Horses in World War II
Encyclopedia
Horses in World War II were used by the belligerent nations for transportation of troops, artillery
, materiel
, and, to a lesser extent, in mobile cavalry
troops. The role of horses for each nation depended on its military strategy
and state of economy and was most pronounced in German and Soviet
ground forces. Over the course of the war Germany
and the Soviet Union
employed more than six million horses.
Most British regular cavalry regiments were mechanised between 1928 and the outbreak of World War II. The United States
retained a single cavalry regiment stationed in the Philippines
, and the German Army retained a single brigade. The French Army
of 1939–1940 blended horse regiments into their mobile divisions, while the Red Army
of 1941 had thirteen cavalry divisions. Italian
, Japan
ese, Polish and Romania
n armies employed substantial cavalry formations.
Horse-drawn transportation was most important for Germany, as it was relatively lacking in natural oil resources. Infantry and horse-drawn artillery formed the bulk of the German Army throughout the war; only one-fifth of the Army belonged to mobile panzer
and mechanized divisions. Each German infantry division employed thousands of horses and thousands of men taking care of them. Despite losses of horses to enemy action, exposure and disease, Germany maintained a steady supply of work and saddle horses until 1945. Cavalry in the Army and the SS
gradually increased in size, peaking at six cavalry divisions in February 1945.
The Red Army was substantially motorized from 1939–1941 but lost most of its war equipment in Operation Barbarossa
. These losses were temporarily remedied by forming masses of light cavalry
which were used as strike forces in the Battle of Moscow
. Heavy casualties and shortage of horses soon compelled the Soviets to reduce the number of cavalry divisions. As tank production and Allied supplies made up for the losses of 1941, the cavalry was merged with tank units, forming more effective strike groups. From 1943–1944, cavalry gradually became the mobile infantry
component of the tank armies. By the end of the war, Soviet cavalry was reduced to its pre-war strength. The logistical role of horses in Red Army was not as high as it was in the German Army due to Soviet domestic oil reserves and American truck supplies
.
of the Western Front of World War I
resulted in a strategic stalemate: defensive weapons and tactics prevailed over the offensive options available. Early tanks
, supported by artillery and foot infantry, provided a weapon for breaching the front line but were too slow to turn the breach into a strategic offensive; the railroads of France
and Germany
provided the defending side with the ability to move troops and counterattack in sufficient time. Postwar armies concentrated on developing more effective offensive tactics through the mechanization
of ground troops. The mechanization strategy was influenced by the state of economies, anticipated scenarios of war, politics and lobbying within civilian governments and the militaries. The United Kingdom, France and Germany chose three different strategies. A fourth option was chosen by the Soviet Union
who, influenced by the mobile warfare experience of the Russian Civil War
and the Polish-Soviet War
, introduced a mechanized corps and airborne troops. Each strategy closed the gap between the capabilities of cavalry and mechanized infantry.
Another factor prompting motorization was the decline of national horse stocks and the inability to restore them in reasonable time. Of all the major powers, only the United Kingdom, weakened by the loss of Ireland, was in part compelled to motorize for this reason; horse stocks in Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union remained sufficient for at least their peacetime armies. In 1928 the United Kingdom became the first nation to begin the replacement of horse cavalry with motorized troops and by 1939 had became the first to motorize their national army, although some Yeomanry
regiments plus regular cavalry units serving overseas remained mounted. British experimental armored units had performed impressively since 1926, but, facing resistance from the traditional branches of service, remained unpopular among top brass until the Battle of France
.
The French Army partially motorized their cavalry in 1928, creating divisions of dragons porte (mobile dragoons) that combined motorized and horse-mounted elements. In the following decade the French searched for a perfect mix, testing five different divisional configurations. Bulgaria
, Hungary
and Romania
followed the French mixed pattern; Austria
n and Czechoslovak
mobile divisions were similar but with a higher share of horses. The Polish army acquired tanks and the Lithuania
n army acquired trucks but otherwise both remained horse-powered, World War I style armies. The United States Cavalry commanders approved the French strategy but made no radical changes until the 1940 reform that completely eliminated horse troops.
German analysts rejected the French concept of mixed horse-and-motor troops as unworkable. The Wehrmacht
had its own opponents of mechanization, but with Adolf Hitler
's support Ludwig Beck
, Werner von Fritsch
and Heinz Guderian
succeeded in forging a compact but effective panzer
force that coexisted with masses of traditional foot infantry and horse-drawn artillery throughout World War II. Willis Crittenberger observed that “the French are limited to the armored division, while the Germans have created an armored branch.” By 1939 the Wehrmacht disbanded their 18 cavalry regiments, leaving a single active cavalry brigade; the cavalrymen with their war horses were integrated into infantry divisions.
Motorization of the 1930s raised a number of concerns, starting with the need to secure continuous fuel supply. The new formations had a significantly larger footprint on the march: the 1932 French motorized division took up 52 kilometers of road space compared to 11.5 kilometers for a horse-mounted formation, raising concerns about control and vulnerability. The Spanish Civil War
and other conflicts of 1930s did not provide definite solutions and the issues remained unresolved until the onset of World War II. Only the German blitzkrieg
achieved in the Battle of France
finally persuaded the militaries of the world, including the United States, that the tank had replaced the horse on the battlefield.
but the associated costs of daily feeding, grooming and handling horses were staggering. In theory horse units could feed off the country, but grazing on grass alone rendered horses unfit for work and the troops had no time to spend searching the villages for fodder
. Hard-working horses required up to twelve pounds of grain daily; fodder carried by the troops made up a major portion of their supply trains.
Horses needed attendants: hitching a six-horse field artillery team, for example, required six men working for at least an hour. Horse health deteriorated after only ten days of even moderate load, requiring frequent refits; recuperation took months and the replacement horses, in turn, needed time to get along with their teammates and handlers. Good stables around the front line were scarce, makeshift lodgings caused premature wear and disease. Refit of front-line horse units consumed eight to ten days, slowing down operations.
Movements over 30 kilometers (daily horse travel limit) were particularly slow and complex. Longer hauls were relegated to trucks at first opportunity, while horses persisted at divisional level and in auxiliary units. Horse transports were particularly inadequate in deep offensive operations, just like they were in 1914. American trucks supplied to the Soviets allowed operations up to 350 kilometers away from the railhead
, a distance impossible for horse-drawn sleighs. Likewise, replacement of field artillery horses with jeep
s allowed towing 120-mm mortars
in line with advancing troops, another tactic not possible with horses.
Use of trucks was constrained by the lack of fuel and high costs of synthetic gasoline on the German side, and the losses of equipment in 1941–1942 on the Soviet side. The Soviets managed their losses with the formation of 76 horse transport battalions of 500 horses each, and employed reindeer
in the Arctic and camel
s in the South. But overcoming shortage of horses themselves was insurmountable: a work horse matures in three to four years; farm stocks were already depleted of horses as well as tractors. Western European nations, starting with the United Kingdom, witnessed shortage of horses since the 1920s and adjusted their armies accordingly. Germany of the 1920s managed to restore their population of horses, but then it declined again as farm horses were replaced by motor power.
The United States Army
, having ample reserves of fuel and trucks, opted for all-truck logistics from the onset of their military reform of 1940. As General Robert W. Grow
wrote, "there was not a single horse in the American Army in Europe, there was lots of cavalry action." Nevertheless, horses, mules, donkeys and even oxen remained essential in rough, remote areas of the Pacific.
, where they were soon crushed by the decisive German offensive.
By 1945 the only French mounted troops retaining an operational role were several squadrons of Morocan and Algerian spahis serving in North Africa and in France itself.
until September 1943. Over the course of the war these horse elements were reduced, the 1945 divisions lacked horsemen altogether. Reconnaissance and antitank battalions were the only mobile elements in a German infantry division.
Organization of infantry troops and the mindset of their commanders were radically different from those of advance panzer forces. Mechanization of German Army substantially lagged behind Red Army, although the blitzkrieg of 1941
temporarily reversed the tables: the Germans captured tanks, trucks and tractors but were losing horses: 179 thousands died in December 1941 and January 1942 alone. A German soldier wrote: "A curious odor will stick to this campaign, this mixture of fire, sweat and horse corpses."
