Page 32 - Sylvia Malt - Side by Side

The First World War relied heavily on the horse and many thousands were requisitioned
under Government orders from farms, the countryside, riding establishments and almost
anywhere a horse could be found.

The horses pulled wagons, gun carriages, ammunition, and transported the injured men
away from the battlefield. Without the horse, it is generally accepted that the armies of the
First World War could not have survived.

When the fields became quagmires, the horse was the only way any men or equipment
could be moved. Many were lost but some did survive, such as the horse of General Jack
Seely, who had sat alongside Churchill in Asquith’s 1911-1914 Government. He took his
horse Warrior and managed to keep him safe for the four years duration of the War
although they had many near misses.

Miraculously, Warrior was able at the end of the hideous hostilities to retire to his home on
the Isle of Wight.

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