Australia eventually sent 121,000 horses to the Great War but 100 years ago this week, with not a single horse loaded yet, the sensitive, animal-loving "Clio" of Melbourne's Punch was thinking of them.
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"All animal-lovers will wish success to the efforts of Miss Maude Harvie, who is leading an energetic crusade on behalf of the unfortunate horses to be transhipped, with the Expeditionary Forces.
"Never before have horses had so long a journey to face, every mile of which holds acute suffering for the noble beasts. Cramped and standing all the time in stalls (which, though made as comfortable as circumstances permit, afford no freedom to their limbs), and enduring the acute suffering of sea-sickness, small wonder that upon shorter journeys than this a large percentage invariably perish.
"And assuredly not a soul will refrain from applauding the campaign initiated by Miss Harvie to collect bandages, salt, oatmeal, linseed, and such comforts for the horses on the voyage. So successful have been her efforts in Melbourne that the Defence Department has decided to pay her travelling expenses to Adelaide, Sydney and Hobart, where she will work upon similar lines to those pursued here. Every horse-lover must feel the warmest sympathy with the smallest suggestions likely to mitigate the acute sufferings of the poor dumb creatures."
Only one Australian horse shipped to the war was brought home. The unreliable Daily Mail has calculated that of "a million hapless horses" sent to France (by all Allies) between 1914 and 1918 only 62,000 returned.
