HORSES FOR THE WAR.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2364, 21 January 1915, Page 6

HORSES FOR THE WAR.

REMOUNTS FROM AUSTRALIA THREATENED WORLD SHORTAGE. Mr. A. Blennerhassett, senior starter to the Turf Club and Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee, has been commissioned by the War Office to visit Australia for the purpose of selecting remountß for tho British at my. The appointment of Mr. Blennerhassett recalls the astonishing statement of a British cavalry officer, identified with' the Remount Department, that the avorage life of a horse on the firing line in Belgium and France was about ten days'. It is estimated that' 3,000,000 horses are now engaged in tho war. Germany alone required nearly 800,000 for; the complete mobilisation of its military machine. Mobilisation of the French army called for 250,000, which figures are said to include only the cavalry arm of the service. England had collected more than 400,000 horses for tho army prior to the end of November. Russia's equipment is not known, but with an army of 6,000,000 men it is believed the Czar's forces are finding employment for almost 1,000,000 horses in cavalry, artillery, and' transport service. Austria has put more than 300,000 horses into its military operations, and both Servia and Belgium have considerable numbers engaged. If the British' officer's estimate of the wastage is not very wide of the-mark, it is a foregone conclusion that before the carnage ends there will be such a shortage of horses as Europe has never seen. Germany is said to have lost 1,000,000 .horses in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, and the wastage in the American Civil War was computed at 600 per day. The purchase of horses for the war has been in full swiris in America for the past four months. Commandant Feline, the French army officer who judged saddle horses at the last National Horse Show, ill New York, has spent a considerable time in Canada and the western States assembling aad training horses for the French armj. Mr. Adam Beck, widely known in New York as an exhibitor, and Dr. F. C. Grensido, a well-known American veterinarian, visited Canada and the southwestern States for the purpose of selecting suitable remounts for the British Government. Both were acting without compensation. Baron von Trutzschler, for many years agent of the German army, for the purchasing of horses in England and Ireland, who was said to be the best buyer frequenting' British shows and hunt meets, left England with the German Ambassador when the war broke out. During the year preceding the outbreak of the war buyers for Germany took unusually large numbers of the best horses out of Great Britain and Ireland, to the present detriment of the British . and French armies. England's main' strength at tho outbreak of hostilities was her available supply of fit and ready hunters, riding and driving cobs and ponies. Mounts for her cavalry wero swiftly procured—one may almost say, in a night—by commandeering these and other suitable horses found in private hands, and kept for hunting, polo, riding, driving, and other service. In this way the cavalry was mounted efficiently, and at much less cost than the cavalry of either France or Germany. The mission of Mr. Blennerhassett to Australia would suggest that the period of abnormal prosperity which American and Canadian breeders have been experiencing since war broke out has passed its zenith, and that the supply of suitable horses is on the wane. This is not to be wondered at, as the. encouragement formerly fiven to the breeding of army remounts as gradually been withdrawn, coincidental with the development of European Governmental studs. Germany's Imperial studs at Trakehenen, Newmarket, Graditz, Babireck and elsewhere have become famous, yet Germany was in time of peace the largest buyer of cavalry horses in Europe. Yet with all these advantages, Germany could not get suitable cavalry horses. "The sight of German officers returning from oneof their morning rides," says an American writer, "is not encouraging. To observe an officer in bright uniform mounted on a screw whose front legs need boots on the shins to prevent knocking. ■ with hind legs as straight and weak as those of a St. Bernard dog, tails cut to the proportionate . length and shape of a cotton-tail rabbit, is.not a pretty spectacle." France has one of the most extensive and expensive Government horse-breed-ing- establishments in. the world, and it has been in operation for more than a century, yet the breeding of remounts. 16 said to have fallen away in recent years. The visible supply of English hackneys has now been called up, and, as American hreeders have heretofore found it difficult to sell their output in competition with the British breeds, their available supplies would appear to have given vay under the strain of the canvass made of them by the Allies during the past five mouths. How the future requirements of the belligerent armies will be met, in view of the present world 6hortage of horses, is a matter of grave doubt.