story for a brief period of four years, swept through the country,
captured Jerusalem, massacred all on whom they could lay hands, Moslem
and Christian alike, and destroyed such sacred relics as they could
find. Then, defeated by the Egyptians, they perished out of history as
suddenly as they had appeared.

In 1291, the Christians, by this time reduced to their last stronghold
of Acre, were finally expelled by the Moslems from Palestine--and that
was the end of the Crusades. Europe became reconciled to the fact that
the Kingdom of Christ is a Kingdom, not of the sword but of the soul.
And so, the watchword by which the Crusades were inspired now became the
consolation of their end--"Dieu le veut."

In 1400, Syria and Palestine fell under another Mongol invasion by
Timoor the Tartar (Tamerlane). In 1517, Palestine was annexed to the
Ottoman Empire under Selim I, of which Empire it has since formed an
integral part. At the close of the eighteenth century, Napoleon marched
through the country, defeating the Turks at Gaza and on the Plain of
Esdraelon, but was forced to withdraw. In 1832, Mohammad Ali, having
thrown off the Turkish yoke in Egypt, conquered Syria, but nine years
later, through the action of the European Powers, the country was
restored again to the Ottoman Porte.

In so far as any principles can be deduced from this history, they seem
to show that Jerusalem, situated as it is, could never become the
capital of a great Empire. On the other hand, this city, coveted by so
many races and creeds, must be safeguarded by the arms and resources of
some great Empire, or it can never remain at peace.

It may be of interest to close this resume of the history of Jerusalem
by comparing the route taken by General Allenby with those taken by
previous soldiers in their conquests of Judaea. The routes taken by the
British have already been fully described. In only one known case, that
of the First Crusade, had Judaea been successfully invaded before by an
invader who had not previously made himself master of at least three of
her borders.[8] The attempt at a swift rush across one border made by
Cestius Gallus, ended in a failure, which was only wiped out four years
later after the Romans, under Vespasian and Titus, had first overrun
Galilee and Samaria and mastered the strongholds round the Judaean
borders. This was the policy followed, a thousand years later, by
Saladin.

The upland of Judaea has almost never been inv