As the next century would demonstrate, this has been no easy task.

Allenby, who retired in 1925, becoming Rector of Edinburgh University, died in London on May 14, 1936.  He is buried in Westminster Abbey.