Small Horses in Warfare

Ponies in Northern Africa. 2

The best authority on the breeds used by the Arabs of Northern Africa is probably General E. Daumas, who held high commands in Algeria and was for a time the French Consul at Mascara. The Chasseurs d'Afrique are mounted on Barbs, and thus the capabilities of these horses were of practical importance to this officer; moreover, he took a very keen personal interest in all matters relating to the horse, and spared no endeavour to inform himself concerning the breed of the country in which he resided. Hence the description in General Daumas' book, The Horses of the Sahara: with Commentaries by the Emir Abd El Kadr (1863) is accepted as the standard on the Barb.

The letters of the famous Emir to General Daumas, containing categorical replies to questions put by the latter, show that the Barbs possess endurance in a very remarkable degree. Their average height is nowhere mentioned in this work, but they are, as we believe, somewhat smaller than the Arab in his native country and in India. There is a suggestive hint of their small size in a remark by General Daumas: he says that inexperienced horsemen with their spurs "sometimes prick the animal on the knee-pan and so lame him if the wound be deep." Assuming that the average height of the horseman be 5 feet 6 inches, and making due allowance for the "straight-legged" seat of the cavalry man, the General's remark points to a horse certainly not over 14 hands.

In answer to General Daumas' enquiry as to the amount of work a Barb can do, the Emir replies: —

"A horse sound in every limb and eating as much barley as his stomach can contain can do whatever his rider can ask of him. For this reason the Arabs say, 'give barley and over-work him,' but without tasking him over much a horse can be made to do about sixteen parasangs (equal to about fifty English miles) a day, day after day. It is the distance from Mascara to Koudiat Aghelizan on the Oued-Mina: it has been measured in cubits. A horse performing this journey every day, and having as much barley as it likes to eat, can go on without fatigue for three or four months without lying by a single day."

The Arabs on their razzias, or cattle-stealing expeditions, of necessity travel with as little encumbrance as possible: on such expeditions, which may require twenty or twenty-five days' rapid travel, each horseman carries only enough barley to give his mount eight feeds. In some parts of the Sahara green food is never given; frequent watering is recommended by all Arab horsemen.

An Arab of the Arbâa tribe gave General Daumas full particulars of a ride he once undertook to save a highly prized mare from the hands of the Turks. In twenty-four hours he rode her eighty leagues, and during the journey she obtained nothing to eat but leaves of the dwarf palm, and was watered once.

More directly bearing on our present enquiry are the particulars furnished by Colonel Duringer of the weights carried in most of the expeditions by the horses of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. These details were ascertained by the Colonel at the moment of departure of a column: – Horseman, 180 lbs.; equipment, 53 lbs.; pressed hay for five days, 55 lbs.; barley for same period, 44 lbs. The man's own provisions brought up the total burden to about 350 lbs. English = 25 stone! Daily consumption of hay and grain would reduce this colossal burden gradually; but the horse would never carry less than 16 stone 9 lbs. at the end of his journey, starting with the load described.

As regards forced marches of comparatively short duration, Colonel Duringer states that

"A good horse in the desert ought to accomplish for five or six days, one after the other, distances of 25 to 30 leagues. After a couple of days' rest, if well fed he will be quite fresh enough to repeat the feat. It is no very rare occurrence to hear of horses doing 50 or 60 leagues in twenty-four hours."

Ponies in Morocco

Mr. T. E. Cornwell, who has had twenty years' experience of travel and residence in Morocco, gives the ponies in common use in that country a high character as weight carriers and for endurance on scanty food; they are also very sure-footed. These horses he describes as Barbs, very hardy with thick shoulders; they average 14 hands 2 inches, rarely attaining a height of 15 hands. They generally receive a feed of rough straw in the morning and a ration of barley, from 6 to 7 lbs., at night; they are watered (when water can be obtained) once a day. Grass can be had at some seasons of the year, but the horses, being tethered during halts, cannot graze, and as the task of cutting grass would entail delay it is never used.