A German division was supposed to be logistically self-sufficient, providing its own men, horses and equipment to haul its own supplies from an Army level railhead. Soviet divisions, on the contrary, relied on the Army level transports. Supply train of a 1943 German infantry division employed 256 trucks and 2,652 horses attended by 4,047 men, other divisional configurations had up to 6,300 horses. Supply train of a lean 1943 Soviet infantry division, in comparison, had only 91 trucks and 556 horses attended by 879 men. Luftwaffe Field Division
s were designed to be lean and rely on trucks and halftracks but in real life these were substituted with horses and mules. Incidentally, psychotherapist
Ernst Göring, son of Luftwaffe
chief Hermann Göring
, used therapeutic horseback riding
to rehabilitate wounded pilots, but in 1942 the program was shut down as too expensive.
Horse logistics slowed down German advance and set traps for the defending troops. The 6th Army, engaged in urban warfare
in Stalingrad
, was unable to feed or graze their horses and sent them into deep rear. When the Soviets enveloped the 6th Army in November 1942, the German troops were cut off their horse transport, and unable to move their artillery had they tried to evacuate the city. In an earlier envelopment, the Demyansk Pocket
, 20 thousand horses were trapped together with 95 thousand men and airlift
ing fodder drained precious air transport capacity. But these horses also provided food for soldiers in the environment where "axe rebounds as a stone from a frozen horse corpse."
German Army of 1941 had a single cavalry division assigned to Heinz Guderian
's panzer group. Continuously engaged against Soviet troops, it increased in size to six regiments and in the beginning of 1942 was reformed into the 24th Panzer Division
that later perished in the Battle of Stalingrad
. In April–June 1943 the Germans set up three separate cavalry regiments (Nord, Mitte, Sud) - horse units reinforced with tanks and halftrack-mounted infantry. In August 1944 these regiments were reformed into two brigades and a division forming, together with the Hungarian 1st Cavalry Division, Gustav Harteneck
’s Cavalry Corps that operated in Belorussia. In February 1945 the brigades were reformed into cavalry divisions (German stud farm
s in East Prussia
were not affected by the Allied air raids that crippled German industry).
The SS
operated both paramilitary horse units (23 cavalry regiments in 1941) and military Waffen SS cavalry. SS Cavalry Brigade
, formed in 1940, was engaged against civilians and guerillas on the occupied territories and then severely checked by the Soviet Rzhev-Sychevka offensive
. In 1942 SS reformed the brigade into the 8th SS Cavalry Division
manned by volksdeutsche
, which operated on the Eastern Front until October 1943. In December 1943 the 8th Cavalry spun off the 22nd SS Cavalry Division
manned with Hungarian Germans. These divisions were properly augmented with heavy, field and aircraft artillery. Another SS cavalry division, the 33rd Cavalry
, was formed in 1944 but never deployed to full strength.
Germans recruited anti-Soviet cossacks since the beginning of Operation Barbarossa although Hitler did not approve the practice until April 1942. Army Cossacks of 1942 formed four regiments and in August 1943 were merged into the 1st Cossack Division
(six regiments, up to 13,000 men) trained in Poland and deployed in Yugoslavia
. In November 1944 the division was split in two and reformed into the XVth Cossack Corps. The Kalmyks formed another cavalry corps, employed in rear guard duties.
In February 1945 German and Hungarian cavalry divisions were thrown into the Lake Balaton offensive; after a limited success, German forces were ground down by Soviet counteroffensive. Remnants of Army cavalry fell back into Austria
; 22 thousand men surrendered to Western allies, bringing with them 16 thousand horses. Remnants of SS cavalry, merged into the 37rd SS Division
, followed the same route.
. In 1941 the 1st Cavalry Brigade, part of the Mobile Corps, performed a 600-mile dash from Galicia to Donetz Basin that ended in loss of most of motor vehicles. In October 1942 cavalry was reorganized into the 1st Cavarly Division, which in 1944 ended up defending Warsaw
from the Soviets and blended into Von Harteneck's Cavalry Corps. A second, reserve, cavalry division was hastily formed in August 1944.
maintained diverse colonial troops, including regular and irregular cavalry. Of 256,000 colonial troops available in 1940, 182,000 were recruited from local Africans. The mounted cavalry element amongst these comprised seven squadrons of savari
and four groups of spahis from Libya plus 16 squadrons of Cavalleria Coloniale from Italian East Africa
. On July 4, 1940 four African cavalry regiments and two colonial brigades captured Kassala
at a cost of five hundred men; this was as close to a victory as the Italian Empire could do.
Benito Mussolini
's Italy entered the Russian Campaign in July–August 1941 by sending the CSIR
, a mobile force of 60,900 men and 4,600 horses, to Ukraine
. CSIR retained traditional saber-wielding cavalry (The Savoia Cavalleria and Lancieri di Novara regiments of the 3rd Cavalry Division
) and relied on horse transport and a motley assortment of civilian trucks. Despite high casualties, in 1942 Mussolini sent reinforcement - the 227,000-strong Eighth Army, renamed ARMIR
, primarily an infantry force. August 24, 1942, when the Italian front was crumbling, Savoia Cavalleria charged the Red Army near Izbushensky and managed to repel two Soviet battalions. In December 1942 the Italians were outnumbered 9 to 1, overrun and destroyed by the Soviet Operation Saturn
.
of 1904–1905 the government established a breeding bureau that imported Australia
n and English stallions, establishing the new local stock. After World War One Japan blended their cavalry regiments into 32 uniform infantry divisions. This perceived weakness persisted into late 1930s, although by 1938 four cavalry brigades were set aside from infantry. Contemporary observers wrote that by 1940 these brigades were obsolete, not fitting the role of a proper shock army.
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Polish Army and its tactics were influenced by the mobile Polish-Soviet War
when cavalry was the decisive force. At the onset of war Poland fielded 38 cavalry regiments organized into 11 cavalry and 2 mechanized brigades (only one, 10th Motorized, was actually deployed). Cavalry accounted for around 10% of the whole Polish Army that remained, largely, an army of World War I. The government took the military threats seriously and counted on requisitioning privately owned horses. Stock of horses was regularly reviewed at local fairs, best breeders rewarded.
The Polish campaign of September 1939 counted fifteen significant cavalry actions. Two were pure fast cavalry charges with spears and sabres, others were fought on foot. The Poles claimed twelve victories, including successful breakout attempts. The most striking Battle of Mokra
pitted the Wołyńska Cavalry Brigade headlong against the 4th Panzer Division with 295 tanks. The Poles repelled waves of tank and infantry attacks for two days, giving the Germans "a bloody drubbing".
The legendary charge of Polish cavalry against German panzers, however, was a propaganda myth influenced by the Charge at Krojanty. In this battle fought on September 1, 1939 Polish 18th Cavalry Regiment charged and dispersed a German infantry unit. Soon afterwards the Poles themselves were gunned down by German armored vehicles and retreated with heavy casualties; aftermath of the beating was presented as a fictional cavalry charge against tanks.
After the collapse of Poland the remains of its cavalry reemerged in France as the 10th Armoured Brigade and in the United Kingdom as the 1st Armoured Division. New Polish cavalry brigades were formed in the Soviet Union for the Polish Armed Forces in the East
. The last action by Polish cavalry occurred on March 1, 1945 near Schonfeld, when the Independent Warsaw Brigage overran German anti-tank positions.
an escaped the Crimean Offensive of 1944 with a loss of all hardware.
First Cavalry Army experience and elevation of its commanders to the top of the military significantly influenced development of Soviet war doctrine in the interwar period
. Although the cavalry armies were disbanded after the Civil War
, Red Cavalry reached 14 divisions and 7 independent brigades in 1929 and peaked at 32 divisions and two brigades in 1938 although few of them actually deployed to nominal strength. 1939 and 1940 were spent in massive reorganizations of the troops into mechanized and tank corps, their formation influenced by the Spanish Civil War
and the Battle of France
and their disbandment forced by inability to properly supply and manage large formations. The role of cavalry was unexpectedly boosted by the setbacks suffered by mechanized forces in 1939 in Poland
and in 1939-1940 in Finland
.
