There was a great demand for horses during the First World War, including many from the Western United States.
The Klamath Falls Evening Herald wrote on June 30, 1916, “There is much activity in the local horse market, following the call of the United States for more animals for military service, and the recent placement of orders for more horses and mules by the French government.” It said 300 had been shipped from Midland and the shipper had purchased 1,000 from another ranch.
Tanks, machine guns and artillery fire gradually replaced cavalry units, although horses continued to carry messages and pull heavy cannons, ambulances and supply wagons, often through deep mud and over rough terrain impassable to motor vehicles.
Horses suffered heavy casualties. One historian estimated that of the more than 750,000 North American horses and mules sent to the Great War’s battlefields, including 182,000 in the American Expeditionary Force, “only a few hundred ever returned home.” Artists, novelists, poets and playwrights have commemorated the valor of the horses that died.
Steven Spielberg’s movie, “War Horse,” told the story of a horse that survived war’s brutality. It won six Academy Award nominations in 2011, including Best Picture.
Sources: "HISTORY SNAPSHOT: Many horses being taken away." Evening Herald (as reproduced in The Midge: Cultural Newsletter of the Klamath Basin/Evening Herald 30 June 2016 [Klamath Falls, Ore.] : 1. Print; Source: Koenig, Robert. "'War Horse' and the Great War's equine holocaust." St. Louis Beacon. 7 June 2012. Web. 30 June 2016. https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/25407/fate_of_world_war_1_war_horses: Source: "Percheron." Wikipedia. N.p., 4 June 2016. Web. 30 June 2016.
