The Changing Role Of Horses And Moules In The First World War

Horses and mules are such a huge part of our world history and had such a huge impact on the wars that people fought. Both horses and Mules were used in all the wars from the Battle of Kadesh to World War 1. They really changed history and the way that people fought, without horses who knows where we would be. The horses and mules were used as mainly a source of transportation but the horses would be the ones to go into enemy fire. World War 1 was the last war where horses were actually used to fight. They realised how vulnerable the horses were to machine guns and artillery fire. The army’s had better guns, better weapons and horses had no way of protecting themselves. They trusted those riders with their life and would literally run into a fire or a bomb because the rider told them to. This caused the death of over eight million horses and countless mules died just in World War 1.
The food ration for a horse was 20 lbs of grain a day. This was nearly 25% less than what a horse would usually be fed. Finding enough food for the horses and mules was a constant problem. The horses were always hungry and where often seen trying to eat wagon wheels. When grain was in short supply, the horses and mules had to be fed on sawdust cake. Many horses died of starvation, disease, and enemy fire. As the war went on, horses became more and more difficult to replace. The value of a horse outweighed the value of a soldier. The max speed of a horse is 35 mph while a humans top speed is