1st Royal New South Wales Lancers
The 1st Royal New South Wales Lancers was an Australian Army light cavalry (reconnaissance) regiment. Its complicated lineage includes the New South Wales Lancers which was first formed as a colonial unit in 1885 as the New South Wales Cavalry, and subsequently saw action in the Second Boer War, and later during First World War at Gallipoli and Palestine as the 1st Light Horse Regiment. The unit subsequently served during the Second World War as the 1st Armoured Regiment equipped with Matilda tanks, fighting the Japanese in New Guinea and Borneo.
New South Wales Lancers
1st Light Horse Regiment in the Sinai Desert
An Australian Matilda Frog flamethrower tank in Borneo, 1945.
The Gallipoli campaign, the Dardanelles campaign, the Defence of Gallipoli or the Battle of Gallipoli was a military campaign in the First World War on the Gallipoli peninsula from 19 February 1915 to 9 January 1916. The Entente powers, Britain, France and the Russian Empire, sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central Powers, by taking control of the Ottoman straits. This would expose the Ottoman capital at Constantinople to bombardment by Entente battleships and cut it off from the Asian part of the empire. With the Ottoman Empire defeated, the Suez Canal would be safe and the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits would be open to Entente supplies to the Black Sea and warm-water ports in Russia.
A collection of photographs from the campaign. From top and left to right: Ottoman commanders including Mustafa Kemal (fourth from left); Entente warships; V Beach from the deck of SS River Clyde; Ottoman soldiers in a trench; and Entente positions
Panoramic view of the Entente fleet in the Dardanelles
French troops land at Lemnos, 1915.
Australian troops, Port Mudros, Greece, 20 April 1915