The ‘Hole-y’ City: British Soldiers’ Perceptions of Jerusalem During Its Occupation, 1917–1920

Murphy, Mahon

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-78229-4_15

Mahon Murphy⁶

Part of the book series: War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850 ((WCS))

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Abstract

Murphy examines the British entry into Jerusalem in 1917 to explore how soldiers reflected on their presence in the Holy City and represented it in their letters home while also analysing how the British occupation of the city was portrayed in official propaganda as a victory for the British Empire at a particularly difficult point in the war. Murphy analyses how the soldiers frequently employed religious vocabulary to describe their experiences of the city while also considering how this occupation rapidly redrew the cultural map of the city along confessional lines in an attempt to recreate and ‘re-sanctify’ the biblical Jerusalem under secular British authority.

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Notes

1.
The Palestine News, 25 April 1918.
2.
Kristen Coates-Ulrichsen, The First World War in the Middle East (London, 2014), p. 113.
3.
James Kitchen, The British Imperial Army in the Middle East: Morale and Military Identity in the Sinai and Palestine Campaigns, 1916–18 (London, 2014), p. 98.
4.
Eitan Bar-Yosef was at the forefront of the deconstruction of the ordinary soldiers’ perception as crusader. See Eitan Bar-Yosef, The Holy Land in English Culture 1799–1917: Palestine and the Question of Orientalism (Oxford, 2005).
5.
Bar-Yosef, The Holy Land, p. 289.
6.
See John Horne, ‘Remobilising for “Total War”: France and Britain, 1917–1918’, in John Horne (ed), State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 195–211.
7.
Roberto Mazza, Jerusalem from the Ottomans to the British (London, 2009), p. 132.
8.
It is worth noting here that Blake’s famous poem was set to a musical score in 1916 and also that Blake would probably have been appalled at the expropriation of his poetry into an imperial anthem.
9.
Eric M. Resienauer, ‘Between the Eternal City and the Holy City: Rome, Jerusalem, and the Imperial Ideal of Britain’, Canadian Journal of Modern History, XLIV (2009), pp. 237–260, p. 243.
10.
Cyril Falls, History of the Great War; Military Operations, Egypt and Palestine (London 1930), p. 256.
11.
Eitan Bar-Yosef, The Holy Land, p. 272.
12.
Antoine Capet, ‘Views of Palestine in British Art in Wartime and Peacetime, 1914–1918’, in Rory Miller (ed), Britain Palestine and Empire: The Mandate Years (Farnham, 2010), p. 88.
13.
Victor L Trumper, Historical Sites in Southern Palestine (Cairo, 1917), back-page advertisement, p. 21 (Trumper also regularly published articles on Palestinian customs in The Palestine News).
14.
The Palestine News, 7 March 1918.
15.
David Faulkner, Lawrence of Arabia’s War: The Arabs and the Remaking of the Middle East in WWI (New Haven, 2016), p. 354.
16.
Bar-Yosef, The Holy Land, p. 272.
17.
Trumper, Historical Sites in Southern Palestine.
18.
The Imperial War Museum (IWM) 08/131/1 DP Appleby, 23 November 1917.
19.
IWM 11178 EB Hinde, 17 December 1917.
20.
Bluett, With our Army in Palestine, p. 94.
21.
IWM 77/130/1, RH Sims, letter dated 6 February 1918.
22.
IWM 38/56/2 DH Calcutt, 4 December 1917, p. 141.
23.
IWM 03/31/1 CR Hennessey, pp. 204–205.
24.
Ibid.
25.
IWM 84/52/1 J Wilson.
26.
The Palestine News, 14 March 1918.
27.
The Palestine News, 7 March 1918.
28.
IWM Hinde, 3 February 1918.
29.
The Palestine News, 19 April 1918.
30.
The Palestine News, 9 May 1918.
31.
Egyptian Gazette, 31 April 1918, extract from ‘The Egyptian Labour Corps’, reprinted in The Palestine News, 11 July 1918.
32.
Salim Tamari and Issam Nassar, The Story Teller of Jerusalem: The Life and Times of Wasif Jawhariyyeh (Northampton, MA, 2014), p. 125.
33.
Mazza, Jerusalem, p. 159.
34.
Central Zionist Archives, Z4/40567, The minutes of the Pro-Jerusalem Society, 20 January 1919.
35.
The Roosters were pioneers of radio comedy and performed until the early 1950s. For more, see http://stanbutler5.moonfruit.com/the-roosters-concert-party/4587356126 (accessed 07/12/2016).
36.
IWM, Hinde, 17 September 1917.
37.
Tamari and Nassar, The Storyteller of Jerusalem, p. 104.
38.
IWM 81/23/1 CT Shaw.
39.
IWM 02/12/1 H Empson, 2 January 1918.
