After leaving Jerusalem the enemy took up a strong position on the hills north and north-east of the City from which he had to be driven before Jerusalem was secure from counter-attack. During the morning General Chetwode gave orders for a general advance to the line laid down in his original plan of attack, which may be described as the preliminary line for the defence of Jerusalem. The 180th and 181st Brigades were already on the move, and some of the 53rd Division had marched by the main road outside the Holy City's walls to positions from which they were to attempt to drive the enemy off the Mount of Olives. The 180th Brigade, fresh and strong but still wet and muddy, went forward rapidly over the boulders on the hills east of the wadi Beit Hannina and occupied the rugged height of Shafat at half-past one. Shafat is about two miles north of Jerusalem. In another half-hour they had driven the Turks from the conical top of Tel el Ful, that sugar-loaf hill which dominates the Nablus road, and which before the end of the year was to be the scene of an epic struggle between Londoner and Turk. The 181st Brigade, on debouching from the suburbs of Jerusalem north-east of Lifta, was faced with heavy machine-gun and rifle fire on the ridge running from the western edge of the Mount of Olives across the Nablus road through Kh. es Salah. On the left the 180th Brigade lent support, and at four o'clock the 2/21st and 2/24th Londons rushed the ridge with the bayonet and drove off the Turks, who left seventy dead behind them. The London Division that night established itself on the line from a point a thousand yards north of Jerusalem and east of the Nablus road through Ras Meshari to Tel el Ful, thence westwards to the wadi behind the olive orchards south of Beit Hannina. The 74th Division reached its objective without violent opposition, and its line ran from north of Nebi Samwil to the height of Beit Hannina and out towards Tel el Ful. The 53rd Division was strongly opposed when it got round the south-east of Jerusalem on to the Jericho road in the direction of Aziriyeh (Bethany), and it was necessary to clear the Turks from the Mount of Olives. Troops of the Welsh Division moved round the Holy City and drove the enemy off the Mount, following them down the eastern spurs, and thus denied them any direct observation over Jerusalem. The next day they pushed the enemy still farther eastwards, and by the night of the 10th held the line from the well at Azad, 4000 yards south-east of Jerusalem, the hill 1500 yards south of Aziriyeh, Aziriyeh itself, to the Mount of Olives, whence our positions continued to Ras et Tawil, north of Tel el Ful across the Nablus road to Nebi Samwil. This was our first line of positions for the defence of Jerusalem, and we continued to hold these strong points for some time. They were gradually extended on the east and north-east by the Welsh Division in order to prevent an attack from the direction of Jericho, where we knew the Turks had received reinforcements. Indeed, during our attack on the Jerusalem position the Turks had withdrawn a portion of their force on the Hedjaz railway. A regiment had passed through Jericho from the Hedjaz line at Amman and was marching up the road to assist in Jerusalem's defence, but was 'Too late.' The regiment was turned back when we had captured Jerusalem. Our casualties from November 28 to December 10—these figures include the heavy fighting about Tahta, Foka, and Nebi Samwil prior to the XXth Corps' attack on the Jerusalem defences—were: officers, 21 killed, 64 wounded, 3 missing; other ranks, 247 killed, 1163 wounded, 169 missing, a total of 1667. The casualties of the 60th Division during the attack on and advance north of Jerusalem on December 8-9 are interesting, because they were so extremely light considering the strength of the defences captured and the difficulties of the ground, namely: 8 officers killed and 24 wounded, 98 other ranks killed, 420 wounded and 3 missing, a total of 553. The total for the whole of the XXth Corps on these days was 12 officers killed, 35 wounded, and 137 other ranks killed, 636 wounded and 7 missing—in all 47 officers and 780 other ranks. The prisoners taken from November 28 to December 10 were: 76 officers, 1717 other ranks—total, 1793. On December 8 and 9, 68 officers and 918 other ranks—986 in all—were captured. The booty included two 4-2 Krupp howitzers, three 77-mm. field guns and carriages, nine heavy and three light machine guns, 137 boxes of small-arms ammunition, and 103,000 loose rounds.
CHAPTER XV
GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY
Jerusalem became supremely happy.
It had passed through the trials, if not the perils, of war. It had been the headquarters and base of a Turkish Army. Great bodies of troops were never quartered there, but staffs and depôts were established in the City, and being in complete control, the military paid little regard to the needs of the population. Unfortunately a not inconsiderable section of Jerusalem's inhabitants is content to live, not by its own handiwork, but on the gifts of charitable religious people of all creeds. When war virtually shut off Jerusalem from the outer world the lot of the poor became precarious. The food of the country, just about sufficient for self-support, was to a large extent commandeered for the troops, and while prices rose the poor could not buy, and either their appeals did not reach the benevolent or funds were intercepted. Deaths from starvation were numbered by the thousand, Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike suffering, and there were few civilians in the Holy City who were not hungry for months at a time.
