9th-12th-Lancers - Year 2001 - Page 0087
Image details
| Regiment | 9th/12th Lancers |
|---|---|
| Year | 2001 |
| Transcription |
REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE 9TH/12TH ROYAL LANCERS (PRINCE OF WALES’S) 87 The Arab Revolt n the wake of the 1914-18 War, a void was created in Mesopotamia by the departing Turkish administration. The subsequent British Mandate, a rather more organised administration than the previously casual Turkish one, did not please the natives of Upper Mesopotamia 7 what we now call Iraq 7 and there was insurrection. What became known as The Arab Revolt is now little more than a footnote in the history books but, at the time provoked serious endeavour. The Arabs, armed with four years worth of g1eanings from the battlefields, vastly outnumbered the avail- able British and Indian troops, Reinforcements were necessary and among them was the 2nd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment “full of half trained recruits, town bred men, not physically fit for the appalling conditions”. If the Arab Revolt is remembered at all it is for the catastrophe which overtook this unfortunate battalion in July 1920 when they were ordered to make a show of force against exu1tant Arabs not easily impressed. Following a long daytime march in temperatures of 117 degrees 7 there was no shade 7 they were then ordered to make a retreat at night. They were cut up. Two hundred were killed and the same number wounded or captured. The cavalry regiment accompanying this fragile and tragic ‘demonstration’ was the 35th Scinde Horse, Indian Army. It’s Commanding Officer, C01 RCW Lukin DSO had been hived off to be the base Commandant at Hi11ah and command devolved to the 21C, Major Henry Earnest (Harry) Connop. Harry Connop was an old 12th Lancer. He had joined the reg- iment in 1900 and in time for very active service indeed in South Africa. C01 Hobson’s delightful “Some Twelfth Lancers” (pp 223, 235 etc) refers. In 1911, when the 12th were stationed in India, he transferred in the rank of Captain to the Top L7H Hugo, Fraser, H/H, Sh/pway and Swan/79 Bottom L7H Wake/s, Burneston, Connop, Fe// and Lynn 35th Horse, a regiment which was retained in India during the 1914-18 War on interminable duty on the North West Frontier. Connop was mentioned in despatches. The 35th had been in Mesopotamia for some time before the Revolt flared. Connop was the only pre-war regu1ar officer with the Manchester column 7 which had in addition some gunners and a few Indian Pioneers 7 and was the only officer with any experience of Arab warfare. During the chaos of the night time retreat, during which 5,000 Arabs virtually enveloped the exhausted, fleeing troops, it was up to the 35th Horse to fend off both mounted Arabs and those on foot. Repeatedly 7 and as circumstances on this moonlit night allowed 7 Connop and his handful of officers led, in troop strength and in squadron strength, charge after charge with, of course, the drawn sword. All of the officers had two horses shot dead beneath them. Connop had three. He sabred two of the Arabs himself during this appa11ing debacle and, commanding the rearguard all night and against all the odds, got what survivors there were back to Hi11ah and relative safety. There was, of course, an enquiry. Of Connop, who was award- ed the DSO, the GOC, Sir Ry1mer Haldane wrote: “.. and Major HE Connop of the 35th Scinde Horse, both of whose British squadron leaders were wounded, behaved like heroes and it is to their fine example that a complete disaster was averted”. In October the same year, and at the relief of Kufah, the 35th Horse, now joined by the 37th Lancers (IA) made (what must have been a superb sight) a spectacular charge with 1eve11ed 1ances and drawn swords, in squadrons in line, the Scinde Horse, now very short of swords, using borrowed scabbards from the 37th Lancers, “with which they beat the enemy about the head”. . l‘.‘ i .1» “31‘ ‘ , ‘X '1 |
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