clipped from: www.wired.com   
The town of Beersheba, photographed in 1917 during its capture by Austrailian mounted troops.
Image: Courtesy Australian War Memorial
Using two regiments, the 4th and 12th Light Horse, the Aussies attacked the Turkish lines in front of Beersheba, then a southern outpost of the tottering Ottoman Empire. The main objective was not the town itself but the wells nearby, needed to supply British and Australian troops desperately short of water.

The attackers bypassed most of the front-line pickets and struck at the Turkish rear, with the 4th attacking the trenches while the 12th slipped through a gap and rode into Beersheba. Dismounting, the horsemen engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, stabbing with their bayonets and using their rifles as clubs. The Turks soon broke, and the wells were captured before they could be destroyed. The town fell in the same assault.