On May 12, Glubb’s men stormed the settlements. The 400 or so defenders fought valiantly, stopping Glubb’s much-storied legionaires and giving the irregulars more than they received. Glubb turned from one Arab Legion officer to another, seeking to find a leader capable of delivering victory. After more than 24 hours of continuous fighting, on May 14 the last of the Etzion Bloc’s defenders hoisted a white flag and surrendered to the Arab irregulars, who slaughtered most of them before Glubb’s legion was able to restore order.

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Meanwhile, Arab leaders conferred about how to deal with Jerusalem. While many of the leaders in Syria and Egypt were sanguine regarding their chances of throwing out the Jews, Glubb expressed doubts. Favoring the internationalization plan put forth by the fledgling United Nations, he sought to keep his desert-trained Arab Legion out of what he foresaw as house-to-house urban warfare.

The U.N.’s plan called for East Jerusalem to be an open city and for Haifa to be a Trans-Jordan town. But men such as Fawzi el-Kaoukji, commander of the Arab Liberation Army, and Abdul Rahman Azzam, the secretary general of the Arab League, called for all-out war against the Jews and their tiny sliver of a country.

Glubb apparently had few choices. His adopted countrymen demanded glory and victory, and his king, Abdullah, had a throne to protect and loyal subjects to appease.

On May 14, Israel declared its indepedence. On May 15, Glubb reluctantly marched his Arab Legion to the Old City of Jerusalem and mounted an attack on the Jewish army, the Haganah, which had taken up defensive positions in the New City and in Jerusalem’s ancient Jewish Quarter.

With a tenuous hold on the Old City, Glubb sent two regiments to Latrun, to the open country and rolling hills of Judea. There, he would keep Jerusalem for Trans-Jordan by choking off Jewish reinforcements.

The strategy worked. While the Arab armies were beaten back at Haifa, at Tel Aviv and in the desert south of Beersheba, Glubb’s Arab Legion held its own in Jerusalem and at Latrun.

On May 23, the Arab Legion attacked the Notre Dame Hospice and stormed into the Old City. As Glubb had feared, it suffered heavy losses, including several armored cars to Molotov cocktails, and he abandoned the assault at 5 p.m. on May 24. Soon, however, the Jews ran out of ammunition and other supplies, just as Glubb had intended. Evidently remembering the fate of their comrades at Etzion, the remnants of the Old City’s Jewish fighters sought out the Arab Legion to surrender on May 28. Glubb’s little army was a professional force; it did not slaughter its prisoners.

By mid-June a cease-fire was declared. The legion had little ammunition for its artillery and not much for its small arms and Lewis machine guns. Glubb pleaded with King Abdullah to accept the cease-fire as final. If the war stopped at that point, Trans-Jordan would have the Old City, the Negev Desert and an airport at Lydda.

In Cairo, the Arab leaders met to discuss the future. Tawfig Pasha represented Trans-Jordan, but he was unable to carry out Glubb’s and Abdullah’s wishes. Reporting back, he said that he could not vote for peace without being denounced as a traitor to the Arab cause.

And so the war went on–with the Israelis not merely holding their own, but going over to the offensive, retaking Ramlah and Lydda (which they called Lod) and routing an Egyptian brigade in the Faluja pocket in October.

With an end to the declared war on January 9, 1949, King Abdullah, backed by the legion (now 6,000 men strong), annexed East Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus, and changed his country’s name to the Arab Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He also severed his ties with Britain.

Glubb turned his attention once more to policing the frontier. Arab irregulars made nightly raids against Jewish settlements, and Glubb fought off Israeli retaliatory attacks. Then in 1953, Abdullah was assassinated, and his grandson, Hussein, came to power. Anti-British sentiment grew, and on March 1, 1956, King Hussein dismissed Glubb as commander of the Arab Legion. Glubb’s protégé and personal adjutant, Ali Abu Nawwar, succeeded him. Later that year, the legion’s elite volunteers were merged with the conscripts of the national guard, and a new Jordanian army emerged.

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