The Battle of Jerusalem also known as the Fall of Jerusalem occurred during the British Empire's "Jerusalem Operations" against the Ottoman Empire, in World War I, when fighting for the city developed from 17 November, continuing after the surrender until 30 December 1917, to secure the final objective of the Southern Palestine Offensive during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I. Before Jerusalem could be secured, two battles were recognised by the British as being fought in the Hebron Hills to the north and east of the Hebron–Junction Station line. These were the Battle of Nebi Samwill from 17 to 24 November and the Defence of Jerusalem from 26 to 30 December 1917. They also recognised within these Jerusalem Operations, the successful second attempt on 21 and 22 December 1917 to advance across the Nahr el Auja, as the Battle of Jaffa, although Jaffa had been occupied as a consequence of the Battle of Mughar Ridge on 16 November.
This series of battles was successfully fought by the British Empire's XX Corps, XXI Corps, and the Desert Mounted Corps against strong opposition from the Yildirim Army Group's Seventh Army in Hebron Hills and the Eighth Army north of Jaffa on the Mediterranean coast. The loss of Jaffa and Jerusalem, together with the loss of 50 mi (80 km) of territory during the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) advance from Gaza, after the capture of Beersheba, Gaza, Hareira and Sheria, Tel el Khuweilfe and the Battle of Mughar Ridge, constituted a grave setback for the Ottoman Army and the Ottoman Empire.
As a result of these victories, the British Empire forces captured Jerusalem and established a new strategically strong fortified line. This line ran from well to the north of Jaffa on the maritime plain, across the Hebron Hills to Bireh north of Jerusalem, and continued eastwards of the Mount of Olives. With the capture of the road from Be'e Elsabe' (Beersheba) to Jerusalem via Hebron and Bethlehem, together with substantial Ottoman territory south of Jerusalem, the city was secured. On 11 December, General Edmund Allenby entered the Old City on foot through the Jaffa Gate instead of horse or vehicles to show respect for the holy city. He was the first Christian in many centuries to control Jerusalem, a city held holy by three great religions. The prime minister of the United Kingdom, David Lloyd George, described the capture as "a Christmas present for the British people". The battle was a great morale boost for the British Empire.
Background
British General Edmund Allenby, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), had won a decisive victory against the German General Erich von Falkenhayn, commander of Ottoman forces in Palestine, at the Battle of Mughar Ridge on 13 November. The British Empire victory forced von Falkenhayn to withdraw his Seventh and Eighth Armies (commanded by Fevzi Pasha and Kress von Kressenstein respectively) and move his headquarters from Jerusalem to Nablus on 14 November. As the Ottoman III Corps (Seventh Army) reached Jerusalem via the Hebron road after its defeat at Beersheba, it was ordered to develop defences around Jerusalem. This corps held the city while the XX Corps retreated from Junction Station into the Hebron Hills towards Jerusalem. As they retired the XX Corps left strong rearguards to stop or slow the British advance. Time was needed to construct defences and for reorganisation of the depleted and disorganised Seventh Army. When they arrived in the city XX Corps took over responsibility for Jerusalem's defences, while III Corps continued to move northwards from Jerusalem along the Nablus road.
The British War Cabinet had cautioned Allenby not to commit to any operations that might not be sustainable in the long term if the strength of British forces in the area could not be maintained. Their concerns were possibly linked to a peace proposal published on 8 November by the new Russian Bolshevik government between Russia and Germany. The document, scheduled to be signed on 3 March 1918, would constitute a separate peace treaty and result in the withdrawal of all Russian troops from the war. All German forces on the eastern front could then turn their attention to fighting British and French forces elsewhere.
Allenby was aware of the lack of accurate maps of the Hebron Hills and that the history of previous campaigns in the region gave clear warnings against hasty or lightly supported assaults on the strong western ramparts. His front-line forces had been fighting and advancing for an extended period fighting many miles from their bases and were tired and depleted. Now 35 mi (56 km) from the railhead at Deir el Belah, Allenby's troops did not have a line of defensive entrenchments behind which they could stop a concerted push by these two Ottoman armies. Such a counterattack could well see them driven back to Gaza and Beersheba.