Mr. Cornwell, a 14 stone man, has ridden one of these ponies for thirty-two consecutive days, with only one day's rest, covering an average of thirty miles per day.

General Maclean, who for a long period was the "Kaid" or Commander-in-Chief of the Sultan's forces in Morocco, once tried the experiment of stabling his horses instead of picketing out in the open, which is the usual practice. The experiment did not answer, for on his next expedition every horse died; shelter for a period had no doubt rendered them susceptible to maladies brought on by exposure at night. These ponies could be purchased at a figure ranging from £8 to £11 per head. An export duty of £3 10s., which is levied on every horse sent out of Morocco, must be added to these rates by foreign purchasers.

Mr. Cornwell states that an infusion of English blood does nothing to improve these hardy Morocco ponies. Blood horses from England have been imported and crossed with the native mares, but the produce have always been leggy and less capable of continued hard work than the native breed.

Ponies in Eastern Asia

The pony commonly used in China is bred in the northern part of the country. According to a writer in Baily's Magazine, immense droves of ponies run on the plains three or four hundred miles from Pekin, and the breeders bring them down every year for sale in the more populous districts. They average about 13.1 in height, and though in very wretched condition when brought to market, pick up rapidly on good food. They are usually short and deep in the barrel, have good legs and feet, and fairly good shoulders. Speed is not to be expected from their conformation; but they can carry heavy weights, are of robust constitution and possess great endurance.

The Burmese ponies are smaller than the Chinese, averaging about 12 hands 2 inches, a thirteen-hand pony being considered a big one. They are generally sturdy little beasts with good shoulders, excellent bone and very strong in the back; sound, hardy and enduring, capable of doing much continuous hard work under a heavy weight on indifferent food. Like the Chinese ponies, they are somewhat slow, but they are marvellous jumpers.

Before the annexation of Upper Burma in 1885 the lower province was dependent upon the breeders of the Shan Hills and on the breeders in independent Burma for its ponies, as the export of stallions and mares was forbidden.

Since the annexation the Indian Government have sought to improve the native breed by the introduction of Arab pony stallions; the superior size and good looks of the "Indo-Burman," as the cross-bred is called, are, the writer understands, steadily leading to the disappearance of the pure Burmese. The half-bred Arab has much to recommend him over the pure Burmese pony in greater docility and speed; but these advantages appear to have been gained at some sacrifice of weight-carrying power and endurance.

Captain M. H. Hayes, in The Points of the Horse, states that the ponies of Sumatra, averaging about 12 hands 2 inches, are the strongest for their size he has ever seen. He describes them as "simply balls of muscle," and notes the beauty of their heads, which would seem to distinguish them as a breed from the ponies found on the mainland. The Corean pony is the smallest of Eastern breeds, but his extraordinary weight-carrying power makes him a marvel: averaging about ten hands in height and slight of build, he is nevertheless able to carry a full-grown man, on a saddle secured over a pile of rugs to atone for his small size, and to do a long day's work under a burden wholly disproportionate to his inches.

Ponies in Australia

The Australian "mail-man," or mounted postman, whose duty it is to distribute and collect letters at the remote and scattered "stations" far from railway centres, prefers small horses for his arduous work, which demands endurance and speed. Thus they are described by "Australian Native" in the Field of June 11, 1892: —

"The mail-man's riding horse is of an entirely different class [from the pack horse which carries the bags], and is probably best described as a 'big little' animal, or a symmetrical, typical English three-quarter bred hunter of 16 to 16.2 focused into 13.2 or 13.3, with slightly higher withers, which gives the appearance of a somewhat low back."

"Bearing in mind the character of mail-men's duty, it becomes evident that of necessity their horses must possess combined stamina, high courage and speed. The stamp described have these qualities in a marked degree, and, in addition, their natural paces of jog – not an amble – and daisy-cutting canter not only enable them to get over the ground with great ease to themselves but also to their riders. Moreover, these small animals are not readily knocked up, but when they do get stale and leg-weary through extra hard work on little food, a few days on good grass is sufficient for them to regain their vitality. In Australian parlance, they are 'cut-and-come-again customers,' and unlike big horses, which, when they knock up, knock up for an indefinitely long period.

