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Many times have I watched the troops of General Allenby in the streets of Jerusalem. They bore themselves as soldiers and gentlemen, and if they had been selected to go there simply to impress the people they could not have more worthily upheld the good fame of their nation. These soldier missionaries of the Empire left behind them a record which will be remembered for generations.
Perhaps the new general will have more troops sent out to him; perhaps we shall now get a move on in Palestine, so important a theatre of operations; the arrival of Sir Edmund Allenby in the East may prove the signal for a fresh offensive out there. Sir Stanley Maude has been very quiet lately; but I suppose the weather will be adverse to operations in Mesopotamia at present.
I had pictured Sir Archibald Murray leading a victorious wing at Armageddon, but that, apparently, is not now to be: Sir Edmund Allenby reigns in his stead.
It was a rare ride: on the morrow they were forty miles north and north-east at El Afuleh, Nazareth, and Beisan; and then wheeling south-east they cut off the retreat of nearly the whole of the Turkish forces. On the 22nd Allenby reported that 25,000 prisoners and 200 guns had been taken and counted, and that the Seventh and Eighth Turkish armies had virtually ceased to exist.
Our part in the war generally proves the accuracy of that statement, but the Official Entry into Jerusalem will stand out as one great exception. By omitting to make a great parade of his victory one may count elaborate ceremonial as advertisement General Allenby gave Britain her best advertisement.
Such mutual confidence breeds strength, and it was the Commander-in-Chief's example, his tact, energy, and military genius which made his Army a potent power for Britain and a strong pillar of the Allies' cause. Let it not be imagined that General Allenby in his victorious campaign shone only as a great soldier. He was also a great administrator.
General Bulfin realised it would be risking heavy losses to ask his troops to make another immediate effort against a numerically stronger enemy in positions of his own choice, and he therefore applied to General Allenby that the XXth Corps the 60th Division was already at Latron attached to the XXIst Corps might take over the line.
That plan General Allenby adopted after seeing all the ground, and the events of the last day of October and the first week of November supported General Chetwode's predictions to the letter.
I firmly believe that if unity of command under Marshal Foch and Sir Henry Wilson, with the following decisive victories of D'Esperey at Cerna and Allenby at Armageddon in September, 1918, bringing about the capitulation of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, and the surrender of Constantinople to the Allies, had not been attained last year the war would still be in progress.
Outside the Jaffa Gate the Commander-in-Chief was received by Major-General Borton, who had been appointed Military Governor of the City, and a procession being formed, General Allenby passed between the iron gates to within the City walls.
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