to learn what was happening in the town.  I believe Major Montagu Cooke, one of the officers of the 302nd Artillery Brigade, was the first officer actually in the town, and I understand that whilst he and his orderly were in the Post Office a substantial body of Turks turned the corner outside the building and passed down the Jericho road quite unconscious of the near presence of a British officer.  General Shea was deputed by the Commander-in-Chief to enter Jerusalem in order to accept the surrender of the City.  It was a simple little ceremony, lasting but a minute or two, free from any display of strength, and a fitting prelude to General Allenby’s official entry.  At half-past twelve General Shea, with his aide-de-camp and a guard of honour furnished by the 2/17th Londons, met the Mayor, who formally surrendered the City.  To the Chief of Police General Shea gave instructions for the maintenance of order, and guards were placed over the public buildings.  Then the commander of the 60th Division left to continue the direction of his troops who were making the Holy City secure from Turkish attacks.  I believe the official report ran:  ’Thus at 12.30 the Holy City was surrendered for the twenty-third time, and for the first time to British arms, and on this occasion without bloodshed among the inhabitants or damage to the buildings in the City itself.’

Simple as was the surrender of Jerusalem, there were scenes in the streets during the short half-hour of General Shea’s visit which reflected the feeling of half the civilised world on receiving the news.  It was a world event.  This deliverance of Jerusalem from Turkish misgovernment was bound to stir the emotions of Christian, Jewish, and Moslem communities in the two hemispheres.  In a war in which the moral effect of victories was only slightly less important than a big strategical triumph, Jerusalem was one of the strongest possible positions for the Allies to win, and it is not making too great a claim to say that the capture of the Holy City by British arms gave more satisfaction to countless millions of people than did the winning back for France of any big town on the Western Front.  The latter might be more important from a military standpoint, but among the people, especially neutrals, it would be regarded merely as a passing incident in the ebb and flow of the tide of war.  Bagdad had an important influence on the Eastern mind; Jerusalem affected Christian, Jew, and Moslem alike the world over.  The War Cabinet regarded the taking of Jerusalem by British Imperial troops in so important a light that orders were given to hold up correspondents’ messages and any telegrams the military attaches might write until the announcement of the victory had been made to the world by a Minister in the House of Commons.  This instruction was officially communicated to me before we took Jerusalem, and I believe it was the case that the world received the first news when the mouthpiece of the Government gave it to the chosen representatives of the British people in the Mother of Parliaments.