Branksome Hall - Slogan Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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THE BRANKSOME SLOGAN 27 THE ROMANCE OF THE LAST CRUSADE One Wednesday morning of the Easter Term, we had the great pleasure of hearing Major Gilbert lecture upon ' The Romance of the Last Crusade. Major Gilbert was with General Allenby during the whole of that most thrilling and romantic exploit, the Palestine Cam- paign, and. therefore, gave a most vivid description of it. The preparations for the crusade were stupendous. The train, consisting of 100,000 men. with full equipment, 30,000 camels, guns and ammunition, landed in the Holy Land and had to traverse 200 miles of desert waste under appalling conditions. All their water was pumped from the Nile over that huge tract through pipes, originally intended for the use of the Standard Oil Company, which were laid by the engineering parties as the army proceeded, each man being on a ration of one pint a day for drink- ing, washing and shaving. The troops also had great difficulty in marching over the ever- shifting sand, and could not travel any distance without great weari- ness overcoming them. Such was the case until an ingenious officer suggested using the thousands of coils of chicken wire, intended by the War Office for entanglements, as a corduroy road, and three thick- nesses were bound together and rolled over the loose sand, thus enabling the soldiers to march more easily. Unfaltering, they plodded on, over ground travelled several hun- dreds of years ago by those who before had attempted to free the Holy City from its bonds, but only the First Crusade had succeeded. Would this Last? It was. indeed, over historic ground they marched, sometimes watering at the wells of Abraham or fighting on the same battlefields as those on which the Israelites had concjuered. On the night before the British attacked the Turkish camps at Mickmack, the O. C. read the account of Jonathan ' s routing of the Philistines (I. Sam. xiv.) and changing his tactics completely, copied those re- counted in the Bible. A few men attacked the enemy ' s stronghold and misled by the echoing of their voices and the numbers coming through the narrow pass, the Turks were terrorized and fled, thinking themselves surrounded by the full force. After a successful attack on Beersheba, the army proceeded with greater speed. One day, they were advancing rapidly, knowing that unless they could occupy a certain town by nightfall, the Turks would destroy the wells, thus cutting off their water supply. Pressing on- ward, they outmarched their water convoy, and were forced to go on all day without anything to quench their thirst. Towards the end, their lips became swollen and burst, flies by hundreds settled on the wounds, their parched tongues hung out of their mouths. And yet they marched on. though some fell exhausted by the way, and some, blinded by the sand and sun, clung to their more able comrades. Then at the end. the assault on the Turk — several times they were re)- pulsed. but at last they won the town, and the wells! Then occurred the incident described by Major Gilbert as the finest piece of discip- line I ever saw. The men were lined up, horses and mules sent to one well, and the wounded served first. Notwithstanding the un-

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26 THE BRANKSOME SLOGAN

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28 THE BRANKSOME SLOGAN bearable trials they had undergone, and although it was seven hours until the last man relieved his thirst, not a man pushed ahead, but each waited his turn. At last, the Crusaders were camped outside the Holy City, and preparing for the siege. Wanting some eggs for breakfast, the officers sent out the battalion cook to forage in a nearby village on the left. Strolling innocently to the right, he came at dawn on what seemed a very thriving village with tall minarets and domes outlined against the morning sky. Looking along the white road running be- fore him, he saw throngs of people standing at the city gates to wel- come him. On his entering, the people stopped shouting, and a black gent in a white nightshirt offered him a bunch of keys, which he un- wittingly refused and returned to report at Brigade Headquarters. Without waiting for the end of his story, the Brigade-General ordered his horse and his aide, and galloped away to accept the sur- render of Jerusalem. After the usual formalities, the Brigadier- General got on his horse, and galloped away to report to the Divi- sional Headquarters. However, this ceremony was deserving of a Divisional-General ' s dignity, and he accordingly drove off in a shining Rolls-Royce with a shining staff to receive the keys (which in the meantime had been returned). The Mayor, perplexed, made another presentation, and the General a speech, while the people cheered louder than ever, and driving home, he reported to the Commander- in-Chief ' s Headquarters. The reply came back that Lord Allenby himself would receive the city, and further preparations were made for the surrender of Jerusalem. In two days. General Allenby rode up to the Holy City, and dismounting at the gates, walked through the narrow Oriental streets. The Mayor, still more perplexed, again went through the presentation. Lord Allenby made a gracious reply, and the people cheered wildly. The keys of the Holy City were re- ceived in those hands most worthy of them. Unhappily, the strain was too much for the Mayor, who broke down under the stress and died of influenza two weeks later. But one of the most interesting facts involved in the capture is the fulfilment of a three-century-old Arabic prophecy, worded : W hen the waters of the River Nile pour into Palestine, the Prophet from the West shall drive the Turk from Jerusalem. Allenby was called the Prophet by his native troops, and w as not the waters from the Nile pumped to Jerusalem? And so ended the last crusade and only the first and the last had proved successful, and now peace and freedom reign in the Holy Land for the first time in 500 years, concluded Major Gilbert. Having been an actor before the war, he was able to impersonate vividly a blustering colonel or terrified recruit, and he rendered to perfection the dialect of the cockney cook who first brought back the amazing talk of surrender. Dramatic, interesting and amusing, Major Gilbert brought home to us the undauntable spirit and loyalty of the soldiers of the British Empire ; the magnetic personality and ability of General Sir Edward Allenby, Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty ' s Forces in Palestine. KATHLEEN WILSON, Form V.