Forty Thousand Horsemen

Clip 2: ‘What are we fighting for?’

Taken from the feature Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940)

Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be PG

Curator’s clip description

Red (Grant Taylor) gives his horse some water during a long and tortuous patrol in the desert. An officer tells him to save it for himself. Red, Jim (Chips Rafferty) and Larry (Pat Twohill) cool off on the dunes. They discuss the reasons they are fighting and the many wars that have preceded them on this inhospitable ground. Jim gives a statement of core values he believes are worth fighting for.

Curator’s notes

There’s a marked increase in sophistication of Chauvel’s directing in Forty Thousand Horsemen, probably due in part to his recent visit to the US, but his films were still prone to the occasional corny speech, given here by a nationalistic Chips Rafferty. This combination of action, sentiment and romance is present in all of Chauvel’s work before this film. He was highly influenced by American styles, but remained a nationalist director at heart. The difference between this and his early work is in the quality of the action sequences, which made a great leap forward with this film.

Paul Byrnes, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This black-and-white clip shows the Australian Light Horse in Palestine during the First World War. It opens with a long shot of Australian military horsemen coming over dunes in the desert with the distinctive emu feather plumes in their hats and carrying their bayonets. This shot is accompanied by stirring orchestral music with a martial beat. The next shot shows the men dismounting for a break and the clip concludes with a scene in which a group of three friends exchange thoughts on the subject of war and the purpose behind this specific war.

Educational value points

This clip is from the 1940 Australian feature film Forty Thousand Horsemen produced by Charles Chauvel, which re-created the heroic exploits of the Australian Light Horse during the First World War. Chauvel made the film as a tribute to his uncle, Lieutenant-General Harry Chauvel, the hero of the Palestine campaign. It includes the famous Australian 4th Light Horse cavalry charge in 1917 on the Turkish line at Beersheba, a town now in Israel but then part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Images and sound are used to appeal to Australian patriotism in the clip at a time when Australia was involved in the Second World War. The impressive sight of hundreds of horsemen marching three abreast through inhospitable terrain is supported by stirring martial music and the opening chords of Advance Australia fair. Scenes of individual Australian soldiers draw attention to their fortitude and mateship in the harsh desert conditions.

Elements of the mythical status achieved by the men of the Australian Light Horse Brigades are suggested in the clip. These men, many of whom had earlier served at Gallipoli, became celebrated for their horsemanship, their fortitude in the face of adversity and their mateship, as well as for their fighting abilities. The clip portrays their stoic endurance of the desert conditions, their concern for their mates and close relationship with their horses.

The clip reveals the screenwriter’s awareness of the official account of the reconnaissance patrols of the Australian Light Horsemen in the Sinai Desert during the First World War. The official history refers to the intense heat (over 50 degrees Celsius), the inadequate allowance of one quart bottle of water per man per day (about 1 litre), the acute physical distress experienced by troops and horses and finally, the soldiers’ ponderings on the historical associations of the route they followed.

Through the character played by Chips Rafferty the clip promotes a view of the War as defending democracy at a time when Australia was committed to defending Britain, but without the enthusiasm that had greeted the outbreak of the War in 1914. Jim’s examples of what democracy can provide its citizens are all couched in terms to appeal to the independent spirit of Australians. His speech would appear very wooden and staged to audiences today.

Jim refers to the possibility of their exploits being in the history books. He and his friends will achieve one of the most celebrated victories in the Allied desert campaign of the First World War. The capture of Beersheba from the Turks by the Australian Light Horse broke through the enemy line of defence, secured a supply of water for the troops to advance into Palestine and avoided the sort of stalemate that had occurred at Gallipoli.

Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940) is one of the most important films in Australian film history. Made by noted filmmaker Charles Chauvel (1897–1959), it broke all box office records in Australia when it was released and was also a major success overseas. The dramatic climax to the film, the re-creation of the charge of the Light Horsemen to take Beersheba, helped cement the film’s appeal and showed the skills Chauvel had gained while in Hollywood.

The clip provides an example of the work of Australian filmmaker Charles Chauvel. He made nine feature films, many of which, like Forty Thousand Horsemen, pursued epic narratives with a strong sense of nationalism. The film also features the young Australian actor Chips Rafferty (1909–71). Born John William Goffage, he became a very popular actor, playing mainly ‘outback’ characters who embodied typical Australian qualities, and had a long and illustrious film career.

The music score is by composer Lindley Evans (1895–1982), who collaborated with Charles Chauvel on several films and found opportunities where he could to incorporate distinctly Australian motifs into his soundtracks. A few bars of what has become Australia’s national anthem can be heard in the clip.