General Allenby entering Jerusalem on foot out of respect for the holiness of the city, December 11, 1917
On December 11, 1917, General Edmund Allenby, commander of the British “Egyptian Expeditionary Force,” entered Jerusalem, two days after the Turkish forces occupying the city raised the white flag before Allied forces. Understanding the symbolic sensitivity of Jerusalem to both its residents and religious adherents the world over, Allenby, who was later described by T.E. Lawrence as “morally so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow to him,” elected to make his entrance through Jaffa Gate on foot. This was in intentional contrast to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who, visiting the Holy Land in 1898, insisted on entering the Old City seated on a white horse.
Gaston Bodart, Austria’s official historian of the Great War, wrote that the moral significance of Jerusalem’s capture “was even greater than its military importance.”
Allenby understood this. In declaring martial law in the city, he promised 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.” And, as noted, he was careful to dismount from his horse before entering Jaffa Gate.
Prime Minister Lloyd George described the capture of Jerusalem as “a Christmas present for the British people.”
It is said that a Jewish Allied soldier from New Zealand, Corporal Louis Isaac Salek, hung a blue-and-white flag, decorated with the Star of David from the Tower of David. He had ordered the flag from the Jewish haberdasher Moreno Cicurel, of Cairo, who had it made by a tailor named Eliezer Slutzkin. Within 20 minutes, the British had removed the flag.
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