Evening star., 1914-09-27

<<rI G H T horses eoacula.eo
S$F President Lincoln when. in the
- spring of 1863, there came
news that a party of Confederate raid
ers had descended upon Fairfax Court
House and captured eighty horses and
a major general. II can make ma
jor general with the stroke of pen,
but eighty horses!" and he sighed
again.
Such was the view of that wisest OF
his generation upon the relative value
of a. major general and a horse in war
time. The general, though useful, was
not indispensable, but horse was a
horse.
The results so far of the war in Eu-
rope have shown that the horse, despite
all prophecies, is just as valuable In a
war in 1914 as he was in the war or
1853. He has been abolished as scout,
according to the wiseacres of times OF
peace, by the aeroplane. When the next
war came, said they, the eyes of the
army would be the dirigible and the
aeroplane, and the horse would be
banished to the barn lot. He has been
a means Of transport power. When the
would be the universal means of trans
portation and the draught horse be
shot for food. And last, according to
the wise ones, he has been abolished
as a fighting machine-aboiished py
the advent of the raptd-flre gun. When
airy horse would be sent to the bone
yard.
u
Well, the next war has come, but the
horse hasn't gone either to the barn
lot or the butchers or the boneyard.
Contrarily. he has gone to battle and Is
very much in evidence on all sides.
giving a good account of himself in the
scouting party. in the transport and In
the pursuit. Even the short expert
ence of the war has sharply defined
the limitations of the aeroplane and
proved the continuing efficiency of the
horse in war. The aeroplane. compelled
to travel at least thirty miles an hour
and above the reach of bullets, can OBJ
tain only a most cursory information,
and exactness of detail is, Of all things,
the most important in military matters.
1t was the German cavalry that piloted
their armies into Belgium and France.
It was their cavalry scouts that search
ed out all information at crossroads
and farmhouses, locating the best po-
sitiOns for attack or defense or camp
ing, marking for the beneft of the fol-
plies Of wood and other necessities for
the soldier on the march.
1t was this same cavalry that, when
the great armies were maneuverinE for
their descent upon France, stretched an
impenetrable curtain for miles in their
front, leaving the enemy utterly baf-
fled Neither aeroplane nor dirigible
can perform even a 1.-THE OF these
scout duties. 1t was the horse trans
port that. according to authentic dis
patches, had to be finally depended
upon to get the supplies up to the
troops in the front. The commissary
falls back upon the horse If he would
not fail the fighting line.
Finally, from the reports of Gen.
Joffre it is the French and English cav
airy which, by incessantly harassing
the rear and tanks of the Germans,
reap the fruits of the counter stroke by
and reform their lines.
There is no sentiment in this: it Is
plain practical business of war. Even
thus early commanders have learned
that the horse. as a war factor. has in
creased rather than diminished in
value. Certainly no German ever al
lowed sentiment to override his judg-
ment in anything pertaining to war.
wherefore the following dispatch from
Berlin throws a sharp light upon the
value at which the Teuton warrior
holds the horse:
$50 carefully are they conserving
supplies of food in Berlin that the car
niyorous animals in the zoo are to be
killed. They are fed largely on horse
flesh which cannot be spared at the
present crisis. The same condition pre-
walls at Hagenbeck's Zoo in Hamburg"
And that a cavalry charge is not a
thing of past wars only is shown by
a dispatch from the correspondent Of
the London Daily Mail, which thus de-
scribes q recent charge of the 9th
Lancers:
Terrible havoc had been caused in
our ranks by a battery of eleven Ger