ANZAC Mounted Division

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 Column – of which the division was part – he 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 Force – which captured 10,300 men from the Turkish Fourth Army.

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.

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 first mounted or cavalry division to serve with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF). 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, was promoted from brigade commander, although he had temporarily commanded the 1st Australian Division for a short period at Gallipoli. His Chief-of Staff was Lieutenant-Colonel John Gilbert Browne of 14th (King's) Hussars, a professional from the British Army who had fought in the Second Boer War and with the British Cavalry Division, on the Western Front in the early stages of the war. The rest of the division's staff were selected on merit for their service at Gallipoli. The same process was applied to select the brigade staff, and regimental and squadron officers – most of whom had seen prior service at Gallipoli or in the Second Boer War.

On 15 March, the ANZAC Mounted Division relieved the 1st Australian Division, on the front line. Members of the division carried out their first offensive action, crossing the Suez Canal, in the Jifjafa raid between 11 and 14 April 1916, resulting in the campaign's first Australian death. 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, with twelve Maxim guns carried on pack horses. These replaced the two guns that had previously been part of each regiment's establishment. In their place, the regiments were issued with three Lewis guns; these were replaced the following year by twelve Hotchkiss machine-guns.

On 19 July, reconnaissance aircraft located between 8–9,000 Turkish soldiers approaching the division's prepared positions. By 3 August, this number had increased to around 18,000 infantry with artillery support. 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.