The charge of Beersheba by the Australian Light Horse took place on 31 October 1917, during the third Battle of Gaza in Palestine.
It was October 31, 1917, and men of the Australian Light Horse Brigade were about to make an extraordinary attempt on the fortified desert town of Beersheba, in what is now Israel.
The 4th and 12th regiments had ridden through the desert all night, bridles and stirrups muffled to silence their advance. The dust was so thick that even in daylight the troopers.
Decisive victory at Beersheba fell to one of the last great cavalry charges in history, in which men of the Australian Light Horse swept into the town's centre to secure crucial water wells, along the way engaging in fierce hand to hand combat with entrenched Ottoman defenders. Despite outnumbering the Ottoman garrison at Beersheba by more than 10 to 1, were it not for the Light Horse charge in the late afternoon, the town would not have fallen to Allied attack before nightfall.
While the 4th Regiment dismounted at the trenches to confront the awed enemy (ultimately taking over 700 prisoners), the 12th Regiment further surprised the Turks by continuing their furious charge over the trenches and straight on to the town, capturing it before the Turkish forces could regroup or destroy the wells in a retreat.
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