Fighting Vichy From Horseback (book review)

Fighting Vichy From Horseback

By Jonathan Washington

Helion and Company

Paperback, 188 pages

ISBN 978-1-915113-76-4

As some of you may be aware I have an obsession with the odd and different. One of my long term projects has been Operation Exporter, the Allied invasion of Vichy controlled Syria and Lebanon in 1941. So when this title was first talked about, I added it to my wish list and our Chris bought it for me Christmas 2024. Years before when I was editor of the SOTCW Journal I remember an interesting conversation with Richard Clarke, from TooFatLardies about him wanting to write a mini-campaign based around the Cheshire Yeomanry fighting in Syria from horseback; so the title and subject attracted on several levels.

The book is written by a former officer in the Territorial Army, who when he found a short piece about the British using horsed cavalry in WW2 was drawn down the rabbit hole of research (something which has happened to me several times) which eventually became this book. He was allowed access to regimental records, personal accounts and spent a lot of time in the National Archives gathering his information.

The book is split into two parts the first telling the post war history of the British Yeomanry cavalry - “Yeomanry” is the term used for units of cavalry within the British Territorial Army. Basically it had been assumed the days of cavalry on the battlefield ended with the trenches of WW1 and the deployment of rapid fire automatic weapons, quick fire artillery and barbed wire. It was then planned to convert cavalry units into mechanised and/or armoured formations, unfortunately with the financial pressures following WW1 this conversion was slowed, in fact as far as the various yeomanry regiments never even started! So with war once again looming in Europe, Britain found herself with yeomanry (and some regular) cavalry units still horse mounted, much to the shock and disgust of Winston Churchill! This part of the book is really interesting, going into great detail how the units were built up to wartime strength, both horses and men.

Eventually after many months of reorganisation and training, 1^st Cavalry Division was shipped to Palestine via a train ride across France! Once in Palestine the various cavalry regiments which made up the division were put through intense training to bring the territorials and new volunteers up to combat readiness, during this period they also participated in patrols, policing the local Arab and Jewish communities.

The rest of the book covers the various units participation in Exporter where they were mostly employed in reconnaissance and flank protection for the strung-out allied columns. As mounted cavalry they were able to traverse terrain inaccessible to wheeled or tracked vehicles, so they performed the same tasks as cavalry of old. Honestly the various Yeomanry units don`t appear to have had more than a periphery role in the campaign: lots of patrols; a few brushes with the Vichy and one nearly fatal incident of miss-identification with an Australian artillery unit! But even without any serious action, the book makes interesting reading and I enjoyed it as it added to my knowledge of the campaign as a whole.

For the wargamer, this book will allow you to create an interesting tabletop unit for Operation Exporter and you could create some interesting patrol level skirmish games from the text. It would also be possible with a bit of work to write a larger scenario using the Yeomanry cavalry on a more what-if basis.