Preceptory

Henry George (Harry) Chauvel was born on 16 April 1865 on a cattle station owned by his grandfather, a retired Indian army officer, at Tabulam, on the Clarence River in New South Wales; he was therefore forty-nine years old at the outbreak of war.

​

Like all Australian country boys, the future cavalry leader was from his infancy associated with horses, and in the rough timbered ranges acquired that easy mastery of country which was always conspicuous in his control of operations. The fact that at Toowoomba and at the Sydney Grammar School he was not conspicuous as a scholar, was due perhaps to his thoughts running on sports rather than on studies.

​

Small and light for his years and, even as a boy, a finished horseman, he was sought as a jockey at picnic or amateur race meetings in Queensland and New South Wales, where he rode with much success. From sport to soldiering is but a narrow step, and young Chauvel very early decided for himself upon a military career.

​

Always an eager reader, he rejoiced in stories of battle; and one day at Damascus, almost at the end of the great cavalry drive which had given Palestine and Syria to British arms, he confessed that the two historical heroes of his boyhood were Saladin and Stuart, the great cavalryman of the American Civil War. “I never thought in those days,” he remarked, “that I should take part in a cavalry operation greater than anything undertaken by them.”

​

He learned to manage the property on his father’s cattle station. Chauvel’s father, Charles Henry Edward Chauvel, a grazer and cattle breeder, was a Major in the militia and had raised his own unit, the Upper Clarence Light Horse, into which Harry was commissioned at age 21.

​

He appeared on service as an almost anomalous product of a young country, where reserve is not nearly so marked in the individual man as it is in the older lands of the north.

​

By the time of the Boer War, Chauvel was a Captain in the Queensland permanent forces. Chauvel served as a volunteer in the South Africa campaign with A Squadron of the Queensland Mounted Infantry. Reaching the rank of Major, he took part in the relief of Kimberly, the advance to Pretoria and the battle of Diamond Hill. At the crossing of the Vet River he personally captured a troublesome machine-gun. For a time he led a mixed force, known as Chavel’s Mounted Infantry, in operations in eastern Transvaal.

​

Returning to Australia in 1901 he took command of a composite mounted force, the 7th Commonwealth Light Horse, which included Queensland, British, Canadian, and South African horsemen, but the war ended before he reached Durban. For his services in South Africa, Chauvel was appointed CMG and mentioned in dispatches; he was also given the brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel.

​

Unlike many professional soldiers of distinction, he was always a leader of broad Imperial sympathies and infinite tact; and he displayed in that South African command, early in his career, the very rare capacity he had for handling men recruited from many lands and divided by striking differences of temperament and outlook. To this quality he owed his elevation later in Palestine to the command of Desert Mounted Corps, where, as the leader of a force of Australians and New Zealanders, British yeomanry, and Indian cavalry, he directed with complete success, and always without any apparent effort, one of the most complex and difficult corps commands to be assembled in warfare.

​

In the next decade Chauvel established a reputation as a trainer, especially of officers; many who attended his staff rides were to distinguish themselves in World War I. Apart from a short period in South Australia reorganising the mounted troops, he remained in Queensland in staff appointments until 1911. He was one of the group, including (Sir) William Bridges and (Sir) Brudenell White, which was close to Major General Sir Edward Hutton, commander and organiser of the Australian Army in 1901–04. Chauvel was a strong supporter of the existing militia, and the organisation from 1910 of the compulsory system around its officers and non-commissioned officers owed much to his advocacy. On 16 June 1906, at All Saints Anglican Church, Brisbane, he had married Sibyl Campbell Keith Jopp; they had two sons and two daughters.

​

Chauvel then served as Chief of Staff with the Northern Rivers District until 1911. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1909 and in July 1914 as full Colonel. In 1911 Chauvel became Adjutant General and second member of the Military Board. He was at the centre of affairs during the critical period when the compulsory system was being set up and the Royal Military College was being developed at Duntroon. This work was only partly completed when, in 1914, he was sent to London to be Australian representative on the Imperial General Staff at the War Office.

​

By the time he and his family reached England, Europe was at war and Australia was preparing an expeditionary force. On his arrival he asked at once for employment in France, but was informed of Australia’s intention to recruit and send overseas a division of infantry and a light horse brigade, and told that he was required to command the mounted force.

Bridges chose Chauvel to command the 1st Light Horse Brigade; he was the only Australian regular, other than Bridges himself, to obtain a senior command in the original Australian Imperial Force. He served usefully at the War Office until he went to Egypt in December. His visits to Salisbury Plain had convinced him that the camps would not be ready for the AIF; his urgent representations to Sir George Reid, high commissioner in London, influenced the historic decision to disembark the force in Egypt.

​

Chauvel joined the 1st Light Horse Brigade immediately after its arrival in Egypt, and, after directing its training, landed with his three regiments in Gallipoli in 1915.

