Of course it helps if your enemy are trying to surrender the city in the first place, just one of the many problems faced by General Edmund Allenby, Commander of the "British, Egyptian Expeditionary Force," in the campaign to liberate the middle east, from the Turkish German Alliance.
After a series of battles leading up to the capture of Jerusalem and at one point the Mayor of Jerusalem, trying to surrender the city to a British Army Cook and Private Murch, actually turning down the offer, too many meals to prepare! Fortunately, Murch had the sense to report the incident to his senior officers, who in turn reported to the Generals, who then got themselves into something of a kerfuffle, trying to decide who should accept the surrender, only after a couple of days did Allenby, decide to accept the keys to the city.
Allenby, was under orders to try and capture the city before Christmas 1917 and it proved a great moral booster, to the allies, after what had been something of a difficult year. On December 11 1917, Allenby, rode to the Jaffa Gate, in the walls of the city, dismounted and then walked to the Citadel, in a simple act of humility, conscious of the city's residents and religions. At the Citadel he read out a proclamation, making it clear to everyone, he came as a conqueror, not a liberator, giving Jerusalem a new freedom, and promising to protect all religious buildings, properties and faiths.
By a stroke of good fortune, an interpreter, misspelt his name upon a leaflet as "Alla Bay," which to people of the Moslem faith, means; "Son of God!"
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