"The smartest stock horses, those in use for drafting cattle, are also small, handy and well up to 12 stone, and as their prices are the same as mail-men's nags, from £4 to £8 per head, the evidence in favour of small horses for utilitarian purposes, and also on the score of economy, preponderates. Would such small animals, withal tough and wiry, be suitable for light cavalry?"

The answer to the concluding query is undoubtedly "Yes."

Ponies in America and Texas

The ponies of North-West America are famed for their powers of endurance, which are the more remarkable in view of their make and shape. These animals are without doubt the descendants of stock introduced by the Spaniards when they invaded Mexico early in the 16th century; the offspring of these Spanish horses in course of time spread over the whole continent.

Colonel Richard Irving Dodge remarks, in his work Our Wild Indians (1882), that the horses introduced by the Spaniards must have been very inferior in size, or the race has greatly degenerated; as compared with the American horse, the Indian pony is very small. As the subsequent observations of Colonel Dodge prove, these ponies, if they have lost size have lost absolutely nothing in working qualities; they have become adapted to their conditions of life and have probably gained in hardiness of constitution and endurance. He writes: —

"Averaging scarcely fourteen hands in height, the Indian pony is rather slight in build, though always having powerful fore-quarters, good legs, short, strong back, and full barrel. He has not the slightest appearance of 'blood,' though his sharp, nervous ears and bright, vicious eye indicate unusual intelligence and temper. But the amount of work he can do and the distance he can make in a specified (long) time put him fairly on a level with the Arabian or any other of the animal creation… Treated properly, the pony will wear out two American horses, but in the hands of the Indian he is so abused and neglected that an energetic cavalry officer will wear him out."

The North-West American Indian, though a marvellous horseman as a "trick rider," has apparently no idea whatever of saving his mount, whatever the distance he has to travel. According to Colonel Dodge, who has enjoyed many opportunities of informing himself on Indian usages, more especially as an enemy, he will gallop his pony till it drops from sheer exhaustion.

As showing what a good pony can do in the hands of a man who knows how to make the most of him, Colonel Dodge states that he once tried to buy an animal which pleased his eye, offering forty dollars for it; whereupon the owner replied that the price was six hundred dollars. Repeating the incident to someone who knew the pony, he was informed that the owner had not been actuated by any boastful spirit; that he had good reason for attaching a very high value to it. The man, it appeared, had been employed to carry the mail bags between Chehuahua and El Paso, nearly 300 miles apart, during a period of six months, when the roads were closed for ordinary travel by marauding bands of Apache Indians on the watch for white men.

He had to make the perilous journey once a week, and he performed it on the pony, riding all night for three successive nights, and hiding by day. The Indians, it may be added, are deterred by superstition from risking death by night; hence an additional good reason for the express rider's choice of time to travel. For six months the pony carried him between ninety and a hundred miles on three consecutive nights in each week; he went one week and returned the next in the same way. And Colonel Dodge adds that this tax upon his powers "had not diminished the fire and flesh of that pony."

Writing of the breed in another work, The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, Colonel Dodge observes that civilisation spoils this pony; accustomed on the ranche and prairie to pick up his own living when turned out after a long day's work in summer, and used to semi-starvation in winter, when stabled, shod, and fed on corn, his character undergoes a change. He either becomes morose, ill-tempered, hard to manage and dangerous, or he degenerates into a fat, lazy, short-winded cob, "only fit for a baby or an octogenarian." The latter change is the more usual. We can well understand that such would be the result.

Colonel Dodge has no doubt but that the Indian pony is identical with the Texan mustang or wild horse, concerning whose qualities we may take the evidence of a contributor to the Field. "C. E. H." writes, in an article on "A Texas Fair," published in 1891: —

"The native stock for endurance and soundness of constitution cannot be surpassed. We have owned many of these animals of from fourteen to fifteen hands, and never had an unsound one yet. They will carry one 70 miles a day without tiring; and we sold a horse aged 8 years ten years ago, which was lately disposed of for only £3 less than the sum we then received for him."

