INTRODUCTION

In early October 1918, with the war in the Middle East almost over, Lieutenant General Sir Philip Chetwode wrote to Lieutenant General Sir Harry Chauvel, the Australian who had replaced Chetwode as the commander of the Desert Mounted Corps, congratulating him on the capture of Damascus. ‘You have made history with a vengeance,’ Chetwode wrote, ‘and your performance will be talked about and quoted long after many more bloody battles in France will have been almost forgotten.’ Chetwode noted that the infantry divisions had played their part but that it was Chauvel’s cavalry and light horse units ‘who put the lid on the Turks’ aspirations for ever’.¹ Three weeks later, the Turks had surrendered and some 400 years of Ottoman rule in the Middle East were over. As Chetwode had observed, it was the mounted troops, the Australian Light Horse prominent among them, that had made victory possible on this, the most challenging of battlefields.

In August 1914 that victory was more than four years away. Australia had responded to the opening of the First World War by forming the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), which initially included a brigade of light horse mounted troops. By May 1915, another two light horse brigades had arrived in Egypt and, with the Gallipoli campaign already at a stalemate, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Light Horse Brigades as well as the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade were sent to Gallipoli to serve as infantry. In that role, the light horsemen performed with admirable courage but with little chance of breaking the Gallipoli impasse.

As the official Australian historian of the AIF’s Middle Eastern campaign, Henry Gullett, observed, the light horsemen who had served at Gallipoli had volunteered twice, once to join the AIF in Australia and once again to leave their mounts behind in Egypt to serve as infantry.² When the Anzacs returned to Egypt in early 1916, the AIF infantry battalions were reorganised and reinforced to create five infantry divisions to be sent to the Western Front, while the light horsemen were reunited with their horses. One light horse regiment and two-thirds of another were sent to the Western Front, but twelve light horse regiments were kept in Egypt as part of General Sir Archibald Murray’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force.

Australian Light Horse covers the operations of the Australian light horse and camel troops in the Middle East from early 1916 through to the end of the war. It does so by looking at the experiences of the men who served, using their own words. Some 70 diaries or collections of correspondence from light horsemen have been used within the text, while Henry Gullett’s comprehensive official history of the campaign provides the framework for their experiences.

Rowland ‘Top’ Hassall, 4th Machine Gun Squadron, writing home. George Francis collection.

Australian Light Horse also serves as a canvas for an outstanding collection of private photographs from those men who fought with the light horse or camel corps in the Sinai and Palestine campaigns. ‘The Kodak appears to be part of the equipment of the Light Horse,’ Frank Hurley, the Australian official photographer, wrote in early 1918.³ Nearly 100 years later, many of these extraordinary photographs are published here for the first time, illuminating the journey of the light horsemen across the harshest of battlefields.

The foreground shadow marks the presence of the soldier photographer with his box brownie camera. Here Reg Dixon photographs men and horses from the 2nd Light Horse Field Ambulance. Reg Dixon collection. Courtesy of Merrien Wrighter.

Horace Taberner, who served with the 1st Remount Unit in Egypt, demonstrates his horsemanship. Before the war Horace had been a farmhand in South Gippsland. Horace Taberner collection. Courtesy of Laurie Taberner.