​

Chauvel served on Gallipoli as commander of the 1st Light Horse Brigade. Arriving on 12 May he took command of a sector that included Quinn’s Post, Courtney’s Post and Steele’s Post, each the scene of heavy fighting. He held these positions against all Turkish attacks until he was sent to a quiet sector in September. During that time, he became known for his coolness and courage especially in the critical fight of 29 May. Like Lieutenant-General (Baron) Birdwood, the corps commander, he spent much of his time walking his trenches and closely observing the state of his troops and their positions.

​

Illness forced his evacuation and he spent June and July in hospital, returning to take command of the New Zealand and Australian Division in September 1915. Chauvel served with honour as a Brigadier, and on 6 November, 1915, was promoted to Major General with the temporary command of the 1st Australian Infantry Division.

​

Anzac gave limited opportunities to generals, but it was nevertheless a severe test of leadership. The successful commanders were those who convinced the troops whom they led of their personal courage, their knowledge of their sector, their sense of the enemy, and their qualities as men. In that cramped area brigadiers and their troops lived close together. The men learned to know their officers very intimately, and an indifferent soldier or an unconvincing personality was quickly disclosed.

​

He left the Peninsula with a reputation as a shrewd, safe leader, who had made the most of restricted possibilities. Birdwood was quick to appreciate his wide and intimate knowledge of tactics and the sound sure touch with which he applied that knowledge to actual warfare, and it was proposed that he should proceed with the infantry to France. But Chauvel shared with his light horsemen their strong desire for mounted action; and, when it was decided to leave Australia’s mounted regiments in Egypt, he elected, in a happy moment for his career and for British fortunes in the Near East, to remain and lead them.

​

When, therefore, on 16 March, 1916, Chauvel hoisted his pennant at Anzac Mounted Division Headquarters at Serapeum, he must have regarded the future with much satisfaction. Almost every officer and non-commissioned officer, and more than half his men, had been through the trial of Anzac as infantry. The whole division was bursting with enthusiasm for a mounted campaign unconfined by trenches and barbed wire. Most important of all, perhaps, his men knew their prospective enemy. They had probed and discovered the Turk’s weakness and strength. They knew his straight shooting, his efficiency with the bomb rather than with the bayonet, his grim tenacity in defence, his fortitude under punishment, his capacity to make sound warfare under the harshest conditions and to endure on rations which would starve and destroy Western troops. They knew also his lack of personal initiative and his feebleness as an individual fighter in the open. Every Australian and New Zealander respected the Turk as a soldier; but every trooper felt his man-to-man superiority over the enemy.

​

Chauvel, then, was well pleased with his division. But none of his staff officers would have guessed it. This remarkable Australian professional soldier, who was destined to become the greatest leader of horse in modern times, was one of the most imperturbable cavalrymen who ever crossed a saddle. No temporary failure depressed him; no victory, however sweeping and decisive, excited him.

​

Given his choice of commands in Egypt after the evacuation, Chauvel took charge of the Australian and New Zealand mounted Division; in June 1916, he became the General Officer Commanding, AIF in Egypt, including the 1st Squadron, Australian Flying Corps; however, for virtually all matters other than operations, he was responsible to Birdwood in France during the rest of the war.

​

The Anzac Mounted Division was from the day of its origin on the desert very fortunate in its leadership. General Chauvel, as temporary commander of the 1st Australian Infantry Division on the Peninsula, had already displayed qualities which marked him as a sound administrator and a wise and far-seeing Commander. Lieutenant-Colonel J. G. Browne, his chief staff officer, an Australian native but a professional soldier of the British Army, had served in South Africa, and in 1914 was on the staff with Allenby’s cavalry during the retreat from Mons. Without exception the rest of the staff officers were men who had displayed marked ability in Gallipoli. Chauvel’s care and success in selecting his staff were proved, as the campaign progressed, by the fact that practically every officer on it rose rapidly and won distinction. The brigade staff were almost wholly officers tried in the Peninsula; so, too, were the leaders of the regiments and squadrons; many of them, perhaps a majority, wore South African ribbons.

​

The new division was still settling down when on 23 April, the Turks raided the British outposts covering the northern approach to the Suez Canal. Chauvel immediately moved across the canal to restore the situation, beginning an advance which was to continue for two and a half years until the enemy was driven from Aleppo on the northern borders of Syria. His division was the only desert-worthy force in Sinai, so that when the second Turkish thrust for the canal was defeated at Romani on 4-5 August 1916, Anzac Mounted became the spearhead of Eastern Force in the advance across the desert into Palestine. At Romani, with only two of his four brigades under command, Chauvel outfought the Turks in blazing heat. He pursued them, but his division was too light a force to complete their destruction. Under Lieutenant-General Sir Philip Chetwode, commanding the newly created Desert Column, he destroyed Turkish garrisons at Rafa (December 1916) and Magdhaba (January 1917), thus clearing the way for an assault on the main Turkish positions around Gaza and Beersheba. After Magdhaba he was appointed KCMG.

