War Horse
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A large number of troops from the Indian army reinforced Allenby’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) during the summer. These troops, combined with Australian, New Zealand, French, South African, and yeomanry units, gave the army a very non-British character. The EEF consisted of three corps. The XX and XXI Corps were infantry corps and included two and five infantry division respectively. The two infantry corps contained about 56,000 troops. The premier unit of the EEF was the DMC. Australian Lieutenant General Sir Harry G. Chauvel commanded this corps. It consisted of 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions, as well as the Australian Mounted Division. In addition to the DMC, Allenby also had the Chaytor Force under command of Major General Chaytor. Chaytor Force was a task force built around the combined Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division, detached from the DMC and reinforced with royal artillery and an Indian infantry brigade.
The DMC was one of the most powerful mounted forces assembled in the war. The two cavalry divisions organized similarly. Each consisted of three brigades and each brigade had three regiments. For the most part, in each brigade, one regiment was British yeomanry cavalry, and two regiments were Indian cavalry. One of the two Indian regiments was usually lancers, though some of the cavalry regiments also equipped themselves with lances. The AMD consisted of three light horse brigades each with three light horse regiments. The light horse brigades of the Australian division, since their famous charge with bayonets at Beersheba in October 1917, had swords. A light horse regiment consisted of a headquarters and three squadrons, with a total number of men and horses at 522. In total the DMC consisted of approximately 10,000 horsemen, plus supporting machine guns, artillery, and light armored car units. The Australian New Zealand Division added another 3,500 mounted troops to the total in the EEF.
Allenby aligned his force with XXI Corps on the left, on the coastal plain, and the XX Corps north of Jerusalem. The Chaytor Force was positioned on the extreme right of the line near Jericho on the west bank of the Jordan River and oriented east in the direction of Amman. The DMC was in reserve, positioned on the coast, in the vicinity of Jaffa, close behind XXI Corps.
The Turks opposed Allenby’s EEF with the Yilderim Army Group composed of five infantry corps organized into three armies. In total the three armies fielded about 32,000 infantry and 3,000 mounted troops. The Turkish left flank was anchored on the Dead Sea and then curved north and west across the Jordan river, through the mountains about 10 miles north of Jerusalem, and then to the sea about 10 miles north of Jaffa. The 4th Army had responsibility for the east bank of the Jordan including Amman. The 7th Army positioned in the center of the line and held the west bank of the Jordan north of Jerusalem. The 8th Army was responsible for the coastal plain.
Allenby’s plan was the reverse of the concept which he had used to break the Turkish lines at Gaza. There, the main effort had been in the interior, at Beersheba, while a feint went against Gaza on the coast. In 1918, Allenby planned a feint up the Jordan valley, while the main effort occurred on the coast, north of Jaffa. The key to deceiving the Turks, commanded by German General Otto Liman von Sanders, was the mounted force. Allenby understood that the Turks would deduce the location of the main effort by the position of the DMC. This was the motivation for detaching the Australian and New Zealand Division from the DMC, and creating the Chaytor Force. This force, positioned on the extreme right of the line, showed the Turks a large cavalry presence in the east. With its Indian infantry, it gave the impression of a cavalry force positioned behind the infantry. Allenby’s men built dummy horse lines using wooden horses and blankets, and drug sleds through the sand to raise dust clouds to reinforce the impression that the entire DMC was in the east. The deception plan worked superbly, and the Turks believed the EEF positioned the DMC on the extreme right of the line in the Jordan valley.
As the deception plan worked on the eastern flank, Allenby massed his forces in the west. The XXI Corps consisted of five divisions, about 36,000 troops, to achieve a breakthrough of the Turkish lines on a 15-mile front. The XX Corps, with only two divisions, covered a 45-mile front north of Jerusalem. Behind the XXI Corps were the 10,000 horsemen of the DMC. Their job was to follow through the gap created by XXI Corps, destroy the rear areas of the Turkish 8th Army, and then swing east through the rear of the 7th Army, and trap that army between XX Corps, XXI Corps, and the Jordan River. Once the Jordan valley was secured, the final phase of the operation was designed to destroy the 4th Turkish Army located east of the river, as it tried to flee north through the desert.
