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Remembered Today:

Who were Yeomanry and Australian Light Horse


Stephen S

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G'day Fellas I'm back,

I have been sorting out my brigade information for the Desert Mounted Corps and have had a thought that I pose as a question to you.

In a brigade of Yeomanry or Light Horse were the following units also able to be called Yeomanry or Australian Light Horse:

machine gun squadrons

mounted field ambulance

veterinary units

signals

supply

engineers

for example ...Yeomanry signals section or ...Australian Light Horse field ambulance etc

regards

Stephen

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Stephen

I can quote from "Order of Battle of Divisions Part 5A" by Perry from the entry for the Imp. Mounted Div which became Aust Mounted Div.

The MG squadrons are named as e.g 3rd Aust. M.G. Sqdn.

Field Ambulances e.g. 3rd Aust. LH Fd. Amb., but 6th Mtd. Bde. Fd. Amb.

Vet Units e.g. 8th Aust. Mobile Veterinary Section

Signals e.g. Imp. Mtd. Div. Sig. Tp. replaced by Aust. Mtd Div Sig Tp

Supply e.g. Imp. Mtd. Div. Sig. Train replaced by Aust. Mtd. Div. Train (e.g. 34 Coy A.A.S.C.)

Engineers e.g 2nd Aust. Fd. Sqn.

The Aust. & NZ Mtd. Div. seemed to follow the same nomenclature. Checking on a Yeomanry Division (2nd Mounted), the term "Yeomanry" does not appear to be attached to F.A., M.V.S.s, Signals, Supply or Engineer units, they appear to be referenced by district or county e.g 2nd S. Midland Fd. Amb., London Sig. Trp. or by division e.g 2nd Mtd. Divnl. Sig. Sqdn.

Hope this helps.

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Stephen

The Yeomanry were specifically the cavalry regiments of the British Territorial Force. The ALH were specifically the cavalry of the war-raised Australian Imperial Force, although as they were grouped in brigades, these brigades were called 1st (etc) ALH Brigade, and the associated signal troop and field ambulance followed the brigade name as Greenwoodman says.

Brigades of Yeomanry were referred to as Mounted Brigades, although some Yeomanry regiments served alongside Regular regiments in cavalry brigades.

The 74th (Yeomanry) Division, and the 94th (Yeomanry Brigade of 31st Division, were composed of dismounted Yeomanry regiments converted into infantry.

So, the short answer to your question is No!

Ron

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Gentlemen,

Thanks for your time to answer.

The mist is starting to clear !! Some but not all, and none at all to the other :blink:

Enjoy your weekends.

regards

Stephen

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The Aust Light Horse were not cavalry but mounted Infantry

Terry

I'm sorry Terry I believe you are incorrect.

There is a misconception about the light horse in the Great War that they mounted infantry. The following is an extract from Chapter 1 Part 1 of ‘Yeomanry & Mounted Rifle Training, 1912’ published by the British Army. It is instructive as to how mounted troops were perceived at the time of the Great War.

The term mounted troops in this manual is understood to include cavalry, Yeomanry, mounted rifles, and mounted infantry.

Yeomanry and mounted rifles are cavalry soldiers, enlisted or enrolled as such, who are trained to use the rifle as their principle offensive or defensive weapon. Their training is to be directed.(to the subjects in this manual), and until they have been fully trained in these subjects they are not permitted to receive instruction in the elements of shock action mounted. Such action in the the case of yeomanry and mounted rifles, even when time permits of their receiving instruction in it,is to be considered as for the use on special emergencies only, and altogether secondary to fire action, which is the dominant method of fighting for these troops.

By mounted infantry is meant fully trained infantry, mounted solely for the purposes of locomotion. Such soldiers are not to be regarded as horse-soldiers, but as infantry possessing special mobility. They fight on foot only, and are not armed or trained for mounted shock action.

As can be seen from the above mounted soldiers can be divided into three types; the mounted infantryman, the mounted rifleman (or I would argue, light horseman) and the cavalryman. The mounted infantryman is a foot soldier who is provided with enhanced mobility (the horse, mule or camel) to take him to were he is to fight. The cavalryman is trained in ‘shock action mounted’ to fight on his horse, with lance or sword. The light horseman is a horseman but is trained to fight dismounted and thus falls between the cavalry and mounted infantry along with Yeomanry.

