CHAPTER I 



Introductory 



It was a pleasure to me to find from the admirahle condition of the horses and 

 mules of the various units I inspected that the new Armies fully uphold our national 

 reputation as good horse-masters. — H.M. the King in his letter to Field- INIarshal 

 Sir Douglas Haig, dated France, August 13, 1918. 



THIS volume is not the outcome of a solemn and virtuous resolve to write 

 a book. It was not started with any idea that it would one day be 

 a volume. It had modest beginnings even though it was conceived of a great 

 subject such as no other writer in the fascinating history and Hves of horses 

 has had to comtemplate. It was just the writer's great good fortune, since 

 war had to be. Those modest beginnings took the form of a contributed 

 article, then another, and so on, until the sequence seemed to insist on being 

 shaped into a coherent whole, which now emerges as a book on the hundreds 

 of thousands of horses and mules that have been gallantly aiding the Empire's 

 Cause. As I glance through the pages now I experience a sense of satisfaction 

 that its original character remains. It was intended to be, and, indeed, could 

 be no other than, a fleeting narrative of the vast and wonderful part played 

 by our war-horses without which our Armies of millions would have been 

 immobile and impotent. The self-appointed task was not without its difti- 

 culties and could have been approached in no other spirit than that of diffidence. 

 The former were made less difficult by reason of the writer's own war service, 

 which brought him to terms of easy intimacy with the subject ; the latter 

 simply had to be overcome with a consciousness that there might perhaps 

 be too much diffidence in continuing to ignore this important aspect of our 

 making of war. 



For it is certain that the people of this country, of our Empire, and of 

 the countries of our Allies know little or nothing of what this book professes 

 to tell— of the horse and mule that help to move the gun, the transport wagon 

 loaded with food, ammunition or stores, and in hundreds of ways keep 

 Armies moving and make them formidable in offence and sure in defence. 

 Surely the volume needs no better justification than this ignorance of the 

 people. They could not well be otherwise, for I have failed to notice that 

 our war-horses have had their agents of propaganda. The people only learn 

 when failures are exposed and things are revealed. Our war-horses and mules 

 have been bought, literally, by the million, and the taxpayer has contributed, 

 and will contribute, to the many millions the}- ha\'e cost the State. Informa- 



