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COWLEY, Robert Collister (1889-1960)

_{7th Australian Light Horse Regiment, 2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade – Beersheba, Es Salt, Damascus}

The Judea Hills were a far cry from the Southern Highlands of New South Wales and for Robert Collister Cowley of the 7th Australian Light Horse Regiment they would have seemed much further away as he lay bleeding in the dust near the Hebron Road, a Turkish bullet had ripped through his shoulder and out again through his back.

The 7th Light Horse Regiment was raised in Sydney in October 1914 from men who had enlisted in New South Wales and became part of the 2nd Light Horse Brigade. Sailing from Sydney in late December 1914, the regiment disembarked in Egypt on 1 February 1915.

The light horsemen were considered unsuitable for the initial operations at Gallipoli but were subsequently deployed without their horses to reinforce the infantry. The 2nd Light Horse Brigade landed in late May 1915 and was attached to the 1st Australian Division. The 7th Light Horse became responsible for a sector on the far right of the ANZAC line and played a defensive role until it finally left the peninsula on 20 December 1915.

Back in Egypt, the 2nd Light Horse Brigade became part of the ANZAC Mounted Division and, in April 1916, joined the forces defending the Suez Canal from a Turkish advance across the Sinai Desert. It fought at the battle of Romani on 4 August, at Katia the following day, and was involved in the advance that followed the Turks’ retreat across the desert.

Robert Cowley enlisted on 2 February 1916, at the advanced age of almost 30. His younger cousin, Bert Reynolds, had already signed up for service with the 12th Light Horse Regiment, and after the evacuation from Gallipoli, the need for men was loud and insistent.

While the training for the initial contingent of light horsemen was only a matter of a couple of months, the training for reinforcements for the light horse was much more rigorous. It was not until October that he finally boarded the transport ship, Clan McEwan, for the journey to Egypt. Even then he would spend another six months with the 2nd Light Horse Training Regiment at Moascar before he eventually joined the 7th Light Horse in Palestine.

In camp, the horses were tethered by head and heel ropes between long ropes called picket lines. In front of each horse was placed its saddle and equipment. The men slept close by in bell tents - eight men to a tent, feet to the centre like the spokes of a wheel.

At the start of each day, the light horsemen watered, fed, and groomed their horses and cleaned the horse lines before breakfast. Then they did their training. Most were already expert horsemen and riflemen. The rest was drill and mastery of the mounted infantry fighting technique.

Each regiment lived and fought as a series of four-man "sections". When they went into action, three men would dismount to fight as infantry while the fourth man led the four horses to cover until they were needed for a further advance or withdrawal. The effectiveness of this fighting method had been shown in the Boer War but some of Britain's highest-ranking officers opposed the technique - perhaps because other high-ranking officers supported it.

Everything the Light Horse trooper needed for living and fighting had to be carried by him and his horse. His extra clothing, food and personal possessions were in a canvas haversack carried over the shoulder. Across the other shoulder hung a one-litre water bottle. As well as the 90 rounds of ammunition in his bandolier, he carried ten rounds in the .303 rifle slung over his shoulder and another 50 rounds in pouches on his belt, which also supported the bayonet and scabbard.

The horse was carefully fitted with the special military saddle, designed to carry a remarkable array of equipment with the least possible discomfort. The saddle was built on a pair of felt-padded wooden "bars" sitting on either side of the horse's spine. These were joined by steel arches with a shaped leather seat laced between them. The same basic design had been used by the British army for many hundreds of years. Each century had improved it. Now, when many experts believed that the day of the mounted soldier was past, this saddle would help men and horses achieve what had seemed impossible.

Across the front was strapped a rolled greatcoat and waterproof groundsheet. Mess tin, canvas water bucket and nosebag with a day's grain ration, were slung at the back of the saddle. There was also a heel rope, removable length of picket line and a leather case with two horseshoes and nails. The man's blanket was sometimes carried in a roll, more often spread under the saddle on top of the saddle blanket or "rug". Most men added to this collection of equipment a billy and a tin or enamel plate.

When fully loaded, Walers often carried between 130 and 150 kilos and, in the years of war to come, they would have to carry these huge loads for long distances, in searing heat, sometimes at the gallop, sometimes without water for 60 and even 70 hours at a stretch.