A standard Soviet 1941 rifle division of 14,483 men relied on horse logistics and had a supply train of 3,039 horses, half of the complement of the 1941 German infantry division. Various reorganization made Soviet units smaller and leaner; the last divisional standard (December 1944), beefed up against the 1943 minimum, provided for only 1,196 horses for a regular and 1,155 horses for a Guards division
. By this time few divisions ever had more than half of their standard human complement, and their logistic capacities were downgraded accordingly.
had four Cavalry Corps commands and thirteen Cavalry Divisions (seven of them in western military districts), as opposed to sixty-two Infantry Corps and twenty-nine Mechanized Corps. By the 1941 standard, each division counted 9240 men - four cavalry regiments, one mechanized regiment of BT tanks and two artillery battalions; a 1941 cavalry corps had two divisions reinforced with more armor and artillery. In real life cavalry and infantry units were stripped of their tanks and trucks, being purely horse and foot troops with reduced mobility and firepower. Even the stripped-down divisions were too large to be effectively handled by their inexperienced commanders and were easily disorganized and destroyed by the Germans (for example, 60 to 80 per cent of the 6th Cavalry Corps were destroyed on June 22 as they struggled to assemble in formation).
By the end of 1941 organizational problems were solved by further reducing units into "light cavalry" divisions with a strength of roughly half of a "normal" cavalry division (3.447 men in three regiments). Losses of tanks and trucks in the summer of 1941 made these eighty divisions, combined into Cavalry Corps, "about the only mobile units left intact to the Soviets." These were used to attack en masse at critical points, ideally in cooperation with tanks but rarely with foot infantry. In defense, cavalry was useful in checking enemy advances at an early stage, attacking German flanks and quickly evading enemy reaction.
Cavalry actions of 1941 were poorly led and executed, with high casualties; the tactics improved when cavalry divisions were reinforced with mechanized infantry units and anti-aircraft artillery. These attachments, made permanent, elevated cavalry divisions to Cavalry Corps, first deployed en masse during the 1941–1942 winter offensive. Again, incompetent or indifferent commanders regularly threw their cavalry against fortified targets with heavy casualties. Combat losses and severe winter reduced horse stock to a point where 41 cavalry divisions were disbanded for the lack of horses. Horse stock did not and could not recover and the remaining cavalry divisions, even when refit, never had a full complement of horses.
favored the idea of a reformed Cavalry Army while the military initially opposed, fearing its vulnerability to enemy tanks. The concept of integrating cavalry, infantry and tank divisions (the future Tank Army) emerged as the Cavalry mechanized group
(CMG) in the fall of 1942. The 1942 CMG functioned like a true Tank Army, but its infantry rode on horses, not trucks. The number of cavalry divisions was further reduced to match the number of CMGs (later Tank Armies) and the available horse stock, to 26 divisions by the end of 1943. These divisions acquired own light tanks and increased to 5,700 men each. Their horse elements, although vulnerable to enemy fire, were indispensable in being able to keep pace with a tank breakthrough before the enemy could restore their defences. Normally on the night before the offensive they concentrated in a jump-off area 12-15 kilometers from the front line, and charged past it together with the tanks as soon as the first wave had breached the enemy lines.
In 1943 the Red Army gained sufficient experience and materiel to deploy numerous Tank Armies. They became the main strike weapon and cavalry was relegated to auxiliary offensive tasks requiring all-terrain mobility - usually involving encirclement and mopping up of enemy already shattered and split by tank forces. By the end of the war with Germany Soviet cavalry returned to its pre-war nominal strength of seven cavalry corps, or one cavalry corps per each tank army. The CMGs of the period (one Tank Corps and one Cavalry Corps) were regularly weapons of choice in operations where terrain prohibited use of fully deployed Tank Armies. The 1944 Cavalry Corps, in turn, had up to 103 tanks and tank destroyer
s in addition to three Cavalry Divisions that once again were made lean and light and dependent on horse alone (4,700 men with 76-mm field guns and no armor).
The last CMG action in the war took place in August 1945 during the invasion of Manchuria. General Issa Pliyev
's CMG, marching to Peking across the Gobi Desert
, was actually manned by Mongolia
n cavalrymen - four Mongolian cavalry division in addition to one Soviet cavalry division, five mechanized brigades with heavy tank
s. They were opposed by the horsemen of Inner Mongolia
who fell back without fighting.
. Mechanised cavalry regiments retained their traditional titles but were grouped with the Royal Tank Regiment
as part of the Royal Armoured Corps
established in April 1939.
British troops in the Mediterranean theatre of war continued the use of horses – local as well as imported: the Sherwood Foresters
, relocated to Palestine
in 1939 in addition to two cavalry regiments already present, brought with them a thousand English horses. Lack of vehicles delayed planned motorization of these troops well into 1941. In 1942 the British still employed 6,500 horses, 10,000 mules and 1,700 camels, and used local mules in Sicily
and mainland Italy
.
Colonial troops, notably the Transjordan Frontier Force
and the Arab Legion
remained horse-mounted. All 20 Indian cavalry regiments were mechanised between 1938 and November 1940. The last British mounted cavalry charge occurred on March 21, 1942 when a 60 strong patrol of Sikh sowars of the Burma Frontier Force encountered Japanese infantry at Toungoo in central Burma.
In December 1939, the United States Cavalry
consisted of two mechanized and twelve horse regiments of 790 horses each. Chief of Cavalry John K. Herr, a proponent of horse troops ("conservative and downright mossback" according to Allan Millett yet "noble and tragic in his loyalty to horse" according to Roman Jarymowycz), intended to increase them to 1275 horses each. A cavalry division included two brigades of two horse regiments each, eighteen light tanks and a field artillery regiment; The Chief of Artillery leaned to horse and truck traction and dismissed self-propelled artillery
to avoid cross-coordination with other branches of service. Cavalry had been the preferred force for the defense of the Mexican border and the Panama Canal Zone
from Mexican raiders, and enemy landings, a threat that was becoming obsolete in the 1930s, if not for Japan's rising influence. A fleet of horse trailer
s called portees assisted cavalry in traversing the roads. Once mounted, cavalrymen would reach the battlefield on horseback, dismount and then fight on foot, essentially acting as mobile light infantry.
After the 1940 Louisiana Maneuvers cavalry units were gradually reformed into Armored Corps, starting with Adna R. Chaffee
's 1st Armored Corps in July 1940. Another novelty introduced after the maneuvers, the Bantam 4x4 car
soon became known as jeep
and replaced the horse itself. Debates over the integration of armor and horse units continued through 1941 but the failure of these attempts "to marry horse with armor" was evident even to casual civilian observers. The office of Chief of Cavalry was eliminated in March 1942, and the newly formed ground forces began mechanization of the remaining horse units (the 1st Cavalry Division was reorganized as an infantry unit but retained its designation).
The only significant engagement of American horsemen in World War II was the defensive action of the Philippine Scouts
(26th Cavalry Regiment). The Scouts challenged the Japanese invaders of Luzon
, holding off two armoured and two infantry regiments during the invasion of the Philippines. They repelled a unit of tanks in Binalonan and successfully held ground for the Allied armies' retreat to Bataan
. In Europe, the American forces fielded only a few cavalry and supply units during the war. George S. Patton
lamented their lack in North Africa
and wrote that "had we possessed an American cavalry division with pack artillery in Tunisia
and in Sicily
, not a German would have escaped."
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, materiel
Materiel
Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....
, and, to a lesser extent, in mobile cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
troops. The role of horses for each nation depended on its military strategy
Military strategy
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek strategos, strategy when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", 'the art of arrangement' of troops...
and state of economy and was most pronounced in German and Soviet
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
ground forces. Over the course of the war Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
employed more than six million horses.
