Virtual
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Australia

Charles Henry Speck was born at Gawler, South Australia on 7 June 1892, the fourth of nine children born to Samuel Speck and Charlotte (nee Lock). Charles spent the majority of his childhood at Blanchetown on the (west) bank of the Murray River, 130 km north-east of Adelaide, South Australia. Charles spent his pre-war working life as a labourer.

His father's death on 7 March 1915, aged 64 years, was caused by pneumonia and pleurisy as was his elder brother Sam's death on 20 June 1915 aged 26 years.

1916

Charles signed his A.I.F. Attestation Papers, on Monday 17 January 1916 aged twenty-two, in Adelaide. After three months training, at the Oaklands Light Horse camp, Charles Henry Speck, regimental number 2481, was assigned to the 3rd Light Horse Regiment - 17th Reinforcement and entrained to Melbourne, Victoria. On Tuesday 8 May 1916 the reinforcements departed Melbourne aboard ‘HMAT Kabinga’ bound for Egypt, where they arrived on 15 June.

Initially all the reinforcements were assigned to the 1st Light Horse Training Regiment at Tel-el-Kebir Training Camp, 68 miles north-east of Cairo. During this time there was an oversupply of men in the Light Horse Regiments and, because of this oversupply, dismounted units were formed for the defence of the Suez Canal. Charles was assigned to the 3rd Light Horse Double Squadron, formed in Egypt on 6 July 1916 and administered by the 3rd Light Horse Brigade.

The threat to the Suez Canal was no longer an issue by November 1916 and the requirement for the Double Squadrons no longer existed. The squadrons were broken up on Thursday 2 November 1916 and Charles, along with the majority of the men, was transferred to the newly formed 4th Camel Regiment. This Camel Regiment, formed at El Ferdan, was entrained to the Abbassia Camp, Cairo the home of the Imperial Camel Corps. The major problem, on arrival at the Abbassia Camp, was that there were not sufficient camels, saddles or other related equipment to provision the new Camel Regiment.

1917

On 3 February 1917 the 4th Camel Regiment, after three months training, was disbanded and the 4th (Anzac) Camel Battalion was formed. Charles was assigned to this battalion and allocated to the 18th Camel Company. During March and April the 4th Camel Battalion were spending their time guarding the railheads at Serapeum and El Ferdan.

The war in the East, against the Ottoman Empire, started to go the way of the British and their Allies. Britain had captured Baghdad along with all of Mesopotamia and, on the Arabian Peninsula revolts by desert tribesmen had broken Turkey’s long-lasting grip on the region.

In December 1917, the British captured the city of Jerusalem in Palestine and slowly began advancing toward Turkey. The Australian Imperial Camel Corps (ICC) and the 4th (Anzac) Camel Battalion, which Charles Henry Speck was assigned to, had participated in much of the fighting. The men of the ICC had been given a rough reputation, based on the fact that during its inception, the Australian Battalion commanders had used it as an opportunity to offload some of their more difficult soldiers. One story was that while defending a hill, named Musallabeh in April 1918, soldiers of the ICC ran out of hand grenades and resorted to heaving boulders down upon the attacking Turks. The Turks were fought off and the hill became known as the ‘Camel’s Hump’.

1918

As the ICC moved into the more fertile country of northern Palestine, the usefulness of camels declined as they required more food and water than horses, which could move much faster. The bulk of the ICC was disbanded in June 1918 and the Australians were used to form the 14th and 15th Light Horse Regiments. Charles was assigned to the 15th Light Horse Regiment on 20 June 1918.

These newly formed Light Horse Regiments fought in only one major battle at Megiddo. in September 1918. Over ten days the 15th Light Horse Regiment, as part of the 5th Light Horse Brigade, advanced 370 miles destroying road and rail links, and pursuing the retreating Ottoman Army into Syria, entering Damascus on 1 October 1918.

At the time Damascus was the capital of Turkish occupied Syria and Palestine. The Light Horse Regiment entered the town in the early morning of 1 October. The Governor of Damascus, Emir Said, surrendered the town to Major Arthur Olden, the Light Horse Regiment’s second-in-command. Later the same morning T.E. (Thomas Edward) Lawrence, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, and the Arab forces of Faisal, son of the Sherif of Mecca, entered Damascus.

Mehmed VI, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire requested peace terms on Monday 14 October. The Armistice of Moudros was signed on October 30, between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, ending the hostilities in the Middle East. The Armistice, signed on board ‘HMS Agamemnon’ in Moudros harbour on the Greek island of Lemnos, gave the Allies the occupation rights to the forts controlling the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, and the right to occupy any Ottoman territory in case of a threat to security.

After the signing of the Armistice, the 15th Light Horse Regiment rode 100 miles north to Homs, arriving there on 31 October. Three days later they were ordered to patrol to Baalbek, 60 miles south-west. The weather was quite wet and cold and the soldiers were still being shot at. At Baalbek, where they arrived on 28 November, the regiment cleaned out and moved into the old Turkish Barracks. The need to get the horses under cover was urgent due to the very cold weather. The regiment camped at Baalbek until the end of 1918.

