Vila Wolf's Dyslexic Folklorist Ranting

ca. 1875, [hand-tinted tintype portrait of a gentlemen with a picture of his horse]

via the International Center of Photography

Why the German Army wasn’t as mechanized as you may think —- Horses and the Wehrmacht, WWII.

When one thinks about the German Army during World War II, one usually imagines blitzkrieg assaults by highly mechanized forces, spearheaded by tanks and mobile infantry riding on halftracks.  While the German Army of World War II certainly developed revolutionary tactics that depended on lighting assaults and mobility, it was not the grand mechanized force that one imagines in the movies.  In fact in terms of transportation the Wehrmacht had more in common with Napoleon’s Grande Armee than it did with modern military forces today.

The German Army in World War II had a whole slew of motor vehicles to aid it in warfare including tanks, armored cars, halftracks, trucks, and motorcycles.  However the backbone of the German transportation and logistical system relied on the tried and true horse, the main mode of transportation for armies going back thousands of years.  During World War II, only 1/5 of the German Army was mechanized or motorized with the bulk of the army relying on horse drawn carriages and artillery. While newsreels showed German Panzers storming across Europe the truth is that most German soldiers were literally “hoofing it" across Europe.  In 1943 a typical infantry division of the Wehrmacht had only 256 trucks for logistics but relied upon 2,652 horses. One division even made use of 6,000 horses, mainly using them to transport supplies and tow artillery.  As the war progressed and the tide turned against Germany, the use of horses increased due to shortages of gasoline and vehicles.

While today we often scoff at the Polish Army in World War II and how it sported the best cavalry units in the world, the cavalry of the Wehrmacht has been forgotten to most.  As the shortage of fuel and vehicles became more profound, the German Army turned to the cavalry to make up for the loss of mobility.  At the beginning of the war the German Army had only 1 cavalry division.  However when the war started to turn against Germany in 1942, this was increased to 6 cavalry divisions.  Even the feared elite SS created their own cavalry division, called the 8th SS Cavalry.  Unlike their counterparts during the Napoleonic Wars, the Cavalry of the Wehrmacht did not charge into battle but acted as mounted infantry, riding to the battlefield on horseback but dismounting and fighting as infantry once in combat.

Overall the German Army utilized over 2.75 Million horses during World War II, as well as thousands of other pack animals such as donkeys, mules, and oxen.  They were second only to the Soviet Union, who used 3.5 million horses during the war.

Rather than the German Army being the great mechanized force of World War II, it was the Americans and the British who mastered the science of mechanized warfare.  When both powers entered the war they sported armies that were almost 100% mechanized.  Horses and cavalry were rarely used, and usually only used on terrain that could not support vehicles, such as in the jungles of Burma and New Guinea.  While the United States had 14 million horses in 1940, it was due to the efforts of military men such as Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Gen. George S. Patton that the US Army would become the most mechanized force in WWII.  Under direction of the the War Production Board, all automobile companies were ordered to produce military vehicles, not a single civilian automobile was produced from 1942 to 1945.  As a result the United States produced 2,381,311 military trucks as well as 640,000 jeeps and thousands of other military vehicles. While many vehicles were used by the US Army, many more were exported to allies such as Britain, the Soviet Union, and China. By comparison Germany only managed to produce 345,914 military trucks.  The German Wehrmacht could not stand against the might of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler.

Peruvian weaving tool depicting a horse, bone, ca. AD 200 - 1520 (?).

Source: The Walters Art Museum

Egyptian Chariot

In 1898, noted Kensington horsetrainer Mr. Hardy was hired by Leopold de Rothschild after a bet was made regarding Hardy’s ability to train any horse.   If Hardy could train a team of zebras to pull a coach through London, Rothschild would win the bet.  

After much trouble, the zebras were obtained, and Hardy agreed to help out.  After two years of hard work, in 1900, Hardy informed Rothschild that his task was completed and that the team were ready for the road.

At six o’clock one morning, a strange sight was seen in London when, for the first time, a team of zebras were seen pulling a coach through London!  (via Shopkins-Fossick)

This teamster is managing a team of 40 horses pulling the bandwagon in a parade of Barnum and Bailey Circus, Brooklyn, 1904 (via Vintage Photo LJ)

Horse Armor

Horse Armour

July 18, 1924, police officers form human pyramids on the backs of horses during practice for the Police Department Field Day held in Grant Park. Photograph from the Chicago Daily News.

Want a copy of this photo?   > Visit our Rights and Reproductions Department and give them this number: DN-0077352

The Triumphal Quadriga or Horses of St Mark’s is a set of bronze statues of four horses, originally part of a monument depicting a quadriga (a four-horse carriage used for chariot racing), which have been set into the facade of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, northern Italy, since the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

It is certain that the horses, along with the quadriga with which they were depicted were long displayed at the Hippodrome of Constantinople; they may be the “four gilt horses that stand above the Hippodrome” that “came from the island of Chios under Theodosius II” mentioned in the 8th- or early 9th-century Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai. They were still there in 1204, when they were looted by Venetian forces as part of the sack of the capital of the Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade. Shortly after the Fourth Crusade, Doge Enrico Dandolo sent the horses to Venice, where they were installed on the terrace of the façade of St. Mark’s Basilica in 1254. Petrarch admired them there.

In 1797, Napoleon had the horses forcibly removed from the basilica and carried off to Paris, where they were used in the design of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel together with a quadriga,

In 1815 the horses were returned to Venice by Captain Dumaresq. He had fought at the Battle of Waterloo and was with the allied forces in Paris where he was selected, by the Emperor of Austria, to take the horses down from the Arc de Triomphe and return them to their original place at St Mark’s in Venice. For the skillful manner in which he performed this work the Emperor gave him a gold snuff box with his initials in diamonds on the lid.

The horses remained in place over St. Marks until the early 1980s, when the ongoing damage from growing air pollution forced their replacement with exact replicas. Since then, the originals have been on display just inside the basilica.

Greek, Dekadrachm of Syracuse, c.470-465 BC (source). On one side is the head of Arethusa surrounded by dolphins, on the other a charioteer driving a quadriga with Nike flying above and a lion below.

ca. 1872, “Circus Performers” [carte de visite portrait of a dog on a pony’s back, in Jefferson, Texas], W.W. Sloan

via the Southern Methodist University Library, Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection

ca. 1890, [portrait of a woman riding a carved and mounted horse sidesaddle]

via Steven Evans Vintage Photography

A Victorian horse-drawn hearse

(Excuse me, doctor, my hearse is a little hoarse today)

Civil War Horse, bronze by Tessa Pullan at the National Sporting Library

This statute commemorates the more than 1.5 million horses and mules that died in the Civil War, as well as the Battle of Middleburg (fought just a short distance away).

*This photograph does not do justice to the statue: it is heartbreakingly perfect in person*