In so far as any principles can be deduced from this history, they seem to show that Jerusalem, situated as it is, could never become the capital of a great Empire. On the other hand, this city, coveted by so many races and creeds, must be safeguarded by the arms and resources of some great Empire, or it can never remain at peace.
It may be of interest to close this résumé of the history of Jerusalem by comparing the route taken by General Allenby with those taken by previous soldiers in their conquests of Judæa. The routes taken by the British have already been fully described. In only one known case, that of the First Crusade, had Judæa been successfully invaded before by an invader who had not previously made himself master of at least three of her borders.[8] The attempt at a swift rush across one border made by Cestius Gallus, ended in a failure, which was only wiped out four years later after the Romans, under Vespasian and Titus, had first overrun Galilee and Samaria and mastered the strongholds round the Judæan borders. This was the policy followed, a thousand years later, by Saladin.
The upland of Judæa has almost never been invaded from the barren waterless south.[8] David, operating from Hebron, must have approached Jerusalem from the south, but he was already in possession of the Judæan plateau. The original attempt of the Israelites to enter the country from the south was checked, and they subsequently crossed the Jordan and entered Judæa through Jericho from the east. The Philistines must have come up by the passes from the west. Sennacherib did not approach Jerusalem himself, but it was whilst warring against Egypt at Lachish (Tel el Hesi on the Maritime Plain) that he sent his arrogant message to Jerusalem; and it was on the Plain that his victorious army, infected by the plague from Egypt, melted away as by a miracle. Egypt was his objective, not Judæa. Nebuchadnezzar may have invaded Judæa from the north, but it is more probable that he also came up from the west, after first making himself master of the Maritime Plain. Pompey was returning from his expedition in Arabia when he invaded, so he entered from the east, ascending the Judæan plateau by way of Jericho and Bethel. Herod invaded from the north.
In the Christian era, Cestius Gallus made his disastrous expedition by the Valley of Ajalon, Beth-horon and Gibeon. Titus, after the surrounding country had been subjugated, moved his army up to Jerusalem by Gophna (Jufna) and Bethel, and so through Bireh, from the north-west and north. The Moslems, in 637, first captured Damascus; subsequently they approached Jerusalem across the Jordan. The First Crusaders came through Asia Minor and won a decisive victory at Antioch; thence they came southward along the coast, through Ramleh, and up the Valley of Ajalon, their advance through the mountains being unopposed. Saladin, by the decisive battle of Hattin, near Tiberias, made himself master of the surrounding country before closing in upon Jerusalem, which he eventually did from Hebron (south), from Askalon (west), and from the north. In the Third Crusade, Richard and his Crusaders came oversea to Acre; after marching to Ramleh, they tried first to reach the Holy City up the Valley of Ajalon, and afterwards by the Vale of Elah, the Wady es Sunt, further to the south, but both attempts failed.
Many of the invading armies that have swept through Palestine have confined themselves to the great inter-continental road along the Maritime Plain, and have passed by Jerusalem, secure upon its plateau. We have seen that this was so with Sennacherib. This was probably the case with Alexander the Great, and was undoubtedly so with Napoleon. The latter defeated the Turks at Gaza and again on the Plain of Esdraelon. His objective was Syria, but he was foiled by the action of the British in the siege of Acre. This distraction also prevented him from making any attempt to reach Jerusalem.
Prior to the arrival of the British, it was seven centuries since a Christian conqueror had set foot in Jerusalem. But there was now no gloating of the Cross over the Crescent. On the contrary, guards of Moslem troops from our Indian army were placed upon every building sacred to Islam, while Christian guards were mounted over those sacred to Christianity. Never before had Jerusalem fallen into the hands of conquerors so zealous for the safety of its populace or so concerned for the preservation of the city and all that it contained.
Railways in 1918