Commanding officer and staff of the first troops to enter Jerusalem, December 1917

Photograph, World War One, Egypt and Palestine (1914-1918), 1917.

The first soldiers to enter Jerusalem were from 2/19th Battalion, The London Regiment, who arrived on the morning of 9 December. Although the Ottoman governor tried to surrender to them, the city did not formally capitulate until General Sir Edmund Allenby entered two days later.

One of 128 photographs collected by Maj C E Lugard, East Surrey Regiment and Royal Flying Corps, 1914-1944.