Animals in War 483 p 108) Again, this is merely one example of a much broader reality, one utterly replete with suffering and abuse As I argue in Animals and war, we tend to imagine the World Wars in terms of increasingly sophisticated machinery such as airplanes, tanks, machine guns, and so on However, animals, and especially horses, were also crucial to the war effort—ironically, often precisely because of the use of other machinery (2013, p 10) Keegan describes this scenario compellingly, noting that the planning efforts in Europe during war mobilization in 1914 hinged on the presence and function of rail: Once arrived, however, they found that the almost miraculous mobility conferred by rail movement evaporated Face to face with each other, they were no better able to move or transport their supplies than Roman legions had been; forward of railhead, soldiers had to march, and the only means of provisioning them was by horse-drawn vehicles Indeed, their lot was worse than that of the well-organized armies of former times, since contemporary artillery created a fire-zone several miles deep within which re-supply by horse was impossible (1993, pp 307–308) This problem was further intensified by the fact that modern war demanded an ever larger trans-shipment of munitions between railhead and guns, which could only be undertaken by horses As a result, horse fodder became the single largest category of cargo unloaded, for example, at French ports for the British arm on the Western Front throughout the period 1914–18 (1993, p 308) This scenario also meant great competition among nations in obtaining horses Kistler reports that ‘Germany began World War I with 4.5 million horses, [ ] far more than any other nation except Russia’ (2011, p 192) To make up their deficit, the Allies relied significantly on the American supply, but horses gathered in such numbers were nonetheless sorely neglected DiMarco quotes a source that notes, for instance, that by October 1914 among the French, ‘the best commands had lost 2/3 of their horses, of which half were lost from overriding’ (2008, p 327) The British regime of care also led horses to suffer: Of 256,000 horses lost by the British on the Western Front, only 58,000 died from enemy fire Most died of the winter cold Their provisions were so scarce that many horses died from eating their own blankets, choking to death on the buckles (Kistler 2011, p 192)