British mounted troops staging a combat manoeuvre, not far from Kimberley, South Africa, May-July 1900.

The troopers gallop towards the camera, regular cavalry first, followed by yeomanry. There is a kopje behind them on the horizon. The column gallops up to a thorn hedge, halts beside it and deploys a Maxim machine gun from a pack saddle. The rest of the men dismount and come forward to form a firing line on the thorn hedge while the horseholders take the horses a little way back. The signal to retire is then given, the horses come forward, the men remount and gallop off.

Notes

Title: this has been taken from the Warwick catalogue for 1900

Production: this film is Warwick catalogue number 5545d

Summary: the identification of this film was made by James Barker, late of the Department of Information Retrieval, Imperial War Museum, in work for the television series 'Flashback'. Note that two fragments from this completed film are held as IWM 1025a and IWM 1025d

Technical: this item is currently held on a single reel with films IWM 1081a-g, the can is marked as IWM 1081