Between December 1916 and December 1917, the British Empire launched a campaign to take over the city of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire, and in the process lost many soldiers. The British Military Cemetery on Mount Scopus, also known as the Jerusalem War Cemetery, houses the graves of more than 2,500 fallen Commonwealth soldiers from these years. The cemetery consists of simple headstones that detail the name, age, date of death and the unit of the soldiers, with 100 of them unidentified.
The grounds also houses the Jerusalem Memorial as a tribute to the Commonwealth servicemen who died during operations in Egypt and elsewhere in the nearby areas during the time. The Jerusalem Memorial includes a chapel with a mosaic designed by Robert Anning Bell, and unveiled in 1927 by Lord Allenby, one of Britain’s greatest war heroes, who had been instrumental in the conquest of Palestine and Syria during World War I.
