Strictly speaking, this piece doesn’t really belong within my project here – most obviously because it wasn’t written by me. It’s a first-hand account of an episode in the life of my grandfather, written (based on internal evidence) at least 37 years after the events it describes. Which means my grandfather must have been as old as I am now, or older, when he looked back on this extraordinary period of three weeks in the life of his 27-year-old self.
My grandfather, incidentally, grew up on a farm in Ohio, went to Yale, and somehow ended up a fairly senior member of the British colonial administration in Palestine. He was awarded an OBE for his service in 1947. Rather splendidly, his name was Isaac Newton Camp.
How do I justify including this piece here? I suppose I would say I hope it sheds a little supplementary light on the theme of paternal inheritance, which is central to this project. My original motive in writing this was to understand more about my father, and how the way he lived his life has affected mine. So how could it possibly not be of interest to take under consideration a little evidence about what kind of life his father lived, and how that might have affected him?
Over to you, Grandad . . .
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I first visited Bethlehem shortly after Christmas 1911 during the Christmas holidays at the American college at Asyut in Upper Egypt, where I was then an instructor in English and Roman and Constitutional Law. It was then beyond the wildest dreams of fancy that the next time I should see Bethlehem would be as an American volunteer in the British Army and that I should become its first Christian Governor since it was in the hands of the Crusaders many centuries before.
About two weeks after the capture of Beersheba by the forces of General Allenby, Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, I was assigned to duty at the Headquarters of the 53rd Division under the command of Major-General S.F. Mott. This Division began to move northwards along the road from Beersheba to Hebron on 5th December 1917, and on that day captured Hebron without resistance from the Turks. The name of Hebron in Arabic is el-Khalil, which means “the friend”; this is the name of Abraham in Arabic, who among Moslems is known as Khalil Allah “friend of God”). The city contains a large Mosque in which are to be found the traditional tombs of Abraham and Sarah.
On 7th December 1917, the 53rd Divisional Headquarters reached a position on a hill south of Solomon’s Pools and remained there until the morning of 9th December. On the 8th we were shelled by Turkish artillery from Bethlehem and General Mott sent another Officer and myself to make a reconnaissance on foot with a view to finding a possible alternative route to the main road that was under shellfire. By the time we returned the shelling had ceased. The weather that day and for several days previously had been very cold, with plenty of rain and some sleet, and we counted along about two miles of the road nine or ten dying or apparently dead members of the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps on whom and on whose camels we depended for our supplies. This meant that we should be short of sufficient supplies of food. This sort of weather was a sudden and extreme change from that of about a week before, when, south of Hebron, I had seen some of our infantry overcome by the heat of the sun on a cloudless day and taken away in ambulances from the road on which they had been prostrated by the heat and the weight of their kit and arms.
It was about December 7th when, on the road south of Bethlehem, we had our first sight of Jerusalem and the Mt of Olives. There was a break in the clouds, with the sunshine pouring through in the distance. Jerusalem and the Mt of Olives appeared like some enchanting mirage about a thousand feet lower than we then were at one of the highest points between Hebron and Bethlehem.
Bethlehem was captured early in the morning of 9th December and I was detailed with three military policemen and an Officer and about thirty non-commissioned officers and men of the Divisional Cycle Corps to enter the town and send back to Divisional Headquarters from time to time any information of military value or interest that I might be able to obtain. In passing, I would observe that the Cycle Corps had ordinary pedal bicycles and that it was no easy matter to go at much more than a walking pace on them on a rough mountain road full of mud and small pools of water and badly in need of repairs. As we made our way through the streets of the town to the Government Offices on the north side of the open square in front of the Church of the Nativity, we were accompanied by an ever increasing throng of men, women and children. Multitudes joined them in the square, the women in their tall and handsome headdress (probably of Crusader origin) and wearing their beautifully embroidered dresses peculiar to the town. They all sang, ululated and rejoiced throughout the day as if they were attending a great wedding celebration. During the day Divisional Headquarters had moved to the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Mar Elias north of Bethlehem and now in Jordan just across the border from Israel. There I reported after dark on 9th December.