Allenby reviewed the threat of counterattack and his supply situation and decided that a force large enough to attack into the Hebron Hills and a separate force to operate on the maritime plain could be maintained far from base. He decided to quickly attack Fevzi Pasha's Ottoman 7th Army in the Hebron Hills with the hope of capturing Jerusalem. This would keep pressure on this army in the hope of denying them time to complete their reorganisation, dig deep trenches or worst of all, counterattack.
Prelude
British Empire supply lines
The planned advance into the Hebron Hills would rely heavily on the ability of the lines of communications to keep the front line troops supplied with food, water and ammunition. These were already operating at considerable distances from the railhead and base areas, and as a result the advance was forced to pause on 17 November to enable supplies to be brought forward by columns under corps control, which had been sent back to railhead for rations and supplies.
Transporting supplies forward from railhead was a slow but continuous 24-hour-a-day business, because the Ottoman Army had destroyed as much of their infrastructure as they could during their retreat. Only lorries of the British Army Service Corps (ASC) Motor Transport companies and camels of the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps could use the single, narrow, poorly metalled road from Gaza to Junction Station. Between Gaza and Beit Hanun the road was unsealed and deep in sand making it difficult for lorries to proceed, even with a light load of one ton. Supplies were also shipped by sea and landed at Wadi Sukereir, and later at Jaffa. Lack of infrastructure at Jaffa meant all supplies brought via ship had to be cross-loaded onto surf boats, which then had to be unloaded on the beaches. Such operations were heavily dependent on the weather, so the amount of supplies transported by sea was limited.
Feeding an army dependent on horses was a huge task. The marching ration of a horse was 9.5 lb (4.3 kg) of grain a day, which, when multiplied by the 25,000 horses in the Desert Mounted Corps, worked out to over 100 tons of grain a day. One hundred lorries would be needed for the horses as well as transportation for rations required by the troops in the front line.
All available lorries and camels were organised in convoys moving north from the railhead along the Gaza to Junction Station road from Deir el Belah to El Mejdel and then on to Julis, where the 26 and 27 Depot Unit of Supply (DUS) set up advanced supply dumps to serve the Australian Mounted Division and the Anzac Mounted Division. From these dumps the Transport Sections of 5 Company (New Zealand Army Service Corps) and the 32nd, 33rd, and 34th Companies (Australian Army Service Corps) served the Anzac Mounted Division, and the 35th, 36th, and 37th Companies served the Australian Mounted Division. These companies of horse- and mule-drawn wagons could operate to serve their brigades during brigade operations and when required could form into divisional trains during divisional operations. A forward lorry-head was established at Ramleh, where the loads were dumped and the Transport Companies distributed the supplies to the forward units. Members of the Egyptian Labour Corps (as second drivers) worked alongside the Australian Army Service Corps transporting, loading, and unloading the General Service and Limber wagons of supplies ordered by the brigades. The huge endeavour was administered by the supply sections in a similar fashion to the divisional ammunition columns which also worked to supply ammunition to the fighting units in a similarly continuous operation.
Advance by the Desert Mounted Corps continues
On 15 November the commander of Desert Mounted Corps, Lieutenant General Sir Harry Chauvel, issued orders for the Yeomanry Mounted Division (Major General G. de S. Barrow) and the Anzac Mounted Division (Major General E. W. C. Chaytor) to continue the advance on Ramleh and Lud about 5 mi (8.0 km) from Junction Station. On the same day the Yeomanry Mounted Division reached the Jerusalem road after a cavalry charge by the 6th Mounted Brigade (Brigadier General C. A. C. Godwin) at Abu Shusheh. This charge has been described as even more daring than that at Mughar Ridge, owing to the rocky nature of the ground over which the horsemen attacked. The New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade (Brigadier General W. Meldrum) secured the left flank of the EEF by occupying Jaffa on 16 November. This city was captured as a result of the victory at Ayun Kara two days earlier, which forced the Ottoman Eighth Army to withdraw over the Nahr el Auja, which enters the sea 4 mi (6.4 km) north-north-east of Jaffa. The Eighth Army's withdrawal placed them to the north of the Ottoman Seventh Army and opened up that army's right flank to attack. As a result, the Seventh Army was forced to move further away from the coastal sector into the Hebron Hills. Here, in front of Jerusalem, Ottoman infantry units created a defensive screen.
