by Honor Auckinlech
On 13th March 1917, General Sir Harry Chauvel wrote to his wife Sibyl’ ‘We are having a race meeting at Rafa on Monday next, and I am giving a cup for the “Anzac Steeplechase”. There is also the “Syrian Derby” a cup given by Sir Phillip Chetwode; the “Promised Land Stakes”, the “Border Plate”; and the “Jerusalem Scurry” (for mules). I am also one of the stewards, and I’m running a horse in the Anzac Steeple. We are looking forward to a good day’s sport. If a ‘Boche’ plane comes over it will be rather puzzled as to what the crowd is!’
Just over two months after the battle of Rafa on 10th January and less than a week before the First Battle of Gaza on 26th-27th March 1917, on 21st March, General Sir Harry Chauvel wrote, ‘We have had a great day today, – the races at Rafa – and I don’t know when I have enjoyed a day’s racing so much. The course was lovely – beautiful green grass in a large natural amphitheatre – right in the middle of the battlefield of Rafa! The Turk’s trenches and rifle-pits need a little dodging when laying out the course, but that was all, and the jumps were sandbag walls with brushwood on top. My division won five out of the six horse races, and out of the other three, one, the Anzac Steeplechase was won by a 3rd Light Horse Brigade horse. My own horse, Bally, ran third in the Anzac Steeplechase. I ran him in my groom’s name, as I was giving the cup. I think the results were very creditable to our horses, considering there were so many English hunters and well-bred horses about.’
General Chauvel goes to tell his wife that he’s sending the programme which includes the ‘Battle of Romani’ by the Pipe Band. ‘It is a beautiful thing’, he explains, ‘written by Lt Colonel Maclean, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who is A.A.&Q.M.G. with the Scottish Territorial Division (52nd Division) which was with us so long at Romani.’
Eighteen months earlier on Gallipoli, Chauvel had understood the role of race meetings on the morale of the battle weary. On 8th November 1915, from Headquarters 1st Division, Chauvel wrote to his wife, ‘I am enclosing a copy of the “Peninsula Press” with the results of the Melbourne Cup in it. These were inserted at my instigation. We had a sweep in my Brigade, & we wanted the results as soon as possible, so I gave General Birdwood a hint that it would be taken as a compliment by the Australian troops if they were cabled for, & inserted in the “Press”.
The entry [1] records, ‘We have to thank the Eastern Telegraph Company for the following cable giving the results of the racing for the Melbourne Cup: (1) Patrobus, (2) Westcourt (3) Carlita (4) Garlin. Patrobus won by half a neck; the betting was 8 to 1. Westcourt (betting 50 to 1) was second by a length: Garlita (betting 7 to 1) was third by a length. The betting on Garlin was 25 to 1.’
Chauvel was not to know that Patrobus’s breeding could be traced back to P and W Mitchell whose horse Trafalgar had been beaten in the exciting 1910 Melbourne Cup by half a neck by Comedy King. Trafalgar’s grandsire was Carbine, the winner of the 1890 Melbourne Cup. Walter Mitchell, partner of Peter Mitchell in the P and W Mitchell partnership was the father of his future son-in-law, Tom Mitchell.
Six years later on August 16th 1921 Chauvel wrote to Sibyl, “I forgot to tell you in my letters the story of the horse-mail at Gallipoli. After the Suvla Bay landing in August 1915, we found it necessary to organise a despatch-rider service between Headquarters at Suvla & Headquarters at Anzac. The distance was six miles, & almost the whole of the ride was exposed to rifle-fire from the Turkish trenches on the ridges over-looking it. The mail used to leave Suvla in the morning and return from Anzac in the afternoon. It had to be done at the gallop, & the rider was fired at from the moment he left the shelter of Lala Baba until he reached the wide communication trench near Anzac, — & yet all the Light Horsemen, Mounted Rifles & Yeomanry were tumbling over one another to get the job, & fortunate indeed was considered the Regiment which had to find the men for the duty! It was one of the daily entertainments. Everyone on the left of Anzac knew the moment the mail had left Suvla by the rattle of Turkish musketry which commenced on the extreme left, & continued along the line until the rider was safely in the communication trench. Strangely enough, this went on for nearly three months before either rider or horse was hit.”
