The military actions of World War I in a short time covered all climatic zones and landscape types (mountains, steppes, seas, forests), transforming nature into anthropogenic spaces and threatening biodiversity. Animals not only suffered artillery shelling and the loss of their habitats (a vivid example is the bison of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha) but were mobilized on the fronts and in the front areas for use by different types of troops.1 Human-animal interaction in a militarized environment directly conditioned behavioural practices of combatants and civilians, as well as enduring anthropological constructions of landscapes and their inhabitants, including humans themselves. The situation of mobilized animals in Eastern Europe, where front lines extended over vast areas and military operations were manoeuvre-like, differed greatly from the situation on the Western Front. Cavalry on the Eastern Front retained its unchanged importance for an extended period of time; however, toward the end of the war (especially in the Austrian army), the prospect of abandoning animal traction in favour of mechanical equivalents was discussed in light of the catastrophic shortage of forage. The high mortality rate of horses and the peculiarities of the terrain led to discussions about their replacement by dogs as a suitable equivalent to traction power. The epidemiological discussions of all fighting armies were characterized by the stereotyped perception of the environment in the combat zone, including its domesticated inhabitants, as an object of increased epidemiological danger and special measures to combat it. In the Russian army, the sociocultural gap between the majority of illiterate soldiers and the minority of educated officers led to different attitudes toward animals, with the first group viewing them as a traditional resource and the second as part of an anthropomorphized and highly stylized nature, evoking feelings of affection and grief. Despite the lack of horses in the
The example of the Austro-Russian front and the hitherto little researched materials from Russian and Austrian archives allow the presentation of the First World War as an important turning point in the relationship between man and the animal world he militarized, as well as in the discussions about the need to replace animals, especially horses, with more controlled and epidemiologically safe machines. In addition to documents from the front and rear divisions of the Russian army and the Austrian formations, the paper uses images and first-person documents to reconstruct the range of discourses and institutions, behavioural practices, and processes of (limited) anthropomorphization of animals in war. Territorially, the study focuses on the Russian-occupied regions of Galicia and Bukovina recaptured by the Austrian army; however, given the lack of a massive corpus of primary sources, this research perspective might be applicable to other parts of the front line.
1 Animal History or Animate History: Discussions about Animals in History
Undoubtedly, animals were and are an integral part of military historiography, but for a long time they were on the margins of research interest. The veterinary prism of war research was used to test the theses about the efficiency of the organization of a given army, its mobility, and the veterinary and epidemiological situation on the fronts.2 The history of animals as a part of environmental history and especially as an independent field of research has emerged only recently—a significant number of publications were published at the beginning of the 21st century. At the same time, debate continues unabated
With regard to the research question, for a long time, the image of animals and their significance in the identity structures of social and national groups in the sense of the history of representation and ideas were at the centre of research interest.4 Gradually, however, the research focus has shifted to questions about the subjectivity of animals, the connection between loyalty and agency in behavioural practices, and their perception by humans. In general, authors share the view of the direct and indirect influence of animals on human life-worlds and agency spaces.
The fact that World War I was compared to a slaughterhouse was not just rhetorical; rather, it demonstrated that the distruction of animals and of people did not necessarily stand in opposition to one another but was part of an ongoing process that linked societal progress to the exploration of humans and animals—a process that would, in many ways, characterize the twentieth century.6
2 Animals in Military Spaces: the Epidemiological Threat
Much of the research literature on the veterinary aspects of World War I inherits from primary sources the tradition of creating an imagined success story.9 In Austrian, German, and Soviet professional discourses of the interwar period, a vivid image of the willingness and ability of medical professionals to overcome a variety of difficulties was intended to offset the common experience of military defeat. Although these narratives are partially supported by statistics and examples from real experience, the general intent of first-person documents, and even more so that of professional publications in the post-war period, had a distorting effect on interpretations. The documents from the immediate war period make clear how conflicted the new experience of interaction between humans, nature, and animals was, although humans did not always remain the dominant subject.