 The light horsemen who rode into Palestine along the desert battle paths of Napoleon and the Crusaders and the ancient Romans and Egyptians were quite different from the eager young men who had flocked to the muddy training camps of winter Australia. They quickly developed their own "style" - something different from their early attempts to imitate British military bearing. One observer found them "tired-looking" as they moved around "with the slouching gait of the Australian countryman at home". But when ready for action, he saw the same men show "an almost miraculous note of expectant eagerness".

Another thought that the light horseman moved with a "lazy, slouching gait like that of a sleepy tiger" but described how the promise of battle "changes that careless gait into an athletic swing that takes him over the ground much quicker than other troops".

They had already proved themselves as formidable infantrymen. The Turks called them "the White Ghurkas" - a reference to their deadly skill with the bayonet. Now the Arabs called them "The Kings of the Feathers".

When the Light Horse went to Egypt, Queenslanders, Tasmanians, and South Australians wore splendid emu plumes in their hats - actually, small squares of emu hide with the long, brown-tipped white feathers still attached. The plume had originally been a battle honour of the Queensland Mounted Infantry for their work in the shearers strike of 1891 but eventually, it was adopted by almost all the Light Horse Regiments. Even when a Regiment did not wear the plume on parade or in battle, the men kept one in their kit and tucked it in the hatband when they went on leave. It was the proud badge of the light horseman.

Already the Billjims, as they became known because they all called each other Bill or Jim, had become glamorous figures in the desert war. The British cavalrymen were splendid soldiers but tended to get lost in the featureless sea of sand. Australian troopers seemed almost as much at home in the desert as the Bedouin, the Arab nomads.

Many of the desert Arabs had the reputation of being great thieves - ready to take what they could from those who invaded their lands. But these same Arabs soon had a saying: "The Kings of the Feathers, they steal your bread". Food, firewood, poultry, livestock - all were "scrounged" by the Billjims.

Through the centuries, the Bedouin had seen many kings riding in the desert. But none were quite like these.

General Chauvel of the Light Horse had been knighted for his fine leadership. At the Battle of Romani, he had kept in touch with the battle on horseback, often under heavy artillery fire, while some other senior British officers stay by telephones, some kilometres from the action.

In March 1917, as the British launched their attack on the key Turkish fortress town of Gaza, problems of leadership became more obvious.

The attack was delayed by fog and by poor communication between some British officers.

When the light horsemen eventually attacked, they swung in behind the main Turkish positions and fought the Turks in a maze of tall cactus hedges marking laneways and fields on the outskirts of Gaza. Shots exploded from fleshy cactus walls and troopers hacked through them with their bayonets to reach the enemy. By sunset, they had fought their way into the town and the Turkish commander thought the battle was lost.

When word reached British headquarters that Turkish reinforcements were on the way, the order was given to withdraw - just as the major Turkish strongpoint was taken by British infantry. Chauvel protested and some Light Horse officers refused to believe the orders. They had entered Gaza. They had found water for their horses. The order must be an enemy trick. But the signal came back: "Retire! Retire! Retire!"

They slipped away from Gaza in the darkness, many of the exhausted men asleep in their saddles. The British commander, General Murray, reported the battle to London as though it was a victory and, the next month, attacked Gaza again. This time, no effective use was made of the Light Horse. Some joined the British infantry in almost suicidal advances across naked ground swept by artillery and machine-gun fire. The only cover was the shallow holes they could scrape with their bayonets.

One trooper commented: "Many times we had to jump away from the nose caps of shells speeding along the hard surface of the ground, like a cricket ball hit at terrific speed, but I didn't see anyone try to stop them."

The 10th Light Horse, built up to strength after being decimated at the Nek during the Gallipoli campaign, was again badly mauled. Half the regiment was killed or wounded. Further unnecessary casualties were avoided when a sergeant of the 10th refused an order for a bayonet charge across 300 metres of open ground. He told the officer who had ordered the charge "not to be so bloody foolish and to go to Hell".

The attack was eventually broken off and the Light Horse withdrew.

