Gilbey Walter
Small Horses in Warfare
Sir Richard Green Price, writing over the familiar pen-name of "Borderer," in Baily's Magazine, has urged the formation of a regiment of Lilliputian horse, to consist of men under five feet, or five feet six inches, weighing not over eleven stone, of good chest measurement: these he would mount on ponies not over 14.2 and equip with light arms and accoutrements. As he points out, increase in our cavalry is an admitted necessity, and this branch of it in particular appeals to the common sense of the people as a quick and handy service:
"After many years of practical experience of what ponies can and do accomplish, especially well-bred ones hardily reared, I do not hesitate to say that they will beat moderate horses of double their size, and that very few of our present cavalry horses could live with them in a campaign – they are more easily taught, handled and mounted than bigger horses, and with twice their constitution and thrice their sense – with riders to suit them, where are the drawbacks to their employment?"
Sir Richard, in brief, urges the creation of a regiment of scouts or mounted infantry whose horses shall be of much the same type of those described by Colonel Barrow.
The special correspondent of the Times with the Modder River force, in course of an article on this arm, which appears likely to play a large part in the wars of the future, writes thus of the animals used by the Colonists and Boers: —
"Here in South Africa the country-bred pony, tractable, used to fire, and taught to remain where he is left if the reins be dropped from the bit, is already a half-trained animal for these purposes, and the work of training has been slight in consequence; but in Afghanistan, and other places where the mounted infantry man has been tried in a lesser degree, the chief cause of trouble has been found in his mount."
The South African ponies ridden by the Colonial scouts and mounted infantry have acquired their education as shooting ponies on the veldt under conditions very similar to those prevailing in warfare. There is radical difference between animals so trained and ill-broken Indian country-breds whose tempers have been far too frequently spoiled by rough usage in native hands. The mounted infantry in Afghanistan might well find trouble with such ponies.
Burnaby's Ride to Khiva
Captain Burnaby, in his well-known book, A Ride to Khiva, describes the animals brought up for his inspection at Kasala, in Turkestan, when his wish to buy a horse was made known: —
"The horses were for the most part of the worst description, that is to say, as far as appearance was concerned… Except for their excessive leanness, they looked more like huge Newfoundland dogs than as connected with the equine race, and had been turned out in the depth of winter with no other covering save the thick coats which nature had given them… At last, after rejecting a number of jades which looked more fit to carry my boots than their wearer, I selected a little black horse. He was about 14 hands in height, and I eventually became his owner, saddle and bridle into the bargain, for the sum of £5, this being considered a very high price at Kasala."
The reader may be reminded that the winter of 1876-7, during which Captain Burnaby accomplished his adventurous journey, was an exceptionally severe one even for that part of the world, where long and severe winters are the rule. On the day of his departure from Kasala the thermometer stood at eight degrees below zero. The traveller was by no means favourably impressed with the powers of the horse he had selected as the least bad of a very poor lot, and the native guides started apparently satisfied that it would break down under its heavy rider clad to resist the penetrating cold.
After his second march, Captain Burnaby began to acquire a certain measure of respect for this pony: —
"What had surprised me most during our morning's march was the extreme endurance of our horses. The guide frequently had been obliged to dismount and to clean out their nostrils, which were entirely stuffed with icicles; but the little animals had ploughed their way steadily through the snow… The one I rode, which in England would not have been considered able to carry my boots, was as fresh as possible after his march of seventeen miles. In spite of the weight on his back – quite twenty stone – he had never shown the least sign of fatigue."
Again, a few days later, the conditions of the journey having been no less trying: —
"From Jana Darya we rode forty miles without a halt. I must say that I was astonished to see how well the Kirghiz horses stood the long journeys. We had now gone 300 miles; and my little animal, in spite of his skeleton-like appearance, carried me quite as well as the day he left Kasala, this probably being owing to the change in his food from grass to barley. We are apt to think very highly of English horses, and deservedly as far as pace is concerned; but if it came to a question of endurance, I much doubt whether our large and well fed horses could compete with the little half-starved Kirghiz animals. This is a subject which must be borne in mind in the event of future complications in the East."
It is clear that Captain Burnaby was somewhat puzzled by the qualities displayed by a steed which looked so unpromising; he seeks to explain its performance by the better food it had enjoyed while on the march, and begins to compare the staying power of English horses with those of the Kirghiz pony with doubts as to the superiority of the former. At a later date he records without surprise that his party travelled forty miles in six hours, the horses having gone all the time at a slow steady trot. On his return journey, while staying at Petro-Alexandrovsk, he was given a mount on a little bay, hardly 14 hands high, for a day's hunting; and records that it "danced about beneath me as if he had been carrying a feather-weight jockey for the Cambridgeshire." The Kirghiz and Bokharans who accompanied him evidently thought his weight would prove too much for the pony, and when there was a ditch to be jumped looked round to see how the bay would manage it. "Never a stumble … the hardy little beast could have carried Daniel Lambert if that worthy but obese gentleman had been resuscitated for the occasion."
Finally, Captain Burnaby sums up the performance of this fourteen-hand pony: —
"We had ridden 371 miles in exactly nine days and two hours, thus averaging more than 40 miles a day! At the same time it must be remembered that, with an interval of in all not more than nine days' rest, my horse had previously carried me 500 miles. In London, judging by his size, he would have been put down as a polo pony. In spite of the twenty stone he carried, he had never been either sick or lame during the journey, and had galloped the last 17 miles through the snow to Kasala in one hour and twenty-five minutes."
The same author describes a remarkable forced march made in the summer of 1870 by Count Borkh in Russian Tartary. The Count's mission was to test the possibility of taking artillery over the steep and difficult passes in a certain district, and his force consisted of 150 cossacks, and 60 mounted riflemen and a gun. The troops accomplished their journey out and back, 266 miles, in six days; the heat was excessive, the thermometer marking sometimes as much as 117° Fahr. during the day; yet the ponies were none the worse of their exertions, the "sick list" at the end comprising only twelve, all of which suffered from sore backs caused by careless saddling. Other expeditions under similar conditions are mentioned; these go to prove that the endurance of the Tartar pony is affected as little by heat as by cold.
