Palestine Diaries by Jonathan King

Author:Jonathan King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027090, BIO008000, HIS004000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2017-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

After the charge, the Light Horsemen were lucky to reach the main well in the town of Beersheba in time — when the first troopers arrived, they captured a German officer who was about to detonate explosives that the enemy had planted in the wells to blow them up so they could not be used.

From the crest of the ridge in front of the hidden troopers, Beersheba was in full view. Luckily, the Turks could not see them — anyway, the Turks would have discounted the idea of a charge, especially from the east out of the desert. It was lucky, too, that their route lay down a long, slight slope that, although devoid of cover, was free of obstacles. Yet before the town, there were certainly some formidable enemy defences.

The Charge

Finally, Grant, mounted on his horse in front of the 800 horsemen, gave the order: ‘Forward!’ Immediately, the Light Horse leapt into action. As they rode off at a walk, the 4th was on the right; the 12th was on the left — all were riding with bayonets in hand, like swords. Within each regiment, the troopers were riding in a traditional squadron frontage (two squadrons wide and three lines deep but with spaces between them).

Captain Jack Davies then shouted at the top of his voice: ‘Come on boys, Beersheba first stop!’ The boys replied, ‘You’ll do us, Jack!’ Then suddenly, the commanders of both the 4th and 12th realised that only a wild, desperate charge could seize Beersheba before dark. Although, as Bean wrote: ‘Australians had never ridden any race like this’.

Yet Cameron, leading the 12th Regiment, said later, ‘It was clear to me that the job had to be done before dark, so I advised galloping towards the place as our only chance. I had some experience of successful mounted surprise attacks on the Boer camps in the South African war.’

As soon as these charging horsemen came over the top of the ridge — which had been hiding them from the Turk’s view — and were riding down the long slope towards the Turkish garrison and trenches, the enemy woke up and began shooting at them. It may have been frightening for some of the troopers, but as the battle-hardened Idriess wrote: ‘I think all men get scared at times like these; but there comes a sort of laughing courage from deep within the heart of each, or from some source he never knew existed; and when he feels like that he will gallop into the most blinding death with an utterly unexplainable, don’t care, shrieking laugh upon his lips’.

When they were only three kilometres from the first of the Turkish trenches, the Turkish machine-gunners started firing at them. But the Turks could not find their targets, as the Light Horse were still too far away, and the watchful British batteries were too accurate for the gunners and soon silenced most of them with great accuracy.

Thankfully, the brilliant British batteries had already weakened the enemy’s resistance by

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