On 16 May 1917, Robert Cowley was finally able to join his unit in Palestine as reinforcements were hurriedly called forward to replace the losses at Gaza.

For the next five months, the British and Turkish armies faced one another along a 50-kilometre line from Gaza on the coast to Beersheba in the forbidding drylands between the Sinai and the Dead Sea. Many light horsemen were disillusioned with the way they had been used. They hoped for a chance to meet the famed Turkish cavalry but after ambushing some small Light Horse patrols and being ambushed in return, the Turks avoided major clashes and retreated to their base at Beersheba.

The light horsemen became familiar with the arid lands on the Beersheba flank - rolling brown country with eroded wadis, or creek beds, very much like huge areas of Australia. They manned lonely outposts by day and night, dug trenches, scoured the country to find enough wood to boil their billies and learnt the position of every well and waterhole.

Then, in June, everything changed. A new English Commander-in-Chief arrived - General Sir Edmund Allenby, a big, stubborn, energetic cavalryman who quickly earned the nickname, "The Bull". Up to this time, British headquarters had been at the Savoy Hotel in Cairo. "We're a bit too far from our work here," Allenby announced. "I'd like to get up closer where I can have a look at the enemy occasionally."

He proceeded to move everything 240 kilometres nearer the front line. He then inspected everything from cook houses to flying schools, racing from one unit of his army to the next in his Rolls Royce staff car. Signallers warned of his whirlwind approach by transmitting a cryptic "B.L." for "Bull Loose".

The famous poet "Banjo" Paterson was running a Light Horse remount depot. He watched Allenby arrive - "a great, lonely figure of a man, riding silently in front of an obviously terrified staff".

Allenby had lost his son in the war and witnessed horrible slaughter on the Western Front. He told Paterson: "I am afraid I am becoming very hard to get on with. I want to get this war over and if anything goes wrong, I lose my temper." In his drive for greater efficiency, Allenby formed all his mounted units into the Desert Mounted Corps under Chauvel.

The Light Horse respected Allenby and, for his part, Allenby respected the Light Horse. He had commanded a squadron of Australians in the Boer War. He knew what they were capable of, and they were to play a vital role in his plan to break the Turkish line. Instead of attacking Gaza again, he would strike at the other end of the line, Beersheba.

First, he arranged for a British officer to "lose" some faked papers making the Turks believe that a new assault on Gaza would be covered by a mock attack on Beersheba. Then he planned a series of secret night marches in which the British infantry prepared to attack Beersheba from the west and south while the Desert Mounted Corps under Chauvel would sweep out to the waterless east and attack from the desert. If Beersheba's famous 17 wells could not be taken in one day, nearly 60,000 men and tens of thousands of animals would be desperately short of water.

The Anzac and the Australian Mounted Divisions rode between 25 and 35 miles (40 and 56 km) from Asluj and Khalasa respectively, circling south of Beersheba during the night of 30–31 October to get into position to attack from the east. The Australian Mounted Division (in Desert Mounted Corps reserve) deployed southeast of Beersheba (near Khashim Zanna) to support the Anzac Mounted Division's attacks. The 8th Light Horse Regiment (3rd Light Horse Brigade, Australian Mounted Division) was deployed as a screen, linking with the 7th Mounted Brigade on their left and the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade on their right, in front of the Australian Mounted Division.

The first objective of the Anzac Mounted Division was to cut the road from Beersheba to Hebron and Jerusalem, about 6 miles (9.7 km) north-east of the town at Tel el Sakaty (also known as Sqati), to prevent reinforcement and retreat in that direction. The second objective, the redoubt on the height of Tel es Saba (dominating the east side of Beersheba north and south) had to be captured before an attack across the open ground could be launched. By dawn the Anzac Mounted Division was deployed with the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade at Bir Salim Abu Irqaiyiq, and the 1st Light Horse Brigade in support behind the New Zealanders, with the 2nd Light Horse Brigade concentrated near Bir Hammam.