Most British regular cavalry regiments were mechanised between 1928 and the outbreak of World War II. The United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
retained a single cavalry regiment stationed in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, and the German Army retained a single brigade. The French Army
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
of 1939–1940 blended horse regiments into their mobile divisions, while the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
of 1941 had thirteen cavalry divisions. Italian
Italian Army
The Italian Army is the ground defence force of the Italian Armed Forces. It is all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel, numbering 108,355 in 2010. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese, Polish and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n armies employed substantial cavalry formations.
Horse-drawn transportation was most important for Germany, as it was relatively lacking in natural oil resources. Infantry and horse-drawn artillery formed the bulk of the German Army throughout the war; only one-fifth of the Army belonged to mobile panzer
Panzer
A Panzer is a German language word that, when used as a noun, means "tank". When it is used as an adjective, it means either tank or "armoured" .- Etymology :...
and mechanized divisions. Each German infantry division employed thousands of horses and thousands of men taking care of them. Despite losses of horses to enemy action, exposure and disease, Germany maintained a steady supply of work and saddle horses until 1945. Cavalry in the Army and the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
gradually increased in size, peaking at six cavalry divisions in February 1945.
The Red Army was substantially motorized from 1939–1941 but lost most of its war equipment in Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
. These losses were temporarily remedied by forming masses of light cavalry
Light cavalry
Light cavalry refers to lightly armed and lightly armored troops mounted on horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the riders are heavily armored...
which were used as strike forces in the Battle of Moscow
Battle of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of...
. Heavy casualties and shortage of horses soon compelled the Soviets to reduce the number of cavalry divisions. As tank production and Allied supplies made up for the losses of 1941, the cavalry was merged with tank units, forming more effective strike groups. From 1943–1944, cavalry gradually became the mobile infantry
Motorised infantry
In NATO and most other western countries, motorised infantry is infantry which is transported by trucks or other motor vehicles. It is distinguished from mechanized infantry, which is carried in armoured personnel carriers, infantry combat vehicles, or infantry fighting vehicles...
component of the tank armies. By the end of the war, Soviet cavalry was reduced to its pre-war strength. The logistical role of horses in Red Army was not as high as it was in the German Army due to Soviet domestic oil reserves and American truck supplies
Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease was the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, Free France, and other Allied nations with materiel between 1941 and 1945. It was signed into law on March 11, 1941, a year and a half after the outbreak of war in Europe in...
.
Motorization in the interwar period
The trench warfareTrench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
of the Western Front of World War I
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
resulted in a strategic stalemate: defensive weapons and tactics prevailed over the offensive options available. Early tanks
Tanks in World War I
The development of tanks in World War I began as a solution to the stalemate which trench warfare had brought to the western front. The first prototype of the Mark I tank was tested for the British Army on September 8th 1915...
, supported by artillery and foot infantry, provided a weapon for breaching the front line but were too slow to turn the breach into a strategic offensive; the railroads of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
provided the defending side with the ability to move troops and counterattack in sufficient time. Postwar armies concentrated on developing more effective offensive tactics through the mechanization
Mechanization
Mechanization or mechanisation is providing human operators with machinery that assists them with the muscular requirements of work or displaces muscular work. In some fields, mechanization includes the use of hand tools...
of ground troops. The mechanization strategy was influenced by the state of economies, anticipated scenarios of war, politics and lobbying within civilian governments and the militaries. The United Kingdom, France and Germany chose three different strategies. A fourth option was chosen by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
who, influenced by the mobile warfare experience of the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
and the Polish-Soviet War
Polish-Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
, introduced a mechanized corps and airborne troops. Each strategy closed the gap between the capabilities of cavalry and mechanized infantry.
Another factor prompting motorization was the decline of national horse stocks and the inability to restore them in reasonable time. Of all the major powers, only the United Kingdom, weakened by the loss of Ireland, was in part compelled to motorize for this reason; horse stocks in Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union remained sufficient for at least their peacetime armies. In 1928 the United Kingdom became the first nation to begin the replacement of horse cavalry with motorized troops and by 1939 had became the first to motorize their national army, although some Yeomanry
Yeomanry
Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units or sub-units of the British Territorial Army, descended from volunteer cavalry regiments. Today, Yeomanry units may serve in a variety of different military roles.-History:...
regiments plus regular cavalry units serving overseas remained mounted. British experimental armored units had performed impressively since 1926, but, facing resistance from the traditional branches of service, remained unpopular among top brass until the Battle of France
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
.
The French Army partially motorized their cavalry in 1928, creating divisions of dragons porte (mobile dragoons) that combined motorized and horse-mounted elements. In the following decade the French searched for a perfect mix, testing five different divisional configurations. Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
followed the French mixed pattern; Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n and Czechoslovak
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
mobile divisions were similar but with a higher share of horses. The Polish army acquired tanks and the Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n army acquired trucks but otherwise both remained horse-powered, World War I style armies. The United States Cavalry commanders approved the French strategy but made no radical changes until the 1940 reform that completely eliminated horse troops.
German analysts rejected the French concept of mixed horse-and-motor troops as unworkable. The Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
had its own opponents of mechanization, but with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's support Ludwig Beck
Ludwig Beck
Generaloberst Ludwig August Theodor Beck was a German general and Chief of the German General Staff during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany before World War II....
, Werner von Fritsch
Werner von Fritsch
Werner Thomas Ludwig Freiherr von Fritsch was a prominent Wehrmacht officer, member of the German High Command, and the second German general to be killed during World War II.-Early life:...
and Heinz Guderian
Heinz Guderian
Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was a German general during World War II. He was a pioneer in the development of armored warfare, and was the leading proponent of tanks and mechanization in the Wehrmacht . Germany's panzer forces were raised and organized under his direction as Chief of Mobile Forces...
succeeded in forging a compact but effective panzer
Panzer
A Panzer is a German language word that, when used as a noun, means "tank". When it is used as an adjective, it means either tank or "armoured" .- Etymology :...
force that coexisted with masses of traditional foot infantry and horse-drawn artillery throughout World War II. Willis Crittenberger observed that “the French are limited to the armored division, while the Germans have created an armored branch.” By 1939 the Wehrmacht disbanded their 18 cavalry regiments, leaving a single active cavalry brigade; the cavalrymen with their war horses were integrated into infantry divisions.
Motorization of the 1930s raised a number of concerns, starting with the need to secure continuous fuel supply. The new formations had a significantly larger footprint on the march: the 1932 French motorized division took up 52 kilometers of road space compared to 11.5 kilometers for a horse-mounted formation, raising concerns about control and vulnerability. The Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and other conflicts of 1930s did not provide definite solutions and the issues remained unresolved until the onset of World War II. Only the German blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg
For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...
achieved in the Battle of France
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
finally persuaded the militaries of the world, including the United States, that the tank had replaced the horse on the battlefield.
Horse logistics
German and Soviet armies relied heavily on work horses to pull artillery and supplies. Horse seemed to be a cheap and reliable transport especially in the spring and fall mud of the Eastern FrontEastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
but the associated costs of daily feeding, grooming and handling horses were staggering. In theory horse units could feed off the country, but grazing on grass alone rendered horses unfit for work and the troops had no time to spend searching the villages for fodder
Fodder
Fodder or animal feed is any agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. Most animal feed is from plants but some is of animal origin...
. Hard-working horses required up to twelve pounds of grain daily; fodder carried by the troops made up a major portion of their supply trains.
Horses needed attendants: hitching a six-horse field artillery team, for example, required six men working for at least an hour. Horse health deteriorated after only ten days of even moderate load, requiring frequent refits; recuperation took months and the replacement horses, in turn, needed time to get along with their teammates and handlers. Good stables around the front line were scarce, makeshift lodgings caused premature wear and disease. Refit of front-line horse units consumed eight to ten days, slowing down operations.
Movements over 30 kilometers (daily horse travel limit) were particularly slow and complex. Longer hauls were relegated to trucks at first opportunity, while horses persisted at divisional level and in auxiliary units. Horse transports were particularly inadequate in deep offensive operations, just like they were in 1914. American trucks supplied to the Soviets allowed operations up to 350 kilometers away from the railhead
Railhead
The word railhead is a railway term with two distinct meanings, depending upon its context.Sometimes, particularly in the context of modern freight terminals, the word is used to denote a terminus of a railway line, especially if the line is not yet finished, or if the terminus interfaces with...
