The Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division was a mounted infantry division of the British Empire during World War I. The division was raised in March 1916 and was assigned to the I ANZAC Corps. On establishment, it consisted of four brigades comprising three Australian Light Horse and one New Zealand mounted rifles, supported by British horse artillery. In 1917, one of the Australian brigades was replaced by a British yeomanry brigade. After April 1917, the standard order of battle was reduced to two Australian brigades and one New Zealand brigade, although the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade and other British mounted brigades were temporarily attached several times during operations.
The division had two wartime commanders; the first was the Australian Major-General Harry Chauvel, who had commanded the 1st Light Horse Brigade at Gallipoli. When Chauvel was promoted to command the Desert Columnof which the division was parthe was replaced by the New Zealander Major-General Edward Chaytor from the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, who remained in command for the rest of the war. Post-war, Brigadier-General Granville Ryrie commanded the division from December 1918 until it was disbanded in June 1919.
In December 1915, the brigades that would form the ANZAC Mounted Division were evacuated from the Gallipoli Campaign and became part of the British Empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force. In March 1916, after raising the division served, as the mounted formation, in the I ANZAC Corps. Then subsequently served under the command of Eastern Force for most of 1916. The division served in the Desert Column from the end of 1916 until mid-1917, when the column was expanded and renamed the Desert Mounted Corps. The division fought and won almost all the major battles across the Sinai Peninsula during 1916, and the following year it fought from Gaza to Jerusalem in southern Palestine. In 1918, it took part in the Jordan Valley operations, the raid on Amman, the raid on Es Salt and the final advance to Amman and Ziza, part of the Battle of Megiddo. During which the division formed the main part of Chaytor's Forcewhich captured 10,300 men from the Turkish Fourth Army.
Etymology
The division is variously referred to in sources as the Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division, (abbreviated to the A. & N. Z. Mounted Division), the ANZAC Mounted Division, or the Anzac Mounted Division.
Formation history
Prior to formation, units that would form the division's brigades served as part of the Force in Egypt from December 1914, and then in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, from May to December 1915, during the Gallipoli Campaign. At Gallipoli, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Light Horse Brigades and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade served dismounted in the New Zealand and Australian Division. Them returned to Egypt where the ANZAC Mounted Division was formed in March 1916; and assigned to the I ANZAC Corps as its mounted formation. The brigades consisted of three regiments, each with an establishment of twenty-five officers and 497 other ranks serving in three squadrons, of six troops. Not all the division's troops came from Australia and New Zealand; the artillery units, with 18-pounders, and the Divisional Ammunition Column were provided by the British Royal Horse Artillery from the Territorial Force. The brigade's four batteries were each allocated to a fighting brigade. The 1st Light Horse Brigade had the Leicestershire Battery; the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, the Ayrshire Battery; the 3rd Light Horse Brigade, the Inverness-shire Battery, and the Somerset Battery was attached to the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade. To replace the 3rd Light Horse Brigade, which had been assigned to the Imperial Mounted Division in January 1917, the British 22nd Mounted Brigade joined the division from February to July 1917. Serving alongside them were several smaller support units, which included an engineer field squadron, a signal squadron, and a divisional train.
The first General Officer Commanding (GOC) Major-General Harry Chauvel, appointed 16 March,
Service history
Sinai
On 15 March, the ANZAC Mounted Division relieved the 1st Australian Division, on the front line. Later the same month, the 2nd and the New Zealand Brigades were moved into the Sinai Desert in response to the defeat at Katia of the 5th Mounted Brigade. By the end of the month, the division had been established around Romani in the Sinai. Here the brigade machine-gun squadrons were formed; each had eight officers and 222 other ranks,
On 19 July, reconnaissance aircraft located between 8–9,000 Turkish soldiers approaching the division's prepared positions. The Battle of Romani was the division's first major victory. The advance to contact without infantry support, which began the next day, was defeated at Bir el Abd by a stronger Turkish force.
In September, the division was involved in a "reconnaissance in force" to Mazar, east of Romani. They were discovered en route by German aircraft and the although the operation failed, it persuaded Turkish commanders to evacuate the position two days later. On 11 November, the division was ordered to move east towards Masaid and El Arish on the coast. The division entered the latter on 21 December to find the Turkish garrison had withdrawn. The next day, Lieutenant-General Philip Chetwode, commanding the Desert Column, arrived and ordered the divisionsupported by the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade (ICCB) to attack Magdhaba. Travelling overnight, most of the division was in position by dawn 23 December. Using the additional strength of the camel brigade, and at times fighting hand to hand, Chauvel's attack on Magdhaba was the division's second victory. Turkish casualties were ninety-seven dead, three hundred wounded and 1,282 prisoners, while the division's were twenty-three dead and 124 wounded.