Imagine my surprise when on the morning of 10th December General Mott told me to return to Bethlehem as Military Governor. When I asked him for instructions, he merely replied, “Carry on.” Then he added, to my even greater surprise, “As you will be dealing with Battalion Commanders, put a crown above your star.” I borrowed two crowns from a Major and in a matter of minutes blossomed forth as an Acting Lieutenant-Colonel. I would add that in the British Army a 2nd Lt. wears a star on each shoulder, a Lt. two stars, a Major a crown, and a Lt.-Col. a crown above a star, or “pip” as it is commonly known in Army parlance.
So I rode back to Bethlehem with my three military policemen and thirty other ranks of the Cyclist Corps. I established my residence and Office in the French Christian Brothers School in the northwestern part of the town and at once started to think about what action should be taken. I had had no experience of either military or civil administration and had no instructions except the two words that General Mott had told me. Obviously, military and public security must be the first consideration and so military patrols must be out, especially at night, and the local Police force must told to carry on as before. Military intelligence about the enemy must be obtained and any suspects among the local populations must be rounded up or kept under close surveillance. Billets would also have to be found for the accommodation of our troops; this was an easy matter, as the town had many empty schools, monasteries and convents. The Army would also require hundreds of labourers for the repair of the roads and other tasks. One of the greatest worries was the number of people who were dying of starvation, as the Turks in three years of war had stripped the country of food supplies and animals, and to their devastation had been added a plague of locusts.
As we in the Army in Bethlehem often went without even our ration of bully beef and hard biscuits owing to the death of so many Camel Transport men and their camels, there was nothing I could do about the food situation. So on 12th December I rode to Jerusalem to consult the Military Governor, Brigadier-General Borton Pasha. He unfortunately could not help, as the situation there was the same as in Bethlehem. That day I rode about some of the back streets of Jerusalem and saw several dead and dying children lying where they had fallen in the cold, rainy and muddy streets, but there was nothing that any human power could do to improve the situation. But later, when the roads were repaired, the Army managed to get loads of flour up to Jerusalem and still later the railway line was repaired and re-opened. Still later, the American Red Cross and Near East Relief organisations arrived and did most commendable work for the benefit of the civil population.
After only a few days at Mar Elias, the 53rd Division Headquarters went on to Jerusalem and I was left completely to myself until the end of the month. The same thing had happened to another Officer, Sir Francis Curtis, who had been left at Hebron as Military Governor and whose state of independence lasted for three months before the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration took over.
The situation had its advantages for both of us, for we were spared having a mass of rules, regulations and instructions and, mercifully, there was no telephone. I had no paper or covers for files and so kept only carbon copies in my field correspondence book, chiefly consisting of Intelligence Reports, and wrote up a brief diary in some composition books found in a school. Our Army ration of candles did not arrive and there was also no kerosene for use in Primus stoves for cooking. Fortunately there was a local supply of olive wood for cooking and for heating a corner of the large mess-room.
The Sub-District of Bethlehem contained two Municipal Corporations, those of Bethlehem and Beit Jala, and these continued to function after our occupation. Bethlehem itself, according to local estimates at that time, had a population of about 6000 and the Sub-District a total population of about 17000, of whom about 6000 were estimated to be Bedouin tribesmen. In order that civil administration in all its aspects might be carried on in as normal a manner as possible I issued a proclamation in which I set up a special Council and appointed a Chairman; there was a judicial section with its separate Chairman which heard civil actions and dealt with contraventions, misdemeanours and crimes, the decisions and judgments in important matters being subject to my approval or veto. The duties of this Council did not include those of the Municipal Corporations already mentioned. The Council was in almost continuous session during the daylight hours and carried out its duties with great skill, enthusiasm and efficiency. I never heard any complaint about corruption or the lack of honesty. This arrangement left me free for the most part for the military aspects of my work and for the never ending stream of callers, both military and civilian. General Allenby had issued strict orders about admission to the Church of the Nativity and so Officers who wished to enter it came to me for special permits. I would add that the instructions from General Allenby also required the posting of military guards inside the Church; this was a very necessary precaution to prevent unseemly strife among the clergy and other members of the various religious communities having separate churches or chapels in the place, or common ones to be used at different times, as in the case of services in the Grotto.
