Every 23rd  September, while the world’s attention turns elsewhere, the Indian Army pauses to honour a battle fought over a century ago on distant shores. Haifa Day commemorates one of the last great cavalry charges in military history and one of India’s most overlooked contributions to world history.

In the autumn of 1918, as World War I raged across Europe and the Middle East, the Mediterranean port of Haifa stood as a strategic prize. Controlled by the Ottoman Empire, it served as a crucial supply hub for Turkish and German forces retreating northward through Palestine. For British General Edmund Allenby, capturing Haifa was not merely about territory but about severing enemy supply lines and securing dominance of Allied Powers over the Mediterranean coast.

The task fell to an unlikely force, the 15th (Imperial Service) Cavalry Brigade composed largely of soldiers from three Indian princely states namely Jodhpur, Mysore and Hyderabad. On the morning of 23rd September 1918, the Mysore Lancers attacked Haifa from the north while the Jodhpur........

© Greater Kashmir