CENTENARY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR 1914 - 1918
REMEMBERING THE WAR HORSE AND OTHER ANIMALS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR US
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The Untold Story
They shared a bond like no other amid the horrors of the First World war trenches. This is the forgotton tragedy of the Great War - a conflict that pitched as many animals into the line of fire as it did humans. For years few knew of the unimaginable suffering of the beasts transported across the Channel to the Western Front.
The successful novel by former childrens laureate Michael Morpurgo was the first to portray this story, then followed the hit West End play about the War Horse. But not until the release of Stephen Spielbergs' film War Horse was the true extent of the sacrifice to be known.
It describes the impenetrable bond between master and horse. Even those belonging to the higher ranks were not spared the horrors of the front line, as General Jack Seely acknowledged. The General was famed for his heroics at Moreuil Wood where he led the charge on the back of his trusted horse Warrior.
General Seely said of his horse: "He had to endure everthing most hateful to him - violent noise, the bursting of great shells and bright flashes at night, when the white light of bursting shells must have caused violent pain to such sensitive eyes as horses possess. Above all, the smell of blood, so terrifying to every horse". " Many people do not realise how acute is his sense of smell, but most will have read his terror when he smells blood".
For despite their strength, the horses were no less vulnerable to dangers of the battlefield. "The sombre close of the Battle of the Somme was cruel to horses no less than men" said General Seely. "The roads were so broken up due to poor weather conditions, that the only way to get ammunition to the forward batteries was to carry it up in panniers slung on horses, often these poor beasts would sink deep into the mud". "Sometimes, in spite of all their struggles, they could not extricate themselves, and died where they fell".
A charity poster declaring 'Help the Horse to Save the Soldier' showed how protecting the creatures was seen as important as looking after the men. World War One was "the first and last global conflict in which the horse played a vital role", Mr Butler explains.
The horses shifted millions of tons of rations and ammunitions up to the front line and also brought back the wounded on stretchers placed on carriages. This meant they could be caught up in mustard gas attackes, get stuck on the barbed wire in front of the trenches and be left in no mans land.
What comes across most of all is the sheer stupidity of sending horses into battle against howitzers and tanks
In his diary, Lieutenant R G Dixon, of 14th Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, remembered: "Heaving about in the filthy mud of the road was an unfortunate mule with both of his forelegs shot away". "the poor brute, suffering God knows what untold agonies and terrors, was trying desperately to get to hs feet which weren't there".
The story is the subject of a powerful new book, War Horses, by historian Simon Butler. Mr Butler lives on Dartmoor where the War Horse was filmed, Said "I was always interested in the subject, but I never realised how what happened to the horses was not properly documented before. My whole book is about the tragic story of how these ordinary horses were taken from farms by the military".
One witness, Elizabeth Owen, recalled "everything in the village was done by horses, the khaki men came and tied them all together on a long rope, I think there were about 20 - all horses we used to know, love and feed"
As the surviving shell-shocked soldiers trudged home after the 1918 Armistice, thoughts turned to the other innocent victims of the senseless loss of life - the horses.
Animal campaigners from the fledgliing RSPCA campaigned to save the domesticated creatures now wandering aimlessly through sodden landscape from French and German abattoirs.
Their intervention meant that at least a few lucky horses were able to return to their quite stables in Norfolk, North Yorkshire and Devon to see out their final years.