About 3 P.M., as the right flank of the 60th Division was approaching Huj, it came suddenly under a devastating fire at close range from several concealed batteries of enemy artillery, which, with two battalions of infantry, were covering the withdrawal of the VIIIth Army headquarters. The country was rather like Salisbury Plain, rolling down-land without any cover, and our troops suffered severely from the murderous fire. Major-General Shea, commanding the division, finding Colonel Gray-Cheape of the Warwick Yeomanry close by him, requested him to charge the enemy guns at once. Colonel Cheape collected a few troops of his own regiment that he had with him, and some of the Worcester Yeomanry, and led them away to the right front. Taking advantage of a slight rise in the ground to the east of the enemy position, he succeeded in leading his troops to within 800 yards of the Turkish guns unseen. He then gave the order to charge, and the ten troops galloped over the rise, and raced down upon the flank of the enemy guns. The Turks had in position a battery of field and one of mountain guns, with four machine guns on a low hill between the two batteries, and three heavy howitzers behind.
As our cavalry appeared, thundering over the rise, the Turks sprang to their guns and swung them round, firing point-blank into the charging horsemen. The infantry, leaping on the limbers, blazed away with their rifles till they were cut down. There was no thought of surrender; every man stuck to his gun or rifle to the last. The leading troops of the cavalry dashed into the first enemy battery. The following troops, swinging to the right, took the three heavy howitzers almost in their stride, leaving the guns silent, the gun crews dead or dying, and galloped round the hill, to fall upon the mountain battery from the rear, and cut the Turkish gunners to pieces in a few minutes. The third wave, passing the first battery, where a fierce sabre v. bayonet fight was going on between our cavalry and the enemy, raced up the slope at the machine guns. Many saddles were emptied in that few yards, but the charge was irresistible. In a few minutes the enemy guns were silenced, their crews killed, and the whole position was in our hands.
Most of the Turkish infantry escaped, as our small force of cavalry was too scattered and cut up by the charge to be able to pursue them, but few of the enemy gunners lived to fight again. About seventy of them were killed outright, and a very large number were wounded.
This was the first time that our troops had 'got home' properly with the modern, cavalry thrusting sword, and an examination of the enemy dead afterwards proved what a fine weapon it is. Our losses were heavy. Of the 170 odd who took part in the charge, seventy-five were killed and wounded, and all within a space of ten minutes. In this charge, as in all others during the campaign, it was noticeable how many more horses were killed than men. Apart from the fact that a horse presents a much bigger target than a man, it is probably that infantry, and especially machine gunners, when suddenly charged by cavalry, have a tendency to fire 'into the brown,' where the target looks thickest, which is about the middle of the horses' bodies, thus dropping many horses but failing to kill their riders. A man whose horse is brought down is, however, by no means done with, as the Turks learnt to their cost. In this, as in subsequent charges, many a man whose horse had been shot under him, extricated himself from his fallen mount, and, seizing rifle and bayonet, rushed on into the fight.
It is sad to have to relate that the gallant officer who led this great charge, met his death subsequently, not on the field of battle as he would have wished, but in the Mediterranean, when the transport that was taking him and his regiment to France for the final act of the war, was torpedoed and sunk by an enemy submarine.[11]
The action was of interest as an indication of what may be accomplished, under suitable conditions, by even a very small force of cavalry when resolutely led. The charge was made on the spur of the moment, with little preliminary reconnaissance of the ground, without fire support, and with the equivalent of little more than one squadron of cavalry. It resulted in the capture of eleven guns and four machine guns, and the complete destruction of a strong point of enemy resistance, at a cost of seventy-five casualties.
There was considerable divergence of opinion in the cavalry as to the best method to be employed in a mounted attack. As there were no reliable precedents in modern warfare, with its machine guns and quick-firing artillery, brigadiers had been given a free hand to develop the tactics they favoured, subject to the principle that fire support should always be provided if available, and that the line of fire and the direction of the mounted attack should be as nearly as possible at right angles to one another.
Prior to the operations the 5th Mounted Brigade had been practising the following method for the attack of lightly entrenched troops. A regiment charged in column of squadrons in line, with a distance of 150 to 200 yards between squadrons. The leading squadron charged with the sword, and, having passed over the enemy position, galloped straight on to attack any supports that might be coming up. The remainder of the regiment charged without swords. The second squadron galloped over the trench while the enemy troops were still in a state of confusion, dismounted on the farther side, and attacked from the rear with the bayonet. The third squadron dismounted before reaching the trench, and went in with the bayonet from the front. Two machine guns accompanied this last squadron, and came into action on one or both flanks, as the situation demanded, to deal with any counter-attack that might develop. If more than one regiment took part in the attack, the machine guns, of course, moved on the outer flanks of the regiments.
Unfortunately this brigade never had an opportunity of putting this method to the test, but the 4th A.L.H. Brigade used it in a modified form at Beersheba, with excellent results.
The wisdom of accompanying a mounted attack by one or two machine guns was generally recognised, and in most cases where a charge was made deliberately and after due preparation, and the guns were available, this method of support was employed.