40.
IWM 03/31/1 CR Hennessey, p. 206.
41.
The Palestine News, 30 May 1918. (Imshi (go away) in particular became a staple of Australian military slang).
42.
IWM 02/12/1 Hempson 16 June 1916.
43.
IWM 28/56/2 DH Calcutt 16 December 1917, p. 148.
44.
IWM 81/23/1 CT Shaw.
45.
IWM 08/131/1 DP Appleby, 16 December 1917.
46.
Mazza, Jerusalem, p. 149.
47.
Mazza, Jerusalem, p. 158.
48.
Mazza, Jerusalem, p. 159.
49.
Nicholas E Roberts, ‘Dividing Jerusalem: British Urban Planning in the Holy City’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 42 (2013), pp. 7–26, p. 9.
50.
For a breakdown of the society’s membership, see: Mahon Murphy, ‘The Records of the Pro-Jerusalem Society during the Period of British Military Administration’, http://www.mwme.eu/essays/british-french-egypt/_Murphy_Pro-Jerusalem_Society/index.html.
51.
Mazza. Jerusalem, p. 161.
52.
Central Zionist Archives Z4/40567, The Minutes of the Pro-Jerusalem Society, Memorandum 16/07/1921.
53.
Charles Ashbee (ed), Jerusalem 1918–1920: Being the Records of the Pro-Jerusalem Council during the period of the British Military Administration (London, 1921), https://archive.org/stream/jerusalembeingre00proj#page/n7/mode/2up (accessed 07/12/2016).
54.
IWM Surry.
55.
Tamari and Nassar, The Storyteller of Jerusalem, p. 140.
56.
Mazza, Jerusalem, p. 165.
57.
The Palestine News, 9 May 1918.
58.
The Palestine News, 24 October 1918.
59.
IWM 03/31/1 CR Hennessey, p. 205.
60.
IWM 03/15/1 CR Verner, p. 28.
61.
Margalit Shilo, ‘Women as Victims of War: The British Conquest (1917) and the Blight of Prostitution in the Holy City’, Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues, 6, Women, War and Peace in Jewish and Middle East Contexts (2003), pp. 72–83, p. 77.
62.
Israel State Archives (ISA), 3/48-M Proclamations Ordinances and Notices Issued by OTEA (South) To August 1919.
63.
ISA Ibid.
64.
James Kitchen, The British Imperial Army in the Middle East: Morale and Military Identity in the Sinai and Palestine Campaigns, 1916–18 (London, 2014), p. 58.
65.
ISA, 3/48-M.
66.
The Palestine News, 25 April 1918.
67.
The Palestine News, 18 July 1918.
68.
IWM 02/12/1 H Empson, 4 February 1918.
69.
IWM J 84/52/1 Wilson.
70.
Robert Dixon and Christopher Lee (eds), The Diaries of Frank Hurley 1912–1941 (London, 2011), diary entry 21 January 1918, p. 93.
71.
IWM 28/56/2 DH Calcutt 16 December 17, p. 148.
72.
IWM 03/15/1 CR Verner, p. 25.
73.
IWM 02/12/1 H Empson, 25 April 1918.
74.
Justin Fantauzzo, ‘British Soldiers’ Experience and Memory of the Palestine Campaign 1915–1919’, (PhD Dissertation, University of Cambridge), p. 108.
75.
IWM J Wilson.
76.
Kitchen, The British Imperial Army in the Middle East, p. 197.
77.
For an account of the Singapore Mutiny, see Sho Kuwajima, Mutiny in Singapore: War, Anti-War and the War for India’s Independence (Ahmedabad, 2006).
78.
Kitchen, The British Imperial Army in the Middle East, p. 198.
79.
Coates Ulrichsen, The First World War in the Middle East, p. 102.
80.
IWM 03/31/1 CR Hennessey, p. 208.
81.
Ashbee, Jerusalem 1918–1920, p. 71.
82.
Roberto Mazza, ‘Churches at War: The Impact of the First World War on the Christian Institutions of Jerusalem, 1914–20’, Middle Eastern Studies, 45:2 (2009), pp. 207–227, p. 222.
83.
Mazza, Jerusalem, p. 177.
84.
Kitchen, The British Imperial Army in the Middle East, p. 96.
85.
Mazza, Jerusalem, p. 178.

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Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Mahon Murphy

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Mahon Murphy
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Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Joseph Clarke
Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
John Horne

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Murphy, M. (2018). The ‘Hole-y’ City: British Soldiers’ Perceptions of Jerusalem During Its Occupation, 1917–1920. In: Clarke, J., Horne, J. (eds) Militarized Cultural Encounters in the Long Nineteenth Century. War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78229-4_15

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78229-4_15
Published: 23 August 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78228-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78229-4
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