The highly symbolic fall of Jerusalem during December 1917 was a significant moment of the Great War as Stuart Hadaway explains.
FIRST WORLD WAR | FIGHTING IN MIDDLE EAST
Even before zero-hour on the morning of 9 December 1917, General Sir Edmund Allenby’s plan to capture Jerusalem fell to pieces. But while having plans go disastrously awry was not a new thing for any First World War army, for once the radical change in circumstances was a very welcome, and lifesaving, development. The previous night, the Ottoman and German commanders occupying the city had decided to withdraw; rather than fighting in the streets, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) would be able to simply stroll in through the gates.
