Allenby Square - The Multiple Surrenders

The Multiple Surrenders

The British Army advanced along the Jaffa-Jerusalem Highway and approached Jerusalem. During the night between December 8 and December 9, 1917, the Ottoman Army withdrew, sparing Jerusalem what might have been a bloody and destructive battle.

On the following day the Palestinian Mayor of Jerusalem, Hussin Salim Al Husseiny, set out to tender the city's formal surrender to the British. Near the Shaare Tzedek Hospital, at what was then the sparsely populated western outskirts of Jerusalem, he met with a couple of British kitchen sergeants, and - not familiar with British military rank insignia - tendered the capitulation to them.

However, the officer in charge was displeased with this informal ceremony, and held a second surrender ceremony on the same windswept hill, with his own participation; a higher officer demanded and got a third one, still in the same location; and finally, Field Marshal Allenby insisted on still a fourth and final one, held this time at a different location - just outside the Jaffa Gate in the Old City wall, which Allenby then ceremoniously entered, making the point of dismounting and entering on foot out of respect for its religious significance. The Mayor of Jerusalem was not present at the final surrender, having caught pneumonia from too much standing on the exposed hill in the cold mountain winter. Allenby visited him in the hospital.

Due to these manoeuvres, there were two competing days of the Surrender of Jerusalem (December 9 and 11) and two locations: the hill where the original ceremony took place, and the Jaffa Gate where Allenby's ceremony was held. These discrepancies left still-tangible traces on the map of Jerusalem.