War Horses

We went to the National Theatre production of War Horse last night. What an incredible evening. And it reminded us of the story of Arthur Hughes-Onlsow, mentioned earlier in this blog. We don’t think much about the suffering of the animals caught up in war. The theatre programme last night stated one million horses were taken over to France by the British Army. Only 68,000 were sent back to Britain.

The rest suffered in the same way as the troops – shot, shelled and mutilated. And many of those that did survive ended up later in French abattoirs. War Horse is a compelling piece of theatre but most of all it recalls that soldiers were not the only ones to suffer the agonies of the Western Front.