Henry George Chauvel

Sir Harry Chauvel

General Sir Henry George 'Harry' Chauvel, GCMG, KCB (April 16, 1865 - March 4, 1945) was one of the finest general officers of the First Australian Imperial Force that fought during World War I. He is less renowned than his contemporary, General John Monash, because he served in the Middle East theatre and not the better known Western Front. However, Chauvel became the first Australian to attain the rank of lieutenant general and the first to command a corps (the Desert Mounted Corps) when he was promoted after the reorganisation of the British army in Palestine following the disastrous Second Battle of Gaza. His daughter Elyne Mitchell wrote a number of nonfiction works about her father and his corps. He is perhaps best known for his successful attack on Beersheba (Bir Saba) on October 31, 1917. He had unexpectedly been ordered by General Edmund Allenby to take the town by the end of the day and did indeed do this. Sending his 4th and 12th Mounted Light Horse Regiments across 4 miles of open ground at the Turkish defensive trenches they managed to capture the town and it's important wells.

His nephew Charles Chauvel was a well known film director.

He was portrayed in the 1987 film The Lighthorsemen by Bill Kerr, which covered the exploits of an Australian cavalry regiment during the Third Battle of Gaza, and in the 1990 film A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia by Ray Edwards, which took place around the 1919 Paris peace conference.