The horse-mail was a strange form of racing – perhaps one in which fate determines who lives and dies.
Chauvel was on leave in England for the Melbourne Cup 1916. While undoubtedly he would have ensured that he and his wife Sibyl would have placed bets and have received the results without delay, there is no record of how they marked the day.
On 9th September 1917, Chauvel once again writes to his wife describing how he had attended the sports of the Camel Brigade. ‘I have never seen anything so funny in my life as the Musical Chairs on Camels! The men had to ride bare back round and round a big ring while the band was playing, and when it stopped, had to dismount and lead their camels up to the “chairs” (which were sandbags half filled, standing on end) in the middle of the ring, and hold the camels while they sat down. As a camel dislikes being hurried beyond all things, and objects to going out of a walk when he is being led, it is not always the smartest man who got to the “chair” first, especially when the chairs were getting reduced in number. You never saw anything so ridiculous as the camels keeping time to the music—one of them started waltzing in the middle of the ring and the umpires could not keep him out.’
Less than two months later, Chauvel and the Desert Mounted Corps were in a race of a different kind in which, following the losses of the two battles at Gaza the previous spring, the Promised Land Stakes couldn’t have been higher late in the afternoon of 31st October 1917 to the east of Beersheba. Describing the battle in February 1922, Chauvel said, ‘The 4th Brigade got off about half past four, trotted onto the plain, & then rode at the trenches, charging them mounted, & galloping straight on into the town which was in our possession by dark. By this mounted action, Grant had done in a few minutes, with two regiments & fewer casualties, what it would probably have taken two brigades, dismounted, a couple of hours to do. So far as I know, such a charge by mounted men against entrenched infantry is unique in the annals of cavalry.’
The Wells of Beersheba didn’t yield all the water that was needed and in the days following the charge at Beersheba Von Kressenstein kept the Desert Mounted Corps busy to the north of the town. On 15th November Sir Harry wrote to his wife’ ‘I wrote to you last from a place called Huj, north-east of Gaza. Since then I’ve had no time to write as we have been moving so quickly, & fighting all the time.’ In Chauvel’s letters, it seems that the 1917 Melbourne Cup results were lost in the fog of war, having given way to a much bigger race – the British Prime Minister wanted Jerusalem as a ‘Christmas present for the British people’, – the Promised Land Stakes had never been higher. Some called it ‘The Great Ride’ that finished a year later in Damascus.
Almost a year later in March 1918, equine events were back on the agenda with Hodgson holding a horse show and sports. Chauvel wrote ‘There was great competition between the Australians and the yeomanry regiments, & the Australians held their own very well. The turn-outs of the wagons and teams would have graced any show ring, & most of these events were won by Australians. One of the jumping events was won by a young doctor from Rockhampton, Stuart, & one of the finest efforts was put up by an Australian chaplain who would certainly have won had not his horse fallen at the last fence. This event was won by an English chaplain, a hunting parson from Leicestershire! The officers’ race was won, to our great surprise, by the A.D.M.S of the Australian Mounted Division, Lt Col Dixon, who rode himself, & who is one of the last men one would accuse of being even a horsey man’.
‘I had a great day’s racing with Fitzgerald’s Brigade[2] (22nd Mounted Brigade). They did the things so well. It was close to Gaza & on such a pretty course. I have never seen a race meeting better carried out. There were seven races, of which three were steeplechases. In the big steeple – the Palestine Grand National – my old horse Bally which was very unfit, ran fourth in a field of eighteen, nearly all of which were English hunters, & several steeple chase performers in the Old Country. He was very nicely ridden by young Gilpin, Claude Roma’s A.D.C. who thoroughly enjoyed his ride. I did not expect him to win as the old horse was very soft, & short of work. He got very low in condition last summer, so I sent him back to Allan [Chauvel who was serving at the Remount Depot in Moascar], & he has been feeding him up on green stuff. I ran another horse in one of the flat races, but he did not do any good. I am glad I ran them, & the Brigade was very pleased at my doing so. I won a few pounds on the tote, too! I’m running both horses again at the races of Clarke’s Brigade (7th Mounted Brigade) next Saturday.
