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Overview

We have our bush legends like The Man from Snowy River and Clancy of the Overflow, however the men of the Australian Light Horse Brigade in World War I were real. Their legacy is profound and all Australians can be proud to be just a small part of that legacy.

The Light Horsemen had an amazing affinity with their horses. Some took their own, others broke in new mounts, looking after them while travelling overseas and keeping them all through the desert campaigns. They rode Australian stock horses, a mixture of Thoroughbred, Arab, Timor pony and wild Brumby. Known as Walers, because the first ones came from New South Wales...they had a reputation for grit, sure-footedness and stamina.

The tradition of Light Horsemen wearing emu plumes in their slouch hats, started with the Queensland Mounted Infantry, back in the 1890s. Mounted troopers used to test their skills by racing after wild emus. When they caught one, still at a gallop, they’d pull out a couple of the terrified bird's chest feathers and proudly tuck them into their hatbands. Despite some objections from Queensland regiments, emu feathers caught on to become the proud symbol of all Australian Light Horsemen. Sometimes called 'kangaroo feathers', they were something not to be insulted by anyone.

The Light Horse were not cavalry, but highly mobile, mounted infantry. In the battlefields of the Middle East their speed, toughness and tenacity made them worthy allies and feared enemies.

The Light Horsemens' finest hour came on 31 October 1917, with one of the most audacious actions in modern warfare... the charge at Beersheba. In a last ditch effort to save the attacking British army from disaster, they were to attempt the near impossible, a cavalry charge across five kilometres of open desert, against 4,400 entrenched infantry, supported by machine guns and artillery. Surely a suicide mission.

Three lines of Light Horsemen a mile wide, thundered across the dusty plain. Screaming like banshees and brandishing bayonets that glinted in the dying sun, they were terrifying, unstoppable. The Turkish lines were breached and the day won. Amazingly, only 36 out of those gallant 800 Light Horsemen lost their lives in that incredible charge.

Beersheba was the last successful cavalry charge in history, yet it was made by men who were neither cavalry nor professional soldiers. They were volunteers, mostly from the outback and the bush, who had been formed only three years earlier.

The Light Horse tradition proudly lives on in Royal Australian Armoured Corps, Cavalry units, equipped not with horses, but light armoured vehicles.

The legendary men of the Light Horse inspire all of us to this day. Their amazing exploits are a perfect example of sacrifice and achievement. Their inspiration lives on.

At the age of 19, Trooper Ernest Craggs of the 12th Light Horse Regiment was the first soldier to fall during the charge of Beersheba. Although his life was tragically cut short, Trooper Craggs embodied all that was special and unique about our Australian Soldiers.

His commanding officer Lieutenant Edward Ralston recalled in a letter to his mother that ‘the day before the fight he was laughing and joking as usual and was full of spirit all through the long night ride.

He rode into action just behind me and the last I saw of him, he was standing in his stirrups and cheering'.