It was what Yarwood called ‘the ancient deserts of Palestine’ that served as the great proving ground for the Australian Light Horse, ‘in a campaign that reached a climax with the action at Beersheba on 31 October 1917’. As ‘the last great horse-borne charge in military history, it showed Australian riders and horses were capable of dramatic and decisive action.’ In Australian imagination, Beersheba came to rival Gallipoli. Unlike Gallipoli, it represented victory. It ended Turkish occupation of Palestine with its menace to the Suez Canal. Full success came when General Sir Harry Chauvel and his men took Damascus in October 1918, just before the end of the war. The story has been told in many forms, first by war correspondent Sir Henry Gullett, then in the epic movie Forty Thousand Horsemen and in Russell Vines’s documentary The Walers . Chauvel as commander of the Desert Mounted Corps was praised by his biographer A.J. Hill for his care of the horses. Estimates vary as to how many Australian horses were exported in the First World War. Yarwood says ‘The grand total of 135,726 horses, all of them Walers, were shipped to Egypt, India, Britain and France for service in the cause of the British Empire, at an average first cost of £20.’ There was never a chance that authorities would pay for their return. Some were sold. Hill explains that ‘the old and sick were shot. The rest were handed over to British units.’ Captain Norman Malcolm of the Ninth
3
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software