On 8 January 1917, the division, still with the ICCB under command, continued the advance towards the pre-war Egypt-Palestine border at Rafa. They moved from El Arish to Rafa overnight and by 07:00 they were ready for the assault to begin. The Battle of Rafa, although harder fought, became the division's third victory. Total casualties were seventy-one dead and 415 wounded for the division and the 5th Mounted Brigade who were also involved. Against this, Turkish casualties were two hundred dead, 168 wounded and 1,434 prisoners.
Gaza
thumb|Lighthorseman, horse, and their equipment
In February 1917, just before the division moved forward to take part in the first battle for Gaza, the British 22nd Mounted Brigadea yeomanry brigade from the Territorial Forcejoined the division. The first reconnaissance of the Turkish position at Gaza was carried out by the 3rd Light Horse Brigade on 25 March. The rest of the Desert Column moved forward that night. British intelligence had estimated that Gaza garrison comprised around four thousand troops, with their nearest reinforcements away. In fact they had around 15,000 troops based within of Gaza. The division's objective was to circle the town to the east and provide a screen against a counter-attack from the north. At 02:30 on 26 March, the division moved out; by 06:00, ground fogwhich had covered the infantry and mounted advancelifted and they were discovered by a Turkish patrol. The division's nearest troops charged the Turks and came upon an airfield where two German aircraft took off, turned and attacked the mounted troops. The division responded; one squadron per regiment dismounted and returned fire. By sunrise, the division was behind the Turkish lines and engaged in several skirmishes. During the light horse advance to the coast north of Gaza, the Turkish GOC responsible for the Gaza defences was taken prisoner. The 53rd (Welsh) Division had been responsible for the attack on the town; by 13:00, they had not made much progress and were held down by strong defences. The ANZAC Mounted Division was ordered at 15:15 to prepare for a dismounted assault. Chauvel completed his concentration within an hour. Then, fighting hand to hand and using their bayonets, the division reached the outskirts of the town. The New Zealand and the 2nd Light Horse Brigades entered the town from the north and west. At 18:00, Lieutenant General Charles Macpherson Dobell, GOC Eastern Force, and Chetwode agreed to call off the attack towards nightfall, due to their belief that there was a lack of progress, and the approaching threat from Turkish reinforcements. According to Gullett, the error in that decision can perhaps be demonstrated by the lack of any Turkish intervention to the division's regrouping and withdrawal back to their own lines. At 21:30, the Turkish reinforcements were still several miles away; one group confronted by the 3rd Light Horse Brigade immediately stopped advancing. In Chetwode's post-action report, he says that the time taken for the division to regroup was caused by them retrieving their wounded from inside Gaza. British wireless operators intercepted a Turkish Army message from Gaza, timed at 19:45, reporting that their position had been lost.
The failure at Gaza resulted in the Turkish Army building a long defence line between Gaza and Beersheba, defended by 20–25,000 troops. Dobell's plan for the second battle required his infantry to assault Gaza itself while the mounted forces would operate on their right flank, to force the Turkish troops towards Beersheba, hinder the movement of reinforcements from there to Gaza, and prepare to pursue any retreating Turkish forces.
Preliminary manoeuvring began on 16 April and the main attack would start the next day. At 02:00, the division was in position at Shellal. Reconnaissance patrols convinced Chauvel they would be unable to break through the Ottoman line without infantry support. The main infantry battle began at 07:15 on 19 April following a two-hour bombardment, with the division deployed to attack Sausage Ridge on the extreme right of the three British infantry division's assault at Gaza. The division suffered severe casualties while it was comparatively inactive during the infantry attacks. However, during the previous night of 18/19 April, Chauvelunder orders not to make a dismounted attackmoved towards the Hareira Redoubt to protect the army's right. In the morning of 19 April, the 1st and 3rd Light Horse Brigades advanced without opposition. However, by mid-afternoon they were confronted by around one thousand Turkish cavalrymen, whom they fought off with rifle, machine-gun and artillery fire. By 20 April, the attack had halted in a decisive victory for the Turkish forces. The attack cost the British 5,900 casualties, but only 105 of those were from the division the fewest of any involved.