84 THE HORSE AND THE WAR 



acquaintance with away down the Une at the hospitals. I asked for them when 

 I could not find them, and was told that they did not exist. From where, 

 then, did the hospitals get their debility cases ? I can only infer that the 

 authorities concerned do realize that prompt evacuation of the sick and the 

 worn is the best policy, and that to hang on to them at the front too long 

 is to jeopardize the life of the horse or to delay his complete recovery so long 

 that his maintenance while out of action becomes a doubtful proposition 

 from a financial point of view. 



Again I would emphasize what I wrote in a previous article, namely, that 

 gunner oflicers, infantry transport officers, D.A.C. officers, and the N.C.O.'s 

 working under them have undoubtedly acquired from experience a far better 

 understanding of certain first principles essential to proper management of 

 horses in the field. The excellent results are what I saw. The horse advisers 

 have obviously done well, and in that sense the experiment of establishing 

 them has been proved a success, even though it is true that here and there 

 intrusion was not exactly welcomed at the outset. And, of very real import- 

 ance, I would specially note once more the great good following on the improved 

 standings and the provision of shelter and screens, however rough, against 

 wind and weather. It follows that a horse which must stand in mud and 

 slime until his fetlocks disappear is not going to remain well long. He will 

 develop foot trouble like laminitis, and " grease," the scourge of heavy, hairy- 

 legged horses, is inevitable and must, indeed, cause great loss of usefulness. 

 So \'0u will understand what an advance has been made by the improvement 

 of standings and how it has reacted on the animals. 



Of course, it is not always possible to provide what every man knows 

 is desirable. Supposing an advance takes place to a depth of a mile or two, 

 or even more, what then ? Horses attached to the guns, horses in the trans- 

 port with supplies, pack mules with food and ammunition for the infantry — 

 they cannot remain where they were. They must make a corresponding 

 move on, and then, of course, they have to desert their old shelters and enter 

 a " No Man's Land." Such a land too ! A land of horrors underfoot, the 

 whole drab face of the earth nothing now but a racked and scourged wilder- 

 ness of shuddering pits and water-laden shell holes. Then is the time w^ien 

 the stoutest-hearted horse and the plodding, uncomplaining " muley " are 

 tried to " cracking point." Their next bivouac is on the mud, which is the 

 beginning of most troubles and the original cause of the streams that trickle 

 week by week into the reception veterinary hospitals and those other hospitals 

 that radiate from them. 



I have heard folk at home, who have never seen these things and therefore 

 do not know, express astonishment that horses and mules are still a vital force 

 in the prosecution of modern warfare. The motor lorry, the steam wagon 

 and the caterpillar tractors, they say, must have supplanted the horse. To 

 some extent they certainly have done so, and it is a reminder that but for 

 them no nation or assembly of nations could have carried on war on the gigan- 

 tic scale it now is had they all the horses in the world at their command. We 

 have to remember that this is a unique war of enormous, unparalleled magni- 

 tude, and that horses are being employed on a scale which could never have 



