With Steven Spielberg's film War Horse drawing in the crowds, Stephen Badsey, Professor of Conflict Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, author of the book Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry 1880-1918 and the country's foremost historian of the British cavalry in the First World War, gives an expert view on the subject.

AT THE height of the First World War the British Army had well over a million soldiers under arms on the Western Front; but it also had nearly half a million horses.

In 1914-1918, the British shipped across the English Channel a greater tonnage of horse fodder than ammunition. Without horses, the war could simply never have been fought.

When people hear the word ‘warhorse’ they think of cavalry and magnificent mounted charges.

At its strongest the British cavalry on the Western Front numbered about 19,000 troopers and horses, plus cavalry units from India, Canada, and throughout the Empire.

Cavalrymen often shared an emotional bond of trust with their horses, facing death and danger together.

But the vast majority of the British Army’s horses on the Western Front were used for transport, to pull or carry everything that the army needed to fight: every kind of horse from big Clydesdales to small ponies and mules.