THE HORSES OF THE PRUSSIAN ARMY. 
909 
fairly be inferred that blood was more plentiful amongst 
the stamm-borses than amongst the augmentation-horses, 
and that the greater immunity from injuries and sickness, 
which the former appear from the above statistics to have en¬ 
joyed, may be to some extent attributable to that cause. At 
any rate, the author assures us that, when it was possible to 
procure information upon the subject, it was invariably found 
that the horses carrying the “ crown brand,” showing them 
to be the produce of one of the Government studs ( Haupts 
Gestuts), or whose descent could be traced from some of the 
thoroughbred stallions ( landeshauptbeschaUions ) which the 
liberality and untiring efforts of the Prussian Government 
have provided in considerable numbers in various parts of 
the country, kept their condition best in the field, and were 
distinguished by their cleverness and powers of endurance. 
Extracts from the regimental reports on the horses of the 
several army corps during the campaigns of 1866 are annexed, 
from which we quote two remarkable examples. The first 
was related by Count Bismark-Bohlen, in his Vortrage uber 
die Aufgaben und die Verwendung dev Reiterei im Kreige 
(Berlin : Mittler and Son). It is as follows:— 
“ Lieutenant Yon Sperber, of the 1st (Lithuanian) Dragoons, 
marched with his section on a reconnaissance from Liebau by 
Pilnikau to Eisenbrot and back to Kottwitz, a distance of 
twenty (German) miles as the crow flies, in forty-two hours; 
between Pilniken, Eisenbrot, and Kottwitz, where it was 
very heavy ground, seventeen miles occupied twenty-four 
hours, and two of the horses fell lame. Not a horse was left 
behind, and all were present in front in the action at Kon- 
nigratz.” The distance here mentioned would be equal to 
eighty English miles in a direct line, without allowing for 
deviations. 
In the Norddeutschen Landwirthschaftlichen Zeitung, of 
llth September, 1869, No. 73, it is stated that every horse of 
this party bore the crown brand. 
The other instance is that of the 12th (Thuringian) Hus¬ 
sars, who, in 1866, were mounted on Prussian horses in 
which the barb strain was more observable than in those of 
any other corps. This regiment had marched, without a rest, 
from the Elbe to the Danube, .came into bivouac at 2.30 
a.m. on the morning of the 3rd July, and received half 
rations, and at 3.30 p.m. the same day made an attack over 
half a German mile (two miles English) of ground, winding 
up with a pursuit of some six hundred paces, without having 
a single horse out of the line. 
As regards the annual mortality of Prussian army horses. 
