Beersheba centenary: let's remember that story is not the same as history | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on Mon, 30/10/2017 - 3:09pm

After being a footnote in military history for decades, the charge of Beersheba has its big moment thanks to the politics of remembrance

I’d never heard of the charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba.

It was three decades ago. I was a novice reporter at a throwaway newspaper in the outer western Melbourne suburbs. The editor – a cranky old bastard who I nonetheless respected, not least because he’d worked at the long dead Argus newspaper with the great journalist cum novelist George Johnston – ordered me to nearby Bacchus Marsh to interview another old bloke about his part in the “last great successful cavalry charge”.