, a distance impossible for horse-drawn sleighs. Likewise, replacement of field artillery horses with jeep
Jeep
Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...
s allowed towing 120-mm mortars
M1938 mortar
The Soviet M1938 120-millimeter mortar was the first modern 120 mm mortar developed by any country, entering production in 1939. The Red Army made significant use of its heavy caliber by treating it as an artillery piece in World War II. The Germans were impressed by the weapon and adopted it...
in line with advancing troops, another tactic not possible with horses.
Use of trucks was constrained by the lack of fuel and high costs of synthetic gasoline on the German side, and the losses of equipment in 1941–1942 on the Soviet side. The Soviets managed their losses with the formation of 76 horse transport battalions of 500 horses each, and employed reindeer
Reindeer
The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...
in the Arctic and camel
Camel
A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. There are two species of camels: the dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the bactrian has two humps. Dromedaries are native to the dry desert areas of West Asia,...
s in the South. But overcoming shortage of horses themselves was insurmountable: a work horse matures in three to four years; farm stocks were already depleted of horses as well as tractors. Western European nations, starting with the United Kingdom, witnessed shortage of horses since the 1920s and adjusted their armies accordingly. Germany of the 1920s managed to restore their population of horses, but then it declined again as farm horses were replaced by motor power.
The United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, having ample reserves of fuel and trucks, opted for all-truck logistics from the onset of their military reform of 1940. As General Robert W. Grow
Robert W. Grow
Robert W. Grow was an US Army general during World War II. He was the commander the U.S. 6th Armored Division on the Western Front, fighting during the battles of Normandy and of the Bulge....
wrote, "there was not a single horse in the American Army in Europe, there was lots of cavalry action." Nevertheless, horses, mules, donkeys and even oxen remained essential in rough, remote areas of the Pacific.
Belligerent armies
| France | Germany | Hungary | Italy | Japan | Poland | Romania | Soviet Union | United Kingdom | United States | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National stock of horses | 2.9 million (1930) | … | 860 thousand (1930) | 942 thousand (1930) | … | … | … | 21 million (1940) | 1.2 million (1930) | 14 million (1940) |
| Horses employed by the military | >520 thousand (1939) | 2.75 million | … | … | … | … | ... | 3.5 milion | … | … |
| Maximum number of cavalry units deployed | … | 6 divisions (February 1945) |
2 divisions (1944) | … | 25 regiments (1940) | 38 regiments (1939) | 6 divisions (1942) | 80 light cavalry divisions (December 1941) |
… | 13 regiments (1939) |
| Largest cavalry formation deployed | Corps | Corps | Division | Division | Brigade | Brigade | Division | Group (Army equivalent Army (Soviet Army) An army, besides the generalized meanings of ‘a country's armed forces’ or its ‘land forces’, is a type of formation in militaries of various countries, including the Soviet Union. This article serves a central point of reference for Soviet armies without individual articles, and explains some of... ) |
… | Division |
| Main role(s) of horse elements in the military | Mobile troops | Field logistics | Mobile troops | Mobile and colonial troops |
Mobile troops | Mobile troops | Mobile troops | Mobile troops, logistics |
Logistics, colonial troops |
Nucleus of the Armored Forces |
France
Pre-war permutations of mixed horse-and-truck divisions resulted in the 1939 Light Cavalry Division (DLC). Each DLC retained a horse brigade of 1,200 sabers. At the onset of World War II France mobilized over half a million horses, arguably draining the resources that should rather have been invested into true mechanized and tank formations. The German offensive in May 1940 compelled the French to reconsider the effectiveness of their light cavalry and move it to what seemed to be a more appropriate ground, the ArdennesArdennes
The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rolling hills and ridges formed within the Givetian Ardennes mountain range, primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into France , and geologically into the Eifel...
, where they were soon crushed by the decisive German offensive.
By 1945 the only French mounted troops retaining an operational role were several squadrons of Morocan and Algerian spahis serving in North Africa and in France itself.
Germany
German Army entered World War II with 514,000 horses, and over the course of the war employed, in total, 2.75 million horses and mules; average number of horses in the Army reached 1.1 million.Logistics
Most of these horses were employed by foot infantry and horse-drawn artillery troops that formed the bulk of the German Army throughout the war. Of 264 divisions active in November 1944, only 42 were armored or mechanized (November 1943: 52 of 322). In addition to work horses each infantry division possessed a reconnaissance battalion with 216 cavalrymen – the legacy of disbanded cavalry regiments. They wore cavalry insigniaInsignia
Insignia or insigne pl -nia or -nias : a symbol or token of personal power, status or office, or of an official body of government or jurisdiction...
until September 1943. Over the course of the war these horse elements were reduced, the 1945 divisions lacked horsemen altogether. Reconnaissance and antitank battalions were the only mobile elements in a German infantry division.
Organization of infantry troops and the mindset of their commanders were radically different from those of advance panzer forces. Mechanization of German Army substantially lagged behind Red Army, although the blitzkrieg of 1941
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
temporarily reversed the tables: the Germans captured tanks, trucks and tractors but were losing horses: 179 thousands died in December 1941 and January 1942 alone. A German soldier wrote: "A curious odor will stick to this campaign, this mixture of fire, sweat and horse corpses."
A German division was supposed to be logistically self-sufficient, providing its own men, horses and equipment to haul its own supplies from an Army level railhead. Soviet divisions, on the contrary, relied on the Army level transports. Supply train of a 1943 German infantry division employed 256 trucks and 2,652 horses attended by 4,047 men, other divisional configurations had up to 6,300 horses. Supply train of a lean 1943 Soviet infantry division, in comparison, had only 91 trucks and 556 horses attended by 879 men. Luftwaffe Field Division
Luftwaffe Field Division
The Luftwaffe Field Divisions were German military formations which fought during World War II.-History:...
s were designed to be lean and rely on trucks and halftracks but in real life these were substituted with horses and mules. Incidentally, psychotherapist
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
Ernst Göring, son of Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
chief Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
, used therapeutic horseback riding
Therapeutic horseback riding
Therapeutic horseback riding is used to teach riding skills to people with disabilities...
to rehabilitate wounded pilots, but in 1942 the program was shut down as too expensive.
Horse logistics slowed down German advance and set traps for the defending troops. The 6th Army, engaged in urban warfare
Urban warfare
Urban warfare is combat conducted in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat is very different from combat in the open at both the operational and tactical level...
in Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
, was unable to feed or graze their horses and sent them into deep rear. When the Soviets enveloped the 6th Army in November 1942, the German troops were cut off their horse transport, and unable to move their artillery had they tried to evacuate the city. In an earlier envelopment, the Demyansk Pocket
Demyansk Pocket
The Demyansk Pocket was the name given for the encirclement of German troops by the Red Army around Demyansk , south of Leningrad, during World War II on the Eastern Front. The pocket existed mainly from 8 February-21 April 1942. A much smaller pocket was simultaneously surrounded in Kholm, about ...
, 20 thousand horses were trapped together with 95 thousand men and airlift
Airlift
Airlift is the act of transporting people or cargo from point to point using aircraft.Airlift may also refer to:*Airlift , a suction device for moving sand and silt underwater-See also:...
ing fodder drained precious air transport capacity. But these horses also provided food for soldiers in the environment where "axe rebounds as a stone from a frozen horse corpse."
Cavalry troops
During the war German cavalry units increased in numbers from a single brigade to a larger but still limited force of six cavalry divisions and two corps HQ. All regular cavalry troops served on the Eastern Front and the Balkans and a few Cossack battalions on the Western Front.German Army of 1941 had a single cavalry division assigned to Heinz Guderian
Heinz Guderian
Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was a German general during World War II. He was a pioneer in the development of armored warfare, and was the leading proponent of tanks and mechanization in the Wehrmacht . Germany's panzer forces were raised and organized under his direction as Chief of Mobile Forces...
