Special emphasis on the 1920s – a period characterised by traffic chaos as horse-drawn carriages competed with combustible-fuel driven vehicles on crowded (usually unsealed) roads.
We were presented with historic images of ‘horse Vs. car and motor-bike’ congestion in cities around the world, including the Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne. The extraordinary feat of transporting the Methodist Church to Valonia Avenue, Surrey Hills in 1908 was also covered. Once the symbol of Power and Prestige, horses have today been largely relegated to the fields of entertainment, recreation, ceremony and racing. But as beasts of burden, labouring horses were once pivotal to our civilisation – hauling heavy loads, opening new frontiers and leading cavalry charges into battle. The Spanish conquest of Mexico and the Americas is reputed to have come from the advantage derived from attacking on horseback – these same tactics had a sequel in Australia. But with the invention of the machine gun in 1865, horses began to suffer appalling casualties in such conflicts as the American Civil, Crimean and Boer Wars. Advancement in modern armaments, including artillery and mustard gas, as well as exposure, mud and disease, caused the loss of over 8 million horses during WW1. At war’s end, of the 130,000 Australian horses shipped to Europe and the Middle East, only the solitary ‘Sandy’ returned home – this was due to strict quarantine controls. Statistics were presented to highlight the plight of horses in all theatres of war, such as the Napoleonic Wars, where in desperate, harsh conditions, they were also used as a source of food. During WW2, horses were again enlisted to their more traditional, strategic role of dragging heavy guns and supplies, in particular during the German invasion of the Soviet Union – accompanying tanks, they proved highly effective in overcoming streams and bog lands, as well as taking high ground. Today, the helicopter has replaced the horse as a front-line mover of weapons across rough terrain. Now for many, all that is left is recalling the pleasant sound of the milkman’s horse in the dead of night…
Source: Notes taken from a talk by John Barnao, and published in 2018-09 DTHS Newsletter.
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