The status of an epidemiological threat in militarized landscapes was given primarily to ungulates (horses, cows), and more specifically to the practices of their keeping, use, and slaughter, as well as the burial of their remains. The drastic densification of the number of mounted units in the presence of native livestock, especially in the limited space of cities, meant huge amounts of manure which, despite all efforts, could not be removed in time and which, without proper processing, became a source of contagious diseases. According to the
The need to provide meat to the armies on the march meant that significant numbers of cattle were dragged behind them. About 10 per cent of the so-called “portion cattle” contracted foot-and-mouth disease throughout the period, and some of them fell or were deliberately destroyed.13 The Russian military veterinarians reservedly admired the ultra-modern equipment of the Austrian city slaughterhouses with their electric devices. On the other hand, there was no functioning sewage system in the small settlements, and the wastewater from the slaughterhouses flowed directly into the nearby waters. Hygiene regulations were also violated by the Russian units stationed in Galicia which, when slaughtering livestock, simply left the entrails of the animals in their campsites, in the justified belief that they could get away with negligence in the chaos of troop movements.14 Documents contain frequent complaints about the disastrous condition of the cattle graveyards, which were perceived as a threat by both the army and the local population.15
The organization of the veterinary service under the Russian occupation of Galicia created spaces for the transfer of principles and practices of husbandry,
Mass deaths of horses during the fighting for Galicia led to difficulties in the quality of burial and disinfection of remains even during the occupation. In the minutes of meetings of the Galician local government, the orders of the military administration, and the first-person documents of combatants and war correspondents, the theme of the large number of fallen, abandoned, or poorly buried horse corpses is recurrent. In the streets of the Przemyśl fortress alone, 500 decomposing horse corpses and numerous remains of other animals were discovered after the Russian military command lifted the siege in the spring of 1915. It turned out that the Austrian units were forced to slaughter and eat horses because there was no fodder or food.17
However, the situation was no better in the countryside. Reports on the inspection of battlefields in Galicia mention a large number of improperly buried horse corpses. The Austrian standard of burial at least two metres deep was accepted as a model by the Russian army, but in the midst of fighting strict compliance was unthinkable.18 The distance of the towns and villages from the San River, which both armies fought so hard to cross in the autumn of 1914, meant that burials were becoming more problematic from an epidemiological point of view.19 The occupation administration was particularly concerned about the impending snowmelt and flooding of the river, which would bring to light the actual number of horse corpses which, according to local administration
During the reoccupation of eastern Galicia in 1916–17, the Russian leadership refused to use its own troops to provide disease security for the area, shifting responsibility to the local population. While civilian labour was paid in 1914, two years later these measures were imposed under threat of punishment: farmers had to properly bury dead animals on their own properties, public places had to be cleaned by the local administration.24
3 Horses on the Austro-Russian Front: Loss and Change of Stock under the Conditions of Military Operations
According to the publications of military historians, World War I was the time of the decline of cavalry and the rapid and irreversible mechanization of military operations. Nevertheless, at all stages of the war, it was assumed on the Eastern Front that there would be many thousands of cavalry corps operating in areas with varying conditions. In fact, the animals, which had previously been scattered relatively evenly over the territory of the countries, were concentrated in a short time on the narrow strip of the imperial fringes. Gene Tempest believes that not only the scale of mobilization but also the statistics of horses that perished in World War I reached colossal numbers: of the approximately 16 million horses that were in service in the armies of the various countries, only half survived.25 Maksim Oskin, referring to the data provided by the Russian Minister of War, notes that the mobilization of horse personnel in the empire increased by 470 per cent from 1914 to September 1917, and the absolute
At the same time, the quality of horses was declining in the Russian army: only one-tenth of the total mass could be used in the cavalry, the remainder serving only as platoon troops in the front areas.28 The same data is confirmed by the inspections of the cavalry units, where already in 1916 there were horses of the “carriage” variety that had to be replaced. The artillery units, in turn, were overcrowded with horses of weak traction, which were to be transferred to the rear-front units or given for free to the local population. In this regard, the extent of the discrepancy noted and the monthly rotation for a regiment could reach several hundred horses.29 The constant fluctuation of horses between the front, front-line areas, and the rear undoubtedly had an impact on the military landscape.
