CAVALRY AND ARTILLERY HORSES IN THE CRIMEA—QUESTION. (Hansard, 10 April 1856)

§ THE EARL OF MALMESBURY

wished to put a question to Her Majesty's Government in reference to the return to this country of the cavalry and artillery horses from Turkey and the Crimea. A report was current which led him to ask the Secretary for War, whether it was intended that the men of these two services should return to this country during the present month, and that their horses should be sold either in the Crimea or in Turkey? If the report were true, he could not help observing that such an intention would be very derogatory to the military reputation of the country. They all knew what was meant by giving up a fortress with the honours of war. But if cavalry and artillery were in a fortress, and they were not allowed to leave it with their horses, they would feel as our army in the Crimea must feel, if they were not allowed to return in all the panoply of war. There were other considerations which rendered such an act very undesirable. There were 773 some very valuable horses now in the Crimea, and some horses that the regiments of cavalry had brought from India; and if they were sold to the Russians, they would be represented to the people of that country as trophies won by the Russians from us. If they returned home without their horses, the cavalry and artillery would not be mounted properly within two years. They would have to be furnished with horses three or four years old, and at the end of the usual period it would be necessary to substitute a great proportion of young horses for them. He did not consider a cavalry soldier more than half a soldier when he was dismounted. If the cavalry were recalled from a distant colony and their horses were sold before embarking, no reflection could attach to them; but it was a very different thing when troops were returning from a field of battle. Of course, if the report were true, it must be a question of economy—it must be to save the cost of transporting these horses from the Crimea to this country. But, as far as his knowledge went of the price at which horses could be sold out there, and the price at which they could be bought here, he did not see how more than £80,000 or £100,000 would be saved, and he did not think it worth while, at the end of a great war like this, in which we had been almost completely successful, to run the risk of being jeered by foreign nations, and who were great military nations, and of being put to great inconvenience hereafter in our own service by such a proceeding as had been spoken of, and with regard to which he begged to ask the noble Lord at the head of the War Department whether it was contemplated or not?

§ LORD PANMURE

was not aware of the report to which the noble Earl had alluded, with reference to the disposal of the cavalry and artillery horses in the Crimea, instead of bringing them back to this country. But he was somewhat surprised to hear the noble Earl, who had been talking of economy with reference to the question which had just been discussed, wholly ignore the consideration of economy in this matter. As this war had been conducted with an expenditure which the country never grudged while it was in progress, he thought it the duty of the Government, upon bringing the war to a termination, to study economy as far as was consistent with honour. There was no point upon which economy turned so much as upon the transport of the horses 774 of the army. From calculations made, upon the supposition that no more transports would be required than were already in the Black Sea, he found that the expense of bringing the horses home would be £47 per horse. If, on the other hand, transports were sent from this country to bring home the horses of the cavalry and artillery, the expense would he £67 per horse. Taking into account the price at which horses could be purchased in this country, their Lordships would perceive that there would be considerable economy in making a judicious selection of the horses to be brought home. He quite agreed that care should be taken that we left the enemy's country with all the honours of war attendant upon our arms; but he could see no injury from parting with such horses as were found unnecessary to bring home, and he could see no difficulty in replacing those horses when the cavalry or artillery, to whichever force they belonged, arrived in this country. The system of mounting the cavalry had been changed. We no longer bought young horses. It was found to involve a false economy, because by the time a three-year old horse was trained and grown fit for service, it was more expensive than buying a five or six-year old horse at once. As far as he was informed, the difficulty of forming a cavalry regiment did not consist in the training of the horse, but in the training of the men. Horses of five years old were very speedily trained, and he was quite certain, within a year after the dismounted cavalry arrived in this country with the horses already retained, they would have as good a force as was now in the Crimea. Indeed, after the great loss of horses sustained in the winter of 1854 and the spring of 1855 old horses only were bought, and the cavalry were remounted in a superior manner. He could assure the House, and he could assure the public who were interested in this question, that, whatever arrangements were come to, all care should be taken not to part with valuable horses which would be of use when brought home, and that all care should be taken that in parting with any horses the honour of the army and of this country should be duly consulted.