Chauvel won the first decisive British victory of the war when he defeated the Turks at Romani, stopping their second attempt to reach the Suez.

​

In the first battle of Gaza on 26–27 March 1917, Sir Harry Chauvel took advantage of the fog to place his division across the Turkish communications. He had forced his way into Gaza when he and the victorious British infantry were ordered to withdraw owing to the approach of fresh Turkish forces. In these operations, the newly formed Imperial Mounted Division was placed under his command. Immediately after the unsuccessful second battle of Gaza, 17–19 April 1917, Chetwode was given command of Eastern Force and Chauvel succeeded to the command of the Desert Column, thus becoming the first Australian to lead a corps. When General Sir Edmund Allenby became commander-in-chief in June 1917, he reorganized the army into three corps, giving Chauvel the Desert Mounted Corps of three divisions. In August he became the first Australian to attain the rank of Lieutenant-General.

​

In Allenby’s offensive from 31 October 1917, Chauvel attacked Beersheba from the east. The troops of the Victorian 4th Light Horse Brigade fixed bayonets and launched a surprise charge on the Turkish trenches. This has entered Australian history as the last great cavalry charge of all time.

​

Beersheba, a heavily fortified town 43 km from the Turkish bastion of Gaza, was the scene of an historic charge by the 4th Light Horse Brigade on 31 October 1917. Beersheba anchored the right end of a defensive line that stretched all the way from Gaza on the Mediterranean coast. The attack was launched at dawn on 31 October but by late afternoon the British 20 Corps had made little headway toward the town and its vital wells. Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel, commanding the Desert Mounted Corps, thus ordered the 4th Light Horse Brigade forward to attempt to secure the position. Brigadier William Grant responded by ordering light horseman of the 4th and 12th Regiments to charge at the unwired Turkish trenches. Employing their bayonets as “swords” the momentum of the surprise attack carried them through the Turkish defences. The water supplies were saved and over 1000 Turkish prisoners were taken. The fall of Beersheba thus opened the way for a general outflanking of the Gaza-Beersheba Line.

​

After severe fighting Turkish forces abandoned Gaza on 6 November and began their withdrawal into Palestine. The Desert Mounted Corps, supported by the 60th Division, drove the Turks up the Plain of Philistia beyond Jaffa and the Nahr el Auja, and Jerusalem was entered by the infantry early in December. For his part in these successes, Chauvel was appointed KCB.

​

In the reorganisation in the spring of 1918, a fourth division was added to Chauvel's corps, which now consisted of the Anzac and Australian Mounted Divisions and the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions. Allenby attacked twice across the Jordan during this period; the first operation was a powerful raid but the second, under Chauvel, was designed to seize ground with a view to advancing on the vital Turkish rail junction of Deraa. Doubting the feasibility of this plan with the limited forces and logistic support available, he made objections and obtained most of the 60th Division for the assault. Despite the rapid capture of Es Salt on 30 April, the battle swung against him. The Turks repeatedly repulsed the attacks of the 60th Division and drove in his left flank, threatening to cut off his brigades around Es Salt. Moreover, the promised aid from the Arabs did not materialise. As the Turks were being strongly reinforced, on 3 May he decided to withdraw, with Allenby’s gruff approval.

​

The next offensive began on 19 September on the Mediterranean flank, with Chauvel’s corps poised to dash forward as soon as the infantry had cut a path through the Turkish defences. The secret movement of three cavalry divisions from the Jordan Valley to the orchards near modern Joppa was a triumph for Chauvel and his staff. Within twenty-four hours, by hard riding, his corps was positioned thirty to forty miles behind the disorganised Turkish armies, astride their communications and moving to seize the few crossings of the Jordan.

​

The battle of Megiddo was one of the most completely successful operations of the war; only the Turkish army beyond the Jordan escaped the catastrophe and it was harried across the desert by the Anzac Mounted Division and the Arabs. Giving the Turks no time to recover, Chauvel destroyed their forces around Haifa and Lake Tiberias and made plans for the pursuit to Damascus; then having forced the passage of the Jordan north of Lake Tiberias on 28 September, he drove the enemy across the Golan Heights and rode for Damascus with two divisions while his third entered Deraa and drove the Turks northwards with Arab help. He entered Damascus on 1 October; after a short pause he was ordered to march on Aleppo, 322 km to the north.