The horses raised on the plains of Uruguay, on the River Plate, have much in common with the mustang, but retain to a greater degree the characteristics of their remote Spanish ancestry in the small lean head and well-turned limbs. They are somewhat higher than the mustang, varying between 14 and 15 hands, seldom exceeding the latter height; but the natives attach no importance to hands and inches, it being an acknowledged fact that the smallest horses are in many instances the best. Accustomed to run at large until between four and five years old, these horses are sound and hardy, capable of carrying fourteen or fifteen stone all day without tiring and able to perform hard and continuous work on little food.

Army Horses of the Future

Let it not be supposed for a moment that in urging the merits of small horses the writer seeks to asperse the value of heavy cavalry. Weight in men and size in horses are indispensable for such work as our heavy cavalry are called upon to perform; even the civilian mind can appreciate the mysteries of tactics so far as to recognise that a charge of heavy cavalry can effect infinitely greater results upon an enemy than men mounted on ponies of fourteen hands or fourteen hands two inches.

Authorities on military affairs seem agreed that the great improvements made in small arms of precision since the Crimean War have done much to impair the former value of heavy cavalry for direct attack; it needs no trained intelligence to recognise that cavalry advancing in close rank might well be shot down to a man in attempting to charge a foe, not necessarily under cover, over a thousand yards of fairly open ground on which such a manœuvre is possible to cavalry. For artillery and transport, however, we shall always need powerful horses, and the draught power required is only to be obtained with height.

When it was made evident that very much larger numbers of mounted infantry were required for the South African campaign than had been anticipated, the remount agents were instructed to purchase cobs, and to obtain these in quantity it was necessary to go to foreign countries, the United States, Argentina, and Hungary, where they could be procured. Had the demand been made for ponies, a very large proportion of our Army's need could have been bought cheaply and quickly in this country. For in the ponies of Exmoor, Wales, the New Forest and other districts, we possess large numbers of animals whose small size bears no relation to their weight carrying power, and whose mode of life is the best possible preparation for "roughing it" in South Africa. Very different is the case with the animals shipped from England.

For generations, now, horses for the saddle and lighter draught work have been very largely bred less as necessaries than luxuries; the conditions of their lives are artificial in a high degree, and the constitution which could formerly withstand exposure, hard and continuous work and scanty feed, has been softened by pampering. To take such horses out of their stables where the temperature is regulated, where they are warmly clothed and regularly fed, and despatch them to endure the hardships of campaigning in countries where hay and oats are unknown or unprocurable, and the forage obtainable is unsuited to English chargers – in short, to most severely tax their powers under a set of conditions entirely opposed to those to which they are accustomed – is to invite heavy mortality.

The sacrifice of useful qualities to the "god of inches" is deplored only in so far as it applies to horses for mounted infantry and light cavalry. The utility of large and powerful horses is not, and never has been, questioned. In point of fact it is their value for the work in which they are employed that has done something to blind us to the very real value – for special tasks – of ponies: and if the foregoing pages do anything to prove that there is in modern warfare a place of the highest importance which can only be filled by the small horse of 14.2 or thereabouts, their object has been fulfilled.

Breeding Small Horses

Assuming that the peculiar suitability of horses between 14 hands and 14 hands 3 inches for mounted infantry and light cavalry purposes is acknowledged by the authorities, and that these forces will in future form a larger proportion of our standing army, it behoves us to turn our attention to the task of breeding. The high prices obtainable for first-class polo ponies have given a stimulus to pony-breeding, and it may be said the foundations of the industry have been laid. What the present remount market is to the breeder of hunters, so may the market for mounted infantry cobs be to the breeder of polo ponies; but with this difference, that the latter, being handicapped by the height limit of 14 hands 2 inches, and the exceedingly high standard of merit3 required by polo players, will have a larger proportion of "misfits." To compensate for the paucity of valuable prizes he may hope to draw in the lottery of breeding, both stock and maintenance will be cheaper, if the business be conducted on the lines which seem best calculated to result in production of the horse desired.

