RIDE OF THE LIGHT HORSE.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 May 1923, Page 4

RIDE OF THE LIGHT HORSE.

A GUI*:AT CAVALRY STORY. (Sydney Herald). All GulleLt’s account ol" the Palestine campaign, in Volume \ll ol the Australian War History (just issued), enshrines the story of the most complete victory of the Allies during the war. The Id; lit Horse, as lie says, was in bud-,- .i m | spirit (he true product of tin,'wide Australian cauntryside. When the era,- hroke out it was the only Australian military arm of a liieh the „uiside world had any knowledge. In Gallipoli, in the Sinai desert, and foully in the exhausting struggle on l lie world's oldest hattlelield, the Hi ('ll t Horse won it renown uueelipsed on any held. The greatest cavalry leader of the war, General Allenhy, saiti <d ihent in a glowing titrewoil order at the end of the campaign that they had “earned the gratitude ol the Km pi re and the admiration of the world." No Australian with real blood in his veins can miss tins epic of our horsemen. Incidents of the earlier toughening of those gallant regiments in the trenches of the peninsula arc beyond the scope of the task allotted to Mr Gullott. It was, as he shows, but it preparation for the years ahead, and his chronicle begins after the Gallipoli evacuation, when the l.iglit Horse began on the Hue/, Gaual the work for which they were originally intended. They led the British army over the desert into Palestine. The reader must not miss that desert period of l!Hb, for the insight it gives into 11,e courage, resource, ami leadership learned by all rallies as the final (‘(pupping of the Right Horse regiments for close grips with tlie enemy. The triumph

of Romani, which made the way lor that advance. is of „ piece with the overcoming of obstacles through a hundred miles o| forbidding waste—a waste which Muses avoided with Ids Israelites, and a waste which has shattered many an army since. I ‘ VICTORY I!Y .MINUTES, j The following period is that of the • Hil.7 campaign around Gaza, whore in j Hie third and final battle the lirilisli . force at last broke down the barred gate to Palestine. Allonby's star of ! victory lirsl ro-e into the ascendant I with the magnificent charge of the Right Horse Brigades at Reersheha. Thereafter their moral was -itch ilia! limy grdioped straight at Turkish trendies or German machine gnus whenever challenged, and those British leaders who reverted to the older I’aitii in cavalry “hock tactics against mod eridy-armed infantry look then ground cii tile exposition cl the art ol mounted warfare a- demonstrated there by the Light Horse. lieersheba was Ihe preluce to Use first great drive ol Alleiiky’s army through a ballletietd v Ri'-h is lined again irom far Ira k down Hie ages the trumpets of Joshua, the trampling of the Persian elephants, and (lie dashes of the ( hri-tiau hosts with Sol.eliu i he .Mighty. Am, 1 her prolonged Turkish slam! in ihe v,,!,!,,,. !,i!!-p,.sil ion I',,l!..nasi dial (It iv: . and then in September came Hie itdnek wliidi opened the tim'-sl caviilry ride ill history, the aiiniliiiatimi of iiir.-e enemy armies, and file Sedan of Germany in the Ea-i. Mr Gnliett's a hole story iiuiiiul ■■ ill exultation to iha t ride : tile light of il ahead iiitlmines his descriptions of every action that preceded it. It was an effort which wiped out the enemy and prostrated tl:e \ iclois. Tiie reader who studies ii will observe here in eraml scale v lull is obvious again and again m I ills (a jii’ii warfare of cavalry moveim n|. The rigours of the dimal- always a:,.- i'ted them-elves, and liamgh e( cry victory was emphatic, so. aim was i lie demand Upon the vn tors tor the last ounce of energy towards itwinitiitg. At Magdhnha and at Ral’a isolated positions whose capture a--sored the confect rat inn ol t lie f>, it ■.-! force bet-jra t him. Hm ! . H■. slorined Hie Till l.ish delciieo:, ,>n j \ ju.s' in time at lim close ( :| day. Yirlnry was seized only by minute-, cilhei been use of imperative need for water or by n as-,ii of approaching enemy relief columns. Tiie last Right Horse reserves were thrown in ; the as-ault succeeded only under weight of a filial effort to win or die. At. First Gaza a similar victory, on a greater se.de, unruly just lost through delay earlier in the day. At Third Gaza, in the lirsl day's light for Reersheha (whereon the

whole plan hinged), the Australian and New Zealand horsemen struggled long end desperately for Tel el Saba hill on t! e mirth at ii llr.nk, and at 8. tit) in the waning afternoon Reersheba was astrongly hold as ever. The town bad to he taken before night. THE BFETISH ERA CHARGE.