The most memorable part of my brief stay in Bethlehem was Christmas Eve, when as Military Governor I attended a midnight Mass in the Latin (Roman Catholic) Church on the northern border of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Nativity. Earlier in the day General Bulfin, a Roman Catholica and Commander of our 21st Army Corps, had arrived with two A.D.C.’s and had called on me; they had expected to be put in one of the many empty room of the Christian Brothers School and so had brought their camp beds and Army rations with them. But I had arranged for them to be entertained as guests in the comfortable and well furnished home of Suleiman Jandal, a notable of Bethlehem, and who, if I remember correctly, was an American citizen with a lace and embroidery factory in Japan and considerable business interests in New York and elsewhere. He was also a Roman Catholic and one of the most pleasant and courteous men I have ever known.
General Borton Pasha and Mr. Ronald Storrs, subsequently the successor of Borton Pasha as Military Governor or Jerusalem and still later a Knight Commander of St. Michael and St George, also called on me on 24th December. I arranged with the competent Latin Church authorities for the reservation of seats for the parties of General Bulfin and Borton Pasha for the service at midnight and also for other British Officers who wished to attend. Among the latter was my own so-called staff, which on this special occasion numbered eight or nine instead of the one Cyclist Corps Officer. In all, about forty British Officers were present.
The place of honour for the evening was reserved for Monsieur Picot of the famous Sykes-Picot Treaty between Great Britain and France. M. Picot was the French High Commissioner for the occupied part of Palestine and at all time and especially on such an occasion he was a strong exponent of France’s claim to be the protectress of Latin Christianity in the Holy Land. This claim was opposed by the Italians who had a detachment of Beraglieri and other troops in Palestine, with Headquarter in Jerusalem, under the command of Lt. Col. d’Agostino. The Spanish Consul in Jerusalem, Count Ballobar (later to become the Duke of Terra Nova). had remained in Palestine throughout the war and his Government also did not look with favour on the claim of France, especially as one of the titles of the then Spanish King was “King of Jerusalem”. As special attention and honours would be paid to M. Picot at the service, both Col. d’Agostino and Count Ballobar stayed away from the service.
I cannot remember whether the Latin Patriarch, His Beatitude Monsignor Barlassina, had by the time returned to Jerusalem from the exile into which he had been sent by the Turks or whether he was represented by his Vicar at the service on Christmas Eve. If so, whichever of them had come an an escort of Algerian cavalry from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and return. What is certain is that M. Picot had an escort of Algerian cavalry, who were Moslems, and that this escort or that of the Patriarch or his Vicar was under the command of a Jewish Officer in the French Foreign Legion, whom I came to know very well in the succeeding years which I spent in Jerusalem. This Officer was a Jerusalem volunteer in the Legion and had been one of the very few survivors of the holocaust of Verdun. He later became a journalist with a command of seven or eight languages and was the founder of the Palestine Weekly.
This Officer drew the attention of another French Officer to the somewhat remarkable fact that the escort for a Christian of such high ranks should be composed of Moslems under a Jewish Officer and wondered how this could be in view of the attitude of the French Government towards the Church and religion at home. The other French Officer replied, “In France we regard religion as an important article of export”.
At the beginning of the Mass, two Franciscan friars censed M. Picot, but there was no incense for General Bulfin or any of the rest of us British Officers. In the course of the service a procession led by priests and monks went to the Manger in the Grotto, a Bambino (doll-baby representing the infant Jesus) being carried on a small gilt bed and later deposited in the Manger. For this procession M. Picot was given a large candle, General Bulfin an ordinary one, and the rest of us tiny ones. The procession later returned to the Latin Church for the completion of the service about 2.30 a.m.