The enormous losses of horses also meant that it was an important practice for all the warring armies on the Eastern Front to incorporate trophy horses into their formations. For example, the Russian occupation armies forcibly exported elite breeds of horses which belonged to local private breeders from Galicia to Russia.30 This action not only had a short-term impact on the Galician economy but also had a long-term effect on the biodiversity of the entire territory. The inclusion of Russian trophy horses in the Austrian and German armies was accompanied by special hygiene measures, as it was suspected that incurable contagious diseases such as sepsis were more prevalent in Eastern Europe.31 At the end of the war, the German army bought horses en masse from demobilizing Russian soldiers as well as from the local population of the occupied territories.32
The disruption of the agricultural cycle of the pre-war ecosystems led to significant shortages not only of horse feed but also of other materials for horse care as early as 1915. The inability of many Austrian military units to find straw
Medical experiments in the absence of the tested remedies were a particular experience in the veterinary care of horses. Since it was not possible to provide units with special resin to cure scabies, untested substitutes were used—crude oil, a mixture of gasoline and oils, and tobacco. The danger to animal life, the side effects, or the known low effectiveness of such agents were considered an unavoidable circumstance and more desirable than forgoing treatment. Austrian veterinarians exchanged formulas for the correct application of crude oil, the use of which could cause a sudden rise in temperature in the horses, or lead to fires in the stable. If the composition of the crude oil was unclear, the instructions recommended testing it “on the least valuable horse”. Hair loss was also noted as a side effect of treatment with substitutes, but with proper care it grew back within a month of the end of the treatments.34
As is known, the duration of military operations and high losses of manpower in all the armies involved in World War I led to the creation of a special cycle of replenishment of human forces through the system of military hospitals, withdrawal of units for rest from the front, the sending of those on leave to the rear areas, and even going as far as the application of individual spa treatments. A similar system was extended to mobilized animals. The goal of the institutionally and logistically elaborate organization of horse rehabilitation in the Austrian armies was to get horses back to the front as quickly as possible. To this end, not just horse hospitals but also special reception centres for animals in need of recuperation were established, to which mares and foals were also sent. The numbers in such facilities were very high and in most cases exceeded 40 per cent of the total available horse population of an army. The presence of extensive pastures enabled horses in such stations to recover and return to service more quickly. A special place in this cycle was occupied by purebred cavalry horses, which, after recovery, it was advised, were to return to their former associations when war conditions permitted. Animals that
In the summer of 1917, the Austrian army found itself in a contradictory situation: there was a shortage of tractive power, but there was also a shortage of forage for the horses. Significant shortages of horses in certain corps were reported from the field (e.g. 1,585 horses were lacking in the 23rd Corps alone). However, the coming winter was depicted in gloomy terms in military documents, as it seemed impossible to maintain even the existing contingent of horses, which at the time was estimated at only 500,000. The optimization plans envisaged reducing the number of animals in the active army by a third, which would ensure a more abundant and better quality distribution of fodder among the remaining animals. The losses in tractive power were to be compensated by reformulating the transport units in general, with a move towards vehicle use, and increasing the level of mechanization of the army. In this case, an equivalent substitute for a horse in cavalry units was considered to be a bicycle propelled by the power of human muscles, and motorized columns were to be formed for transporting larger quantities of firewood and provisions for the army (especially in the mountains). To relieve the units of the search for scarce or non-existent fodder, entire horse units were to be sent to the occupied territories of Serbia and Romania.39
4 “Love of Animals” as a Prerequisite for Military Efficiency: Dogs on the Eastern Front
Judging from available documents in Russian archives, the use of dogs in the Russian army developed during the war more as a private initiative, authorized by the military command and deployed to different sections of the front. The range of tasks they performed remained very limited, unlike in the Austrian army: they were mainly ambulance dogs, guard dogs, and liaison troops. The initial composition of the dog units was based on the mobilization of dogs from civilian police stations, which had a limited number of trained dogs. Subsequently, the mobilization and training of dogs for military purposes remained an isolated phenomenon and was beset with numerous systemic difficulties, ranging from a lack of veterinarians to accompany the training process to a shortage of equipment, handlers, and suitable animals.42 One of the unrealized military experiments in the Russian army was an attempt to combine two animal species into a single military formation and train dogs to ride together with humans. However, such an initiative met with insufficient supplies—the necessary saddles for a human and a dog, which according to documents were used in the German and Austrian armies, were not available.43
Even under the extreme conditions of the war, the commanders and military officials of the Russian army were unable to overcome their prejudices against the characteristics of mixed-breed dogs and the ethnicity of their handlers. Thus, in his correspondence with military commanders, the head of a number of dog schools in the Russian army State Councillor Lebedev made disparaging remarks about the abilities of mixed-breed dogs, explaining their presence at the front by the cheapness of the “material” rather than its quality. To the same extent, he was dismissive and even suspicious in his reports about companions of Jewish origin.45 Apparently, in both cases, the purity of the breed was for him the decisive factor for military success, equating the selection criteria for men and dogs.
