Associate Editor of The Age: Tony Wright's uncle and grandfather: George Moore couldn't kill anything after returning home from World War I. Even ants. He would encounter snakes walking around the family's farm (presumably killed before) and reprimand his companions who wanted to go fishing.
He has seen too much. He loves horses. He led a team delivering ammunition to the French and Belgian fronts. He had to watch as his comrades and horses left him in various ways: drowned in mud, blown away by cannons, entangled in barbed wire.
Like many who returned, George was forever haunted by the screams of horses (PTSD).
About 10 million soldiers died in the First World War. But what people don't seem to remember is that at least eight million horses were also killed in the war.
According to the Australian War Memorial, Australia sent 136,000 horses overseas during World War I. But only one of them went home. His name is Sandy
He was very fortunate to be chosen as his favorite war horse by Major General William Bridges, commander of the Australian First Division, for his gentle character.
Major General William Bridges
After the first landing, Australian and New Zealand troops established beachheads around Anzac Bay, but in early May a stalemate was reached as Turkish defenders prevented them from advancing inland. Bridges suggested withdrawing the troops, but was vetoed. During this time, Bridges patrolled the front line every day, despite the risks. On May 15, 1915, he was shot through the femoral artery in his right leg by a Turkish sniper. He was towed to safety and taken to the hospital ship Gascon.
Hospital ship Gascon
However, he was infected, but because of excessive blood loss, he could not amputate his limb. On May 17, 1915, Bridges received the Order of Bath with the rank of Knight Commander (KCB), although the award was not officially published in the Gazette until May 22. He tragically died on May 18 on a hospital ship.
Bridges was buried in Alexandria, but in June his body was transported back to Melbourne, where he received a state burial. Bridges was the first (and only, to say the only) Australian soldier to die in World War I and be buried in Australia itself.
His grave is located on a hillside above the Canberra (Duntierun) Military Academy where he founded. Although one of Bridges' dying wishes was to have his war horse, Sandy return to Duntron, Sandy never got there.
Canberra (Duntierun) Military Academy
Instead, after the war, Sandy spent the rest of his life in Maribyrnong, west of Melbourne, where thousands of horses bound for the front line, including Sandy, gathered and traveled overseas.
Barracks at Maribanun
Sandy has been buried here since 1923 and his grave is unmarked. Now, thanks to the work of Melbourne playwright Rosemary Johns, Sandy's story (which is actually a legend) will be re-enacted, and brought to stage not far from its resting place.
Rosemary Johns
With funding from the Anzac Centennial Arts and Culture Fund, Johns wrote The Story Told by the Boy Who Feed My Apple. The play will be staged later this month as part of the Great Western Music Festival in Footscray.
Fragment of the drama "The Story Told by the Boy Who Feeds My Apple"
Johns traces the horse's adventure back to 1907, when he was born in the old village of Tallangatta on the Murray River, now submerged in the waters of the Hume Dam. Sandy's owner is brickmaker O'Donnell Brothers. When war broke out in 1914, the O'Donnell family donated Sandy to the Australian Army, and he became one of the first passengers in the fleet to sail to Egypt. At some point during the trip, it caught Bridges' attention.
Sandy ultimately failed to reach Gallipoli; It was one of the 6,100 horses sent there by boat, but was taken away before landing. It is believed to have been at sea when Bridges was shot.
It was returned to Egypt and six months later transported to France, where it was taken to the Australian Veterinary Corps Hospital in Calais. Although he did not take part in the battle on the front lines, veterinarians rode him to the shelled villages to try to rescue injured animals such as other horses. One of its riders died in a gas attack.
Australian Defense Minister and Senator George Pierce believes Bridges' war horse deserves a better fate. He wanted Sandy back to Duntron.
So in May 1918, Sandy, accompanied by the groom, 38-year-old Private Archibald Jordon, a Melbourne man deemed unfit to continue his service, was taken from France to England and boarded a ship back to Australia in September.
He and Private Archibald Jordan arrived in Melbourne at the end of the war in November and stayed there. Sandy, originally from Talangatta, was fortunate enough to become the general's horse, and then his owner died, but fortunately he was free / lazy to graze next to the Maribyrnong River, the Maribyrnong River
Sandy lived until 1923, when he was blind and weak, and was euthanized when he couldn't bear to see him suffering from illness. Private Jordan, who lived only three months longer than he lived, died of tuberculosis or broken heart syndrome, or both, and lay in an unmarked grave at the Mount Burger Cemetery, which he passed by from time to time.
Sandy's head and one hoof were sent to the Australian War Memorial, but are no longer on display. Another hoof went to Duntron.
War horses of other Australian troops
So is it true that apart from Sandy, there are no other Australian military horses returning to their homeland? That's right! About 30,000 were killed in the fighting. Thousands of war horses that lived to be 12 years old or in poor health were killed. Some were sold to butchers (the hungry prisoners of war and civilians in France and Belgium) when they promised to use them only for reconstruction or agriculture. Most of the remaining horses were transferred to the British and Indian troops.
Australian cavalry playing in the sea with war horses in 1916
About 250 Australian light cavalry, unable to bear to leave their horses in Palestine or Egypt, took them into the desert and shot them without permission.
Shot war horses, in Egypt
Only Sandy went home. Only it.
Well, we'll see you in the next issue! Bye!