1919

Charles Henry Speck, and the other members of the 15th Light Horse regiment, spent January and February, of 1919, at their Baalbek camp in Lebanon. They received their orders for repatriation at the end of February and started their f55 mile ride to Beirut on 2 March, arriving there on 4 March.

The next few days were busy, preparing for their trip home, as they cleaned all their saddling, rifles and side-arms, before handing them into the store. All of their animals were checked by the veterinary surgeons, and 228 horses and 3 mules were handed into the 40th Remount Squadron. There were 50 horses destroyed, which had failed the veterinary check, and the troops were responsible for the burial of their carcases.

While waiting for the final embarkation for home, the regiment was called back into operational duty to assist in controlling the Egyptian revolt that erupted during March 1919. On the morning of 23 March at 11 o’clock, the 15th Light Horse regiment went aboard the ‘HMT Ellenga’, arriving at Port Said, Egypt at 9 o’clock the following morning. On arrival at Port Said, they boarded a train to the A.I.F. Moascar Camp at Ismailia where they were re-outfitted. They were issued with horses, mules and wagons, from the remount area, and from the ordinance store the regiment was supplied with swords, rifles, revolvers and rifle buckets for their saddles.

On 3 April the regiment received a movement order for them to relocate, by train, from Moascar to Zagazig, 50 miles to the west, with their horses to be loaded onto the train with saddles on.

The whole exercise was due to demonstrations in Cairo, mainly by students, in early March, that started an outburst of anti-British rioting. It appeared that the student rebellion was the signal for the rest of Egypt to erupt as, within a few days, the rebellion spread to the majority of the provinces. Then a general strike was called and all rail and telegraph services were suspended.

The rebellion was the result of three major issues. Many educated and capable young Egyptians found themselves with little hope of employment, with the majority of government appointments being held by British officers or colonials. Also, during the war, the village leaders had made villagers, who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay the local fees, work in the labour camps for minimal rewards. These same village leaders had also collected grain from the farmers, sold it to the British, and failed to pass any of the money back to the farmers. When the rebellion began, telephone lines were torn down, sections of railway lines were ripped up and Christian churches were looted and burned.

The train, with the 15th Light Horse regiment aboard, was 10 miles out from Zagazig when the train came to a halt. On inspection it was found that the railway line had been ripped up from the ground. Later they were told that on 27 March another Light Horse regiment, on patrol, came across thousands of Egyptians ripping up the railway line. Spooked by the encounter, the troopers immediately opened fire, killing thirty people as the rest of the crowd fled for safety.

The 15th Light Horse regiment de-trained and rode into the Australian Headquarters in Zagazig. On arrival, at headquarters, they were ordered to start patrolling around Mit Ghamr, 14 miles north-west of Zagazig. As they patrolled around the area they found a fair amount of local destruction, with rails removed from railway systems and thrown into canals, telegraph lines destroyed throughout the area. Some village leaders had their villagers collect the railway sleepers and they were piled up, for safe keeping, ready for reconstruction.

During May and June the 15th Light Horse regiment were overseeing the repair of the railway network and the telegraph system, in and around Mit Ghamr. All of the repairs were performed by the local people, with some forced at gunpoint to carry out the retrieval and repairs. By the end of June the situation was under control and the Australian Light Horse regiments prepared again to head home.

During July 1919 Charles Henry Speck and the soldiers of the 15th Light Horse regiment were going through the same process they had been through in Lebanon in March. This time they were in the A.I.F. Moascar Camp at Ismailia, Egypt handing in their cleaned saddling and weaponry. Once again they were leaving their horses behind, some had been shot, the remainder transferred to the Indian cavalry units.

The Light Horse troopers entrained to Suez where they went aboard the transport ship ‘HS Dongala’ on Thursday 24 July 1919, for the return trip to Australia. The ‘HS Dongala’ arrived at Outer Harbour, at 2.30 pm on Saturday 23 August and was beside the wharf. A special train was waiting to take Charles Henry Speck and the other South Australian soldiers direct to Keswick Barracks.

On Tuesday 7 October, Charles Henry Speck, age twenty-seven, presented himself to Keswick Barracks, where he was discharged, medically fit, from the A.I.F. after duty in WWI where he had spent three years and two-hundred and sixty-four days in the Light Horse Regiments and the Australian Camel Corps, in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.

After the War

Charles went back to the riverland and settled at Kapunda. On Sunday 1 October 1922, Charles Henry Speck died at Kapunda Hospital, aged 30 years, falling victim to his family’s genes. His father, Samuel, and elder brother, Sam, had both died from pneumonia and pleurisy, which also took Charles’ life.

Sources

Australian War Memorial - www.awm.gov.au (www.awm.gov.au)

The Immigrants, Paul M. Hoskins, Xlibris, 2013