In the Austrian army, the number of dogs at the front was much higher, and their areas of use were very different. In addition to the usual duties as medics and messengers, dogs were used in occupied areas for police duties and even to catch rats in the trenches.46 In prisoner-of-war camps, dogs were used to guard prisoners or search for escaped persons, as well as to search for stolen items and food.47 The introduction of dog sleds began in 1915, when the army faced a serious shortage of horses. By 1917, there were more than 4,000 draft dogs.48 Reportedly, one dog could pull a load of 60 to 80 kg; as many as five dogs were needed to replace one horse. When transporting guns to the mountains, up to 40 animals were tied together on one sled. It was recommended to separate the gun from the carriage to facilitate the movement of the animals. Medical troops reported that dogs were better used for searching for wounded in manoeuvre warfare when the search area and the nature of the terrain required covering great distances and orientation by scent. In contrast,
An exotic case in the Austrian army was the use of polar dogs prepared by a certain Count Wilczek for participation in a polar expedition. Since the expedition could not be carried out due to the war, the dogs were given to the army stationed in the Carpathians. The dogs of this breed, adapted to the harsh climate, proved to be “an adequate substitute for horses and other draft animals”.50
In the case of dogs mobilized for the war, the perception and positioning of these animals differed significantly from the constructed images of other animal species. While the maintenance of horses at the front was described in terms of economic and military expediency, as well as food and disease security, the point of reference in the case of dogs was more strongly the combatant himself; dogs, in terms of their hearing, sense of smell, and vision, were supposed to compensate for human shortcomings in the extreme situation of warfare. Although the Austrian army was supplied with dog food from local slaughterhouses in the form of bones and waste, the debate about the appropriateness of using dogs ran parallel to the discussion about optimizing the number of horses at the front. In this case, the military commanders feared that the soldiers would be diverted from infantry service as dog handlers. The counter-arguments of the commanders of the units in which the dogs served revolved around the ability of the animals to save manpower due to their better developed natural qualities—scent detection, hearing, vision, endurance, and speed.51 The same advantages of the natural search qualities of medical dogs, their ability to overcome difficult terrain conditions (forests, mountains, ravines) in the search for wounded, were also noted by representatives of the Russian army. The greatest impact was seen in the fact that they saved the lives of soldiers and officers, especially in difficult weather, climate, and landscape conditions.52 Equating the military efficiency of mobilized people and dogs was symbolically expressed by the creation of matching uniform and
5 Humans and Animals in the Face of War: Verbal and Visual Reflections
Reflection on human-animal relations in wartime in the literary tradition is a fruitful subject of research. For example, Gene Tempest has analysed the portrayal of horses on the Western Front through numerous works of fiction from the interwar period and demonstrates how writers give emotional significance to “dumb” animals. Descriptions of body language, especially the horse’s eyes turned toward humans, serve as a means of amplifying the protagonists’ emotions.55
Of particular interest to this article are the narratives written directly during the war and the peculiarities of the anthropological construction of animals as victims of mobilization and warfare expressed in them. The descriptions of animals in both Russian and Austrian first-person documents serve as a guide for the researcher to the everyday ecological practices of humans at war, as well as to their emotional world, in which nature functions as an existential reference point.
