The Adair County news., 1920-01-28
HORSES J
MAKE BAD SHOWING
GREAT WAR FOUND US POORLY
PREPARED IN ARTILLERY
ANIMALS.
QUALITY OF BLOOD COUNTS
French Army Furnished the Thorough
breds that Enabled Our Guns to
Stop Ludendorf's Drive Toward
Paris and Victory.


If, after Seventy-fve years of ex-
haustive and convincing experimental
ton, a work that had cost the great
military powers of Continental Europe
Russia, Austria, Hungary, the Ger
man Empire, France and Italy-in the
aggregate a matter of S4OO,0OO,OOO or
$5O0,OOO,00O, additional proof of the
superlative value of thoroughbred
blood in the military horse and the
comparative worthlesSness of cold
blood that proof was supplied by
the experience of the Second Division
of the American ExpeditiOnary Force
in the summer of 1918. The Second
Division was the division in which the
famous Marine Corps was brigaded.
The Second was one of the best
equipped Of the American grand units
as regards hOrSef1eSh. The cream of
the remOunt service was in it's artillery
and transport departments.
In June, 1918, the Second Division
was ordered from a quiet sector Of the
western front near Verdun to the
western angle of the great Marne sa-
Hent the German offensive of March
to June had created in the French line.
Foch had sensed the impending Luz
dendOrf thrust that was to win Paris
and a victorious peace, and he was
assembling all his available soldiers
to meet it. The carrying out of this
order by the Second Division involved
a march of less than 100 miles, 81 to
be exact. Yet 80 per cent of the cold
bloOded horses of the artillery brigade
Succumbed to the rigors Of this more
date march without having come under
guntire. Upward of half the horses
that dropped out of line were so COM
pletely done up they were unfit to be
sent to base stations for recuperatiOn
with the ultimate object of returning
TO service.
The French divisions that accom-
panied the American divisions on this
march lost no more than five per cent
of their horses. But the French artil-
lery, cavalry and transport horses
were half and three-quarter BREEDS,
the produce of a system of breeding
that had been instituted by a far
sighted government sixty or seventy
years before the outbreak of the great
war.
Second Division Suffers.
Because of the collapse of it's horse
equipment and artillery brigade of the
Second Division did not reach it's OBJ
jective until a day after the great
struggle that was to terminate in the
whining appeal of the German army
for an armiStice in October had begun.
The Second Division fought the first
day without artillery protection and
suffered OutrageOusly in consequence.
The artillery brigade reached the zone
of conflict late in the second day and
was enabled to take part in the series
of actions that completely deranged
LudendorfS ambitious plan of conquest
and put the great German army on the
defensive only because American re-
mount officers were able to re-equip
it from the surplus horse supply of the
French army with half and three
quarter bredS. The French were in
a position to furnish these indiSpensa-
bic animals because up to the begin
ming of March the war had been a
war Of position rather than a war of
movement and no hard demand had
horse reserves of the French army.
When the great war came to its I'M
expected finish the United States had
under arms, at home and abroad,
some 100000 soldiers, of which
$4,000 were infantry, $4,000 were
engineers, $4,000 were field artillery,
but only $4,000 were cavalry. The
field artillery was hOrsed after fash
ion. So was the engineer contingent.
But the quality of the horses that
served the field artillery and the en-
gineer contingent generally was no
better, if, indeed, 1t was as good, than
was the quality of the horses that failed
the artillery brigade of the Second
Division in the march from Verdun to
the Marine salient.
Our Cavalry Not There.
For such masses of infantry and
artillery there should have been 25O.-
600 to 100000 cavalry, according to the
most advanced military opinion in the
United States and abroad. Yet only
an insignificant fraction of the absurd
ly small mounted contingent of the
gigantic military establishment of the
United States of November LIST, 1915
the second, third, sixth and fifteenth
cavalry regiments-was in France.
Most of our 10000 troopers were pa
trolling the Mexican frontier More
over only a mOiety of the sO-called
American cavalry forces in France
was mounted. At no time was it pos
sible to completely horse the second,
third, sixth and fifteenth regiments.
The troopers of these regiments, when
they were not serving with machine
gun contingents, were guarding NUM-
tiOns and quartermaster's stores. This
condition was due to the disgraceful
fact that the United States had no
suitable mounts for it's cavalry France
and Great Britain, to insure prompt