When I reached Jerusalem the people were at the height of their excitement over the coming of the British and they put the best face on their condition, but the freely expressed feeling of relief that the days of hunger torture were nearly past did not remove the signs of want and misery, of infinite suffering by father, mother, and child, brought about by a long period of starvation. That a people, pale, thin, bent, whose movements had become listless under the lash of hunger, could have been stirred into enthusiasm by the appearance of a khaki coat, that they could throw off the lethargy which comes of acute want, was only to be accounted for by the existence of a profound belief that we had been sent to deliver them. Some hours before the Official Entry I was walking in David Street when a Jewish woman, seeing that I was English, stopped me and said: 'We have prayed for this day. To-day I shall sing "God Save our Gracious King, Long Live our Noble King." We have been starving, but what does that matter? Now we are liberated and free.' She clasped her hands across her breasts and exclaimed several times, 'Oh how thankful we are.' An elderly man in a black robe, whose pinched pale face told of a long period of want, caught me by the hand and said: 'God has delivered us. Oh how happy we are.' An American worker in a Red Crescent hospital, who had lived in Jerusalem for upwards of ten years and knew the people well, assured me there was not one person in the Holy City who in his heart was not devoutly thankful for our victory. He told me that on the day we captured Nebi Samwil three wounded Arab officers were brought to the hospital. One of them spoke English—it was astonishing how many people could speak our mother tongue—and while he was having his wounds dressed he exclaimed: 'I can shout Hip-hip-hurrah for England now.' The officer was advised to be careful, as there were many Turkish wounded in the hospital, but he replied he did not care, and in unrestrained joy cried out, 'Hurrah for England.'
The deplorable lot of the people had been made harder by profiteering officers. Those who had money had to part with it for Turkish paper. The Turkish note was depreciated to about one-fifth of its face value. German officers traded in the notes for gold, sent the notes to Germany where, by a financial arrangement concluded between Constantinople and Berlin, they were accepted at face value. The German officer and soldier got richer the more they forced Turkish paper down. Turkish officers bought considerable supplies of wheat and flour from military depôts, the cost being debited against their pay which was paid in paper. They then sold the goods for gold. That accounted for the high prices of foodstuffs, the price in gold being taken for the market valuation.
In the middle of November when there was a prospect of the Turks evacuating Jerusalem, the officers sold out their stocks of provisions and prices became less prohibitive, but they rose again quickly when it was decided to defend the City, and the cost of food mounted to almost famine prices. The Turks by selling for gold that which was bought for paper, rechanging gold for paper at their own prices, made huge profits and caused a heavy depreciation of the note at the expense of the population. Grain was brought from the district east of the Dead Sea, but none of it found its way to civilian mouths except through the extortionate channel provided by officers. Yet when we got into Jerusalem there were people with small stocks of flour who were willing to make flat loaves of unleavened bread for sale to our troops. The soldiers had been living for weeks on hard biscuit and bully beef, and many were willing to pay a shilling for a small cake of bread. They did not know that the stock of flour in the town was desperately low and that by buying this bread they were almost taking it out of the mouths of the poor. Some traders were so keen on getting good money, not paper, that they tried to do business on this footing, looking to the British Army to come to the aid of the people. The Army soon put a stop to this trade and the troops were prohibited from buying bread in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As it was, the Quarter-master-General's branch had to send a large quantity of foodstuffs into the towns, and this was done at a time when it was a most anxious task to provision the troops. Those were very trying days for the supply and transport departments, and one wonders whether the civilian population ever realised the extent of the humanitarian efforts of our Army staff.
During the period when no attempt was made to alleviate the lot of the people the Turks gave them a number of lessons in frightfulness. There were public executions to show the severity of military law. Gallows were erected outside the Jaffa Gate and the victims were left hanging for hours as a warning to the population. I have seen a photograph of six natives who suffered the penalty, with their executioners standing at the swinging feet of their victims. Before the first battle of Gaza the Turks brought the rich Mufti of Gaza and his son to Jerusalem, and the Mufti was hanged in the presence of a throng compulsorily assembled to witness the execution. The son was shot. Their only crime was that they were believed to have expressed approval of Britain's policy in dealing with Moslem races. Thus were the people terrorised. They knew the Turkish ideas of justice, and dared not talk of events happening in the town even in the seclusion of their homes. The evils of war, as war is practised by the Turk, left a mark on Jerusalem's population which will be indelible for this generation, despite the wondrous change our Army has wrought in the people.
When General Allenby had broken through the Gaza line the Turks in Jerusalem despaired of saving the City. That all the army papers were brought from Hebron on November 10, shows that even at that date von Kress still imagined we would come up the Hebron road, though he had learnt to his cost that a mighty column was moving through the coastal sector and that our cavalry were cutting across the country to join it. The notorious Enver reached Jerusalem from the north on November 12 and went down to Hebron. On his return it was reported that the Turks would leave Jerusalem, the immediate sale of officers' stocks of foodstuffs giving colour to the rumour. Undoubtedly some preparations were made to evacuate the place, but the temptation to hold on was too great. One can see the influence of the German mind in the Turkish councils of war. At a moment when they were flashing the wireless news throughout the world that their Caporetto victory meant the driving of Italy out of the war they did not want the icy blast of Jerusalem's fall to tell of disaster to their hopes in the East. Accordingly on the 16th 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.