Horse Artillery
Edwardian Armies
In the days when most field artillery pieces were pulled behind teams of quadrupeds, the term “horse artillery” referred to artillery units that were provided with a lot more in the way of equine assistance than, all other things being equal, would otherwise be the case. Thus, for example, while an ordinary horse-drawn field gun battery (batterie montée) of the French Army of 1913 employed 129 draft horses to pull guns and wagons and 36 riding horses to carry men who did not ride on guns or wagons, a French horse artillery battery (batterie à cheval) of the same year made use of 133 draft horses and 82 riding horses.1
As a further aid to mobility, horse artillery units were often (but not always) equipped with a field gun that was somewhat lighter than the weapon issued to ordinary field batteries. A French field gun battery of 1913 operated the Model 1897 75mm light field gun, which tilted the scales at 1,160 kilograms.2 In the same year, the French Army began to issue batteries à cheval with the new Model 1912 75mm light field gun, which weighed but 960 kilograms.3
Over the course of the two decades leading up to the start of World War I, the armies of Europe changed the way they employed horse artillery batteries. Prior to this metamorphosis, the horse artillery batteries were assigned to the artillery establishments of army corps, where they provided the generals commanding such formations with a means of rapidly moving field guns from one part of a battlefield to another. After this reform, horse artillery batteries were assigned to cavalry divisions, where they cooperated directly with the cavalry regiments.
The great change in the allocation and purpose of horse artillery batteries took place in the armies of the German Empire during the great reorganization of field artillery that took place in 1898. It happened in the British Army in 1907, in the course of the dissolution of army corps and the creation of a cavalry division for the Expeditionary Force. In France, the repurposing of horse artillery occurred in 1909, when the field artillery regiments assigned directly to army corps traded their horse artillery batteries for additional field batteries of the ordinary kind.
The figures for the number of horses assigned to French batteries come from the official pocket reference for staff officers: Ministère de la Guerre, Aide Mémoire de l’Officier d’État-Major en Campagne, (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1913), Section 151.
Hans Linnenkohl, Vom Einzelschuß zur Feuerwalze (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1990), page 66
Schneider et Cie, Les Établissements Schneider: Matériels d’Artillerie et Bateaux de Guerre (Paris: Imprimerie Lahure, 1914), page 83