![]() Britain’s Remount Department alone spent about $3.9 billion in today’s money on purchasing, training and delivering horses and mules to the front. Immense resources were invested in the horses which had four main roles: Supply horses and mules were used to move ammunition, general supplies and ambulances, riding horses were ridden by soldiers, gun horses pulled artillery pieces and cavalry horses were used in battle. ![]() “It doesn’t have a choice, but will go and work for you and, in many cases, die for you.” “We can be too sentimental, but what has been obvious, I think, and particularly the reaction I’ve had about Warrior, because horses can’t speak there’s a noble, uncomplaining, inspirational stoicism about the horse going about its work. “By 1915, 16,000 horses had come from Tennessee, 2,000 from Uruguay. “The British Army had a very organized system in 1914 to sign horses up for the cavalry because they were aware that they would need horses badly,” says Scott. Hulton Archive/Archive Photos/Getty Images In the background artillery is moved by soldiers with horses. Steven Spielberg, director of War Horse, said during the release of his Oscar-nominated film: “Warrior is an extraordinary example of the resilience, strength, and profound contribution that horses made to the Great War.”ġ917: Canadian troops sit and take a break in a field during a pause in their attack on the Cambrai front, France, Western Front. Dubbed “the horse the Germans can’t kill,” by Canadian soldiers, Warrior’s obituary would appear in English newspapers The Times and Evening Standard and, in 2014, he posthumously received the Honorary PDSA Dickin Medal, known as the “animal Victoria Cross.” Warrior returned home to the Isle of Wight in 1918, living on the island off the south coast of England with the Seely family until his death aged 33. General Seely once said of Warrior: “I have seen him, even when a shell has burst within a few feet, stand still without a tremor – just turn his head and, unconcerned, look at the smoke of the burst.” One moment he and another horse were standing together, the horses touching noses while other people marched across a bridge, and there was a sniper and the horse next to him was shot dead.” ![]() “My grandfather was unbelievably lucky with Warrior. “Warrior was the lucky one,” Brough Scott, journalist and grandson and biographer of Seely, tells CNN. ![]() General Jack Seely on Warrior, painted in 1918 by Sir Alfred Munnings Canadian War Museum READ: The legend of Sergeant Reckless, America’s greatest war horse READ: Veterans to ride in the footsteps of WW1 soldiers Warrior survived, as did most of Seely’s command, and Moreuil Wood was taken by the Allies, bringing German advancement to a halt. Morning turned into a rainy afternoon, then light faded. Squadron after squadron followed Seely and Warrior, supported by the Royal Flying Corps which dropped 190 bombs. The pair advanced, galloping at speed for half a mile on muddy terrain before mounting a hill.īehind the thoroughbred on that morning of March 30, 1918, were 1,000 horses of the Canadian Cavalry a brigade of cowboys, Mounties, clerks, and Americans. In the saddle was General Jack Seely, a flamboyant aristocrat and politician. The star-foreheaded Warrior, who arrived on the Western Front in August 1914, had survived four years of shells and bullets, come through the horrors of Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele, and was now about to lead one of the last great cavalry charges in history. On the banks of France’s Arve river, the horse the Germans could not kill faced his most dangerous mission yet.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |