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Strategies & Market Trends : Winter in the Great White North -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen O who wrote (6332)	4/13/2005 4:31:27 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8273

Apparently you cannot rent The Light Horsemen at all! It is totally out of stock as a VHS or DVD rental. At least that is what I read on the net. You can get it in foreign DVD format, but that may not play on some players. Too bad, as it is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. "40,000 Horsemen" is an Aussie movie from the 1940's directed by Henry Chauvel's son. It is about the same charge at the Wells of Beersheeba, and although the movie is inferior in production quality it has many good moments that make it watchable. Henry Chauvel senior was the General in charge of the particular Light Horse regiments during that battle. It is said to be the last Cavalry charge of modern times and its success was based partly on luck and total surprise. In fact the charge was ably supported by British batteries that wiped out Turkish machine gun placements before they could do much damage. The immense dust cloud and the smoke laid down from the guns made the fast riding riders very hard to see. As well the Turkish soldiers were under general orders to wait for the Aussies to dismount to fire at them, as that was how the Aussie Horse usually fought. In this case the Horsemen did not all dismount before overruning the Turkish trenches. It is surmised as well that in looking examining captured Turkish rifles that their sights were set at one mile, and they had not been changed. How this happened is a mystery, but the riders noted that the shots were going overhead in the last 1000 yards of charge. Another battle by the Light Horse was not so successful as it was totally wrongheaded in plan and execution. At Nek in the same conflict, repeated charges into enemy guns at close range ended in a disastrous bloodbath. That was the subject of another recent movie with Mel Gibson. Those who say that the 1899 battle of San Jaun Hill was a cavalry charge of note are mistaken. The Rough Riders, led by various generals in the Cuban campaign fought on foot, as their horses had been left at home! The only mounted rider of the uphill battle was T. Roosevelt who needed a horse as he was practically blind. The charge up the hill which admittedly was led in part by Roosevelt was more of a climb, crawl and walk through tall grass, which took a long time to complete. Contrary to Roosevelt's account, but not widely publicized, the battle for San Juan Hill under General Kent was going fairly well, had been for 6 or more hours, and was not stalled as Roosevelt contended. While TR did lead an impressive number of men in a ragged and most unmilitary charge up the hill, he may not have been the first at the summit by some accounts. What saved the men at San Jaun was the withering American support fire that had been pounding all day at the Spanish positions by 2 Hotchkiss, 2 Gatling machine guns, and the 13 American artillery pieces. The 500 defenders of the hill could not have had much time to poke their heads above the trenches to return fire. What the Battles of San Jaun, and Kettle Hills proved is that close support machine gun fire is a very effective suppressive weapon. EC<:-}