​

Aleppo fell to an Arab force on 25 October. There had been little fighting during the advance; this was fortunate, for Chauvel’s tired divisions were melting away, ravaged by malaria and typhus. Six days later the war in the Near East came to an end. In the five weeks since the opening of the offensive, the divisions of the Desert Mounted Corps had advanced from 483 to 804 km, taking over 78,000 prisoners and great quantities of booty. Their battle casualties were only about 650. Many reasons may be adduced for this overwhelming success but not the least was Chauvel’s planning of his successive thrusts, his co-ordination of his widely spread forces, and the special care that he gave to the logistical basis of all his operations. Although the headquarters of his polyglot corps was British, he had appointed to key administrative positions Australian officers of outstanding capacity. In 1919 he was appointed GCMG; he was also awarded the French Croix de Guerre, the Order of the Nile (twice) and was mentioned in dispatches ten times.

​

Returning to Australia in September 1919, Chauvel was appointed Inspector General and made a member of the Council of Defence. In February 1920 advised the Government on the strength, organisation and equipment of the post-war army. Because disarmament and economisation were in the air the Government opted for a token force of 38,000 with six days of camp training a year.

​

In these straitened circumstances Chauvel succeeded White as Chief of the General Staff in June 1923. At the Government’s request he continued to act as Inspector General. Chauvel’s reports of 1921–30 are not only a prime source of Australian military history but also his own testament. In plain, unambiguous terms he warned in report after report of the deterioration in Australia’s strategic position owing to the relative decline of British sea power; he cast doubt on the efficacy of Singapore as the first line of defence and he argued that the Army must be strong enough to hold out until help arrived. He also made it clear that the existing skeleton force of partly trained men was unfit to fight.

​

In 1924 Chauvel pressed the Government for better training and pay for his men. He also sought to keep a close relationship with the British Army, by sending officers to the staff colleges and to the Imperial Defence College and on exchange duty in various British headquarters. Insistence on this policy prepared the more senior officers for their outstanding part in the Second World War.

​

Although the Army obtained a few vehicles, the Army remained a force of 1918 vintage in which the officer corps struggled to keep up with British developments. Nevertheless, the foundations were laid, as in Army-Air Force co-operation exercises beginning in 1925, Chauvel’s own exercise for senior officers the same year, and the establishment in 1926 of the Defence Committee of which he was chairman until 1930.

​

In his role as Inspector General, Chauvel frequently travelled the country to watch men in their training, which he preferred to paperwork and committee meetings.

​

Like all true commanders, he drew strength and refreshment from contact with troops, and his long term as Inspector General gave him an unrivalled knowledge of the service. In October 1929 Chauvel was required to provide a plan for a smaller, voluntary force due to the economic crisis, which enlisted 25,000 volunteers in less than six months.

In November 1929 Chauvel was promoted General, the first Australian to attain this rank. His retirement next April was almost a national occasion; large public dinners were held in his honour in Melbourne and Sydney. But the only official recognition of his service was a ministerial direction for the provision of an army horse for his daily ride in the Melbourne Domain, a privilege he valued immensely.

​

Retirement was for Chauvel a fruitful experience; directorships in three important companies gave him new interests and he now had time for ex-servicemen’s causes. He was for many years chairman of the trustees of the Australian and Victorian war memorials, a senior patron of Melbourne Legacy, and active in the work with the Victorian Blinded Soldiers’ Welfare Trust, YMCA, Toc H, and the Red Cross Society.

​

When Roger Pocock, leader of the Legion of Frontiersmen, toured the country in 1935, he visited Melbourne and addressed a Legacy meeting hosted by Chauvel, saying that the men should join (which they did) and have Chauvel as leader.

​

In 1937 Chauvel led the Australian Services Contingent at the coronation of King George VI. He represented the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia on the committee which drew up plans for reserve and garrison forces early in 1939. When the Volunteer Defence Corps was set up in June 1940, Chauvel became its Inspector-in-Chief. At 75 he was in uniform again and on the move around the country. When White, who had been recalled to be chief of the general staff, was killed in 1940, it was to Chauvel that the prime minister, Robert Menzies, turned for advice on a successor.

​

In 1944 his health began to fail and he died in Melbourne in March 1945, survived by his wife and children. He was given a state funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne. Sir Harry lived in Murphy St, South Yarra. He was a leading Anglican, having been a member of Synod for many years, representing Christ Church, South Yarra. He was a parochial nominator of Christ Church, as well as a member of its vestry. He was also for some years a lay canon of St Paul’s Cathedral.

​

There is a bronze tablet to Chauvel’s memory in St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, his sword is in Christ Church, South Yarra, and there is a memorial window in the chapel of RMC, Duntroon.

​

After severing his long connection with the Army he became a director of the National Bank and of the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society and chairman of the Australian board of the General Accident, Fire, and Life Assurance Corporation. He was a member of the Melbourne, Naval and Military, and Queensland Clubs, and also of the Cavalry Club, London.

​

BELOW: Chauvel and his medals.