THE OLD WAR-HORSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 904, 22 February 1930, Page 23

THE OLD WAR-HORSE

NEW TRANSPORT FOR ARMY WELCOMED BY ANIMAL LOVERS On the last day of last year, the last horse transport company of the Royal Army Service Corps was disbanded. So ended a chapter in the history of the British Army, for with the disappearance of this last horse transport service company the whole of the second line transport of the regular forces will be mechanical. The horse transport of the army has been abandoned for two reasons 1 writes a military correspondent in "The Times”). The first is that experiments with the six-wheeled and other mechanical vehicles which have been developed since the war have shown that they can do anything which the horsed vehicle can do. The second reason is that the type of horse suitable for military work is dying out. “No Sad Sights Again” An advance in mechanisation which limits the share of the horse in any future war that the folly of mankind may cause must indeed be welcomed by every true lover of animals. No soldier who has seen horses and mules terror-stricken, wounded, or dying during a bombardment can wish for such a sight again. None who saw the heavily loaded wagons crawling through the mud on the shellpitted tracks in front of Albert; none who watched the convoys toiling by night along the deadly roads, searched by the enemy's guns, in the Ypres salient, but could rejoice that manmade wars should in future be fought out by men and machines without the aid of animals. Yet for many reasons the army will deeply regret the passing of the horse. It means the loss of a certain humanising influence, as no one can fail to appreciate who has known the devotion of the British transport driver to his animals, even in the most trying circumstances. Just 41 years ago, by a Royal Warrant published on January 2, ISB9, when Sir Redvers Buller was quarter-master-general, the Army Service Corps was formed from the old Commissariat and Transport Corps. It became a combatant corps instead of a purely departmental organisation. Its duties included both supply and transport, and for the latter purpose it took over two horse transport depot companies and 34 service companies. The Rise of “M.T.”

In 1903, when the first mechanical transport made its appearance, there were 73 horsed service companies, of which 10 were in South Africa, with three depot and two remount companies. Eleven years later, in August, 1914, the number of mechanical companies had risen to 20, were still horsed. Of these latter, 24 went to form the divisional trains for the six Expeditionary Force divisions, while the rest went to the cavalry or became reserve parks. At the outbreak of the war the Army Service Corps numbered just under 500 officers and 6,000 other ranks. Including the territorial force, the total strength of the corps was Sl9 officers and 13,672 men. Before the armistice it had expanded to 11,564 officers and 314.824 men. Of these,

nearly 58,000 were horse transport personnel, including 2,741 farriers, 1.657 saddlers, and 1,853 wheelers. In France alone 41,461 men were serving in the horse transport. Their duties were chiefly concerned ■with the delivery of supplies and baggage to the troops in the forward area, the work farther back being done by mechanical transport. The instinct of the A.S.C. driver for finding the unit to which he was attached, in a strange country bereft of. landmarks, and often in the darkness, was a never-failing source of wonder. Many a battalion or battery would have had to go hungTy or to make the best of things without its baggage, but for the intelligence and devotion to duty of these men. Wait for the Wagon! The familiar G.S. wagon and “limber” will not entirely disappear at ifresent, though thousands must have been scrapped since the war. The first line transport of all arms is being gradually mechanised, but many infantry battalions and artillery brigades retain horsed vehicles in their regimental transport pending the result of experiments with those units that have been completely mechanised. A few horsed wagons still remain with the divisional trains and ambulances of the Territorial Army, but it may be assumed that their days are numbered. Soon the Royal Army Service Corps will have nothing to remind it of these obsolescent vehicles except its regimental march “Wait for the Wagon.”