As my grandmother only transcribed the letters my grandfather wrote while he was on active service, I have no primary source accounts of race meetings such as the Cairo Cup held after peace was declared on 30th October 1918.
If war can have a silver lining for anyone, it was for Chauvel’s magnificent bay hack Bally who’d run at the Rafa Races and again a year later at Fitzgerald’s Brigade’s day’s racing. On 11th April 1930 when Chauvel was contemplating his forthcoming retirement in Melbourne, the evening Herald reported that ‘As late as 1919, at Aldershot, England, Baldy [Bally] won the championships of the army for the handy jump.’
According to the Herald writer, ‘At the end of the war 300 mares were being shipped from Alexandria to England as remounts for the standing army. Somehow when the shipment came to be counted out of the transport there were 298 mares and two geldings. One was [Bally], the other Plain Bill, General Granville Ryrie’s charger.’ (In a letter dated 28th March 1919 from my grandmother to her elder son Ian, she explained, ‘Bally has just gone to England with Colonel Farr.’) As was often the case where there were Australian Light Horsemen involved, where there was a will there was a way!
‘Plain Bill went to a high staff officer and [Bally] to Capt W P Hill at Aldershot. The two took part in many a hunt in England.’ Where many horses were sold locally in Egypt, Bally and Plain Bill achieved a wonderful retirement. Perhaps it was a sadness for Chauvel that Bally was to remain in England while he returned with his family to Australia. Chauvel had endured other partings with his equine friends – in 1888 when he was unable to afford veterinary bills, he had to sell ‘Beggar Boy’ to someone who was better able to pay for his care. If Chauvel were still alive, he would be able to tell his own stories of his horses.
While Bally and Plain Bill didn’t enjoy a homecoming, they had a future, something that many other horses who had been through much of the Campaign in Palestine were denied. During the war, provoking public outcry among the British and Commonwealth residents in Cairo, horses that had suffered injury and disease and were unfit for service were sold locally. So far my research shows that at the conclusion of the War there were some 22,000 horses in Palestine and Egypt. The Remounts Directorate at the War Office in London ordered the sale of sound horses of 12 years and under. Those over 12 and the unsound were to be destroyed. There were 13,000 Australian horses, of which 2,000 were destined for slaughter and the remaining 11,000 were sold with most going to India as remounts for the British Army. [3] Australian and New Zealand quarantine regulations proved to be another stumbling block preventing the repatriation of horses to the Antipodes. As Trooper Bluegum, also known as Major Oliver Hogue wrote some Light Horsemen decided,
‘No, I think I’d better shoot him and tell a little lie:
“He foundered in a wombat hole and then lay down to die.”
Maybe I’ll get court-martialled; but I’m damned if I’m inclined
To go back to Australia and leave my horse behind.’[4]
Author and wife of military history publisher Leo Cooper, Jilly wrote ‘It was the good General [Major-General Sir George] Barrow[5] who looked the other way when the officers of the Desert Mounted Corps took their favourite charges far out in the desert and shot them.’[6]
It took another 12 years after the First World War ended before a silver lining began to appear in the clouds for those horses that had been sold and bought locally to work as beasts of burden in stone quarries. Perhaps it was fortuitous that in his poem The Horses Stay Behind, Trooper Bluegum suggested:
‘Perhaps some English tourist out in Palestine may find
My heart-broken waler with a wooden plough behind.’
In 1930, Dorothy Brooke – wife of Major-General Geoffrey Brooke – arrived in Cairo and began raising money to establish ‘The Old War Horse Campaign of Rescue’. The rest of the story is history, suffice to say that Dorothy Brooke’s legacy lives in the work of the Brooke Charity and in the inspiration of Michael Morpurgo’s widely acclaimed play War Horse. Purple poppies can be worn alongside red poppies in memory of the animals that served.
As for Chauvel, he was not long without a horse. ‘Digger’ was awaiting his arrival in Melbourne and it was Digger that was brought to his house each morning and that he rode round the Tan.