What is required is an animal between 14.0 and 14.3 hands; it must be stout and able to carry weight, capable of covering long distances at fair speed, able to subsist on coarse or poor food for weeks together without losing condition, strong of constitution to withstand the exposure inevitable on a campaign, and the more tractable the better. To get small horses endowed with these qualifications we must look to the breeds which possess them in marked degree, to the ponies of the Welsh Hills, Exmoor, the New Forest, the Fell districts, and West of Ireland. In these we have ponies ranging in height from 12.2 to 13.3 or 14 hands; they are compact, sturdy, and untiring; they can carry weights which are out of all ratio to their size; they live on grass, and the open-air life they lead, year in year out, has made them completely independent of the luxurious "coddling" bestowed upon other horses.

These ponies lack only the size required in our mounted infantry horse, and these essentials we can obtain from the sire we shall select. Keeping ever in mind that an animal of the polo-pony stamp – a hunter in miniature – is required, what sire is more likely to get the desired pony than the Arab? We might use a small Thoroughbred with excellent results, but having regard to the rarity with which we find good bone and sound constitution in the Thoroughbred, and also having regard to the inherent soundness and stoutness of the Eastern horse, we shall probably obtain more satisfactory young stock from Forest and Moorland dams if we use the Arab sire. Blood, it is truly urged, gives the superior speed and courage required in the polo-pony, but let us not forget that Arabs were the sires from which all our modern race-horses are descended. The best horses on the Turf to-day may be traced to one of the three famous sires – the Byerly Turk imported in 1689, the Darley Arabian in 1706, and the Godolphin Arabian in 1730: all of them, it may be remarked, horses under 14 hands.

By going back to the original strain we shall obtain all the useful qualities our Thoroughbreds possess without those undesired characteristics, greatly increased size, great speed, delicacy of constitution and complete inability to lead a natural life which man's long-maintained endeavours to breed race horses have implanted in them. In a word, we shall obtain a natural and not an artificial horse; the modern race-horse is practically everything the mounted infantry cob must not be, saving only in respect of speed, and speed for only a short distance is of no great use to mounted infantry. By using the Arab we may expect to obtain the qualities our race horses boasted a century and a half or two centuries ago, when they stood 14 hands to 14.3 – the famous Gimcrack is said to have measured 14 hands 0-1/4 inch.

There is much to be said in favour of the policy of returning to the original Eastern stock to find suitable sires for our proposed breed of ponies. While we have been breeding the Thoroughbred for speed and speed only, Arab breeders have continued to breed for stoutness, endurance and good looks. By going to Arab stock for our sires we might at the beginning sacrifice some measure of speed: but what was lost in that respect would be more than compensated by the soundness of constitution and limb which are such conspicuous traits in the Eastern horse. Furthermore, the difficulty of size which confronts us in the Thoroughbred sire is much diminished if we adopt the Arab as our foundation sire.

By crossing the Arab on mares of our forest and moorland breeds we shall obtain the increased size and speed required, while it will be possible to preserve the valuable qualities of the dam. Those qualities, the hardiness, robustness of constitution, sureness of foot, and ability to thrive on poor feed, are the natural outcome of the conditions under which they have lived for centuries; and to preserve them in the young stock, it will be necessary to rear the cross-bred foals under conditions as nearly natural as their constitution will allow. What those conditions should be circumstances must determine; but it is possible to combine large measure of liberty with a certain amount of shelter from the rigours of winter, such as the foal with Arab blood in his veins would require. To take up the young stock as soon as weaned, stable and feed them artificially, though this course would preserve them from the risks of exposure, would produce failure in other directions. It would encourage undue physical development while undermining that capacity for endurance of hardship which is so essential.