ASHBROOKE COMMUNICATIONS The beautiful bronze monument at Ascot captures the horse’s anguish perfectly

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This is the nation’s first sight of the planned national War Horse Memorial, which will honour the millions of British, Allied and Commonwealth horses, donkeys and mules lost in the hellish conditions of the First World War battlefields. They dragged their weary, bleeding bodies through shell craters and energy-sapping mud to carry ammunition and food to the Tommies fighting on the front line in France and Flanders.

On the journey back, half-crazed by gunfire and the shells exploding all around them, they carried the bodies of the men who didn’t make it. Thousands of horses were mown down by German machine-guns as their heroic riders mounted fruitless cavalry charges, pitting swords and lances against automatic weapons. Others toiled ceaselessly to pull heavy artillery into position. They never gave up, they never complained – because they couldn’t. They were innocent animals pressganged into serving King and country in a terrible war started by man.

Of the one million horses that were taken from farms, fields and stables in this country, only 62,000 survived when the Great War ended in 1918.

Ascot is world famous and synonymous with the horse so it seemed a perfect location Alan Carr

The others suffered agonising deaths from wounds, disease, starvation, exhaustion, thirst and appalling weather. Now for the first time the gallantry highlighted so movingly in Steven Spielberg’s fi lm War Horse is to be honoured by this beautiful bronze monument at Ascot, next to the famous racecourse and close to the horse-loving Queen’s home at Windsor Castle. And generous Daily Express readers can play a vital part in bringing the War Horse to life by donating to the fund.

GETTY Millions of horses, donkeys and mules were lost in the First World War

The £300,000 memorial, created by equine sculptor and artist Susan Leyland, will be 8ft 6in high and 13ft wide and stand on a 9ft 9in high Portland stone plinth. The bronze horse, which has still to be named, has her mane closely cropped in wartime style to keep it clean and mangefree and her body is covered in mud and minor wounds. Around her feet is a coil of barbed wire but she carries no saddle and her ears are pricked to denote that now she is free from the burdens of war. It is planned to have a series of haunting battle scenes showing the courage of the horses and the men they served engraved into the monument’s stone base. The memorial will be unveiled in June next year and every year August 23 will become Purple Poppy Day – 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the terrible slaughter by machinegun fire of the British cavalry at the Battle of Mons. Across the road from the monument’s respectful island sanctuary, on part of Ascot racecourse, an 8ft 6in inscribed stone monolith will be erected telling the history of The War Horse.

World War One images restored Tue, August 5, 2014 The Open University has enlisted the help of a photograph restoration expert, to 'colourise' some of the unique and interesting photos that were taken during the time. Although the original images were only available in black and white, colour has been added retrospectively to help bring them to life. http://www.openuniversity.edu/news/news/world-war-1-in-colour-photos Play slideshow The Open University/ British Library/PA Wire 1 of 10 Photos issued by the Open University of a coloured in and the original picture showing a group of soldiers advance from a trench, over a protective sandbag wall (circa 1915). To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of war, The Open University has enlisted the help of a photograph restoration expert, to 'colourise' some of the unique and interesting photos that were taken during the time. Although the original images were only available in black and white, colour has been added retrospectively to help bring them to life http://www.openuniversity.edu/news/news/world-war-1-in-colour-photos" data-gallerytitle="World War One images restored" data-gallerymetatitle="World War One images restored" data-gallerysectionid="105" >

It will incorporate augmented technology – a first for any British memorial – which will interact with phones and tablets so that visitors can see and hear the remarkable stories from the trenches. Ascot fundraiser Alan Carr had the inspiration for the project in 2013. “As destiny would have it I watched a stoic clip from the film War Horse and after some research discovered how little acknowledgement was given to the real war horse until Michael Morpurgo wrote his amazing book which captivated the world,” he says. “And so the idea was born for a memorial to honour these magnificent and valiant animals in their own right. Ascot is world famous and synonymous with the horse so it seemed a perfect location, especially with the Household Cavalry in nearby Windsor. “Susan Osborne was communications and media director for Cancer Research UK when we first met and together we achieved some amazingly successful flag-waving campaigns in the Arctic and South America.

GETTY A British Army ambulance wagon, circa 1916

“When I mentioned the War Horse Memorial to her and the legacy it would leave our nation she couldn’t resist. Her expertise was essential for a project of this significance and I was delighted when she agreed to join me as co-founder. “This iconic memorial will pay tribute to the nobility, courage, unyielding loyalty and immeasurable contribution these animals played in giving us the freedom of democracy we all enjoy today. We’re indebted to the Daily Express, the most patriotic of newspapers, for all its support.” Part of the cost will be funded through the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s public arts budget and the majority is being raised through public donations. Already several small-scale replicas of the memorial have been sold at £20,000 each and a major fund-raising project begins today with the Daily Express proud to lead the way in asking its evergenerous readers to send a donation to the fund. Once the memorial has been fully funded there will be an ongoing fund-raising campaign to help charities including the Household Cavalry Foundation, which supports all members of the Household Cavalry – the Sovereign’s “Trusted Guardians”.

The foundation cares for two “family regiments”: their operational casualties, veterans, serving soldiers, families and heritage – and the welfare of their retired horses. Another charity being supported is Mane Chance, founded and run by actress Jenny Seagrove, which rescues abused and abandoned horses and promotes their therapeutic interaction with children who have life limiting conditions or suffer with disability. The Great War killed 10 million fighting men, almost 800,000 of them British, but it is not widely realised that from 1914 to 1918 more than eight million animals were sent into battle by all sides in the conflict – more than a million of them from Britain to fight in France and Belgium and many more from the Commonwealth to fight the Turkish in Syria and Palestine. The horses had four main roles. Supply horses and mules were used to move ammunition, general supplies and ambulances. Other horses were ridden by soldiers behind and sometimes even in the front line. Teams of gun horses pulled artillery pieces that weighed as much as taxis and cavalry horses were still used in battle. Between the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 and the Armistice in November 1918 the Army recorded 58,090 horses killed and 77,410 wounded by gunfire, 211 were killed and 2,220 wounded by poison gas while several hundred were killed by bombs dropped from planes.

GETTY Only 62,000 of the horses taken from this country survived when the war ended in 1918

This is how one artilleryman recorded in his diary the day one of their war horses died from hunger: “Sailor would work for 24 hours a day without winking. He was quiet as a lamb and as clever as a thoroughbred but he looked like nothing on earth, so we lost him. “The whole artillery battery kissed him goodbye and the drivers and gunners who fed him nearly cried.” As the slaughter grew British stables could no longer supply the Army’s needs as many horses were needed at home for farms and transport. So more than 1,000 horses a week were bought in North America, where there was an endless supply of half-wild animals on the open plains of Wyoming, Montana and Canada, and shipped across the Atlantic. Many of the horses and ponies which served with General Allenby’s army, fighting the Turks in Palestine, came from Australia. This was the last war to be fought on horseback and the fi rst in which modern weapons such as tanks, planes and poison gas were used and the generals were slow to adapt to reality.

Queen Elizabeth II unveils national memorial in London Thu, March 9, 2017 A Military Drumhead Service on Horse Guards Parade in London, ahead of the unveiling of a national memorial honouring the Armed Forces and civilians who served their country during the Gulf War and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Play slideshow REUTERS 1 of 20 Britain's Queen Elizabeth attends the unveiling on the new memorial to members of the armed services who served and died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in London