Many horses fell on the way. I saw one lying near the highway with its legs drawn up; it had its head and lower lip stuck out, and its eyes, covered with lids like visors, were tired as if it wanted to sleep terribly; a soldier
stood nearby, looking sadly at the dying horse; farther away, another lay on its side, its head tilted back, chewing frequently, and a stream of blood flowed from its nostrils.56
The situation of a winter journey through the Galician death landscapes is described quite differently in the notes of Ivan Aryamov, a doctor in the Russian army. In these descriptions there is no trace of literary devices; in their character they are a mixture of naturalism and cynical professional assessment, and only lastly do they contain a hint of human sympathy: “The strongest impression is made by the corpses of the fallen horses lying on the road, often the wagons are driven over their heads. This is cruel and unsanitary, and it would not be difficult to remove them”.57
Horses as victims of war forms a recurring theme in the diary written by Austrian doctor Josef Tomann in besieged Przemyśl. The author gives his own impressions of being forced to eat horse meat, carefully noting that it “does not taste good”. The same eating experience is linked to a joke Tomann records about the Austrian horses refusing to haul rifles to Przemyśl because they did not want to be “turned into meat” there.58 In several places in his short diary, Tomann expresses his sympathy for the fate of the abandoned, wounded, and dying animals, apparently transferring his own feelings of fear and suffering from his patients to them. The transformation of horses into an object of emotional self-identification is also found in Russian sources; through the images of tired and exhausted animals, the author and his comrades express their own emotional or physical state: “The icy mountain paths and, in some places, the impassable mud finally exhausted the horses, which stopped and resolutely refused to go on.”59
In the officers’ narratives, the horses, like the privates, are embedded in a patriarchal system of paternalism that defines the relationship of the commander (including the medical unit) to his charges. In a situation of resource scarcity, soldiers and horses alike are “voiceless” and powerless in the face of the circumstances of war and in their dependence on the unit commander. Thus, in the records of Friedrich Krause, chief physician of a mobile medical unit in occupied Galicia, ordinary people and horses are symbolically (and
The range of visual representations of militarized wildlife on the Austro-Russian front is very broad. On the one hand, the photographic documentation reflects the official narrative and serves as a report on the fulfilment of the regulations in force. These images show the organization of cavalry units on parade march, the functioning of wagons and the condition of livestock, the willingness to send dog apprentices to the front, the soldiers’ leisure activities, and the diversity of food in the form of beekeeping closer to the trenches. These photographs, conveying the image of a fighting and exemplary army, could be used for military propaganda and mental mobilization of the population on the home front.61 Another series of photographs shows an important aspect of human-animal relations and the change in sustainable practices from the pre-war period. One of the images, taken by a Russian photographer in Galicia, shows the army’s adaptation to a new weapon of this war—gas attacks. Not only the combatants but also their horses are equipped with protective masks, which rather resemble simple multilayer bags without eye holes.62 Another picture, also from Austria, shows Muslim soldiers of the Austrian army holding a small lamb in their arms. The already exotic nature of the image of soldiers from a religious minority is further emphasized by the different food preferences. On the other hand, the sacrificial animal was meant to demonstrate the tolerance of the imperial army towards the religious communities belonging to it. And while the lamb in the previous photograph is used more as a symbol, some of the photographs capture the slaughter process directly and in individual steps. At the same time, the images are clearly staged, as the soldiers involved in the bloody process look into the camera lens.63 In both Russian and Austrian visual discourse of the war, the capture in photographs of the mass death of combatants at the front was widespread. Horses were also brought into the picture when documenting the aftermath of battles. In this series, a
6 Conclusion
Materials from military installations and individual narratives of World War I combatants on the Austro-Russian front, documenting the transformation of anthropogenic landscapes and environments under the influence of warfare, reveal the blurring of boundaries between humans and animals in the status of mobilized creatures. The intensive use and high kill rate of horses on the Eastern Front resulted in visible and long-term ecological changes to the species and its habitat. Millions of animals were concentrated in the outskirts of the empires, affecting rural and urban landscapes ecologically, nutritionally, and epidemiologically. Death, wounding, and disease, the seizure of horses as war booty, and the culling of elite animals led to a high turnover of individuals in the front range, resulting in irreversible changes in the characteristics of the species. Lack of food and medical supplies led to the proliferation of humanitarian medicine practices on animals: on-site treatment by military medics in the absence of veterinarians, medical experimentation, development of measures to rehabilitate wounded, sick, and war-weary animals to make them fit for service again. At the same time, with the elimination of old and long-lived horses of the Austro-Hungarian army and their transfer to the Ministry of Agriculture, a procedure similar to the demobilization of soldiers was introduced.