Battle
Advance into the Hebron Hills begins
Despite continued pressure by the EEF, the two opposing forces were now operating in terrain which favoured defence. In addition to rearguards left by the Ottoman Seventh Army's XX Corps as it retired into the hills, the Seventh Army had managed to establish a line of mainly single trenches running south and south-west on a series of heights up to 4 mi (6.4 km) from Jerusalem, supported by well-sited redoubts. Aerial reconnaissance on 17 November found the road north from Jerusalem to Nablus crowded with refugees.
On 18 November, while Allenby was at the British XXI Corps headquarters at El Kastine, the decision was made to closely follow the Ottoman Seventh Army into the Hebron Hills. This was in the hope of ensuring that the Ottoman army had little time to regroup or construct defences which, given more time, might prove impregnable.
Allenby's plan was to avoid fighting in or near Jerusalem but to cut all road access to the city and force the Ottoman Army to evacuate it. He ordered two infantry divisions; the 52nd (Lowland) (Major General J. Hill) and the 75th Division (Major General P. C. Palin), and two mounted divisions; the Yeomanry and the Australian Mounted Divisions to begin the advance. They were to move eastwards from Latron, which had been captured on 16 November, in the same direction as the Jaffa to Jerusalem road.
Infantry from the 75th Division was to move up the main road despite several demolitions being carried out by the retiring Ottomans on this good metalled road running east to west through Amwas. On the left and to the north of the 75th Division, infantry from the 52nd (Lowland) Division was to make its way up minor roads or tracks from Ludd towards Jerusalem. And further north on the left of the 52nd (Lowland) Division, the Yeomanry Mounted Division was to move north and north east. Their aim was to cut the Ottoman Seventh Army's lines of communication at Bireh, 8 mi (13 km) north of Jerusalem on the Jerusalem to Nablus road.
The Yeomanry Mounted Division's 6th, 8th and 22nd brigades, with 20th Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery (13 pounders) were to move northwards via the old Roman road from Ludd to Ramallah through Berfilya and Beit Ur el Tahta towards Bireh. At the same time the 53rd (Welsh) Division (Major General S. F. Mott) was to advance northwards along the Beersheba to Jerusalem road to take Hebron and Bethlehem before moving eastwards to secure the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
The 75th Division with the Australian and Yeomanry Mounted Divisions began their entry into the Hebron Hills on 18 November.
[A]ll the armies that have sought to take Jerusalem have passed this way, save only that of Joshua. Philistine and Hittite, Babylonian and Assyrian, Egyptian and Roman and Greek, Frankish Knights of the Cross, all have passed this way, and all have watered the hill of Amwas with their blood.
— R. M. P. Preston
The first objective was to capture and secure the heights on either side of the main Jaffa to Jerusalem road at Amwas, so the 75th Division could advance up the road and into the Hebron Hills. Moving up the railway line in the Wadi Surar on the right of infantry in the 75th Division was the Anzac Mounted Division's 2nd Light Horse Brigade, which was temporarily attached to the Australian Mounted Division. The brigade's 9th Light Horse Regiment carried out a turning movement up the Wadi es Selman north of Amwas to reach the village of Yalo 2 mi (3.2 km) to the east. After this successful operation the Australian Mounted Division withdrew to rest camp at the mouth of the Nahr Sukereir. Taking over the advance on the morning of 19 November infantry from the 75th Division found Amwas evacuated, but the advance guard of the Yeomanry Mounted Division's 8th Mounted Brigade, the 3rd County of London Yeomanry struggled to within 2 mi (3.2 km) of Beit Ur el Tahta that night, while the 22nd Mounted Brigade reached Shilta.
75th Division
Just 2 mi (3.2 km) after the main road to Jerusalem entered the hills, it ran through the easily defended pass of Bab el-Wad. On 19 November the 75th Division infantry moved up this road; their 232nd Brigade had left Abu Shushe at 07:30 to occupy the deserted town of Amwas and by 11:00 the Indian 58th Vaughan's Rifles (Frontier Force) of 234th Brigade had fought their way up to reach the heights of Bab el Wad.