's panzer group. Continuously engaged against Soviet troops, it increased in size to six regiments and in the beginning of 1942 was reformed into the 24th Panzer Division
24th Panzer Division (Germany)
The 24th Panzer Division was formed in 1942 from the 1st Cavalry Division based at Königsberg.-Service:It served under the Fourth Panzer Army in Army Group South of the Eastern Front. In late December 1942 it was encircled in the Battle of Stalingrad and destroyed...
that later perished in the Battle of Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
. In April–June 1943 the Germans set up three separate cavalry regiments (Nord, Mitte, Sud) - horse units reinforced with tanks and halftrack-mounted infantry. In August 1944 these regiments were reformed into two brigades and a division forming, together with the Hungarian 1st Cavalry Division, Gustav Harteneck
Gustav Harteneck
Gustav Harteneck was a highly decorated General der Kavallerie in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership...
’s Cavalry Corps that operated in Belorussia. In February 1945 the brigades were reformed into cavalry divisions (German stud farm
Stud farm
A stud farm or stud in animal husbandry, is an establishment for selective breeding of livestock. The word "stud" comes from the Old English stod meaning "herd of horses, place where horses are kept for breeding" Historically, documentation of the breedings that occur on a stud farm leads to the...
s in East Prussia
East Prussia
East Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
were not affected by the Allied air raids that crippled German industry).
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
operated both paramilitary horse units (23 cavalry regiments in 1941) and military Waffen SS cavalry. SS Cavalry Brigade
SS Cavalry Brigade
The SS Cavalry Brigade was a unit of the Waffen SS formed in 1940, from cavalry regiments created for occupation duties in German-occupied Poland. Later, while serving in German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union, the brigade was involved in the genocide of the Jewish population and anti-partisan...
, formed in 1940, was engaged against civilians and guerillas on the occupied territories and then severely checked by the Soviet Rzhev-Sychevka offensive
Battles of Rzhev
Rzhev Battles is a general term for a series of World War II offensives launched during January 8, 1942—March 31, 1943 by the Soviet Red Army in the general directions of Rzhev, Sychevka and Vyazma against a German salient in the vicinity of Moscow, known as the "Rzhev meat grinder" for...
. In 1942 SS reformed the brigade into the 8th SS Cavalry Division
8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer
The 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer was a Waffen-SS cavalry Division during World War II. It was formed in 1942 from a cadre of the SS Cavalry Brigade which was involved in anti partisan operations behind the front line and was responsible for the extermination of tens of thousands of the...
manned by volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
, which operated on the Eastern Front until October 1943. In December 1943 the 8th Cavalry spun off the 22nd SS Cavalry Division
22nd SS Volunteer Cavalry Division Maria Theresia
The 22nd SS Volunteer Cavalry Division Maria Theresia. was a German Waffen SS cavalry division which saw action on the Eastern Front during the Second World War...
manned with Hungarian Germans. These divisions were properly augmented with heavy, field and aircraft artillery. Another SS cavalry division, the 33rd Cavalry
33rd Waffen Cavalry Division of the SS (3rd Hungarian)
33rd Waffen Cavalry Division of the SS was formed from Hungarian volunteers, in December 1944.It never had more than one regiment when it was absorbed by the 26th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS the following month, after it was almost destroyed in the fighting near Budapest...
, was formed in 1944 but never deployed to full strength.
Germans recruited anti-Soviet cossacks since the beginning of Operation Barbarossa although Hitler did not approve the practice until April 1942. Army Cossacks of 1942 formed four regiments and in August 1943 were merged into the 1st Cossack Division
1st Cossack Division
The 1st Cossack Division was a Russian Cossack division of the German Army that served during World War II. It was created on the Eastern Front mostly out of Don Cossacks already serving in the Wehrmacht, those who escaped from the advancing Red Army and Soviet POWs. In 1945, the division was...
(six regiments, up to 13,000 men) trained in Poland and deployed in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. In November 1944 the division was split in two and reformed into the XVth Cossack Corps. The Kalmyks formed another cavalry corps, employed in rear guard duties.
In February 1945 German and Hungarian cavalry divisions were thrown into the Lake Balaton offensive; after a limited success, German forces were ground down by Soviet counteroffensive. Remnants of Army cavalry fell back into Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
; 22 thousand men surrendered to Western allies, bringing with them 16 thousand horses. Remnants of SS cavalry, merged into the 37rd SS Division
37th SS Volunteer Cavalry Division Lützow
37. SS Freiwilligen Kavallerie Division "Lützow" was ordered to be formed in February 1945, consisting of remnants of 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer and 22nd SS Volunteer Cavalry Division Maria Theresia, including former's SS Pionier Battalion 8, in addition to mostly 16- or 17-year old...
, followed the same route.
Hungary
Hungary entered the war with two traditional cavalry brigades. Its war efforts were split between gaining Hitler's appreciation in the East and guarding the border with its hostile "ally" RomaniaRomania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. In 1941 the 1st Cavalry Brigade, part of the Mobile Corps, performed a 600-mile dash from Galicia to Donetz Basin that ended in loss of most of motor vehicles. In October 1942 cavalry was reorganized into the 1st Cavarly Division, which in 1944 ended up defending Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
from the Soviets and blended into Von Harteneck's Cavalry Corps. A second, reserve, cavalry division was hastily formed in August 1944.
Italy
The Italian Colonial Empire inherited by the fascist regimeItalian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
maintained diverse colonial troops, including regular and irregular cavalry. Of 256,000 colonial troops available in 1940, 182,000 were recruited from local Africans. The mounted cavalry element amongst these comprised seven squadrons of savari
Savari
Savari was the designation given to the regular Libyan cavalry regiments of the Italian colonial army in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. The word "savari" was derived from a Persian term for "horsemen" .-Organisation:...
and four groups of spahis from Libya plus 16 squadrons of Cavalleria Coloniale from Italian East Africa
Italian East Africa
Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...
. On July 4, 1940 four African cavalry regiments and two colonial brigades captured Kassala
Kassala
Kassala is the capital of the state of Kassala in eastern Sudan. Its 2008 population was recorded to be 419,030. It is a market town and is famous for its fruit gardens. It was formerly a railroad hub, however, as of 2006 there was no operational railway station in Kassala and much of the track...
at a cost of five hundred men; this was as close to a victory as the Italian Empire could do.
Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's Italy entered the Russian Campaign in July–August 1941 by sending the CSIR
Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia
During World War II, the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia was a corps-sized expeditionary unit of the Regio Esercito that fought on the Eastern Front...
, a mobile force of 60,900 men and 4,600 horses, to Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. CSIR retained traditional saber-wielding cavalry (The Savoia Cavalleria and Lancieri di Novara regiments of the 3rd Cavalry Division
3 Cavalry Division Amedeo Duca d'Aosta
The 3 Cavalry Division Amedeo Duca d'Aosta was an Cavalry or Celere Division of the Italian Army during World War II. The division was formed in 1934, and during World War II was mobilized in June 1940. As a cavalry division and took part in the Invasion of Yugoslavia and was part of the Italian...
) and relied on horse transport and a motley assortment of civilian trucks. Despite high casualties, in 1942 Mussolini sent reinforcement - the 227,000-strong Eighth Army, renamed ARMIR
Italian Army in Russia
The Italian Army in Russia was an army-sized unit of the Italian Royal Army which fought on the Eastern Front during World War II...
, primarily an infantry force. August 24, 1942, when the Italian front was crumbling, Savoia Cavalleria charged the Red Army near Izbushensky and managed to repel two Soviet battalions. In December 1942 the Italians were outnumbered 9 to 1, overrun and destroyed by the Soviet Operation Saturn
Operation Saturn
Operation Saturn, revised as Operation Little Saturn, was a Red Army operation on the Eastern Front of World War II that led to battles in the northern Caucasus and Donets Basin regions of the Soviet Union from December 1942 to February 1943....
.
