Three faithful members of the Australian Light Horse. The photograph is from an album of photographs taken in Egypt and the Middle East by an unknown South Australian member of the Australian Light Horse.
The horses of the Light Horse were known as Walers but were in fact stock horses bought by the military from all parts of Australia.
'The 3rd Light Horse Regiment was raised in Adelaide on 17 August 1914. Although most of its recruits were enlisted in South Australia, one of the regiment's three squadrons was composed of Tasmanians and was raised and trained in Hobart. The two components sailed from their home ports in late October 1914 and arrived in Egypt in the second week of December. Here, they joined the 1st and 2nd Regiments to form the 1st Light Horse Brigade.' - from the Australian War Memorial website.
At the end of the First World War, Australians had 13,000 surplus horses which could not be returned home for quarantine reasons. Of these, 11,000 were sold, the majority as remounts for the British Army in India, and 2,000 were destroyed due to reasons of age or infirmity.
