Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 308, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1914 — HORSE ENJOYS COMBAT [ARTICLE]

HORSE ENJOYS COMBAT

BTEED AS EAGER FOR BATTLE AS 18 HIS RIDER. Also Knows the Call of the Bugle, In Many Cases Better Than the Soldier Who Is Supposed to Guide Him Into Action. It will probably surprise the publie, said a retired colonel of hussars, to learn that a cavalry horse usually enjoys a battle at least as much as his rider, and displays as much courage in it He and stamp with impatience while waiting for the order to charge, and at the signal will dash forward like a greyhound released from the leasn, full of fire and fury, and often neighing mildly. At the moment of contact with the enemy he will rear, striking and biting savagely at the opposing horses and trampling down the Infantry. When his rider falls he will dash along with his fellows and crash as gallantly! into the foe. In the famous charge of the Light Brigade scores of riderless horses swept down the “valley of death," thundering through the smoke onto the Russian guns and galloped back to safety with the shattered remnant of the brigade. Five horses raced neck, and neck with Lord Alfred Paget, who rode in advance of the line, so eager were they to get at the enemy! And not only is the well-trained charger as brave as his rider; he is often as intelligent. He knows the bugle calls just as well, and answers them as promptly. In fact, cases are proved in which a horse has put his rider right whlen he has mistaken an order, and has'gone faultlessly through maneuvers in spite of the efforts of his mistaken master to make'him do the wrong thing. No, the process of training is neither long nor difficult. The first step is to accustom the horse to the sound of firing at close quarters. With this objeqt he is put on the ground with legs tied, and while in this position, a pistol is fired close to his ears, over his back, between his legs, and so on, until his fear is overcome. After a few such lessons it is safe to mount him with a bridle furnished with a curb bit; and under this control he is taught to stand still while a carbine is fired from his back —the latter naturally coming last, as both hands are required in using this weapon. Then follows saber practice on sim-ilar-lines, until the horse is as indifferent to the whirl and slash of a sword above his head as to the explosion of a carbine above it. Within a few weeks the horse not only loses all traces of nervousness r he really enjoys the experience and enters enthusiastically into it. In baxtle the cgvalry horse faces even a greater risk of death or disablement than, his rider, although the gallant animal rarely gets any of the laurels of war. His danger, however, is by nd means so great as it was. , In the eighteenth century 150 horses fell in battle to every 100 men; from 1800 to 1865 the proportion had fallen to 120; and in more recent wars the ratio has been approximately 112 horses to 100 men. In some charges, however, the proportion has been greater, as in that of the Light Brigade, in which 80 l more horses than men sacrificed their lives. But while the war horse seldom gets credit for his prowess and devotion, there have been, happily, a few cases in which he has shared his master’s glories—among them Lord Roberts' pretty little Arab, Volonel, who carried him in the famous march from Kabul to Kandahar, and round whose neck, at Queen Victoria’s express wish, he hung the Kao* medal, with four clasps.