The sick man on the Bosphorus had lost his grip on Jerusalem, but to whom exactly did he surrender? Parades, ceremonies, and monuments marking the conquest of Israel’s future capital.

Wars are serious business, but here and there history provides some comic relief amid the chaos and tragedy. Take the particularly dreary, rainy morning of December 9, 1917, which just happened to be the day before Hanuka. After months of bloody conflict between British forces advancing from the south and Ottoman Turks digging in their heels in the north, World War I began winding down. The battles had filled large cemeteries throughout the land of Israel, leaving the graves of these brave young men to be lovingly tended by future generations in Beersheba, Ramle, and Jerusalem as well as Gaza. British prime minister David Lloyd George begged General Edmund Allenby for some kind of victory, however small, to raise morale in London before Christmas.

Allenby promptly dispatched a good few regiments to attack Jerusalem. They camped around the city on three sides, leaving the Turks a narrow escape hatch to the east.

One camp was situated beside an Arab village named Qalunya, near Motza. One morning, two sergeants on kitchen duty set out for the village in the cold, seeking some eggs and vegetables for breakfast. The officers must have left their compasses at home, for they missed Qalunya completely and ended up just outside Jerusalem, more or less by today’s Central Bus Station. They climbed the hill to get their bearings, only to see a column of men moving straight toward them up the main road. In their fezlike tarbooshes and army uniforms, these teens and adults were clearly anything but British.

The mayor and his retinue sought an honorable surrender but found only sergeants on kitchen duty. Al-Husayni with stick at center I Courtesy of the Library of Congress Collection. Photo editing by Tamar Hayardeni

Our two sergeants were about to faint when they noticed the white flag in the hands of the foremost marcher. After a few sentences in broken English, Turkish, and Arabic, accompanied by extensive gesticulation, it emerged that the flag bearer was none other than the mayor of Jerusalem, Hussein Bey al-Husayni.

The mayor bore amazing tidings: having concluded that Jerusalem was lost, the Ottoman garrison had melted away eastward the night before, leaving the place defenseless. It was therefore Husayni’s civic duty to present someone British with the keys to the city and an official writ of surrender.

The surprised sergeants were immortalized on celluloid by an American Colony photographer, whom Husayni had brought along so future tour guides could recapture the moment.

Ongoing Surrender

There are several versions of what happened next, ranging from four to seven separate surrenders, each canceling out the previous. Yet all agree that the most annoying of these featured Sir John Shea, the irritable Irish commander of the 60th Division. According to Shea, all prior surrenders were null and void, any good Christian would give his right hand to conquer Jerusalem, and no mere kitchen staff or their minor superiors would deprive him of the honor.

Decidedly the most impressive victory ceremony was the last, two days later. On December 11, the second day of Hanuka, General Allenby solemnly dismounted his horse outside Jaffa Gate and entered Jerusalem on foot.

All that’s left of this story in Jerusalem today is Allenby Square, a relatively unknown corner behind the Central Bus Station. A cenotaph at the square’s center proudly declares:

Near this spot, the Holy City was surrendered to the 60th London Division, 9th December 1917. Erected by their comrades to those officers, NCOs and men who fell in fighting for Jerusalem.

The laconic inscription reveals nothing of the drama surrounding the erection of this monument in 1920. British civil servants had been bickering incessantly over the shape and size of this emblem of their heroic victory. Something very large and pompous was proposed but never got off the ground. In the end, the regiment took matters into its own hands, scraping together the funds to commission a modest memorial to its fallen soldiers. It was dated December 9, coinciding with the first ceremony and thus effectively canceling out all subsequent ones, including Allenby’s.