Can anybody throw any light on this unidentified mounted (WWI?) soldier ?

[kob3203]

An interesting aside.

I've just found a photo of, so the caption says, a mounted South Wales Borderers soldier taken in France in 1915 - https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-private-david-t-jones-of-the-south-wales-borderers-a-mounted-regiment-172580185.html.

According to https://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armyunits/britishinfantry/swb.htm "The 2nd battalion of the SWB also served in the [Boer] war, partially as mounted infantry."

The cap badge of the South Wales Borderers https://www.britishmilitarybadges.co.uk/products/ww1-south-wales-borderers-swb-regiment-cap-badge-21.html doesn't have the Prince of Wales feathers, so doesn't match our photo. But the person who had the photo had connections to the SWB and RGA.

[kob3203]

Because I've found so many interesting photos on the internet while chasing this up I've opened a Pinterest account and created a few boards to try and capture them all:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/kob3203/telling-wwi-british-mounted-troops-apart/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/kob3203/wwi-cap-badge-identification/

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/kob3203/linked-from-my-topic/

I'm finding some aspects of Pinterest infuriating, and I'm still trying to get to grips with it.


I've also learnt a lot while trying to find out more about this photo - e.g. I knew nothing about the Salonika Campaign, or about British WWI uniforms, or training camps, or the yeomanry, etc. For me that's the best thing about this.

[majm]

https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm-media/collection/E02665/screen/6209387.JPG

_{Before Amiens, this village in the Somme valley is here shown (from the south), the day after its capture in a local attack by the 4th, 6th and 11th Australian Infantry Brigades, and attached Americans. General Monash made this operation the opportunity for an experiment in the co-operation of artillery, infantry, tanks, and aeroplanes; and the battle, which was completely successful, was in some respects the model for the subsequent offensive of 8 August. (The streaks of earth are the rims of shell craters or of shallow scars made by the burst of shells with "instantaneous" fuses.)}

This is a photo from the free to search website provided by the Australian War Memorial.   https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/E02665 and is in the Monash collection https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P11013307 which is one of some 250 or more collections from WWI https://www.awm.gov.au/webgroups/ANZAC_Connections. 

https://www.awm.gov.au/

ADD
Amiens and Monash ... agh .... you may not have gone to school in New South Wales ... The photo is likely taken August 1918 - when Monash devised AND delivered on his plan to end WWI by breaking the Hindenberg Line.  https://sjmc.gov.au/the-battle-of-amiens/

JM

[majm]

Photos:
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C55084  and
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C55084?image=2
29 August 1918, Somme.

JM

[kob3203]

majm - those last two posts were perhaps posted to the wrong topic ? (I definitely didn't go to school in New South Wales. I'm English and schools in England were much closer! )

[kob3203]

Just found this page http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~gregkrenzelok/genealogy/veterinary%20corp%20in%20ww1/royalarmyveterinarycorpsww1.html with lots of photos (studio and mounted) of members of the RAVC (Royal Army Veterinary Corps) in a more or less identical uniform. Once again the cap badge seems to be the main identifying feature.

[majm]

majm - those last two posts were perhaps posted to the wrong topic ? (I definitely didn't go to school in New South Wales - schools in England were much closer! )

No,  I posted links to those photos to this thread. Look at those photos, study ... scrutinise ... the scenes displayed, and compare with the background in your photo.  Then place those linked photos in their historical context. Perhaps then  find quiet time to reflect.   Monash knew the Lee-Enfield rifle.  And he knew soldiering. And like most chaps born in the 19th century, he knew horses, and he knew that the volunteer army - the AIF - would not be bringing home the horses.

JM. 

[kob3203]

Thanks majm. While I wouldn't rule France out I'm now fairly convinced that tonepad was on the right track from the very beginning, suggesting Pembroke (reply 2) or Glamorgan (reply 6) Yeomanry in a typically British landscape suggestive of a summer training camp before WW1 started in Aug 1914 (reply 17).
I think Occam's razor points to that answer too.

My personal odds-on favourite (but still not definite) is now the tented Yeomanry camp at Penally (near Tenby, Glamorganshire) before or in the early stages of WWI.