The great expedition against Bagdad, however, had to be abandoned. In the first place, Turkish officers were loath to serve under von Falkenhayn. Turkish nationalism was beginning to assert itself, and German supervision of Ottoman military affairs was resented—Mustapha Kemal Pasha, for example, refused to accept orders from German generals and resigned his commission. Von Falkenhayn himself was disliked because of his dictatorial methods and was held in light esteem because of his responsibility for the disastrous Verdun offensive. Furthermore, many Turks deemed it inadvisable to dissipate energy in a Mesopotamian campaign, the avowed purpose of which was a recovery of German prestige, when all available man power was required for the defence of Syria. Djemal Pasha was so insistent on this point that he received from the Kaiser an “invitation” to visit the Western Front! In the second place, Providence or, perhaps, an Allied spy intervened to thwart the German plans, for a great fire and a series of explosions (September 23–26, 1917) destroyed the entire port and terminal of Haidar Pasha, together with all the munitions and supplies which had been accumulated there by months of patient effort. And finally, the spectacular campaign of Field Marshal Allenby in Palestine, which opened with the capture of Beersheba, on October 31, convinced even von Falkenhayn that an expedition in Mesopotamia, while Aleppo was in danger, would be the height of folly. German energies were thereupon diverted to the defence of the Holy Land.[32] During the autumn of 1917, Great Britain and France, to assure their possession of the territories assigned them by the Sykes-Picot Treaty, began a Syrian campaign which was not to terminate until Turkey had been put out of the war. Under Field Marshal Sir E. H. H. Allenby, British troops, reënforced by French units and assisted by the rebellious Arabs of the Hedjaz, captured Gaza (November 7), Jaffa (November 16), and Jerusalem (December 9). The triumphal entry of General Allenby into Jerusalem was hailed throughout Christendom as marking the success of a modern crusade to rid Palestine of Ottoman domination forever. Jericho was occupied, February 21, 1918, but Turkish resistance, under Marshal Liman von Sanders, stiffened for a time, and it was not until the autumn that large-scale operations were resumed. On October 1, Damascus was occupied by a combined Arab and British army; a week later Beirut was taken; and on October 25, Aleppo, the most important junction point on the Bagdad Railway, capitulated. Five days afterward, Turkey gave up the hopeless fight by signing the Mudros armistice, terminating hostilities.[33]