The light horse of the Great War were specialist soldiers whose job was reconnaissance, scouting, patrolling, flank protection to infantry formations and to provide a fast mobile striking force for the commander. Up to mid-1918 the light horseman rarely fought from his horse. The battles at Magdhaba and Beersheba, where the 10th Light Horse Regiment and the 4th Light Horse Brigade, respectively, charged wielding their 17” bayonets like swords, are notable exceptions to this rule. The light horseman carried his rifle slung across his back and had no special weapons to use on horseback.

In August 1918 the Australian Mounted Division (the 3rd, 4th and 5th Brigades) requested swords and were issued the 1908 Pattern Cavalry Sword and standard British cavalry horse furniture and thus the light horseman became a true cavalryman. The light horse quickly trained to use these new weapons and during the fast moving campaigns in late 1918 the Australian Mounted Division fought as cavalry on many occasions using ‘shock action mounted’ to reap huge bags of Turkish prisoners and materiel. The ANZAC Mounted Division continued to operate as classic light horse until the end of the war.

In 1916 the 13th Light Horse Regiment and a squadron of the 4th Light Horse Regiment were sent to the Western Front with the infantry divisions to act as cavalry for the 1st ANZAC Corps They were equipped with swords and cavalry furniture and trained as light cavalry. They fought as such until the end of hostilities.

The other piece of evidence that Light Horse is considered to be cavalry is the fact they are formed with troops, squadrons and regiments. If Light Horse was mounted infantry they would have been formed as platoons, companies and battalions (As the Camel Corps mounted infantry units were.)

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From the Australian War Memorial

Although not strictly cavalry, the Australian Light Horse units of the First World War can be loosely classified as such. They used horses to move quickly and were organised in the same way as cavalry units, but actually did their fighting dismounted as infantry soldiers. Although some light horse units were issued with swords late in the war, their main weapon was the rifle and bayonet. With the mobility provided by their horses, they were well suited to the reconnaissance roles for which light cavalry had traditionally been used.

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From the Australian Defence Force Academy web site

Mounted Troops

No units of the AIF are so famous as its mounted infantry arm, the Light Horse

Light horse were a cross between cavalry (troops who fought on horseback) and mounted infantry (troops who used horses only to ride to battle). They fought dismounted, like mounted infantry, but were organised like cavalry, and carried out certain roles such as scouting and screening on horseback. Until 1918 they did not carry swords and so could not function as cavalry, although they sometimes could carry out a mounted action using their bayonets, as at Beersheba in 1917.

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From the Department of Veteran Affairs web site

The Beersheba attack was launched at dawn on 31 October with the British XX Corps attacking from the south and south-west in an attempt to draw the defenders away from the eastern defences. A careful orchestration of artillery, aerial bombing and men went on through the day, but by mid-afternoon Beersheba was still in Turkish hands.

Time was running out for the British Empire Forces to capture Beersheba and its wells before dark. Australian Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel, commanding the Desert Mounted Corps, ordered the 4th Light Horse Brigade under Brigadier General William Grant to a make a mounted attack straight towards the town.

By 4.50 pm the brigade was assembled behind a rise in the ground six kilometres south-east of Beersheba with the 4th Light Horse Regiment on the right and the 12th Light Horse Regiment on the left. The 11th Light Horse Regiment was spread out over a line of outposts extending towards the 7th Mounted Brigade and not immediately available for the charge.

Just on sunset, the attack force moved off at the trot then almost at once went into a gallop. As they cleared the ridge, Turkish gunners sighted them and opened fire. The charge progressed in three waves, with around 500 metres between each wave.

Employing their bayonets as “swords” the momentum of the surprise attack carried the Australians through the Turkish defences. Watchful British batteries shelled enemy outposts on the horsemen’s flanks and the foremost riders were soon leaping the forward trenches, dismounting and battling, with bayonet and rifle, as more horsemen rode past them on into town.

Having breached the Turkish defences, the light horsemen inflicted casualties and took more than 1000 prisoners. Most of the wells were captured intact and a complete Turkish division, the 27th, was destroyed.

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Official Histories – First World War

Volume VII – The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine, 1914–1918 (10th edition, 1941)

H S Gullett

CHAPTER I11

THE LIGHT HORSEMAN AND HIS HORSE

THE Australian Light Horse, to which this volume gives particular attention, was in body and spirit the true product of

the wide Australian countryside. On its peace footing before the war, it represented the mounted arm of the Commonwealth Military Forces. It was then composed of twenty-three regiments, with a total strength of 456 officers and 6,508 men of other ranks. Some of the regiments, whose recruiting areas were close to cities and towns, included a small number of townsmen; but the light horse as a whole was essentially a force of countrymen, most of whom actually bred and owned the horses on which they did their few weeks of compulsory annual training.

