MILITARY HYGIENE 969 



work required, in consequence of which WeUington recom- 

 mended the ready-made shoe for military purposes, another 

 example of history repeating itself. 



The loss in General Hartmann's Cavalry Division 

 mentioned at p. 961 was largely due to the impossibility 

 of keeping the horses shod. The Corunna campaign is 

 the best example in our history of defective shoeing, for 

 there were neither shoes nor nails; the same thing fre- 

 quently occurred during the American Civil War. 



The absence of frost-shoeing was partly responsible for 

 some of Napoleon's disasters in 1812, for the sufferings of 

 the Danish Army in their retreat from the Prussians in 

 1865, and according to the French it helped to determine 

 the capitulation of Bourbaki in 1871. 



Shoeing would be greatly simplified on service if farriers 

 were struck off all other duties ; in fact, the only thing 

 required to render shoeing efficient is to have a sufficient 

 number of farriers, and confine them solely to their trade. 



Apart from the loss of horses under fire, the heaviest 

 losses in animals occurring to any army is during a 

 retreat. Out of the 160,000 cavalry which entered Eussia 

 in 1812 only about 1,600 recrossed the Niemen six months 

 later, the loss being over 97 per cent. In our retreat on 

 Corunna the cavalry losses were about 50 per cent. In a 

 retreat of the Portuguese cavalry in the Peninsular Cam- 

 paign the loss was 42'6 per cent. 



In Wellington's retreat from Salamanca to Ciudad 

 Eodrigo he lost one horse for every mile traversed, while 

 Massena in his retreat from Portugal, lost in the ten days 

 it lasted as many horses as during the previous two and a 

 half months' campaign. 



It is obvious that the chief cause of loss in a retreat is 

 due to exhaustion. 



Stampedes.— One would have thought that war brought 

 quite enough damage without horses inflicting losses on 

 themselves, but whenever bodies of horses are brought 

 together, the curious contagious nervous explosions known 

 as stampedes are liable to occur. We have dealt with this 



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