From the spring of 1918 the British Army horse had to suffer severe attacks from the air. We had by then established a very great transport superiority, and the enemy devoted a good deal of his air strength to bombing attacks on our horse-lines, with a view to lessening our transport strength. At first these attacks were very deadly. But the position was soon met. Horse-lines were cleverly concealed. The animals were separated into small groups. The lines were protected by bomb-proof traverses of earthwork, which localised the effects of explosions.
In the summer of 1918 the wastage of animals had been cut down to the lowest percentage reached in the whole campaign. This meant that battle losses were being compensated for by a very low sickness rate, achieved by careful and skilful horse-mastership. The British Army, which had been always an army of horse-lovers, was now also an Army of skilled horse-masters, and in spite of bombing raids, of long-distance shelling, and of poison gas, the death rate kept dwindling. At this time forage difficulties were acute, but there had been close organisation to grow fodder in Army and Line of Communication areas, and our animals always had a decent ration.
But it was through the unsparing work of the men, with brain and hand, that the horses were so happily situated. The public at Home can never express sufficient gratitude for that work--work which had little glamour or hope of reward, but which was as necessary to victory as that of rifleman and gunner.
The final triumph of our Army horse administration was in the summer of 1918, when it was able to take up a big part of the burden of horsing the American units arriving in France. That, again, was a factor of victory. Without transport or gun-horses the American troops could not have given their magnificent help in the last stages of the campaign.
In the sum the story of the British Army horse in the Great War is a thrilling one. Our Home horse-lovers opened the chapter gloriously. The British Navy followed up by making it possible to transport remounts from all parts of the world. Then the men of the Old Army and of the New Armies showed what grit and resource and kindness could do. So we rode home to victory.