WHAT’S THE STORY?
It was 100 years ago today that the Ottoman Empire’s forces surrendered Jerusalem to a British Army cook. It was one of the most extraordinary stories of the First World War and ended with great credit for Allied commander General Edmund Allenby whose intelligent, practical and moral example in occupying the Holy City contrasts most strongly with the attitude of the current Israeli government and their cheerleader, the coiffured charlatan of the White House who has gone blundering into a situation which, like so much else he essays globally, he knows nothing about and which deflects attention from his own troubles as the special ‘Russia link’ prosecution team close in on him and his family.

THEY SURRENDERED TO A COOK?
Though it is disputed, the probably correct version of what happened in the early hours of the morning of 9 December, 1917, makes for astonishing reading, considering it was a turning point in the war in the Middle East.

The Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) had been set up specifically to head north through Palestine and beat the Turkish forces of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, Prime Minister David Lloyd George was said to want Turkey itself destroyed.

Marching north from Egypt in early 1917, the EEF, in which the 52nd Lowland Division consisting of battalions from numerous famous Scottish regiments played a prominent role, twice failed to beat the Turks at Gaza, so the Force commander, Sir Archibald Murray, was replaced by General Edmund Allenby, a former cavalry officer who had a reputation as a no nonsense emotionless soldier.

Allenby reinvigorated the EEF and it was suggested to him that taking Jerusalem might repair the reputational damage caused by the losses at Gaza. The Third Battle of Gaza was duly won, thanks mostly to Allenby’s swift re-arrangement of the EEF and his personal command, and the Force marched on Jerusalem, which had no real military significance but whose capture would be “a Christmas present for the British people” as Lloyd George put it.

The Ottoman commanders saw the vastly superior Allied forces and their troops left the city en masse on the night of 8 December.

The Turkish Governor of the area and Hussein al-Husseini, the local man who was Mayor of Jerusalem, decided to surrender rather than see the city besieged, and the Mayor and two other officials went looking for a British officer. Instead they found a cook named Private Murch who had been foraging for fresh food for “his hofficers” as he put it. Murch refused to accept the surrender letter from the Turkish Governor but had the presence of mind to fetch two sergeants from the 60th London Division, James Sedgwick and Frederick Hurcombe — there is a superb picture of them with Mayor al-Husseini. They knew it was the job of a senior officer to accept the surrender and after a bit of grandstanding from other officers, Allenby declared he personally would accept the surrender.

WHAT WAS SPECIAL ABOUT WHAT ALLENBY DID NEXT?
Known as “The Bull” for his temper and formidable character, Allenby was nevertheless a shrewd and capable officer who had suffered the loss of his only son on the Western Front just a few months before but who threw himself into his duties to assuage his profound grief.

He did take risks — he encouraged Lawrence of Arabia in his work and used coordinated air power like no commander had before — but was also known for careful preparation of an attack and now those instincts came to the fore. Allenby found out that two decades before, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm had offended the people of Jerusalem by entering the city on a white horse like a Roman conqueror, so Allenby decided to go on foot with a modest bodyguard. With hardly any ceremony at all, on 11 December, 1917, he became the first Christian commander to triumphally enter Jerusalem since the Crusades

As soon as he could, Allenby met the leaders of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities and thrashed out a new governance for Jerusalem under British rule. More significant was his famous declaration of martial law with these words: “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, do I make it known to you that 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 according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faith they are sacred.”

He was as good as his word. Allenby also banned the use of the word crusade from all official communication and flew no flags from any building other than those occupied by his troops. In hours, he had pacified Jerusalem.

A LESSON FOR TRUMP?
One British general — a man who had failed his entrance exams for officers’ school — showed that by swotting up on Jerusalem, a “moral man”, as his great fan Lawrence of Arabia called Allenby, could have a positive impact on the entire war in the Middle East. You might want to check him out, POTUS.