15/06/2010

Making History listener Jane Rowe emailed Making History to tell us about her ancestor who went to fight in the Crimean war:

"I have the log of a voyage made by my Great Grandfather, Major Stephen Price Constant, a vet with the 5th Dragoon Guards who was accompanying horses on the way out to the Crimea in 1854 in a barque called the 'Blundell' The Captain was Captain Lumley".

Making History consulted the cavalry historian Dr David Kenyon who is based at the Waltham Abbey Gunpowder Mills in Essex. He explained that horses were used in warfare right up until the end of the Second World War. They were predominantly used to move supplies and weapons but fighting with cavalry was a key tactic right up until the invention of the tank.

As an island nation, Britain always had the problem of transporting horses overseas. Indeed during the wars in America in the eighteenth century the British had no cavalry. Many horses were sourced locally (for example in the Crimean war horses from Syria were used) but the army did transport horses to conflicts in Europe and, later on, to South Africa too.

As listener Jane Rowe’s diary confirms, care was taken about this valuable cargo but it often arrived in poor condition – if at all. Worse still, if the British army was defeated or had to retreat (as at Corunna in 1809) cavalrymen were forced to kill their horses.