9 December 1917

Jerusalem falls. 
All objectives gained and the big offensive ends.  
General Allenby our Commander in Chief is a wonder. He is a real live soldier and prefers the firing line to sitting back in comfort in Cairo like Murray who made such a mess of things here last March when we had 20,000 casualties at Gaza in a few hours, and got nothing for it. 
We have now captured Bursheba, Shana Gaza, Hebron Ramleh Ludd Yebna Jaffa Bethlehem and Jerusalem. These are all big towns, the biggest being Jerusalem which has a population of 80,000, then comes Jaffa with 40,000 then Gaza with 20,000. In addition we have captured hundreds of villages, the country from Gaza to Jaffa is glorious.
In parts it reminds me of the Yanco and Borce plains in the Riverina at their very best.
The old Gum, Currajong, Cedar and Wattle etc dots the plain at intervals. 
All the orange groves and vineyards are boardered with wattle and at present it is in full bloom.  The colours and aroma is great and one would imagine we were back in Aussie again. The villages are very pretty, at a distance. The site generally chosen is on the crest of a hill and all the houses are of white with red tiled roofs. The streets are well metalled and wide with rows of wattle or gum and in some places, poplars or Elms running down in rows along the footpaths. 
Each nationality have their own colony and each colony may contain several such villages. They are mainly Jewish, Syrian, Turkish and German colonies, but before the ware there were English, French and American colonies also. 
A big number of the people speak English well. 
J.A.Graham
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(Note to blog readers: J.A.Graham's diary has no entries now for some months, commencing again in April)