68 THE HORSE AND THE WAR 



seriouslv threatening the northern coast of France they were hurriedly shipped 

 and put out to sea. For three da3^s they were steaming for a destination 

 unknown to the voyagers until they again landed in France. For three 

 weeks afterwards they were strenuously engaged in supplying horses to the 

 front, including most of the thousand brought from Waterford. Then there 

 came the order to move. Another fortnight passed and eventually the depot 

 came to rest at the place it has ever since occupied. They were the first to 

 settle in what was then a fine stretch of parkland on the edge of a forest. 

 You can imagine that with the huge growth of the armies and their require- 

 ments Httle or nothing that is green is to be seen on the surface of that park 

 to-day, for hospitals, stores, rest camps, and odds and ends of necessary 

 military development abound and congest. 



The depot began, as all other remount depots began — on nothing ! All 

 they possessed were the things that mattered, the horses. No neat and 

 orderly lines of covered stables, no well made metalled roads, no well designed 

 feeding and watering arrangements, and little or no comfort and convenience 

 for man or beast existed as is the case to-day. Horses were picketed in Hues 

 on ropes. They had to stand on ground which rapidly became mud. They 

 had to be taken a mile or more to water. Ah these alarming deficiencies 

 and disadvantages only existed, however, to be gradually removed until, by 

 strenuous labour and real devotion to the Cause, order was evolved out of 

 chaos. 



To-day there are five squadrons, each capable in normal times of 

 deaUng with 500 animals. Often at times of pressure far more are dealt 

 with, so that the strength in horses and mules averages 3,000. Thus, one 

 squadron will deal only with heavy draught horses for heavy artillery and 

 that class of transport which must' have heavy horses ; another speciaUzes 

 in the light draught horse which horses the Field and Horse Artillery and all 

 manner of horse transport. You scarcely need to be told, therefore, how this 

 class of horse must preponderate. A third squadron is intended to handle 

 those riding-horses suitable for cavalry and yeomanry, and a fourth devotes 

 each and every da^^'s work to the charger. 



Two-thirds of the animals come from those veterinary hospitals in the 

 immediate neighbourhood, and, on an average, close on a hundred a day 

 are received in this way. The remaining third come directly off the ships 

 which arrive at regular intervals from the large issuing depot in England. 

 You will notice, therefore, how details as to supply and demand are made to 

 dovetail. I have watched horses coming off ships after their short voyage, 

 and I have seen the daily arrivals from the veterinary hospitals. ObN'iously, 

 they are supposed to be fit animals whose residence at the base should, theo- 

 retically, be of short duration. For the time being, however, they are at once 

 placed in their classes and different squadrons by a special classification officer, 

 and it depends then on the calls made by the deputy directors of remounts 

 with the different armies as to how long they will stay at the base. It is the 

 D.D.R.'s, as they are called, who make the demands for the front. The 

 depot of which I am writing is primarily responsible for supplying the cavalry 

 divisions as well as the majority of chargers for the officers of those divisions. 



