In the desert we have written our names

This story traces the history of the Australian Light Horse from it’s inception during the Boer War through to the end of the Great War. Presented by Mark Lee using film footage from the Australian War Memorial, extracts from “Forty Thousand Horsemen”, soldiers diaries such as Ion L Iddriess, letters from Major Gen.Sir Henry George Chauvel, Djemal Pasha the Turkish Commander and letters and photos from the estate of Alice Chisholm an Australian woman who ran a Soldiers Club during the Middle East Campaign. It is a story of the men, their famous Waler horses and their great commander Harry Chauvel. Part 1: Saving the Suez - explains why, where and how the Light Horse came into being, their battlefields in the Boer War, World War I at Gallipoli and the beginning of the campaigns in the Middle East. Considered undisciplined by the English High Command because the men “refused to salute anyone they didn’t respect” while their Australian Officers appealed to their common sense and so formed an Espirit de Corp. Part 2: A Dash through the desert - takes over the story of the Light Horse stopping the Turks at the Suez canal and then beginning the offensive by taking the following towns- Kantarra, El Arish, Magdhaba, Rafa, Gaza, Beersheba, then onto Damascus and Jerusalem. They fought the Turks with gallantry, pride and determination yet retained respect for their enemy. “A trooper’s first duty is to his horse, then his equipment”, of the 150,000 horses that went to War, only 1 returned. Most of the good ones went to the Indian Army and the rest were shot, this order was due to quarrantine regulations. Politics (both internal and external) influenced how the Australian Light Horse are immortalised into Australian history.