Hacker Cinema
The Lighthorsemen
1987 · Film · 131 min
Directed by Simon Wincer
In 1917 when the British forces are bogged down in front of the Turkish and German lines in Palestine they rely on the Australian light horse regiment to break the deadlock.
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Wow, you all really do ride in "australian stock saddles" (interesting to see some had horns; have ropes been taking over from whips?) Sorry about the gall; normally the string girths are very good against that sort of thing.
(it also struck me how often "proud" came up: my wife asks me "why do americans always have to be proud of things?" when she's watching TV, but maybe it's not just us seppos, but more a general anglophone thing?)
Back to the Ottomans: (could've been much worse, could have been the Dardanelles and Gallipoli?)
2 days stiff march to get told the only water is behind enemy lines is, I guess, a form of motivation. At least it's a little more creative than burning the bridges behind you?
And the turks knew the 4th was there, too, if they were already shelling and sending aeroplanes. I'm guessing the only reason this could possibly have worked is because the turks had expected they'd fight as dragoons, dismounted? (I had heard of this charge before, but not the detail that they were using bayonets as makeshift sabres. The only bayonets I've seen from that period are much smaller than sabres, more kindjal sized)
> the last 200 yards or so was good going and those horses put on pace and next were jumping the trenches with the Turks underneath
That's maybe a bit under 15 seconds — which sounds like a long time to be in the open charging repeating rifles, let alone emplaced MGs. Yikes.
As to Totilas, my wife is a fan; it's a shame they broke that pair up. A very lucrative shame, but a shame nonetheless.
(I myself barracked for Fuego at the time. Lusitanian and hispanic horsemanship owes a lot to the moorish influence [hmm... might moor be cognate to italian "morena"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRDZjj7-tOk ] and therefore they do a lot more to put a handle on a horse [what Kipling —another admirer of Walers— would call being bridle-wise] and aim for a bit more spirited stock than in the "doma clasica")
In other news I was trying to figure out how to rejigger "American Pie" for Down Under and I think I have the chorus:
So, bye-bye, Miss Straya-an Pie Drove my Holden to the station, but the station was dry And them battler blokes were drinkin', swatting the flies Singin', "This'll be the day that I die This'll be the day that I die" but the verses are a bit of a slog, eg:
I was a lonely teenage outlaw beaut With a pink corella and a tradie ute But I knew I was ??? ??? ??? The day the music died EDIT: just checked the The Lighthorsemen (1987) scene. They have the bayonet detail; I don't know how accurate the rest is but unlike the real time of Star Wars IV, it seems too extended: final charge as depicted is started over 1km from the trenches and they had already picked up pace 3:20 away (another 1,5km?).
EDIT 2: according to the map they assembled (at 16.30) 1,6km from the trenches and according to the text departed after 17.00 with 400 m to the ridge, so the real charge would've been 900m at pace and 300m flat out; I guess that to be about 1:10 to the trenches, not the 4:30 of the movie.