While the infantry battle was being fought on the west side of Beersheba, Edward Chaytor (commanding the Anzac Mounted Division) ordered the 2nd Light Horse Brigade to attack Tel el Sakaty at 8:00 am and gain control of the Jerusalem road. At the same time, he ordered the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade (with the 1st Light Horse Brigade in support) to attack the Ottoman garrison holding fortifications on Tel el Saba. These hard-fought attacks continued into the afternoon when two regiments of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade (Australian Mounted Division) were ordered to reinforce the Anzac Mounted Division's attack on Tel el Saba.

Soon after the Anzac Mounted Division's 2nd Light Horse and the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigades advances began at 9:00 am, they were targeted by heavy artillery fire from the hills on the north side of the Beersheba-to-Jerusalem road. The two brigades were also forced to slow their advance across the plain, cut by several narrow, deep wadis, which made fast riding impossible. At this time, shells from the XX Corps' bombardment could be seen bursting on the hills west of Beersheba.

At 10:05, the leading troops of the 7th Light Horse Regiment (2nd Light Horse Brigade) were seen approaching Tel el Sakaty. By 11:17, they reported their advance was increasingly difficult due to hostile units defending the high ground south of Sakaty.  An Ottoman convoy of 10 wagons was seen leaving Beersheba on the road to Jerusalem and the regiment was ordered to cut the road before the convoy escaped. Through heavy shell and shrapnel bombardment and point-blank machine-gun fire, they galloped to a position just south of the road. While an artillery battery got into position to support the light-horse regiment's attack on Tel el Sakaty, at 11:40 the 5th Light Horse Regiment (2nd Light Horse Brigade) was ordered to engage the Ottoman left flank.

As they crossed the Wadi Khalil and the road to Jerusalem, the 5th Light Horse Regiment was also heavily shelled by artillery and fired on by machine guns from the high ground north and northwest overlooking the area. Five minutes later, the 7th Light Horse Regiment cut the road and captured the convoy (47 prisoners, eight horses and eight wagons loaded with forage). However, the regiment was pinned down just beyond in a small wadi in the rough country north of Wadi Khalil by the gun battery and machine guns located on Tel el Sakaty (above the road).

With the arrival of the 5th Light Horse Regiment, by 1:30 pm the two regiments (supported by artillery) were advancing to attack the high ground northeast of Sakaty. At 2:45, the 2nd Light Horse Brigade reported that three Ottoman guns appeared to have been put out of action by artillery fire. While they continued to hold the road to Jerusalem, the 5th and 7th Light Horse Regiments found cover in the Wadi Aiyan (although targeted from the high ground north of Sakaty by five Ottoman machine guns) where they remained until evening. The 1,100-strong Ottoman 3rd Cavalry Division defended this hilly area north of Beersheba.

The 5th and 7th Light Horse Regiments (2nd Light Horse Brigade) continued to hold an outpost line during the night, covering the Beersheba-to-Jerusalem road and the north-eastern approaches behind Tel el Sakaty. The remainder of the 7th Light Horse Regiment withdrew 1 mile (1.6 km) south at 6:00 pm to bivouac for the night, with the 5th Light Horse Regiment on the right. One squadron at a time was sent to water at Bir el Hamam, and a good water supply was also found in the Wadi Hora by the 2nd Light Horse Brigade. The 7th Light Horse Regiment with two men injured (one wounded in action), captured a total of 49 prisoners (39 of whom were captured in the Wadi Aiyan).

On the eastern approach, it was clear that Beersheba needed to be captured before sundown. Brigadier General Grant of the 4th Light Horse Brigade suggested to Chauvel that two of his regiments, the 4th and 12th, make a mounted charge against these remaining defences. Such a thing had never been heard of - a mounted charge across three kilometres of open ground against entrenched infantry supported by artillery and machine guns.

But the sun was almost setting and many of the horses had already been without water for nearly 48 hours. Chauvel agreed. The two regiments formed up behind a ridge and moved off into a classic, three-line charge formation, going from walk-march, to trot, then canter. The Turks recognised the advancing horsemen as mounted infantry and the order was given, "Wait until they dismount, then open fire". Field guns were sighted on the cantering lines, ready to fire.

