Allenby Square, a name commemorating

Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army (in countries without the rank of Generalissimo), and as such, few persons a ...

Edmund Allenby Field marshal (United Kingdom), Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, (23 April 1861 – 14 May 1936) was a senior British Army Officer (armed forces), officer and imperial governor. He fought in the Second Boer ...

who commanded the British forces which captured Palestine in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, has been bestowed at different times on two different

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

s in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. This divergent naming was connected both to prestige struggles within the

British forces The British Armed Forces are the unified military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, support international peacekeeping ef ...

entering Jerusalem in late 1917, leading to what became known as "the multiple surrenders", and to later vicissitudes of the struggle between Israelis and

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

s for control of the city.

The multiple surrenders

The

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

advanced along the Jaffa-Jerusalem Highway and approached Jerusalem. During the night between 8–9 December 1917, the

Ottoman Army The Military of the Ottoman Empire () was the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire. It was founded in 1299 and dissolved in 1922. Army The Military of the Ottoman Empire can be divided in five main periods. The foundation era covers the years ...

withdrew, sparing Jerusalem what might have been a bloody and destructive battle. On the following day the Palestinian Mayor of Jerusalem, Hussein 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 Jaffa Gate (; , "Hebron Gate") is one of the seven main open gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. The name Jaffa Gate is currently used for both the historical Ottoman gate from 1538, and for the wide gap in the city wall adjacent to it to the ...

of the Old City, 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 (9 and 11 December) 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.

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, usually designated as

cenotaph A cenotaph is an empty grave, tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere or have been lost. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although t ...

s, was designed by Ernest Wallcousins. It bore the date of 9 December (the actual surrender day, rather than 11, the date of the ceremonial surrender), 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.Zahi Shaked, ''The British Battle of Jerusalem (1917) - The Monument on the hill where the surrender took place'' (video

/ref>

The monument carries reliefs on all four sides schematically depicting medieval

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

s resting their arms on long swords, a reference to the comparison made at the time by many Britons between the 1917 conquest of Palestine and the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

. An equestrian statue of Allenby was planned to stand on top of the memorial, but was never actually installed.

The first Allenby Square, now IDF Square

The hill where the first surrender took place was at that time on the western edge of Jerusalem, a few kilometres west of the walls of the Old City. Allenby though held his ceremony at the square right next to Jaffa Gate, which was then named "Allenby Square." Throughout the years of British rule in

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

, Allenby Square was in the midst of a bustling thoroughfare. However, with the outbreak of the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

, the square became part of the battlefield, separating first the Jewish and Arab militias from each other, and later the newly formed

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

(IDF) from the

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

ian

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...

. The

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,no-man's-land, and it remained as part of the dividing " City Line" until the conquest and annexation of East Jerusalem in

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

. In 1967 the Israeli authorities decided to change the name of the square to "IDF Square" (ככר צה"ל, Kikar Tzahal), which is its name up to the present.

The second Allenby Square in Romema

During the British period, the 1920 monument, in the midst of an empty field, became gradually surrounded by the houses of the

Romema Romema (, ''lit.'' Uplifted) is a neighbourhood in northwest Jerusalem, just off the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway at the main entrance to the city. It occupies the highest hill in Jerusalem. Romema is bordered by Kiryat Mattersdorf and Mekor Ba ...

neighborhood. After the creation of Israel, the

Jerusalem Municipality The Jerusalem Municipality (), the seat of the Israeli municipal administration, consists of a number of buildings located on Jaffa Road in the city of Jerusalem. History British Mandate town hall (1930) Jerusalem's old town hall was bui ...

surrounded it by an elliptical fence and planted some bushes; however, it was not officially declared a city square or given a name, and the area became increasingly neglected. Allenby, whose memory is regarded with some favour in official Israel, was deprived in 1967 of "his" square, and the authorities decided to bestow the name on this neglected area around the monument - though some commentators objected, stating that Allenby's staged surrender ceremony had not taken place at that spot. Nevertheless, the name was bestowed on the Romema square. It remained, however, rather neglected: only in 1994 did the municipality make the effort, after many protests by neighbours, to establish a proper playground for the Romema children, right next to the memorial. It was further refurbished, with new paving and lighting, when the new Jerusalem Central Bus Station was created nearby.

References

{{coord, 31.789682, 35.204093, region:IL, display=title 20th century in Jerusalem Squares in Jerusalem Jaffa Road 1920 establishments in Mandatory Palestine Buildings and structures completed in 1920