Japan
Japan's environment, historically, did not foster horse breeding practices, thus after the Russo-Japanese WarRusso-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
of 1904–1905 the government established a breeding bureau that imported Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n and English stallions, establishing the new local stock. After World War One Japan blended their cavalry regiments into 32 uniform infantry divisions. This perceived weakness persisted into late 1930s, although by 1938 four cavalry brigades were set aside from infantry. Contemporary observers wrote that by 1940 these brigades were obsolete, not fitting the role of a proper shock army.
Poland
Polish Army and its tactics were influenced by the mobile Polish-Soviet War
Polish-Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
when cavalry was the decisive force. At the onset of war Poland fielded 38 cavalry regiments organized into 11 cavalry and 2 mechanized brigades (only one, 10th Motorized, was actually deployed). Cavalry accounted for around 10% of the whole Polish Army that remained, largely, an army of World War I. The government took the military threats seriously and counted on requisitioning privately owned horses. Stock of horses was regularly reviewed at local fairs, best breeders rewarded.
The Polish campaign of September 1939 counted fifteen significant cavalry actions. Two were pure fast cavalry charges with spears and sabres, others were fought on foot. The Poles claimed twelve victories, including successful breakout attempts. The most striking Battle of Mokra
Battle of Mokra
The Battle of Mokra took place on September 1, 1939 near the village of Mokra, 5 km north from Kłobuck, 23 km north-west from Częstochowa, Poland...
pitted the Wołyńska Cavalry Brigade headlong against the 4th Panzer Division with 295 tanks. The Poles repelled waves of tank and infantry attacks for two days, giving the Germans "a bloody drubbing".
The legendary charge of Polish cavalry against German panzers, however, was a propaganda myth influenced by the Charge at Krojanty. In this battle fought on September 1, 1939 Polish 18th Cavalry Regiment charged and dispersed a German infantry unit. Soon afterwards the Poles themselves were gunned down by German armored vehicles and retreated with heavy casualties; aftermath of the beating was presented as a fictional cavalry charge against tanks.
After the collapse of Poland the remains of its cavalry reemerged in France as the 10th Armoured Brigade and in the United Kingdom as the 1st Armoured Division. New Polish cavalry brigades were formed in the Soviet Union for the Polish Armed Forces in the East
Polish Armed Forces in the East
Polish Armed Forces in the East refers to military units composed of Poles created in the Soviet Union at the time when the territory of Poland was occupied by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the Second World War....
. The last action by Polish cavalry occurred on March 1, 1945 near Schonfeld, when the Independent Warsaw Brigage overran German anti-tank positions.
Romania
Romanian cavalry was the largest among German allies. Romania began the war with six brigades and reformed them into divisions in 1942. A half-hearted modernisation introduced one motorised regiment in each division; prior to deployment in Southern Russia the 7th Cavalry Division was fully motorized. Four divisions perished in the Battle of Stalingrad. Two divisions were trapped in CrimeaCrimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
an escaped the Crimean Offensive of 1944 with a loss of all hardware.
Background
Collectivization of agriculture reduced Soviet horse stock from an estimated 34 million in 1929 to 21 million in 1940. 11 million of these were lost to advancing German armies in 1941–1942. Unlike Germany, the Soviets had sufficient oil supplies but suffered shortage of horses throughout the war. Red Army logistics, aided with domestic oil and American truck supplies, were mechanized to a greater extent than the Wehrmacht, but the Soviets employed far more combat cavalry troops than the Germans. In total the Red Army employed 3.5 million horses.First Cavalry Army experience and elevation of its commanders to the top of the military significantly influenced development of Soviet war doctrine in the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
. Although the cavalry armies were disbanded after the Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, Red Cavalry reached 14 divisions and 7 independent brigades in 1929 and peaked at 32 divisions and two brigades in 1938 although few of them actually deployed to nominal strength. 1939 and 1940 were spent in massive reorganizations of the troops into mechanized and tank corps, their formation influenced by the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and the Battle of France
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
and their disbandment forced by inability to properly supply and manage large formations. The role of cavalry was unexpectedly boosted by the setbacks suffered by mechanized forces in 1939 in Poland
Soviet invasion of Poland
Soviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...
and in 1939-1940 in Finland
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
.
A standard Soviet 1941 rifle division of 14,483 men relied on horse logistics and had a supply train of 3,039 horses, half of the complement of the 1941 German infantry division. Various reorganization made Soviet units smaller and leaner; the last divisional standard (December 1944), beefed up against the 1943 minimum, provided for only 1,196 horses for a regular and 1,155 horses for a Guards division
Guards unit
Guards units are elite units and formations in the armed forces of the former Soviet Union, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. These units were awarded Guards status after distinguishing themselves in service, and are considered to have elite status. The Guards designation originated during the...
. By this time few divisions ever had more than half of their standard human complement, and their logistic capacities were downgraded accordingly.
Debacle of 1941
In June 1941 the Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
had four Cavalry Corps commands and thirteen Cavalry Divisions (seven of them in western military districts), as opposed to sixty-two Infantry Corps and twenty-nine Mechanized Corps. By the 1941 standard, each division counted 9240 men - four cavalry regiments, one mechanized regiment of BT tanks and two artillery battalions; a 1941 cavalry corps had two divisions reinforced with more armor and artillery. In real life cavalry and infantry units were stripped of their tanks and trucks, being purely horse and foot troops with reduced mobility and firepower. Even the stripped-down divisions were too large to be effectively handled by their inexperienced commanders and were easily disorganized and destroyed by the Germans (for example, 60 to 80 per cent of the 6th Cavalry Corps were destroyed on June 22 as they struggled to assemble in formation).
By the end of 1941 organizational problems were solved by further reducing units into "light cavalry" divisions with a strength of roughly half of a "normal" cavalry division (3.447 men in three regiments). Losses of tanks and trucks in the summer of 1941 made these eighty divisions, combined into Cavalry Corps, "about the only mobile units left intact to the Soviets." These were used to attack en masse at critical points, ideally in cooperation with tanks but rarely with foot infantry. In defense, cavalry was useful in checking enemy advances at an early stage, attacking German flanks and quickly evading enemy reaction.
Cavalry actions of 1941 were poorly led and executed, with high casualties; the tactics improved when cavalry divisions were reinforced with mechanized infantry units and anti-aircraft artillery. These attachments, made permanent, elevated cavalry divisions to Cavalry Corps, first deployed en masse during the 1941–1942 winter offensive. Again, incompetent or indifferent commanders regularly threw their cavalry against fortified targets with heavy casualties. Combat losses and severe winter reduced horse stock to a point where 41 cavalry divisions were disbanded for the lack of horses. Horse stock did not and could not recover and the remaining cavalry divisions, even when refit, never had a full complement of horses.
Consolidation
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
favored the idea of a reformed Cavalry Army while the military initially opposed, fearing its vulnerability to enemy tanks. The concept of integrating cavalry, infantry and tank divisions (the future Tank Army) emerged as the Cavalry mechanized group
Cavalry Mechanized Group
A cavalry-mechanized group was a type of military formation used in the Red Army during World War II against Germany and Japan.- Organization :...
(CMG) in the fall of 1942. The 1942 CMG functioned like a true Tank Army, but its infantry rode on horses, not trucks. The number of cavalry divisions was further reduced to match the number of CMGs (later Tank Armies) and the available horse stock, to 26 divisions by the end of 1943. These divisions acquired own light tanks and increased to 5,700 men each. Their horse elements, although vulnerable to enemy fire, were indispensable in being able to keep pace with a tank breakthrough before the enemy could restore their defences. Normally on the night before the offensive they concentrated in a jump-off area 12-15 kilometers from the front line, and charged past it together with the tanks as soon as the first wave had breached the enemy lines.
In 1943 the Red Army gained sufficient experience and materiel to deploy numerous Tank Armies. They became the main strike weapon and cavalry was relegated to auxiliary offensive tasks requiring all-terrain mobility - usually involving encirclement and mopping up of enemy already shattered and split by tank forces. By the end of the war with Germany Soviet cavalry returned to its pre-war nominal strength of seven cavalry corps, or one cavalry corps per each tank army. The CMGs of the period (one Tank Corps and one Cavalry Corps) were regularly weapons of choice in operations where terrain prohibited use of fully deployed Tank Armies. The 1944 Cavalry Corps, in turn, had up to 103 tanks and tank destroyer
Tank destroyer
A tank destroyer is a type of armored fighting vehicle armed with a gun or missile launcher, and is designed specifically to engage enemy armored vehicles...
s in addition to three Cavalry Divisions that once again were made lean and light and dependent on horse alone (4,700 men with 76-mm field guns and no armor).