Meanwhile, following the Chauvel family return to Melbourne, race fixtures and other equine events became a regular feature on the Chauvel’s calendar. On 28th April 1922, Chauvel was photographed talking to Admiral and Mrs Napier at the King’s Cup at Flemington by Table Talk. In October 1935 at the Moonee Valley Gold Cup, Table Talk again records Sir Harry and Lady Chauvel were out together. She wore a tailored navy coat and a navy and white frock with her navy straw hat which was liberally trimmed with white’. [7] There is a further record of Sir Harry and Lady Chauvel attending the races on 11th November 1937 at Flemington with their daughter Elyne and son-in-law Tom Mitchell – this was the last race meeting they attended together at Flemington. In 1938 Tom and Elyne were overseas and by Race Week 1939, the Second World War had broken out. Sir Harry became Inspector-in-Chief of the Volunteer Defence Corps while in April 1941 Tom joined the 8th Division 2AIF in Malaya. After Singapore fell on 15 February 1942, Tom became a Prisoner of War. Sir Harry died on 4th March 1945 and Tom returned in October 1945.
As one of Chauvel’s granddaughters, I have no doubt that I was taught to ride in accordance with my grandfather’s overriding principle that the rider should always think of his mount before himself. I can only think that like the men who served with him in the Desert Mounted Corps, Chauvel’s relationship with his horses as being one of great respect. The fate of the horses who had served so well and so faithfully during the war years must have been a great sadness to him and his men. In Sydney on the southwest outside wall of the Royal Botanic Gardens and almost opposite the Mitchell Library, there is a plaque entitled the ‘Horses of the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial’. On Anzac Day 1950 Lady Sibyl Chauvel unveiled the memorial. The inscription explains that the memorial was ‘erected by members of the Desert Mounted Corps and friends to the Gallant Horses who carried them over Sinai Desert into Palestine 1915 – 1918′.[8]
Other Writers
Henry P Bostock (10th Light Horse) in his book The Great Ride records while on leave in August 1917, ‘On a visit to the races we met two Australian nurses and took them to the theatre that night’. [9]. Later on 12th June 1919 (Mansourah), Bostock records: ‘The Brigade held a race meeting and the unkind remarks in my diary refer to the horses as being all sorts of queer looking animals called ‘race horses’ training on the track at sunrise and again in the evening. However, the meeting was a great success, fellows becoming instant bookmakers and the money flowed freely’.
‘The meeting was so successful that a bigger and better meeting was held on Saturday, 21st June. Large marquee tents were erected for shade and, of course, one was set aside for drinks. Invitations were sent to all other units and as far away as Cairo and Alexandria. Many Europeans attended. Some uninvited ladies from Cairo attended the meetings, causing some embarrassment to some of the higher rankers, who were paying much attention to their English lady friends. It was rumoured that some prankster had sent them invitations. Who that was, we never did know. However the meeting was a huge success—our final in Egypt’. [10]
Racing at war also included the mounted tug-of-war, wrestling on horseback and jumping events. See The Kia Ora Coo-ee: The Magazine for the ANZACS in the Middle East. 1918 (Cornstalk Publishing, 1981, p.13)
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For readers who are interested in the stories of other animals with wartime roles, Jilly Cooper’s compelling book Animals in War (2000) recounts the stories, suffering, and fates of dogs, pigeons, camels, and mules. Jilly’s book inspired fundraising for the Animals in War Memorial, a beautiful sculptural installation on Park Lane in London.
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Endnotes
[1] Peninsula Press (Monday, 8th November 1915, No. 87, Official News, R. E. Printing Section, G.H.Q., M.E.F)
[2] Fitzgerald’s and Clarke’s Brigade were Yeomanry and not Light Horse. It was the bit about Bally that made my grandmother include the account.
[3] Horses in War (en.m.wikipedia.org)
[4] Trooper Bluegum, ‘The Horses Stay Behind’ in Australia in Palestine (Sydney: Angus & Robertson Ltd. 1919, p.78)
[5] GOC of the Yeomanry Division in Cairo.
[6] Jilly Cooper Animals in War (Corgi Books, 2000, p.65)
[7] Table Talk (October 31, 1935, p.45)
[8] https://www.warmemorialsregister.nsw.gov.au/content/horses-desert-mounted-corps-memorial
[9] Bostock, Henry P., The Great Ride (Perth: Artful Books Western Australia, 1982, p.88)
[10] Ibid. p.216