|Handwritten caption: "The Mayor of Jerusalem Hussein|
Effendi El Husseini meeting with Srgts Sedwick and
Hurcomb..., London Regiment, under the White Flag
of Surrender, December 9th at 8 a.m."
The fighting of World War I was not confined to Europe. Simultaneously, a major war was being waged in the Middle East. Fighting in the Sinai and Palestine, beginning in January 1915 and lasting until October 1918, was vicious and took a heavy toll on both sides.
British Empire troops fought the Ottoman army supported by German and Austrian officers and troops from the Suez Canal, through the Sinai, Gaza, Beer Sheva, Jericho and from Jaffa up the steep road to the outskirts of Jerusalem. See earlier photo essay on the critical battle of Nebi Samuel. After capturing Jerusalem, the British Army pressed the Turkish army northward all the way to Damascus.
|Mt. Scopus cemetery|
The capture of Jerusalem in December 1917 was major success for the British army, commanded by General Edmund Allenby.
|The two sergeants with |
Jerusalem behind them
Sergeants Sedgewick and Hurcomb refused to accept the letter, preferring that senior officers take the responsibility. Eventually, the surrender was received by Brigadier-General C.F. Watson, (who was delayed when his car got stuck in the mud) but, according to Palestinian Arab publisher Mohamed Ali Eltaher (1896-1974), the British brass were upset that a photograph of the surrender to sergeants existed. "When Commander in Chief General John Shea learned that young Larsson had captured on film the real moment of surrender, and not the moment when he stood on the steps of David’s Tower to proclaim martial law, he demanded that Larsson destroy the negatives and all copies of the picture. He sent an officer to see that his order was executed," Eltaher wrote.
But copies of the photograph survived, and the picture became one of the icons of the modern history of the Middle East.
|World War I memorial|
on the site of the surrender
in Jerusalem neighborhood
of Romema (circa 1930)
|The memorial today. The Jerusalem Central Bus Station|
is in the background