num_pages: 416
description: In this fifth volume of Lord Anglesey's magisterial, not to say monumental, history of the mounted arm of the British Empire during its last hundred years, he treats of the spectacular exploits of the yeomanry, the Australasian and the Indian mounted forces in the Middle East between 1914 and 1918.It was the very first important campaign in which not a single regiment of regular cavalry was engaged. Lord Anglesey illustrates how the yeomen of Britain became, through the crucible of battle in the desert of Sinai, at least as efficient as the cavalry of the line, whose deeds on the Western Front will be dealt with in Volume VII.He also establishes that the light horse (in effect, mounted riflemen) of Australia and New Zealand proved themselves to be perhaps the most skillful and effective soldiers on horseback in British history. That the Indian cavalry, under its British officers, demonstrated an almost equal capability is also shown.As for the generals, considerable new light is thrown not only on Allenby and Murray, his predecessor, but also on the mounted commanders, especially Chauvel, whose modesty has hitherto obscured his exceptional calibre. Wavell's splendid account of the campaign is indispensable, yet his rather too hagiographical estimation of Allenby needs re-examination. Lord Anglesey looks critically and not uncontroversially at the accepted interpretations of that great man's rôle, at the rôles of a number of the other commanders and of the officers and men who served under them.There is much, as in previous volumes, about officers' and men's social life, while the questions of horsemanship, horsemastership and, indeed, horses themselves are fully discussedVolume VI will be devoted exclusively to the campaign in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). This 'sideshow' has been greatly neglected, particularly so far as the mounted arm is concerned.Even more disregarded, indeed often denigrated, by historians has been the highly important, extremely interesting part played by the cavalry in France and Flanders. This, the pre-war 'Curragh Incident' and what happened to the mounted arm after the war, will be considered in the final volume of this work, Volume VII.
language: English
title: A History of the British Cavalry, 1816 to 1919, Volume 5: 1914-1919, Egypt, Palestine & Syria
titlecomplete: A History of the British Cavalry, 1816 to 1919, Volume 5: 1914-1919, Egypt, Palestine & Syria
ratings_count: 1
series: A History of the British Cavalry
publisher: Pen & Sword Books