Delayed obsolescence: The horse in European and American warfare from the Crimean war to the Second World War

Abstract

The industrial revolution and the rapid advancement of technology that it fostered created a swift decline in the employment of horses in warfare. Beginning during the Crimean War, the employment of recent technological innovations gradually edged the war horse out of its traditional use in shock tactics and transportation. During the American Civil War, the innovations of widespread railroads and higher powered weapons continued to remove the logistics of warfare from the hands of the war horse. The invention of the machine gun and the automobile ended the war horse's monopoly on transportation and reduced the effectiveness of the European cavalries during the Franco-Prussian War and the Anglo-Boer War. Technology began its takeover of transportation and shock tactics during the First World War with the employment of the airplane, the tank, and the automobile on the massive scale. Despite this massive employment of recent mechanized technology, the war horse remained pertinent to European warfare due to the relative novelty of these innovations. The European war horse fought its last war in 1939. The horse was used very little on the Western Front while the Germans and the Soviets were forced to de-modernize their armies by reintroducing the war horse to the battle field. Technology completely replaced the war horse by the end of the Second World War with its widespread accessibility, quick production turnover, and cheaper maintenance costs.