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On the Hundredth Anniversary of the Start of World War I, Remembering the Part Animals Played
Horses, dogs, pigeons—even glowworms—were crucial participants in the war to end all wars.
An American soldier demonstrates the use of gas masks for men and horses in France in 1918.
Photograph by US Navy Bureau of Medicine & Surgery, Buyenlarge/Getty Images
Simon Worrall
for National Geographic
Published July 28, 2014
Tucked between two lanes of traffic at Brook Gate, in London's leafy Hyde Park, two heavily laden mules, cast in bronze, trudge terrified but steadfast across an imaginary battlefield. In front of them, carved into a long wall of white Portland stone, is a frieze of other animals—an elephant, a camel, dogs, carrier pigeons—with an inscription that reads, "They had no choice."
The sacrifice of the nearly ten million men who died from 1914 to 1918 will always remain the focus of our remembrance. But on the eve of the hundredth anniversary of World War I, we can also reflect on the fact that animals played a big part—and paid a high price. Indeed, throughout history no other conflict has seen as many animals deployed as the "war to end all wars."
The film adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's 1982 novel War Horse vividly captured the plight of horses. "Eight million horses died on all sides in the First World War," says Jilly Cooper, author of Animals in War and the m