The cavalry of the Desert Mounted Corps were old campaigners in
the East. The Anzac Mounted Division, composed of six regiments of
Australian Light Horse and three regiments of New Zealand Mounted
Rifles, had been operating in the Sinai Desert when they were not
winning fame on Gallipoli, since the early days of the war. They had
proved sterling soldiers in the desert war, hard, full of courage,
capable of making light of the longest trek in waterless stretches of
country, and mobile to a degree the Turks never dreamed of. There were
six other regiments of Australian Light Horse and three first-line
regiments of yeomanry in the Australian Mounted Division, and nine
yeomanry regiments in the Yeomanry Mounted Division. The 7th Mounted
Brigade was attached to Desert Corps, as was also the Imperial Camel
Corps Brigade, formed of yeomen and Australians who had volunteered
from their regiments for work as camelry. They, too, were veterans.

All these divisions had to be trained hard. Not only had the four
infantry divisions of XXth Corps to be brought to a pitch of physical
fitness to enable them to endure a considerable period of open
fighting, but they had to be trained in water abstinence, as, in the
event of success, they would unquestionably have long marches in a
country yielding a quite inadequate supply of drinking water, and this
problem in itself was such that fully 6000 camels were required to
carry drinking water to infantry alone. Water-abstinence training
lasted three weeks, and the maximum of half a gallon a man for all
purposes was not exceeded, simply because the men had been made
accustomed to deny themselves drink except when absolutely necessary.
But for a systematic training they would have suffered a great deal.
The disposition of the force is given in the Appendix.[1]