How the Four-Legged Recruits of a Nation’s Army are prepared for Battle.
It rarely occurs to the average person what an important part the horse plays in the economy of war. For without well-trained, trustowrthy horses even the magnificent cavalry and artillery of France and Germany would collapse, and the wole war machine come to a full stop. Thus it is little wonder that France spends $1,100,000 a year on her tropp horses, Germany $970,000 and Great Britain $100,000.
The great military Nations, too, maintain State breeding establishments as well they may, seeing that on a war footing Imperial Germany is supposed to put 201,100 horses on the battlefield, France 202,040, Austria 105,196, Great Britain 100,000 and Russia the enormous number of 548,400. The Czar’s vast Asiatic dominions yield an inexhaustible supply of hardy animals for the imperial army.
No doubt one of these days the horse will have disappeared from the battlefield altogether in favor of the motor. Already inventors and general staffs are discussing the feasibility of gigantic armored cars, powerful enough to cross any kind of country-land Dreadnoughts, in fact capable of blowing towns out of their path.