During the night of September 18-19, 1918, the XX Corps launched a diversionary attack up the Jordan valley. Just after midnight the Royal Air Force attacked the headquarters of the 8th and 7th Armies, as well as the main switchboards connecting them to the Yilderim Army Group headquarters. At 4:30 a.m., XXI Corps began its prelim-inary artillery bombardment, firing at one point, over 1,000 shells a minute. The bombardment, which was unprecedented in the Palestine theater of operations, shattered the Turkish lines as well as the Turkish supporting artillery positions. The British infantry followed quickly behind the artillery and overwhelmed the stunned Turkish infantry. Within a couple of hours, the Turkish XXII Corps defending the coast, was wiped out. The British infantry divisions then wheeled right and formed a solid shoulder behind which the DMC quickly moved north.
The DMC units reached their assigned objectives behind the infantry screen. The AMD sent its 5th Light Horse Brigade (LHB) on the corps right flank to cut the lateral road and rail connection between 8th and 7th Armies. The 4th Cavalry Division moved in the middle of the encircling arc to capture the Musmus Pass through the Samarian hills, and then the rail and communications center at Afula. The 5th Cavalry Division moved on the outside of the arc, advanced to Nazareth to capture the Yilderim Army Group headquarters. The AMD, minus the 5th LHB, moved behind the 4th Cavalry Division as the reserve.
The 5th Cavalry Division moved 45 miles in less than 24 hours, through disorganized light resistance, but terrain that was so rough that at some points the lead brigade had to dismount and lead the horses. The speed of the move caused a number of horses to founder, and they had to be put down. At dawn on September 20, the lead brigade charged into Nazareth. A stiff fight erupted for the town as the 13th Cavalry Brigade tried to simultaneously secure the town, prevent the Yilderim headquarters from escaping, and prevent reinforcements from the south coming into the town. The mission was too big for one brigade to handle, but the 14th Cavalry Brigade to its south was heavily engaged and too encumbered with 1,200 prisoners to assist. The 13th Cavalry Brigade was finally forced to retire from the town center and contented itself with guarding the approaches into the town. The Yilderim commander, General Sanders, managed to escape the town in the confusion of the battle. The 13th Cavalry Brigade commander was relieved for mishandling the battle around Nazareth.
The 4th Cavalry Division, with the 10th Cavalry Brigade leading, had about 25 miles to travel to achieve the south end of its first objective, the Musmus Pass. By 9:00 p.m., the 2nd Lancers of the Brigade had secured the south end of the pass, but the brigade did not reinforce them The commander of the 10th Cavalry Brigade dis-obeyed the division order to move to the pass at 10:00 p.m. and instead watered his horses. When he finally got moving, the brigade got lost in the dark twice. The division commander was so frustrated with the confusion and slow movement that he relieved the brigade commander from command. As the 10th Cavalry Brigade wandered lost in the dark, the 12th Cavalry Brigade secured the north end of the pass, taking the 2nd Lancers under brigade control. At 5:30 a.m., the 2nd Lancers emerged from the pass and attacked the rail center at Afula. By 8:00 a.m., the 4th Cavalry Division had captured Afula and linked up with the 5th Cavalry Division there, having traveled 37 miles and having fought several strong engagements in the previous 24 hours. The division concentrated its brigades at Afula and then resumed the attack at 1:00 p.m. Five hours later it had seized its next objective, the town of Beisan. At Beisan the division rested
its horses after 34 hours of marching and fighting, over a distance of 70 miles. That night, a night march by the 19th Lancers covered 20 more miles and secured the division’s final objective, the railroad bridge over the Jordan at Jisr el Majami, on the morning of September 21. The 19th Lancers had traveled 90 miles in 46 hours.
