14 THE HORSE AND THE WAR 



tion and publicity bureaus have caused even the Silent Xavy to break its 

 silence so that the people should know of its existence and history-making 

 doings. Land and Air Forces have wisely been exploited by experts and 

 laymen appointed for the purpose, and one cannot doubt that every one is 

 better for the little knowledge thereby imparted. But the silent, plodding, 

 uncomplaining horse or mule, each bearing the brand of national ownership, 

 have never yet failed, and so they have never been heard of outside the Armies. 

 May I hope this volume will bring them some little credit, some little gratitude 

 for the debt, ever mounting higher and higher, we may never pay, simply 

 because we may never realize how great it is. 



I wonder if people understand that in order to keep pace with the require- 

 ments of our Armies we have had to buy horses and mules running well into 

 seven figures. I wonder ! Can you, for instance, imagine that whereas the 

 Army possessed about 25,000 horses on August 4, 1914, we must now own at 

 least a million ? And in the interval of four years that million and many 

 more — for, of course, we must allow for the heavy wastage from death and 

 disease which has gone on in all the theatres of war from day to day — have 

 had to be bought in all parts of the world and brought by our ships to 

 Europe and the East. We have bought colossal numbers in North America, 

 and others in South America, Austraha and New Zealand, India, Spain, 

 Portugal, South Africa, while camels, oxen and donkeys have been purchased 

 for use in those theatres to which they were peculiarly suited. We may assume 

 that the four or five hundred thousand bought up to date in the United King- 

 dom and the seven or eight hundred thousand bought and shipped from North 

 America have been employed in this country and France in the same way as 

 horses from Australasia would naturally be most conveniently used in Egypt, 

 India and Mesopotamia. 



You may ask if it is not a fact that motor haulage has largely displaced 

 horses. Obviously after the figures I have given above it has not done so. To 

 a limited extent it has unquestionably done so or there would be no reason for 

 the existence of the bewildering growth of the Army Service Corps Motor Trans- 

 port Companies, the immense " parks " of motor lorries in France and those 

 other countries where the i\llies are fighting, and, again, the tractors which are 

 now part of all heavy siege artillery units. But what of the horses ? Again 

 let me emphasize the significance of the figures which, by the way, are neces- 

 sarily vague, for reasons that must be well understood, without being too vague 

 to convey no real meaning. I, at any rate, have often heard the remark : 

 " But surely horses have ceased to be in modern warfare. One never, or verv 

 rarely, hears of cavalry. And isn't all the rest done by motors ? " The belief 

 is typical of he folk left behind. Hence there may be at least one virtue in 

 the appearance of this volume, if it should succeed in shattering the absurd 

 notion by which our brave war-horse is denied the credit that he is so fairly 

 entitled to. 



What is the artillery that preponderates in modern warfare ? The field 

 gun, of course, which is the weapon of the Royal Field Artillery and Royal 

 Horse Artillery, Each must have its own team of conditioned horses, and 

 so when you count up the guns in a battery, the batteries in a brigade, the 