Its members were not armed with sword or lance. They were mounted riflemen, or in other words, mounted infantry, and their horses were intended merely to give them the greatest range of activity as a mobile body. The men were not trained in shock tactics-a point to be borne in mind in order to follow intelligently their work in Sinai and Palestine. hlany of them, including a large number of their officers, had served with distinction as mounted riflemen in the South African War, only twelve years earlier, and the lessons learned against the elusive Boers had a strong influence upon their efficiency.

The light horsemen, therefore, when they embarked for Egypt, were well schooled in the main principles of any mounted task which might be ahead of them. In this they had, perhaps, some advantage over the Australian infantry. Nearly all the Australian volunteers who served in South Africa were mounted soldiers, so that the light horsemen of I914 might have been expected to include in their ranks a larger proportion of experienced veterans than were to be found in the infantry battalions.

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II ANZAC (XXII Corps) Mounted Regiment

When the infantry divisions of the AIF deployed from Egypt to the Western Front in early 1916, each included a divisional mounted reconnaissance squadron. Three squadrons were drawn from the 13th Light Horse Regiment and two from the 4th Light Horse Regiment. In France, these squadrons were combined to form corps mounted regiments and in July 1916 the two squadrons of the 4th Light Horse joined a squadron from the Otago Mounted Rifles, a New Zealand Unit, to form the II ANZAC Mounted Regiment. When the five Australian divisions were combined to form the Australian Corps in November 1917 II ANZAC was reorganised and became XXII Corps. The Australian personnel of the mounted regiment were the only Australians to remain with the corps.

On the Western Front, terrain and the nature of the war there limited the roles mounted troops could fulfil, but they were still heavily employed. The corps mounted regiments carried out traffic control, rear area security and prisoner escort tasks, and, when the tactical situation permitted, the more traditional cavalry role of reconnaissance. They were most active during the more mobile phases of the war on the Western Front, which included the follow-up of the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line in early 1917, the stemming of the German Spring Offensive of 1918, and the allied offensive of August and September 1918.

Just a few sqns went to France the bulk of the ALH stayed in the desert in their traditional role of mtd inf

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Quote Gordon," Beersheba, where the 10th Light Horse Regiment and the 4th Light Horse Brigade, respectively, "

You have left out the 12th LH. Mind you , you are not the first by any means, the 12th is often forgotten , in the Charge at Be'er Sheva. They took the left.

Great postings here, BTW.

And if history is correct, whether they be Mounted infantry or Cavalry, they got the job done, did they not? Very adaptable they were. And also fought as infantry on Gallipoli.

Kim

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There's a lot to respond to here so I hope I don't miss a point.

By way of introduction I will say I stand by my PRIMARY source, Yeomanry & Mounted Rifle Training, 1912. (Plus various other manuals of Light Horse training which I have access to via my job in the Australian Department of Defence. I will reiterate the major point of my post which you seem to have missed. There are two types of cavalry: firstly classic cavalry whose main tactic is shock action, mounted with sword or lance AND a second type of cavalry evidenced by yeomanry, mounted rifles and light horse who fight dismounted with rifles but who are not mounted infantry. In modern terms it might be said the horse is part of the light horse "weapon system". Mounted infantry is another type mounted soldier for whom an animal (camel, horse, donkey, elephant) is purely a method of getting from point A to point B to fight.

I get the feeling you didn't read my post properly because I acknowledged the Light Horseman fought dismounted - but dismounted fighting does not a mounted infantryman make. The very fact light horse is organised on the lines of cavalry shows the powers that be know a light horseman is not a mounted infantryman. The primary role of the light horse is not the same as an infantryman. His jobs were as I laid out in my post.

The AWM quote (a secondary source) could be seen as supporting my stance as much as yours.

The ADFA quote (a secondary source) starts out saying light horse is mounted infantry then goes on to say exactly what I say in my post. While I have the greatest respect for the people at ADFA I believe they have fallen into the mounted infantry myth trap as many before them. They fail to understand what the AWM entry starts to have an inkling of - that you don't have to have a lance or sword to be cavalry.

With all due respect to Gullett, (His wonderful volume on the light horse in the Middle East is a valued reference in my library) I do not think he was a soldier and fails to grasp the point outlined above. He even mixes his terms equating a "mounted rifleman" to a "mounted infantryman" which is contrary to the extract from the yeomanry manual which makes a distinction between the terms.

Finally, in response to Ozzie: Read the quote again. I said the 4th Light Horse BRIGADE. (Which was made up of the 4th and 12th LH Regiments). ;-) I didn't forget the 12th.

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