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Field Marshal Viscount Allenby (National Portrait Gallery)

The British contribution to cavalry tactics, or lack thereof, has been dealt with elsewhere on this site, suffice to say that, even allowing for the fact that the British cavalry eventually took to using the rifle instead of the sword or lance, the latter being withdrawn from service in 1903, the old diehards who made-up the Imperial General Staff were still of the opinion that once a breakthrough had been achieved then the lance should be the weapons to prod the enemy along. Thus, in 1907 the lance was once more reintroduced, ‘…and so matters stood in 1914 when the 16^th Lancers rode across France with their lances swinging round their backs.’[i]

The Western Front was to prove how ineffectual cavalry had become when faced by mud, wire and machineguns, however there was one place that still harboured the possibility of using mounted troops in something like the old style. The British had been forced to send an army over to Egypt to protect the vital Suez Canal from the Turks and also crush insurrection in the Western Desert. The cavalry composition of the army was made up from Australian Light Horse, New Zealand Mounted Rifles and British Yeomanry regiments, the latter still carrying the sabre, which they had managed to retain, ‘exploiting an oversight in high places.’[ii]

In 1917 General Allenby, a stalwart cavalryman himself, took over command of the forces in Egypt, forming his mounted troops into three divisions each of three brigades containing three regiments and a machine-gun squadron with 12 Vickers machineguns.

 
Mounted Machine-Gun Crew (Imperial War Museum)

On the 30^th October 1917 Allenby had a combined force of some 58,000 infantry and cavalry supported by 242 guns poised to strike the Turkish position around the town of Beersheba in Palestine. With great skill he manoeuvred his army by night eastward for the assault on the town, a very difficult operation carried out across a featureless landscape. Dawn on the 31^st October saw the Australian Light Horse advancing in open order toward the Turkish trenches. Suddenly their artillery opened fire, and their machineguns began to chatter into action. An effective counter fire was laid down by Allenby’s horse batteries, which silenced the Turkish guns allowing the Australians to press-on taking casualties from Turkish rifle fire. Undeterred, the Aussie’s broke into a gallop, took both lines of Turkish trenches and, ‘Some Australians then dismounted to settle matters with the rifle and bayonet while others dashed on into Beersheba spreading terror and panic.’[iii]

 
Battle of Megiddo 1918

At the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 Allenby also made much use of his cavalry, which now contained many Indian units, much of the British Yeomanry regiments being shipped back to France in the face of the great German offensive. The Turks were once again completely wrong footed as to where the attack would fall. After just three hours the Turkish front, some 65 miles in length, was pierced and Allenby’s cavalry swept through towards Megiddo, wheeling to the right as they did so as to block the retreat of the Turkish 7^th and 8^th Armies.

During the rapid retreat of the Turks, one particular incident that would have warmed the hearts of both Bedford Forrest and Phil Sheridan occurred when the Fifth Cavalry attacked the town of Haifa, which the Turks went to some pains to defend. On the 23^rd September Allenby’s 5^th Cavalry Division approached the town and was ordered to take-out a strong Turkish artillery position on Mount Carmel overlooking Haifa. While a squadron of the Mysore Lances, reinforced by a squadron of the Sherwood Ranges prepared to move on the heights, the Jodhpur Lances, together with the remaining Mysore squadrons went in against the town, encountering Turkish positions blocking the road:

‘The leading regiment and machine-guns acted as a fire pivot, the battery fired on the enemy positions, and one regiment was sent from about three miles behind to gallop the place. It was a ticklish situation as an impassable stream…forced them to wheel to the left and go through the narrow defile along the main road. However, a stout-hearted body of men on galloping horses takes a lot of stopping and, within half an hour from the word ‘go’. Haifa was ours.’[iv]

While this attack was taking place the squadrons sent to Mount Carmel charged the Turkish artillery capturing 17 guns and 1,350 prisoners, a truly magnificent performance by mounted troops.

 

 

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