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Arabian Horse In H istor y
he constant threat of war throughout the final part of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century marked a great change in Europe’s horse breeding industry. The armies of England and Russia, like those of Austria and Prussia, had made certain that their breeding farms were well prepared to supply an abundance of suitable horses for their respective armies. However, the same could not be said of France at the dawn of the Napoleonic Age. The provocateurs of the French Revolution brought an end to everything both good and bad that was remotely associated with the Ancient Regime. In their wrath they decimated and eliminated not only the nation’s nobility, but also all of the royal and aristocratic breeding farms.
Napoleon was the youngest, most dashing and successful general in French history. His limitless ambition became the catalyst of a self-perpetuating spiral of aggression that would inevitably leave a trail of incalculable death and destruction in his wake. However, in the beginning he was heralded as the champion of a New Order. Long before the Brumaire Coup of November 1799, which ousted the Directory and the signing of the new constitution that elevated Napoleon Bonaparte as head of a new Consulate, he became acutely aware that France’s equine production had fallen into an abysmal state. Quality cavalry horses assured speed and mobility on the open battlefields and were, more often than not, the key factor in decisive victories. They also pulled the caissons and supply trains; therefore, horses were essential to the success of any military campaign. To raise and train a horse for war was an expensive proposition that required a minimum of four years. Unfortunately, equines like human beings were vulnerable to the same wholesale slaughter that defined this period in history, and thousands
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Arabian Horse Times • October 2008
Arabian Horse Times • October 2008
A portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte by David Jacques Louis.
of horses were devoured by the winds of the Napoleonic Wars. Consequently, any opportunity to obtain them was a top priority for every army. Therefore, from the onset of his rise to power, the production of suitable equines became one of Napoleon’s foremost aspirations. As an example, during the prolonged Swiss operations of 1799, French forces commandeered no less than 10,000 horses from that small country. Throughout the six years of the Peninsular War, they methodically stripped Spain of nearly every horse that the impoverished nation had. Their plunder was so complete that it created an equine crisis that endured for almost a hundred years. It was not until the first decade of the 1900s that Spain’s military, commerce, and agriculture managed to fully recover.
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