CHAPTER IX 



On Active Service 



EVERY one in the Army has been learning and acquiring knowledge 

 during the war. Brains, when they were given a chance, have had 

 wonderful opportunities for activity ; and even when suppressed by the 

 sheer complexity and weight of official routine they have invariably triumphed. 

 It is true of the Chiefs of strategy, tactics, administration and supply and of 

 every one in a descending grade. Most certainly it is true of those who have 

 had to do with horses and mules in the war, which are my special theme. 

 Experience has been the teacher, as it always has been, whether in success 

 or failure. Every one must inevitably have profited by his mistakes, just 

 as he must have been encouraged and spurred on to greater things by his 

 successes. One sees this so definitely where the horses are concerned. There 

 is an infinitely better understanding in 1918 between man and his dumb and 

 uncomplaining beast of burden in France than there was in 1914 and later 

 than that. Those who have had charge of him in health have learned better 

 how to maintain him in health against the unnatural rigours of hardship and 

 exposure and those other menaces imposed by modern warfare in country 

 constantly harassed and torn by shell-fire and bomb. And it is equally certain 

 that immense strides have been made by that splendid Arm}^ Veterinary 

 Service in coaxing back to health the debihtated and the exhausted, those 

 gashed and wounded by bullet and shell splinters, and in combating disease 

 generally. 



There can be no fair comparison between 1914 and 1918. For one thing, 

 numbers have vastly increased ; so much so, indeed, that since the first of 

 our war-horses stepped ashore in France something like a total of three-quarters 

 of a million animals must have passed through France. That is a stupendous 

 figure. Then, while the " first hundred thousand " had to be dumped " any- 

 where " — literally anywhere — in the region of the long fine of battle, others 

 that followed have had the better conditions resulting from valiant efforts 

 to improve stabling and shelters. Time and experience have come to the 

 rescue, just as one would have expected them to do. But a factor of which 

 too much cannot be made has been the very real concern of the Field-Marshal 

 Commanding-in-Chief (Sir Douglas Haig). 



His influence has been great and has penetrated from the vast users of 

 animals — the heavy and field artillery — to the smallest unit employing horses 

 or mules. He is known to be a sincere lo\-er of the horse, and I am perfectly 



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