Attitudes toward animals described in military narratives by combatants depended on the nature of the troops and the social status of the author, as well as on the discursive framework of war reporting between moral constraints, cliché, and professional cynicism. Animal imagery in first-person documents was used to express or amplify the words of the author and protagonists, to depict the suffering and death of war, and to channel unfamiliar emotions. The capture of images of animals at the front, despite its equally contrived
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The research for this chapter was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) within the framework of research project № 21–59-14003 “Great War and the Anthropocene: ‘Imperial Debris’ and Environmental Change in Central-Eastern Europe”.
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Kriegsarchiv Wien. AOK-Qu.—Abteilung. 2285. Traingruppe. 1915/1917. Berichte über die Tätigkeit und Verwendung der bei den einzelnen Armeen im Felde befindlichen Zughunde. 1915.
Kriegsarchiv Wien. AOK-Qu.—Abteilung. 2285. Traingruppe. 1915/1917. K.u.k. Kriegsministeium. Das Kriegshundewesen in der o-u Armee. Entwicklung und Ausbau.
Kriegsarchiv Wien. AOK-Qu.—Abteilung. 2285. Traingruppe. 1915/1917. Kriegs – und Sanitätshundeführer-Kurs. Wien. 28. Mai 1917.
RGVIA, F. 2018, Op. 1, D. 148, L. 22, Copies of the reports received from the handlers of sniffer dogs, 1915.
Kriegsarchiv Wien. AOK-Qu.—Abteilung. 2285. Traingruppe. 1915/1917. K.u.k. Kriegsministeium. Das Kriegshundewesen in der österreichisch-ungarischen Armee. Entwicklung und Ausbau.
RGVIA, F. 2018. Op. 1. D. 148. L. 21. Copies from the reports received from the handlers of sniffer dogs. 1915: L. 48. Information about the activities of the (Odessa) society.
Tempest, “All the Muddy Horses”, 225.
Alexei Tolstoy, V Anglii, na Kawkase, po Volyni i Galizii (Moscow: Knigoizdatel’stvo pisatetelej v Moskve, 1916), 224.
Central State Archive Ministry of Defence, F. 485, Op.1, d. 47, l. 1–25, Zapiski vracha I. Arjamova.
Kriegsarchiv Wien. NFA 1322. Festungskommando Przemyśl. 1914/1917. Tagebuch von Josef Tomann.
Fedor Stepun, Iz pisem praporschika-artillerista (Prague: Plamja, 1926), 37.
Friedrich Krause. Pisma s Pervoj mirivoj (Saint-Petersburg: Nestor-Istoria, 2013), 57, 107.
AT-ÖStA/KA BS I WK Fronten Galizien, 131. Pferde werden der Zivilbevölkerung zur Ackerbestellung zugeteilt, Ottynia; AT-ÖStA/KA BS I WK Fronten Galizien, 89. Österreichische Soldaten pflegen die Bienenstände bei Ottynia.
See material from Alexandra Likhacheva’s article in this book.
AT-ÖStA/KA BS I WK Fronten Galizien, 108.
AT-ÖStA/KA BS I WK Fronten Galizien, 85. Österreichische Soldaten bei gefallenem Pferd.