As the two cavalry’s divisions moved rapidly north and east, the AMD followed. The detached 5th LHB successfully isolated the Turks in Tul Karm and took over 1,000 prisoners. The 4th LHB was detached to secure the Corps headquarters and the 5th Cavalry Division trains from straggling Turkish elements. The remaining brigade, the 3rd LHB, and the division were ordered to intercept Turkish troops retreating north from Jenin. The lead regiment, moving as quickly as it could, covered 11 miles in 70 minutes and came on Jenin from the north in the early evening of September 19. There it surprised a defending German and Turkish force and took 1,200 prisoners. Over the rest of the night the brigade took over 8,000 prisoners as broken Turkish units streamed back to the town and fell into the hands of the light horsemen.
Three days after the offensive began, the DMC completely controlled the area from the west bank of the Jordan to the sea. The Turkish 8th Army was all but destroyed and the escape routes north for the 7th Army were all occupied. The DMC took about 15,000 prisoners. Allenby determined at this point that he would pursue the enemy to Damascus and that he would need the port of Haifa to logistically support the continuation of the campaign. In addition, aerial reconnaissance indicated that the remnants of the 7th Army were fleeing across the Jordan to the east. On September 23, Chauvel ordered the 5th Cavalry Division to seize Haifa as well as Acre 12 miles to the north. Rapid mounted action and bold cavalry charges took both towns. The 4th Cavalry Division moved south on the 23rd overrunning Turkish infantry guarding the various crossings across the Jordan River and taking an additional 9,000 prisoners. On September 24, five days after the offensive began, the 4th Cavalry Division made contact with XX Corps completing the encirclement and destruction of the Turkish 8th and 7th Armies. The next day, a charge of the 4th LHB at Samakh, south of Lake Tiberias, destroyed the last Turkish forces and reinforcing Germans.
While the DMC was in action on the west bank of the Jordan, the Chaytor Force crossed the river and began to move east. On September 25 the Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division captured Amman and 2,500 prisoners. With the capture of Amman, the Turkish 4th Army began a retreat to Damascus which quickly turned into a route. The pursuit was turned over to the DMC which dispatched the 5th Cavalry Division and the AMD west of Lake Tiberias toward Damascus, and the 4th Cavalry Division east to Deraa and from there to Damascus. By September 29, the AMD and the 5th Cavalry Division were intercepting and capturing 4th Army units being pushed toward Damascus and beyond by the 4th Cavalry Division. On 1 October 1918, the AMD entered Damascus followed quickly by the 5th Cavalry Division, and the Arab army with T. E. Lawrence. Several thousand more troops surrendered as the city was occupied. From Damascus, the 5th Cavalry Division continued the pursuit of the remaining Turks north through Hama to the ancient city of Aleppo which was captured on October 26.
On October 31, Turkey’s Grand Vizier requested an armistice. In 38 days of fighting, the EEF had advanced 350 miles, destroyed three Turkish armies, captured more than 100,000 prisoners, and caused an untold number of casualties. Its losses had been 782 killed and 4,179 wounded. Many of the mounted units had traveled more than 500 miles. The 5th Cavalry Division had covered about 550 miles and lost, in the process, about 21 percent of its horses. The DMC had accounted for about 80,000 prisoners and its total casualties were 649. One historian captured the irony of the location of the final actions of the campaign: “The greatest exploit in history of horsed cavalry and possibly their last success on a large scale, had ended,” as Wavell put it, “within a short distance of the battlefield of Issus (333 BC), where Alexander the Great first showed how battles could be won by bold and well-handled horsemen.”39
The EEF’s successful Palestine campaign was the result of careful planning and bold execution. Combined and coordinated use of artillery, infantry, the RAF, and cavalry were all essential aspects of the plan. However, what transformed the battle from a successful penetration of the 8th Turkish army’s front into a great battle of annihilation that ended in the total destruction of three armies was the adroit and bold use of cavalry. Allenby and Chauvel pushed their cavalry hard but never lost control of them. They stressed the endurance of men and horses without exceeding them. They were ruthless in punishing subordinates who did not do the same with their men and horses. The professional competence of the two cavalry generals, Allenby and Chauvel, in handling the DMC, combined with the excellent tactical skills of the English, Indian, Australian, and New Zealand regiments, was the reason a tactical success was transformed into a strategic war-winning victory.