Then suddenly, about two kilometres from the trenches, the light horsemen spurred to a gallop with wild yells, drawing their bayonets and waving them in the dying sunlight. The Turkish artillery opened fire and shrapnel exploded above the plummeting lines of horsemen. Some were hit, but the Turks couldn't wind down their guns fast enough and soon the shells were bursting behind the charge.

Two German planes firing machine-guns swooped over the horsemen and dropped bombs. But they exploded between the widely spaced lines. About 1600 metres from the trenches, rifles and machine guns opened fire. Again, some men and horses fell. But the Turkish soldiers were unnerved by the huge mass of light horsemen thundering closer, and they forgot to adjust their sights. Their bullets began to whistle harmlessly over the heads of the charging troopers.

The light horsemen jumped the trenches, and some leapt to the ground for an ugly hand-to-hand fight with the Turks. Others galloped through the defences into the town as demolition charges started to blow up the precious wells and key buildings. But, within minutes, the German officer in charge of the demolition had been captured by a light horseman. The wells were saved.

By nightfall, Beersheba was in the hands of Allenby's army. Of the 800 men who rode in the charge, only 31 had been killed. Mounted infantrymen and their superb walers had carried out one of the most successful cavalry charges in history - against what seemed impossible odds.

The fall of Beersheba swung the battle tide against the Turks in Palestine; and changed the history of the Middle East.

The next morning the 7th Light Horse Regiment moved forward again and reoccupied their position on the Wadi Anjou. One troop was sent forward to occupy the high ground but met with no opposition. A few enemy troops were observed occupying the ridges to the right of their location. The regiment was relieved by the 6th Light Horse Regiment and withdrew to the campsite near Brigade Headquarters.

The next day, 2 November, the regiment moved out at 8:30 am with Brigade Headquarters moving up the Hebron Road. On their right flank, the 7th Light Horse moved up the Wadi Hora and the Wadi Salamambah. When the headquarters came under fire from machine guns entrenched on the ridge the regiment was ordered to attack.  The regiment’s diary records suffering 1 casualty evacuated to hospital when Trooper Robert Cowley received a bullet wound to his back in the region of his right armpit.

Six Days later Robert Cowley was admitted to the 14th Australian General Hospital in Abassia, Egypt and transferred to the convalescent depot on 8 January 1918.

By the time he eventually returned to his unit on 11 April the war in Palestine had changed. Jerusalem had fallen following the breakthrough at Beersheba as had Jericho, the key to the Jordan Valley, early in the new year. At the end of April, the 2nd Light Horse Brigade was preparing to advance across the river.

Es Salt, an Arab village 23 kilometres west of Amman, Palestine, had been seized before by British troops, during the raid on Amman a month earlier, but possession had been relinquished following the failure of that operation. A second large-scale sortie was launched because General Allenby wished to use the plateau on which Es Salt stood as the launching point for a movement against the vital railway junction town of Deraa. Command of the operation was given to Lieut.-General Sir Harry Chauvel, who had available both the Australian Mounted Division Major and the Anzac Mounted Division along with the 60th (London) Division.

Using the British infantry to attack eastwards into the foothills of Tel Nimrin, above the bridgehead held around the Ghoraniye crossing on the Jordan, Chauvel sent the 1st and 2nd Light Horse brigades north up the east bank of the river to seize the crucial crossing at Jisr ed Damieh, nineteen kilometres north-west of Es Salt, and prevent the movement of Turkish reinforcements from Nablus. While the 4th Brigade remained to hold this position, the other (the 3rd) was ordered to turn its attention down the track from Damieh to Es Salt itself. the British 5th Mounted following along behind, was to turn east at an earlier track at Umm esh Shert and by this parallel route also make for Es Salt. With the town captured the plan called the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, which had been sent around the southern flank, to advance down from Es Salt into the rear of the Turkish positions opposing the 60th Division.

Initially, the operation went perfectly, and by the evening of 30 April Es Salt had been seized after a brilliant fight. Thereafter serious difficulties arose which brought the plan undone. The 4th Brigade, left to guard the Damieh crossing, came under heavy pressure from the Turks early on the morning of I May and was forced back thereby allowing some of the enemy to advance towards Es Salt and into the rear of the light horsemen holding the town. Although the Australians were reinforced by some regiments of New Zealanders and British yeomanry, the defenders were forced to give still further ground, during which nine British guns were lost to the enemy. Although the threat to the left flank of the 60th Division's advance was thus checked, the infantry were themselves making little progress during repeated attacks against the Turkish defenders in the foothills, nor could the mounted brigades moving against the rear of the enemy positions make any headway.