At the invitation of M. Picot some fifteen British Officers joined him upstairs in the Franciscan refectory in a feast of turkey and other good things which had especially been brought up from Cairo by one of the French Officers. We had almost forgotten that such food any longer existed. I cannot remember the names or the ranks of the French Officers who were present, but among them were M. François-Poncet and M. St. Quentin, both of whom later had very distinguished careers in the French Diplomatic Service. Among the British Officers not previously mentioned was Colonel Gilbert Clayton, at that time the Chief Political Officer of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and Acting Chief Administrator of the occupied part of Palestine; he was subsequently knighted and died suddenly while he was High Commissioner in Baghdad.
Christmas Day itself was very quiet. Notables and other called o me to present the season’s greetings and in the middle of the morning I attended a service in English in the Evangelical Church in Bethlehem, which was conducted jointly by a Chaplain from the 53rd Division and the Arab pastor of the Church.
I once heard a story to the effect that a lecturer in England was talking about the first Christmas Even at Bethlehem after its occupation by British forces and remarked that the Australian Cavalry were bivouacked that night near the Shepherds’ Field. Then someone in the audience said in a loud voice, “And the shepherds watched their flocks that night.” In point of fact, there were no Australians anywhere near the Shepherds’ Field that night, but during the next spring and summer many of them were not far from it.
Only one even of note took place during my last week in Bethlehem in December, 1917. On the morning of 27th December the Turks made an all-out effort to re-capture Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky and I could see very clearly the shells of the Turkish artillery falling and exploding on the thick walls of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Ibn Obeid about three mile to the northeast of Bethlehem. It was not long before a delegation of notables called on me and asked whether they and the people should prepare to flee, as, after the enthusiastic welcome they had given us, they rightly feared a massacre if the Turks should succeed in re-capturing the place. I reassured them and asked how may British troops they had seen on the march through Bethlehem. Their estimate was fifty thousand. When I informed them that they had seen only part of one of the four Divisions we had for the defence of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, they departed full of confidence in our ability to withstand any attacks that the Turks might make. Actually, the troops they had seen numbered only about one-fifth of their estimate and those in the Ibn Obeid Monastery consisted of one under-strength infantry company with no artillery support. The walls of the Monastery were so thick that the small calibre shells had no effect on them and the troops inside held their fire until the attaching Turkish infantry were in very close range of rifle and machine-gun fire, which simply decimated the attackers. The only casualty of this company of the Middlesex Regiment, so far as I then heard and can now remember, was one Sergeant killed. The main Turkish counter-attack north of Jerusalem had also failed; an Officer friend of mine told me that the Turkish dead there were piled up to a depth of several feet before our trenches. Such was the consequence to the Turks of their adherence to attacks by storm and assault troops in mass formation so stupidly used by the combatants on both in sides World War I.
At the end of December, 1917, I handed over to two Officers; the first was to an Assistant Military Governor to the Military Governor of Jerusalem, then Colonel Storrs, and the second was to a Captain the Intelligence Corps. On 1st January, 1918, I reported to Jerusalem as number two in Political Intelligence there.
During the next thirty years of my service in the Army and in various civil appointment in Trans-Jordan and Palestine I often visited Bethlehem. In April and May, 1954, I returned to Bethlehem and Beit Jala for a visit lasting five weeks. I was accompanied by my wife, to whom I was married in April, 1925, and who was one of the daughters of a former evangelical pastor in Bethlehem and Beit Jala and whom I had seen with her father when they called on my on 13th December, 1917. That was indeed a lucky thirteenth. As a holder of a British passport I had to report to the Jordan Police the day after my arrival and I did so in a new Police and Government Office building erected by the British Mandatory Government of Palestine on the very site of my day-long duties of 9th December, 1917. Sic transit gloria mundi.
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