To most people, World War I Palestine is an obscure subject recalled - if at all - by Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, itself commemorating the British general who together with his expeditionary force of British and colonial ANZAC (Australia-New Zealand) forces freed the country from four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule.

The current exhibit at the Austrian Hospice here on the role of the Austro-Hungarian army in Palestine during those critical years 1914 to 1918 illustrates a fascinating if little remembered chapter of the past, even as it proves the adage that history is written by the victors.

With the defeat of Serbia in 1915, Germany established a rail link through Austria-Hungary and the Balkans to Constantinople and beyond via the Hijaz railway. Unlike Germany which had colonial ambitions in Palestine, Austria viewed its Middle East adventure as "an investment that would pay off in the future, in the postwar period," explained Viennese historian Robert-Tarek Fischer, author of Austria in the Near East, the Great Power Politics of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Arab Orient 1633-1918 and Austria-Hungary's Struggle in the Holy Land: Imperial Palestine Politics in the First World War, who was the first speaker at last week's symposium which opened the current exhibit.

Berlin and Vienna were economic competitors for the Ottoman Empire's mineral wealth of copper, lead and oil, Fischer said. Turkey, leery of too much German influence from its 25,000-strong Asia Korps, welcomed the Austrians. As well, the Germans were seen as overbearing while the gemutlich Austrians played a more deft hand, even as they tried to supplant France as the protector of the Christians in the Holy Land. Kaiser Franz Josef - the aging emperor trying to keep his faltering Central European empire from tearing apart under the nationalist ambitions of its disparate ethnic parts - presciently observed of the departure of his troops to the Middle East, "I believe we will never see them again."

The Imperial Mountain Artillery Battalion attending a requiem mass for Kaiser Franz Josef at the Holy Sepulcher in 1916

Austrian soldiers distribute food to the population of Bethlehem during the winter of 1916/17 to alleviate the starvation following a locust plague and bad harvest

One reason was the Austrians' distribution of daily bread in Bethlehem in the winter of 1916/1917 to prevent starvation caused by a locust plague.

The Austrian military presence included a brass band which played frequent concerts, and provided musical accompaniment for the silent films shown as propaganda. Both greatly improved Austria's prestige among the local population. One screening in Jerusalem on March 11, 2022 attracted 1,300 spectators, noted Fischer. "It created a great sensation which for a time let people forget the hardships of the war."

Finally the Austrian military's medical unit attended to the civilian population's health as well as that of its soldiers, seeking to contain outbreaks of typhoid, typhus, dysentery and cholera. Military hospitals were established in Jerusalem and Nazareth. The latter was moved to Damascus in 1918 as the front drew near.