How Jerusalem Was Won Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine — Background and Themes

Terrain as Adversary

Massey repeatedly emphasizes that the fight against nature was 'more arduous than against the enemy.' The Yeomanry Mounted Division's advance into the Judean hills illustrates this: wheels were abandoned, pack-donkeys carried supplies, and roads had to be built under fire. The country is described as 'saw-toothed,' with 'ragged narrow valleys' and 'steep gradients' that gave defenders every advantage. One striking passage notes that the division fought 'almost continually for a fortnight' in terrain where 'there was not so much as a goat-path.' The Hong Kong and Singapore gunners, a battery that 'would always get as far into the mountains as any,' required road parties laboring 'night and day' to advance. This focus on logistics and geography grounds the campaign in physical struggle rather than abstract strategy.

Biblical Echoes in Modern War

Massey deliberately overlays the campaign onto scriptural geography. The Yeomanry's bitterest struggle occurred 'about the Beth-horons, on the very scene where Joshua, on a lengthened day, threw the Canaanites off the Shephelah.' He names Beit ur el Foka and Beit ur et Tahta—Upper and Lower Beth-horon—and notes fig trees and pomegranates growing there. The narrative moves through Ajalon, the wadi Sunt, and toward Bireh, each name carrying ancient resonance. Yet this is not mere decoration; the same hills that gave Joshua victory now gave Turkish marksmen cover. Massey uses the biblical framework to underscore the campaign's historical weight, but he never lets the reader forget that this is a modern war fought with artillery, aircraft, and mounted brigades.

The Unseen Enemy and the Cost of Advance

Turkish forces appear mostly as obstacles to be 'brushed away' or 'held up.' Massey describes a 'well-concealed body of the enemy' blocking a regiment near Nalin, and notes that 'every hill had to be won and picqueted.' The enemy becomes more 'vigilant and active' as the advance continues, but the narrative rarely lingers on their tactics or morale. Instead, the focus stays on British and Dominion troops—yeomanry, mounted brigades, infantry—and their material difficulties. The heavy rain of November 19 adds to the troubles; caves and boulders shelter snipers. Massey's account, written as official correspondent, conveys the grinding cost of each ridge: 'it was impossible for the division to proceed unless it got the enemy out of all the hills on its line of advance.' The human toll is implied rather than stated.

Readers should approach How Jerusalem Was Won as a contemporary chronicle rather than a retrospective history. Massey writes with the immediacy of a journalist embedded with the force, and his eye for terrain and supply problems offers a ground-level view of a campaign often overshadowed by the Western Front. The promised second volume never appeared in the Project Gutenberg text, leaving the story incomplete. For those interested in the intersection of military history and geography, this account provides a detailed, if partisan, record of how Allenby's army reached Jerusalem.

There’s something about Massey’s account—how he lingers on the dusty roads and the weight of every supply cart—that stays with you long after you close it. That same quiet ache for ordinary men caught in vast, unforgiving history surfaced again when I picked up A Volunteer Poilu — A Closer Reading. It felt less like reading and more like remembering someone else’s footsteps.