The decline of the use of horses in agriculture and in transport in the civilian sector dried up the supply of horses which could be used by the military in war time. I suppose I always knew this, but I hadn’t thought of it until you mentioned it here. Even if the armies wanted to maintain large establishments of cavalry in any traditional sense, they were going to find it increasingly difficult to do so, since the underlying economy simply could not generate enough horses for that purpose. It would be interesting to know the cash cost of horses versus motorized vehicles for equivalent functions. I think we have an instinct to think of the horses is cheaper, but that may not be the case, particularly given the infrastructure needed to maintain them.
The decline of the use of horses in agriculture and in transport in the civilian sector dried up the supply of horses which could be used by the military in war time. I suppose I always knew this, but I hadn’t thought of it until you mentioned it here. Even if the armies wanted to maintain large establishments of cavalry in any traditional sense, they were going to find it increasingly difficult to do so, since the underlying economy simply could not generate enough horses for that purpose. It would be interesting to know the cash cost of horses versus motorized vehicles for equivalent functions. I think we have an instinct to think of the horses is cheaper, but that may not be the case, particularly given the infrastructure needed to maintain them.