Ninety-two years ago today, British forces entered Jerusalem as the Ottoman Empire retreated from Palestine during World War One.

General Edmund Allenby, leader of the British forces, entered the Holy City on foot, issuing a proclamation that promised to respect the rights of all three religions for whom Jerusalem has a special significance.  The entry on foot was a masterstroke; in 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm II had entered the city through the same Jaffa Gate that Allenby used, but the Kaiser came on a white horse.  Many comparisons were made at the time between the Kaiser’s triumphantly vainglorious procession and Jesus’ humble entry on Palm Sunday, riding ‘the colt of an ass.’  The Kaiser strutted; Jesus rode; Allenby walked. The comparison was a godsend to allied editorialists all over the globe.

Some accounts have General (later Field Marshal and Viscount) Allenby saying “the crusades are over” as he entered the city; this was the first time a Christian-led army had occupied Jerusalem since Saladin reconquered the city in 1187.  Allenby was no doubt satisfied to reflect that he had triumphed where Napoleon had failed; Napoleon’s 1799 drive to conquer the Holy Land collapsed after the plague decimated his army in Jaffa and he failed to capture the fortress city of Acre in a two month siege.  Napoleon is said to have planned a proclamation to establish a Jewish state in Palestine; after the defeat at Acre (where the defending general was Jewish), Napoleon’s ‘Balfour declaration’ stayed in his pocket.

The fall of Jerusalem, coming just one month after the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917) in which the United Kingdom pledged itself to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine after the war, electrified public opinion in the United States and Britain.  Small town newspapers across the United States reported excitedly on the progress of Allenby’s forces.  In 1918 the British defeated the Turks in the Battle of Megiddo, site of the prophesied Battle of Armageddon in the Book of Revelations.  For many American Christians, these events showed God’s blessing on the Allied cause in the war, and were signs that World War One would open a new era in world history.

In those days, belief in the “end times” and interest in the Apocalypse were largely a liberal idea.  “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord,” said Teddy Roosevelt to the Bull Moose Convention in 1912.  Most American Christians at that time believed that history would end on a high note: inspired by the wisdom and the grace of Christ, humanity would build a better and better world, culminating in 1,000 years of peace (the “Millennium”) that would end with the triumphant return of Christ to earth.

For many American religious and political leaders including Woodrow Wilson, World War One was to be the final, climactic struggle to establish peace on earth.  The capture of Jerusalem and the restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land were part of the grand movement of uplift and transformation that would, they expected, reshape the post war world.  The League of Nations, Wilson strongly believed, would be the political instrument that would make this peace of God possible throughout the world.

Almost a century later, we see both World War One and the Apocalypse in a different and darker light. Politically, World War One is seen as the first of the great catastrophes of the twentieth century that opened the door to communism, fascism and ultimately to the slaughter of World War Two.  It was the end of the Long Peace in Europe and the beginning of a series of disasters that have made the world a sadder, darker and more dangerous place.   Theologically, many American Christians have moved from a post-millennial eschatology (the belief that Christ will return after the 1,000 year age of peace) to a pre-millennial one: a belief that the establishment of world peace can only come after Christ returns to set the world to rights.  In the older view, human political action aided by God’s grace can and will establish a just and decent world.  In the contemporary world’s more pessimistic version, all human political projects must ultimately fail, and only God’s direct action can bring peace to the world.

I suppose we will find out in due course which (if any) of these views got it right.  But Jerusalem stands at the center of both narratives.  Just as the capture of Jerusalem fueled hopes in 1917 of a peaceful and just world order, so the failure since then to bring peace to Jerusalem and its neighborhood fuels our present-day pessimism about the human prospect.

“O pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” says the psalmist.  “They shall prosper that love thee.”  (Ps. 122: 6)

Peace in Jerusalem seems farther away today than it did in 1917; somehow, though, through it all, Jerusalem retains its capacity to fascinate and attract.  No other piece of the world is so contested or so desired.  That has not changed since 1917 and is unlikely to change anytime soon.  The power of Jerusalem over our imaginations, over our politics, over the future of the world is one of those strange and unaccountable facts that we can’t explain — but that we must live with.