Some 1500 Arab ponies and a considerable number of mules and camels were captured from the Turks in 1917. They were nearly all in wretched condition and covered with galls, but, after being well fed and looked after for a few weeks, fetched the most astonishing prices. £50 was the average price paid at Jerusalem for a pony, £40 for a small mule, and £35 for a camel. We were able to make use of the camels, and a few of the stouter ponies were issued to the infantry as 'cobs,' but the great majority of ponies and mules were of no use to us. During the 1918 operations about 2000 enemy animals fell into our hands, and these realised even higher prices in northern Syria and the Lebanon.
Horsemastership.—In the early days in Egypt the standard of horsemastership was not high. Among the English troops there was a large proportion in the mounted branches, both of officers and men, who had had little previous experience of horses, and none at all under the severe conditions of active service. The Australian Light Horsemen, though fine riders and thoroughly experienced with horses, were unaccustomed to having to use the same horse day after day, and did not at first realise the necessity of saving their mounts in every possible way, e.g. by dismounting at every halt, however short, off-saddling whenever possible, etc. But they have the same, almost instinctive, love of horses as the Irish, and they very soon realised the difference between active service conditions and those in their own country. The Territorials, too, gained valuable experience during the advance across Sinai and in the Western Desert, and, by the time General Allenby arrived in Egypt, the standard of horsemastership in the force had reached a high level. As an indication of this fact, it may be mentioned that, at the end of each series of operations, there was hardly a sore back in the force. A striking contrast to this record was afforded by the French cavalry regiment which took part in the 1918 operations. On arrival at Damascus, nearly every horse in the regiment had a sore back. The Frenchmen carried an astonishing quantity of kit on their saddles, and, though it was all put on in a very neat and soldierlike manner, the weight was undoubtedly far too great. Owing to the difficulty of removing the saddle without taking off all this kit, the horses were scarcely ever off-saddled. The men, too, were far too prone to remain mounted when halted.
Type.—Some remarks on type have already been made in Chapter VIII. The experience of the latter part of the campaign served but to confirm the conclusion as to the superiority of well-bred, fairly lightly-built horses over those of coarser fibre. Well-bred horses will go farther and faster, eat less, and recover condition more quickly than the coarse-bred ones. In this connection, when is the dismal practice of subdividing the horses of a battery into 'Riders' and 'Draught Horses' going to be abandoned? Every gunner wants to have practically nothing but light draught horses, so that every horse in the battery shall be capable of taking its turn in a gun team if necessary. The result of classifying nearly half the horses in a horse artillery battery as 'riders' too often results in all the weedy, fifteen hand ponies in the remount depots being issued to the gunners. Such horses are even more useless in a battery than they would be in a cavalry regiment. In the latter they might carry a trumpeter; in the former even the trumpeter's horse is expected to be able to take his turn in draught. On more than one occasion in 1917 even officers' chargers were used in the teams.
Diseases.—The horses of the Corps were remarkably free from disease. In the summer of 1918 there were a few sporadic cases of anthrax. The disease is found here and there among the native horses and cattle all over Palestine. The spores are deposited on the ground by the infected animals, with the result that there is always a danger of picking it up. Prompt destruction of all horses affected with the disease, and the removal to a fresh piece of ground of the unit in which the case occurred, leaving the old ground clearly labelled as 'unclean,' prevented any outbreak of the disease. Except for these few cases, there was an almost entire absence of disease throughout the campaign, which may be considered somewhat remarkable, in view of the fact that glanders, anthrax, lymphangitis, and other diseases are rife among the beasts of the native population. Our immunity from these scourges may be attributed to the facts that our horses were seldom camped for long in the same place; that they were never camped near villages if it could be avoided; and that no native animals were ever allowed in or near our camps, or to drink where our horses drank.
The 5th Cavalry Division suffered somewhat from laminitis in September 1918, as a result of the rather unnecessarily fast pace the division had set on the morning of the 19th. Thirty or forty horses had to be destroyed on the following day. Neither of the other two divisions, however, had any trouble of this sort.
Equipment.—Leather muzzles proved a necessity in all units whose horses were picketed on ropes stretched between wagon wheels instead of on ground lines. Otherwise the hungry brutes ate the woodwork of the wheels voraciously. It was only necessary to muzzle the two or three horses picketed next to the wheels. The nostril holes of the service pattern muzzle are much too small, and should be enlarged downwards and outwards to an oval shape at least three inches long.
The steel wire picketing ropes issued to the artillery were very much superior in every way to the old pattern hemp ropes, whether 5 feet 9 inch or 66 feet. It is suggested that the 5 feet 9 inch ropes, with loop and toggle, and the heel peg ropes might also in future be made of wire instead of hemp. The wire rope is much stronger and no heavier, and is not so likely to gall horses that get their feet over it. The great objection to it is, of course, its high initial cost, but against this may be set the fact that it is practically indestructible, and lasts indefinitely. Active service head ropes might also be made of wire with a spring hook at each end. A few raw hide head ropes were issued at one time, and these were excellent, except for the fact that the horses ate them wholesale when really hungry.
In the Australian Light Horse regiments neither manes nor tails were ever cut or pulled. During operations there was little time to care for manes and tails, and they looked somewhat untidy, but there is no doubt that in a hot country, it is preferable to let them grow freely. Not only does a mane assist the horse to rid itself of flies, but it appears to give some protection from the fierce rays of the sun, and a long thick tail is unquestionably a very great blessing to a horse in a fly country.