World War I ended with mounted forces in an ambiguous position. The employment of cavalry on the war’s most decisive front, the western front, had been a complete failure. The one opportunity for maneuver, for both sides, was in the opening months of the war, and neither cavalry force (French or German) was able to achieve on its own or enable its army to obtain the type of decisive success which may have been possible before the trenches were dug. On the eastern front, cavalry had played an important role, but the chaos and confusion that transpired when the Russian revolution interrupted operations prevented any serious evaluation of lessons learned from that experience. Finally, the astounding success of mounted forces in Palestine precluded a complete disregard for the arm in the postwar world.
The development of the cavalry horse neared it final form in the years before and during World War I. Horse mastership, remount systems, and veterinary services all combined to produce the healthiest most capable cavalry mounts in the history of warfare. The quality and types of horses would not significantly change in preparation for World War II. The introduction of the forward seat created a riding style that was completely modern. The cavalry horses of the World War I era represented the bulk of the important modern breeds that remain the top riding horses into the twenty-first century.
CAVALRY IN WORLD WAR II
There was no immediate drawdown in the cavalry arm of the world’s armies after World War I. Cavalry had shown some limitations in the war, particular when opposed by prepared infantry, but the difficulty overcoming deliberate defenses, represented by trench warfare, was a military problem that was not exclusively associated with cavalry. Infantry and the new awkward tank forces, both suffered horrendous casualties attacking trench positions during the war. None of the armies in World War I discovered a definitive solution to the military problem of the trenches; without which it was not possible to determine whether the horse cavalry’s time was over.
The gradual demise of horse cavalry began in the early 1930s, not as recognition of the vulnerability of horses to modern weapons, but rather as a recognition that automotive technology was advancing to the point of being able to provide operational and tactical mobility, including cross-country, equal or superior to the horse. In the 1930s many armies concluded that vehicles could provide the mobility needed for a quick victory through maneuver. Not surprisingly, the leading industrial country in the world, the United States, led the way in automotive technology and also in replacing the horse with other more efficient forms of transportation. At first, many believed that motorcycles could replicate the horse’s mobility. However, the U.S. army, after a few years of experimentation, determined that the motorcycle was too unstable, accident prone, and maintenance intensive for large-scale use. In the American army, the vehicle that ultimately displaced the horse by demonstrating a cross-country mobility that was comparable to that of the horse, and with an overall speed and mobility that was much superior, was the jeep.
Most European powers followed a similar mechanization process. However, nowhere was it as rapid, complete, and as effective as the motorization and mechanization of the U.S. army. All other a
rmies entered World War II, and fought the war, with some type of horse component in the supply and services role as well as the combat role. The two most important cavalry forces that survived with a horse-mounted combat capability into World War II were those of the German and Russian armies.
Organization
Though only the Germans and Russians fielded large cavalry forces during World War II, numerous other nations had small contingents of cavalry including Japan, China, Italy, Romania, and Hungary. However, the large formations of Germans and Russians were the most significant and the only ones that had an impact on major operations.
German Cavalry
After World War I, German cavalry reorganized as a component of the Reichswehr, the army of the Weimar Republic. The Treaty of Versailles limited the Germans to an army of 100,000 men. The army organized into 10 divisions of which 3 were Kavallerie Divisions. The Reichswehr had 18 reiter regiments manned by a total of 16,400 men. In relative size, the mounted component of the Reichswehr was substantial.40
The German military expanded greatly after the rise of Hitler in 1933. However, this increase in size did not portend an increase in the size of the cavalry. The Nazis focused on mechanizing the German army. Through the middle and late 1930s they converted most cavalry regiments to motorized or mechanized regiments. The Germans realized that motorization promised superior mobility to the horse. Still, in 1939, on the eve of war, the German mounted forces consisted of 13 kavallerie regiments whose main mission was to support the infantry divisions with reconnaissance, and the 1st Cavalry Brigade, whose two reiter regiments were capable of independent mounted action.41