December 9 is the anniversary of one of those epochal events that shaped the modern world. The fall of Jerusalem, in 1917, during World War I.
A Christian-led army — the British — took charge of the Holy City for the first time since the Crusades.
Their defeat of the Ottoman Turks opened up the entire Middle East to be reshaped by the victorious allies, for better or worse.
You would expect such a portentous event to be surrounded with grand and dignified solemnity, like a scene from the 1962 movie, “Lawrence of Arabia.” But the actual surrender of the city had a much more human, almost comical, quality.
A greasy little army cook got lost in the mist and changed history.
A witness, Major Vivian Gilbert, published his account of the fall of the Holy City in a book, “The Romance of the Last Crusade: With Allenby to Jerusalem,” which came out in 1928. He told the same story to the New York Times in 1921.
