Friday, 24 November 2017

Centenary Re-enactment: Australian Light Horse (Part 1)

The primary destination of my recent overseas travel was Israel. And my trip there resulted from an invitation to attend the centenary re-enactment of the charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba on 31 October 1917. This was probably one of the greatest military successes of the first World War, for on that day a desperate last-minute (towards dusk) charge of the mounted troops towards the Turkish Lines had extraordinary success. Turkish positions were over-run with limited casualties on the attacking side, the then village of Beersheba surrendered to the allied forces, and this triggered a string of successive losses for the Turks - including shortly afterwards the capture of Jerusalem by the allies.

That, in turn, gave Britain the post-war mandate over Palestine ... and the rest is history. By the way, the Light Horse troops were, in effect, mounted soldiers rather than traditional cavalry and they came from both Australia and New Zealand. Although nominally under the British general Allenby, they were on this occasion led by an Australian general, Chauvel, from the north coast of NSW, nearby to where I live. Moreover, most of the Light Horse were rural Australians, many from the Northern Tablelands where I live. And the horses they rode were called Whalers ... from New South Wales. I suspect that this rural background with associated horsey-culture greatly helped in the victory.

So, on the 31st October, I and my Israeli host with whom I was staying in Tel Aviv, took the train from there to Beersheba to view the re-enactment. This first section deals with our getting to Beersheba and our walk around the city, while the blog-post on the re-enactment follows later. We start with the arrival of our train.


Beersheba looms on the horizon. It's now a city of 200,000 people, a far cry from the small population in 1917.


A round-about in the city centre with what look like two stylised horses fighting each other!


The remains of the Turkish railway station built in 1915 with German support. The line was supposed to connect Damascus with Cairo, but was never completed. It's now a museum with a locomotive shown here and railway carriages.


The celebrations also included events to remember Turkish troops who died in combat,



The entrance to the railway museum sporting Israeli, Australian and New Zealand flags.


Beersheba is a modern city albeit the gateway to Israel's southern deserts - the Negev.


Do you recognise the dude on the left? It's me! And I posed for this with an elderly bloke dressed in Aussie uniform.


A plaque commemorating the 'charge' back in 1917, and another expressing Israel's gratitude for the event.



In commemoration, the Israelis have even established an ANZAC Trail tracking the movements of the Light Horse leading to Beersheba.


The crowds begin to assemble for the parade through the city of the Light Horse troops prior to the re-enactment. Judging by the large numbers witnessing the event, this was a major occasion for our hosts.


Leading the parade was a sizeable band of musicians.



They were followed by a large number of mounted troops, many from Australia or New Zealand, and one of whom was a female geographer from, I think, La Trobe University in Victoria ... who actually also stayed with my host in Tel Aviv on my last night there!


The flags of the three nations.


Large crowds of welcomers.




As you can see, there was an enthusiastic response by the locals! By the way, I took the last few photos standing on a wall surrounding Allenby Park ... named after the British General who headed the successful campaign.

AS

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