Fighting Vichy From Horseback with Jonathan Washington

FREE Event

This is a live, in-person event.

Location:  Christ Church Centre, 6a Morningside Road, EH10 4DD

Join us to celebrate the release of Jonathan Washington's first military history book, FIGHTING VICHY FROM HORSEBACK: British Mounted Cavalry in Action, Syria 1941.

About the Book:

This book starts with the story of a division that was never intended to fight; the British 1st Cavalry Division in the Second World War. It was composed almost exclusively of yeomanry horsemen from Britain's Territorial Army - a force that had been ignored by Whitehall's military reforms since 1920. In May 1941, an incongruous saga of deception, desperation and reinvention, saw British horsemen advancing into Syria on Operation "Exporter".

Incredibly, by the end of the campaign, these horsemen had proved themselves so effective that the British had completely rewritten their doctrine for mounted cavalry. That the horsemen were able to adapt and overcome in 1941, mounted throughout the campaign as they were, is one of the most remarkable aspects of their saga. The fact that they were ever mobilised as cavalry is probably the second.

About the Author:

Jonathan Washington read history at the University of St Andrews. During this time he also served with the Scottish Yeomanry and the Queens Own Yeomanry. He went on to work in publishing in Edinburgh, Beirut and in Warwickshire, and to complete a MSc Publishing at Edinburgh Napier University. Now in teaching, he lives in Warwickshire with his wife and three children. This is his first publication.