“The day was on the wane. It was neck or nothing. There was a brief ; but lou-e discussion, in wliieb Fii.z----j srei'ald (British Yeomanry) and Grant I (ith Eight Horse Brigade) pleaded tor | the honour of the galloping attack I which tvs clearly in (ItiiiivH's mind : Fitzgerald’s Yeomanry bail their swords, and were rinse behind f iianvei's hra(k|Uarters ; Grant's Australian' had only their rilier, and bayonets, hut they were nearer Beershelm. After a moment's thought Charnel gave l.ite lead to the Right lloresmen. 'Put Cmut, straight at it.’ was his ter-e command to Hodgson.'’ And .straight at if the 4th. Iltit, and 12th Right Horse Regiments went. No adequate description can be attempted here of that charge—a gallop at uncharted trenches strongly manned, a gallop for two miles under shrapnel before the infantry fire opened, and the last whirlwind rate at a suddenly disclosed objective, a double trench system, -hut mercifully unwired. Captured Germans, speaking- of that cavalry charge. , made not with swords or lances, Imt with fixed bayonets, said: “The Australians are not soldiers,: they are madmen.’’ But the effect was obliteration. The troopers rode over machine-guns, bombers, riflemen : leapt the trendies ; (lung- themselves from their horses into those same trenches front the reverse side, set an ordered defer,re flying in a jumbled mob, and then joined a second whirlwind of Ist and 3rd Eight Horse Brigades and yeomanry, which drove roaring into Beer.-hebn upon streets crowded with fugitive infantry and trauspo rt. It will ho noted that ju-t as the first and second assaults on the Gaza line, made on tiie coastal sector against Gaza itself, apparently deluded tiie enemy into thinking that the third attack would come in tiie same place, so also tiie strong Eight- Horse raids of April and M.ay, 1918, across the Jordan to Amman and Es Halt convinced the enemy tjiat Allenhy's final flanking- attack on tiie extended Nablus position would fall in that direction instead of along the seashore. Amman and Es Halt were stirring battles in themselves, exemplifying at once the powerful effect of well-conceived cavalry enterprises and the daring with which the Eight Horse essayed them. They were serious probings of tiie enemy’s flank which in the event entirely deceived tiie Turco-German command. Tiie chief factor in ensuring surprise of the enemy was the supremacy of the British air force, of which the lending spirits were No. T Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps. The air-

men drove the enemy front tiie sky, and denied every attempt at -reconnaissance by air, which could not have failed to reveal the real plan of attack. When at dawn on September 19, 1918, the British and Indian infantry swarmed in irresistible force into tiie Turkish trenches on the coastal sector, their immediate task was to clear a path for a great force of cavalry, who were to ride right round to tiie rear of tiie two Turkish armies. These cavalry were chiefly British and Indians oi the 4th and sth Cavalry Divisions, but with them rode, too, the fil'd and 4th .Brigades of, the Australian Mounted Division. Tiie other Right Horsemen were oil the Jordan flank, with a few infantry, to hold it against any enemy pressure, and at the due moment to roll up the enemy’s left Hank also liy wav of Amman towards Dorati junction. RID!*: THROUGH ARMAGEDDON. Tiie cavalry, mi the coast rode like valkyries. They passed by regardless of the first retreating columns of Turks in the Tulkerain foothills, bent only oil the great right-handed sweep for the plain of Armageddon-—rode on ail day and all night and debouched into tiie historic plain at day on the 20th. While tiie Right Horse made for Jenin, the other cavalry occupied A tide and Nazareth, and seized the supply bases of an amazed enemy. Heisau. still further in the Turks’ rear, was occupied that afternoon. That sealed the doom of the Turkish armies at Nablus. On the 21st those armies were stricken with panic*. Next day Eyrie’s horsemen on the Jordan flank began their advance on Amman, which routed the Turks’ left wing and cut otf the 4th Turkish Army along the souinern desert railway. But to the north the cavalry still rode, lighting continually, abolishing sleep, wearing out men and horses in an offensive never surpassed. They rounded up almost the last Turk. They reached Damascus on Oeiober 2 and Aleppo on the 2tith. But they has; reached also their own physical limitations, and the most, striking evidence of the sort of that great ride was the reaction in fever. In one week ol October one envalrv brigade evacuated fil per cent of its number sick. In Palestine, as in l''rance, the Armistice was a disappointing curtain to a great drama. As Ryrie’s Australians said alien l.boy had to join tiie Turks against the Arabs at Ziza. tiie (inn! moves of wlmt was tragedy to the enemy was to the Allies a lam*. Such is one dilference between wai and chess. But anti-climax does not efface from uur minds the spectacle oi the mighty pageant which preceded it; and this history Ims fixed in that pageant tin* latest and not least niresting figures in all tin* procession through the centuries along tiie world's most renowned military highway.