Today In History: Battle of Beersheba
October 31rst: Today in 1917 the 4th Light Horse Brigade charged entrenched Turkish Infantry supported by machine guns and artillery at the Battle of Beersheba in what is often described as the last successful cavalry charge . The Turkish troops were demoralized before and didn’t put up much of a fight, but the charge was remarkably effective, capturing seven hundred Turkish prisoners and taking the valuable wells of Beersheba intact for the loss of forty men killed in the charge. An excellent movie was made in the 80s about this charge, The Light Horsemen, but sadly it isn’t available in the US on DVD.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:02 am
Weren’t there a fair number of cavalry actions in both the Russo-Polish war and the Russian Civil war? And of course a pedant would say that Light Horsemen weren’t cavalry, having neither swords nor lances.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:25 am
You may have noted my weasel words ‘often described’ in the above. Yes, the actual cavalry units nearby didn’t think of the Light Horse as cavalry either. I am unsophisticated however, I count a bunch of guys on horses waving stabby bits around as cavalry…
However, quibbles aside, it is still a remarkable charge.
October 31st, 2006 at 12:39 pm
And a cracking good movie, IMHO.