With the tide of battle against him, Chauvel decided on 3 May to withdraw. Not only was the enemy being strongly reinforced, but co-operation promised by elements of the Arab army raised in rebellion against the Turks had failed to materialise. The retreat was complicated by a mass of refugees coming away from Es Salt with the troops and caused congestion along the roads. The operation had cost Chauvel's mounted brigades 50 killed, 278 wounded and 37 men missing; the infantry had suffered another 1,116 casualties. Apart from more than 1,000 taken prisoner, the Turks were estimated to have lost over 1,500 in killed and wounded. Despite this balanced outcome, the sortie had clearly been a failure, although it did have a valuable outcome in encouraging the enemy to believe (wrongly) that Allenby's next stroke was also planned for this area while he prepared to strike in the west. The light horsemen were smuggled, regiment by regiment, to the coast.

At Beersheba, the Light Horse had shown themselves to be superb cavalrymen. Now, at their own request, nine regiments were armed with swords and rushed through cavalry training. Then they waited, hidden among coastal orange and olive groves, while Allenby prepared for his winning move.

Everything told the Turks he was getting ready to attack in the east. Empty camps and long lines of dummy horses were laid out in the Jordan Valley. The infantry marched down into the Valley each day - and marched out again each night. A Jerusalem hotel was taken over and set up as a fake headquarters.

Then, in September 1918, Allenby struck near the coast. He pounded the Turks with an artillery bombardment, broke their line with the infantry, and Chauvel sent his huge, mounted force through the gap to sweep around behind the enemy. The retreating Turks were further battered by aerial attacks. Dazed, bewildered, they streamed down from the Samarian Hills in their thousands. In three days, 15000 prisoners were taken. Within the fortnight, three complete armies were smashed and there were 75000 prisoners.

"Banjo" Paterson had brought horses up for the great drive. He described how captured Turkish soldiers who had not eaten for three days, sat down silently to accept their fate. He commented: "Neither English nor Australian troops had any grudge against the Turks, and the captured 'Jackos' were given more food and more cigarettes than they had enjoyed during the whole war". The Turkish commander had refused to eat until his troops were fed. Said Paterson: "Even in his worn and shabby uniform he could have walked into any officer's mess in the world and they would have stood up to make room for him".

This crippling defeat was centred on the plain of Megiddo - the Biblical Armageddon where a last terrible battle would be fought on the Day of Judgement. When Allenby was made a Lord, he took as his title Viscount Allenby of Megiddo. He was, literally, the Lord of Armageddon.

The great drive continued against the Turks' last remaining bastion, Damascus in Syria. Covering 700 kilometres in 12 days, the Desert Mounted Corps thrust at the ancient city.

After a terrible massacre of retreating Turks in the Barada Gorge, Damascus fell on 1 October, almost without a fight.

The 3rd Brigade, which had been shot to pieces at The Nek three years before, rode straight through the city, pausing only to receive its surrender. A single squadron of the 4th Regiment took 10,000 prisoners with only a few shots fired and an officer and three men wounded.

Damascus was a crowded, unhealthy place and epidemics of influenza and malaria swept through the Desert Mounted Corps. Dozens of men who had survived Anzac and the desert campaigns died in hospital beds. But the great move to the north continued - almost to the Turkish border. The Turks saw that further resistance was hopeless and signed an armistice. On October 31, the war in the east was over - 11 days before the armistice on the Western Front.

Following the armistice, the 7th Light Horse Regiment was transferred to Kantara on the east of the Suez and later to Chanak on the Dardenelles. Robert Cowley returned to Australian on the HMAT PORT SYDNEY on 4 March 1919 and was discharged on 29 May.

Robert Collister Cowley returned to the Moss Vale area and married Nellie Theresa Glasson in 1920. He died on 23 November 1960 and is buried at the All Saints Anglican Cemetery at Sutton Forrest.