The Press.
London, England, 1855-10-27 00:00:00

OCTOBER 27, 1855.

of hostilities is about to be removed from a
fortified town arid a mountainous country to
boundless plains, their services will become
all important. Have her Majesty's Ministers
thought of this? The scandalous want of
foresight which they have hitherto displayed
in the conduct of the war, and which has
subjected our troops in the Crimea to dire
disasters, and our fleets in the Baltic to in-
glorious inactivity, unfortunately warrant the
assumption that they have not done so. It
is therefore the bounden duty of the public, to
see to the matter themselves; and, to enable
them to do so with advantage, we invite their
attention to a small volume of sixty pages
which General Daumas, of the French army,
has just brought out in Paris, Under the title
of " Le Cheval de Guerre "
General Daumas, who, in addition to
eminent military services, occupies 4 high
position in the French Ministry of War, is
favorably known in England as the author
of several works on Algeria, and especially
of a most remarkable one on the horses
of the Sahara. In this work, which was
published in 1851, he laboured to prove
that, to use his own words, "no horse is so
" capable as the Arab horse of supporting
" hunger, thirst, fatigue, and bad weather, and
" consequently does not unite in an equal
" degree the conditions which should distin-
" guish the war horse." The General's opinion
was warmly approved of by nearly all the
French superior officers who had served in
Algeria and seen the Arab horses at work ;
but it was vehemently disputed by several
practical men, whilst others represented that
it was only true in ilfrica, the climate being
indispensably necessary to enable the Arab
horse to develop its extraordinary qualities.
In order to set the matter at rest, the General
obtained reports and letters from the Crimea
as to the respective performances of the Arab
and European horses in the war and during the
winter ; and the result is, that it is clearly and
triumphantly established that as a war horse
none approaches the Arab, abroad as well as
at home. Here is a translation of the General's
own words :

From the information I am about to produce I believe
that every one must be convinced the Arab is the veritable
war horse. It will be understood that, after having ex-
pressed this opinion in a book, I felt bound to ascertain by
all means if the Arab horse were only the best war horse
in Algeria, in the climate in which he was born, or if he
were destined in other regions to chow his superiority,
and to prove that he is capable of supporting cold as he has
proved that ho can support heat, fatigue. bad weather,
hunger, and thirst. The experiment which has been made
in the Crimea appears to me conclusive ; and this opinion
will, I hope, become the opinion of all, after reading the
documents which I now publish. It is to be remarked
that the experiment which has been made was on a
sufficiently extensive scale to enable a definitive judgment
to be formed. We had, in fact, in the Crimea two regi-
ments of Chasseurs d'Airique* (and we shall soon have
four), some troops of Spahis, and a great number of
officers of all grades and all arms, mounted on Arab horses-
We can, then, obtain from observations which have been
made the most positive information fur the solution of a
question which interests us all so greatly.
1 must, however, declare that I have no intention of
instituting painful comparisons between the Arab horses
and those of other races and nations. All hones are pos-
sessed of utility and merit according to the point of anew from
which they are regarded. What I am anxious to establish
is the superiority of the Eastern horse as a war horse,

The General then proceeds to quote a long
string of authorities in support of his position.
Colonel (now General) Count de Champeron,
of the 4th African Light Dragoons (Cluisseurs
erAfriyue), wrote from before Sebastopol on the
20th of November :

In spite of embarkations, disembarkations, cold, and of
this sufferings inseparable from war, my, regiment still
possesses 133 horses per squadron. It is incredible.
- -

General Canrobert wrote on the 25th of
January last :

The Arab horses eye the only one* which resist the se•
verity of the climate and the scarcity of food.

Major Renson, of the Staff, wrote on the
2nd of February :

Our horses are suffering but those of the Chasseurs
d'Afrique keep up wonderfully well:—

- -
General Trochu wrote on the 10th of
March:—
As for the African horses, they have acted in an unex-
ampled way. Everybody is trying to get them, and the
English pay any sums for them.

_ . . .
General de Cissey, of the Staff, wrote on the
30th of Iklarch:—

• ♦ French regiment is much more numerous than an Eng-
bib op,