31/10/2026
This is what we should be commemorating today in Australia not an imported celebration being Halloween, for on the 31th of October 1917, as daylight faded across the Negev Desert, Australian Light Horse Divisions had secured the town of Beersheba, bringing to a close a crucial battle in the Sinai Palestine Campaign of World War One.
The Battle of Beersheba was a pivot upon which turned the fortunes of Allied efforts against the Ottoman and German Empires in the Middle Eastern Theatre of the war. It demonstrated the success of Manoeuvre Warfare in the region, and the power of mounted troops to rapidly redefine the outcome of a battle.
Decisive victory at Beersheba fell to one of the last great charges of mounted troops in history. As Australian Light Horse Divisions captured the town and secured crucial water wells, their success also marked the beginning of the end of the war in the Middle East. This end came exactly a year to the day after success at Beersheba.
On the 31st October 1917, in the Negev desert, north of the Sinai Peninsula, British, Australian and New Zealand armies of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, fought a day-long battle to take the town of Beersheba.
Success at Beersheba was a significant moment in the broader Sinai-Palestine Offensive, which continued for almost the entire duration of the war, and which had begun in January 1915 with Ottoman raids upon the Suez Canal.
After two failed attempts to take Gaza, Beersheba broadened the Southern Palestine offensive, launching the Allied forces further north into Palestine and leading to the capture of an undamaged Jerusalem by the end of 1917.
Almost one year to the day after the Battle of Beersheba, the Sinai-Palestine Offensive concluded on the 30 October 1918, with the Armistice of Mudros which led to the cession of the territories of Ottoman Syria and Palestine, and the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire. In the history of the Middle Eastern Theatre of World War One, the Battle of Beersheba was a pivot upon which the fortunes of the Allied efforts against the Central Powers of the German and Ottoman Empires turned.
It demonstrated the success of Manoeuvre Warfare against an entrenched enemy with a weakened defence, and the power of mounted troopers to rapidly redefine the outcome of a battle.
Decisive victory at Beersheba fell to one of the last great cavalry charges in history, in which men of the Australian Light Horse swept into the town's centre to secure crucial water wells, along the way engaging in fierce hand to hand combat with entrenched Ottoman defenders. Despite outnumbering the Ottoman garrison at Beersheba by more than 10 to 1, were it not for the Light Horse charge in the late afternoon, the town would not have fallen to Allied attack before nightfall. Nor would so many of the crucial wells have survived a more protracted fight. General Edmund Allenby, commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force for the Southern Palestine Offensive, later summarised, "The Turks at Beersheba were undoubtedly taken completely by surprise, a surprise from which the dash of London troops and Yeomanry, finely supported by their artillery, never gave them time to recover. The charge of the Australian Light Horse completed their defeat."
