Everyone loves dogs, but horses have done the brutal work to earn the title of man’s best friend.
Horses have been used in war for almost all of human history, and they’ve always been essential. Up until the invention of the telegraph in 1837, the fastest way to get a message across long distances was a man on horseback. Even after the automobile, horses were still used in war due to their reliability and loyalty. They braved the field in both World Wars and are still occasionally used today in modern conflicts.
Here are some photos of the bravest animals in history carrying soldiers through the fight.
1
My great great uncle Francisco Sanchez after the Cristero war in Cotija, Michoacan, Mexico in 1929
u/oneomar
2
Soldier in Afghanistan on horseback
Circa 2003
3
My great grandfather showing off one of the horses he trained for World War 1. Petawawa, 1922
u/FutureMillionaire_
4
Red Hawk from the Oglala tribe, who was born 1854 and fought with Crazy Horse in 1865 in his first war party against U.S. army troops.
u/WhileFalseRepeat
5
Remembrance of the 8 million hero horses that died in WWI
u/VikingRagnar
6
My Great-Grandfather with his Warhorse at the Battle of the Somme, 1916
u/ScottishLOL
7
When the old world collided with the new in the First World War
u/Bumtown
8
My Great, great grandfather. Not sure if he was really small or the horses really big. Circa WW1
u/RamboLoops
9
My great grandfather in the Finnish army during wartime against Russia, 1939
u/themusicdude1997
10
US Cavalry soldier on horseback, WW2, 1940s
u/eaglemaxie
11
My great grandfather (mounted on a horse) as a member of the antifascist Macedonian Partisan Resistance during World War 2. 1943-1945
u/dedokire
12
Ulysses S. Grant’s war horse ‘Cincinnati’, given to him as a gift and was his favorite by the time the Overland Campaign in 1864
u/eaglemaxie
13
My great grandfather on a horse, medieval style, The Winter War, December, 1939
User Deleted
14
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in Cuba
1898
15
Handsome farrier wearing heavy leather gauntlets, knee-high boots, and embroidered horseshoe on shoulder, circa 1870s
u/eaglemaxie
16
My grandfather before his 1915 deployment to Gallipoli
u/BootToTheHeadNahNah
17
My Grandad WWI in front of the still partially covered Sphinx and The Great Pyramid of Giza. On his way to the trenches of Gallipoli, 1914. His horses’ name’s were Bob and Jean
u/CocoAndVine
18
Greek soldiers with their heroic mules during the Greek-Italian war, 1940
u/Necessary_Sale_67
19
Parade after the Battle of Helsinki in the Finnish Civil War in 1918
u/pkksmt
20
Cavalry Training in England 1935
u/onepersononeidea
21
My great-great-uncle Hugh's friend and his war horse, photographed during Officer Training at the beginning of WWI
u/Used_Ad_846
22
WW1 era cavalry
u/jaykirsch
23
A soldier on his horse, during a cavalry patrol in World War I
u/pumpkinmum
24
A Belgian girl holding a bucket up to a Canadian artillery horse, Belgium November 1918
u/CryptographerKey2847
25
1918, my grandfather, an Army veterinarian in WWI on his horse Key
u/Cautious_Peace_1