The last CMG action in the war took place in August 1945 during the invasion of Manchuria. General Issa Pliyev
Issa Pliyev
Issa Alexandrovich Pliyev was a Soviet military commander, Army General , twice Hero of the Soviet Union , Hero of the Mongolian People's Republic . Member of the CPSU since 1926. He was an ethnic Ossetian....
's CMG, marching to Peking across the Gobi Desert
Gobi Desert
The Gobi is a large desert region in Asia. It covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Hexi Corridor and Tibetan Plateau to the...
, was actually manned by Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
n cavalrymen - four Mongolian cavalry division in addition to one Soviet cavalry division, five mechanized brigades with heavy tank
Heavy tank
A heavy tank was a subset of tank that filled the heavy direct-fire role of many armies.Heavy tanks have usually been deployed to breakthrough enemy lines, though in practice have been more useful in the defensive role than in the attack...
s. They were opposed by the horsemen of Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
who fell back without fighting.
United Kingdom
Replacement of horses with armored cars in British cavalry began in 1928. Over the following eleven years all regular mounted regiments stationed in the United Kingdom, other than the Household Cavalry, were motorized, and their horses "sent to the knacker's yards"Horse slaughter
Horse slaughter is the practice of slaughtering horses for meat. These animals come mainly from auctions, where they're sold by private sellers and breeders....
. Mechanised cavalry regiments retained their traditional titles but were grouped with the Royal Tank Regiment
Royal Tank Regiment
The Royal Tank Regiment is an armoured regiment of the British Army. It was formerly known as the Tank Corps and the Royal Tank Corps. It is part of the Royal Armoured Corps and is made up of two operational regiments, the 1st Royal Tank Regiment and the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment...
as part of the Royal Armoured Corps
Royal Armoured Corps
The Royal Armoured Corps is currently a collection of ten regular regiments, mostly converted from old horse cavalry regiments, and four Yeomanry regiments of the Territorial Army...
established in April 1939.
British troops in the Mediterranean theatre of war continued the use of horses – local as well as imported: the Sherwood Foresters
Sherwood Foresters
The Sherwood Foresters was formed during the Childers Reforms in 1881 from the amalgamation of the 45th Regiment of Foot and the 95th Regiment of Foot...
, relocated to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
in 1939 in addition to two cavalry regiments already present, brought with them a thousand English horses. Lack of vehicles delayed planned motorization of these troops well into 1941. In 1942 the British still employed 6,500 horses, 10,000 mules and 1,700 camels, and used local mules in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
and mainland Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Colonial troops, notably the Transjordan Frontier Force
Transjordan Frontier Force
The Transjordan Frontier Force was formed, on 1 April 1926, as a para-military border guard to defend Trans-Jordan's northern and southern borders. The TJFF was also an Imperial Service regiment whose Imperial Service soldiers agreed to serve wherever required and not just within the borders of...
and the Arab Legion
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th century.-Creation:...
remained horse-mounted. All 20 Indian cavalry regiments were mechanised between 1938 and November 1940. The last British mounted cavalry charge occurred on March 21, 1942 when a 60 strong patrol of Sikh sowars of the Burma Frontier Force encountered Japanese infantry at Toungoo in central Burma.
United States
The United States economy of the interwar period quickly got rid of the obsolete horse: national horse stock reduced from 25 million in 1920 to 14 million in 1940. Nonetheless, the United States military was among the last nations to accept armored warfare and mechanize its troops.In December 1939, the United States Cavalry
United States Cavalry
The United States Cavalry, or U.S. Cavalry, is the designation of the mounted force of the United States Army. The role of the U.S. Cavalry is reconnaissance, security and mounted assault. Cavalry has served as a part of the Army forces in every war in which the United States has participated...
consisted of two mechanized and twelve horse regiments of 790 horses each. Chief of Cavalry John K. Herr, a proponent of horse troops ("conservative and downright mossback" according to Allan Millett yet "noble and tragic in his loyalty to horse" according to Roman Jarymowycz), intended to increase them to 1275 horses each. A cavalry division included two brigades of two horse regiments each, eighteen light tanks and a field artillery regiment; The Chief of Artillery leaned to horse and truck traction and dismissed self-propelled artillery
Self-propelled artillery
Self-propelled artillery vehicles are combat vehicles armed with artillery. Within the term are covered self-propelled guns and rocket artillery...
to avoid cross-coordination with other branches of service. Cavalry had been the preferred force for the defense of the Mexican border and the Panama Canal Zone
Panama Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone was a unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of...
from Mexican raiders, and enemy landings, a threat that was becoming obsolete in the 1930s, if not for Japan's rising influence. A fleet of horse trailer
Horse trailer
A horse trailer or horse van is used to transport horses...
s called portees assisted cavalry in traversing the roads. Once mounted, cavalrymen would reach the battlefield on horseback, dismount and then fight on foot, essentially acting as mobile light infantry.
After the 1940 Louisiana Maneuvers cavalry units were gradually reformed into Armored Corps, starting with Adna R. Chaffee
Adna R. Chaffee, Jr.
Adna Romanza Chaffee, Jr. was a major general in the United States Army, called the "Father of the Armored Force" for his role in developing the U.S. Army's tank forces.-Early years:...
's 1st Armored Corps in July 1940. Another novelty introduced after the maneuvers, the Bantam 4x4 car
Willys MB
The Willys MB US Army Jeep and the Ford GPW, were manufactured from 1941 to 1945. These small four-wheel drive utility vehicles are considered the iconic World War II Jeep, and inspired many similar light utility vehicles. Over the years, the World War II Jeep later evolved into the "CJ" civilian...
soon became known as jeep
Jeep
Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...
and replaced the horse itself. Debates over the integration of armor and horse units continued through 1941 but the failure of these attempts "to marry horse with armor" was evident even to casual civilian observers. The office of Chief of Cavalry was eliminated in March 1942, and the newly formed ground forces began mechanization of the remaining horse units (the 1st Cavalry Division was reorganized as an infantry unit but retained its designation).
The only significant engagement of American horsemen in World War II was the defensive action of the Philippine Scouts
Philippine Scouts
The Philippine Scouts was a military organization of the United States Army from 1901 until the end of World War II. Made up of native Filipinos assigned to the United States Army Philippine Department, these troops were generally enlisted and under the command of American officers, however, a...
(26th Cavalry Regiment). The Scouts challenged the Japanese invaders of Luzon
Luzon
Luzon is the largest island in the Philippines. It is located in the northernmost region of the archipelago, and is also the name for one of the three primary island groups in the country centered on the Island of Luzon...
, holding off two armoured and two infantry regiments during the invasion of the Philippines. They repelled a unit of tanks in Binalonan and successfully held ground for the Allied armies' retreat to Bataan
Battle of Bataan
The Battle of Bataan represented the most intense phase of Imperial Japan's invasion of the Philippines during World War II. The capture of the Philippine Islands was crucial to Japan's effort to control the Southwest Pacific, seize the resource-rich Dutch East Indies, and protect its Southeast...
. In Europe, the American forces fielded only a few cavalry and supply units during the war. George S. Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...
lamented their lack in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
and wrote that "had we possessed an American cavalry division with pack artillery in Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
and in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, not a German would have escaped."
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Further reading
- Paul Louis Johnson (2006). Horses of the German Army in World War II. Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 0-7643-2421-7, ISBN 978-0-7643-2421-5.
- R. L. DiNardo, Austin Bay (1988). Horse-Drawn Transport in the German Army. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 23, No. 1, 129-143 (1988). DOI: 10.1177/002200948802300108.
- Janusz Piekalkiewicz (1979). The cavalry of World War II. Orbis Publishing. ISBN 0-85613-022-2, ISBN 978-0-85613-022-9.