The Monument
In 1920, a British war memorial was erected on the hill where the first surrender ceremony took place.
The three-metre high rectangular monument, similar in style to other British WWI memorials, was designed by the architect Wallcousins. It bore the date of December 9 (rather than 11), with the text:
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 monument creates a silhouette resembling medieval knights, a reference to the comparison made at the time by many Britons between the 1917 conquest of Palestine and the crusades. An equestrian statue of Allenby was planned to stand on the pinnacle, but was never actually installed.
According to Israeli researcher Dov Genehovsky, the monument was built from the stones of the dismantled Ottoman clock tower which had been erected on top of the Jaffa Gate at the accession of the Sultan Abdul Hamid.
Read more about this topic: Allenby Square
Famous quotes containing the word monument:
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its literal monument alone remains.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)