ABSTRACT
The War Office may only have seen a homogenous mass of men and horses, of numbers killed, and the cost of their replacement, but to their ‘owners’ the horses were as much a part of the life of their units as their fellow men. Just as bonds were forged between men, so too feelings of solidarity and shared hardship strengthened the soldier-horse bond. Soldiers, who had very little agency themselves, often expressed great sympathy for the horses and mules who suffered and struggled on their behalf. Each horse was a named individual, with its own quirks and foibles. While it would be sentimental to assume that all soldiers formed a positive bond with their horses, it is equally naïve to assume there was ever anything less than a working relationship. Soldiers and their horses not only lived and worked together, but also experienced difficult and life threatening situations on a daily basis. We have only to look to the diaries, letters, and photographs of soldiers to see how prominent a part their horses played in their daily lives and experiences. Many fervently believed it was their horses to whom they owed their mental and physical survival.
