What a sad story! Read it in the papers on Anzac day and saw the momument here.
There were 13,000 Australian horses remaining at the end of World War I, but due to quarantine restrictions, they could not be shipped back to Australia. Those not required by the British or Egyptian armies were shot to prevent maltreatment by other purchasers. In the Middle East they chose to shoot most of them rather than sell them to the Arabs. They were afraid that they would be treated badly. Most soldiers were unable to kill their own mounts so they asked their mates to do so. It was as if the horses knew what was going to happen as the many stories of joint heartbreak that I read in the papers proved. Tragic.
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