12th Cavalry

Chronology

• 1857 raised as 2nd Sikh Irregular Cavalry
• 1861 became 12th Regiment of Bengal Cavalry
• 1901 became 12th Bengal Cavalry
• 1903 became 12th Cavalry
• 1921 amalgamated with 11th Prince of Wales's Own Lancers to form 5th King Edward's Own Probyn's Horse

Battle Honours

• 1868 Abyssinia
• 1878-80 Afghanistan

• 1878 Peiwar Kotal
• 1879 Charasia
• 1879 Kabul

• 1899 Punjab Frontier

First World War

In November 1915, the regiment, under the Commandant, Lieutenant-Colonel E. de V. Wintle was posted to Mesopotamia, where Colonel Wintle commanded the cavalry force under General Tidswell on the Euphrates river. In January 1916, the British garrison in Kut-al-Amara had been invested by the Turks and it was decided to take some pressure off the defenders by sending forward a small force to make a feint from Nasariyeh, through Butaniyeh, towards the flank of the besieging army. Headquarters, two squadrons and the machine-gun section of the 12th Cavalry accompanied this force which, after three weeks at Butaniyeh, was ordered to withdraw to Nasariyeh. During the closing stages of this difficult manoeuvre on 7 February, with a superior number of some 5,000 hostile Arabs pressing in on all sides, the 1500-strong Butaniyeh column got into trouble and it seemed likely it would be cut off from Nasariyeh. Although the retirement was successfully accomplished Colonel Wintle was killed by a shot through the head

External links

• 12th Cavalry Wikipedia
  
• 12th Bengal Cavalry Wikipedia
  
• Probyn's Horse, an extract from John Gaylor's book Sons of John Company. Defence Journal Karachi May 1999, now archived.