The mule is a hard worker but a sensible worker. He will not try to overtax his strength, and he goes on strike firmly if asked to do too much. "I may be a bit of an ass," the animal tells you, "but none of this heroic business of the Arab steed breaking his heart with a mighty effort for me."
This attitude is not poetic, but it is practical. And the mule compensates by standing mud better, eating less, and putting up with poorer food than the horse. The mule, however, is very particular about what he drinks. Water that the horse will swallow greedily the mule will turn up his Roman nose at. If you are watering mules and horses at the same stream, the mules must have first drink, for they will not touch the muddied water, though horses have no objection to it.
G.H.Q. during the last stages of the campaign had a hard task to keep the animals of the B.E.F. properly fed. At the outset of the War the horse ration erred, if anything, on the generous side, and a good deal of it wandered into the mangers of the civilian animals of the country, much to their contentment. As the war dragged its exhausting length along, money became scarce, food supplies scarcer still, and transport facilities scarcest of all. Then the ration of the animals had to be cut to a point which represented just sufficient and nothing more. Even so, it was a much better ration than the French gave their horses, and there were repeated efforts by the French Authorities to persuade us to come down to their animal ration. Those efforts naturally had a much greater chance of success when the union of the command made Marshal Foch the Generalissimo of all the Armies in France.
But our High Command was stubborn in its championship of the animals. There was a very strong representation of the cavalry on the Staff; and, besides, the British as a race have a sentiment about animals which is not shared to the full by the Latin races. The average British soldier would as soon go short of food himself as see his animals hungry. At one time the British War Cabinet yielded to the strong representations that were being made that the British Army wasted resources and transport in its feeding of the animals, and ordered a heavy reduction of the horse ration. Even then the British Command in the Field did not give up the cause for lost, continued to argue the matter, and by pointing out that a vast amount of extra work was just then being thrown upon the animals by the reduction of Field Artillery ammunition teams from six horses to four, secured a compromise decision which made a much smaller reduction in the ration.
THE ARMY COMMANDERS
The French Authorities without a doubt honestly believed they were in the right and that we were "coddling" our brutes, for they made another effort to get "unity of animal ration" as a kind of logical sequel to "unity of command." This time they made an agreement with the Americans that the latter should come down to their scale of animal ration. Without a full knowledge of what they were doing, the Americans agreed at first; and it looked as if the British horse also would have to have his ration reduced. But with more complete knowledge of the facts the American Army reversed its previous decision and decided that it could not come down below the British animal ration. A whinny of joy would have gone round the British horse lines at this decision if it had been promulgated in horse language, for it saved the situation. I am honestly of opinion that it had its effect, too, in bringing the campaign to its triumphant conclusion. In the last stages between August and November, 1918, I do not think that the rapid pursuit of the enemy would have been possible if the horse ration had been reduced further than it was in July, 1918. As it was, that reduction put a stop to the decline in the sickness rate and caused it to increase slightly.
G.H.Q. did its best to make up for the reduced ration by organising local growth of fodder crops wherever there was a chance, and there was instituted an Inspectorate of Horse Feeding and Economies. The I.Q.M.G.S. had to oversee all animals, except those on charge of Director Remounts and Director Veterinary Services, to advise on all matters of forage, to seek means of economy and generally to supervise the "horse-mastery" of units.