JAMES GRASBY : Easter Saturday, March the 30th, 1918. At Moreuil
Wood near Amiens, the Canadian Cavalry Brigade prepare for
action.
The Germans hold the ridge. If they break through, the allied
front could fall.
Leading the signal troop rides General Jack Seely on his horse,
Warrior. He turns to his men, raises his voice above the wind,
and commands, "Fire on both sides! We are going in!"
Chaos ensues, shells explode, bullets scream through the air.
General Jack Seely and his horse Warrior ride into the storm, red
pennant in hand, the squadron thundering close behind.
The battle that follows will be remembered as one of the
deadliest cavalry charges of the First World War.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Millions of animals served in the First
World War, but few became legends. Warrior, the horse who
carried General Jack Seely through some of the bloodiest
battles of the war, was one of them. Welcome to Wild Tales. I'm
Rosie Holdsworth, and in this episode we hand over to
historian James Grasby for Warrior the War Horse.
JAMES GRASBY : The First World War raged from 1914 to 1918,
drawing in nations across Europe and beyond, where more than 65
million soldiers faced the mud, the blood and the misery of
trench warfare.
Alongside them, millions of horses, mules and donkeys went
to the front, hauling supplies, carrying the wounded and
charging into battle. Few ever came home. Among them was
General Jack Seely and his legendary horse, Warrior.
Together, they would ride through some of the bloodiest
battles of the war.
And in today's episode, we head to the Isle Of Wight to follow
in their footsteps.
It is a glorious spring April day, and I'm standing in the
grounds of stunning Mottistone Manor on the Isle Of Wight. Now
this place is nestled in a very sheltered valley, not far from
the sea, but surrounded by rolling, lush, greenery.
Mottistone Manor was first recorded, I believe, in the
Doomsday Book in 1086.
And today I'm here to walk an unusual and surprising trail.
One that traces the steps of a forgotten hero from the First
World War. Someone who returned from the Western Front against
all odds and unscathed.
But before I set out, I'm going to step inside the manor to meet
somebody who one wouldn't naturally associate with this
story.
I'm just going to come in through the front door with a
two-centred arch, pass some gothic lettering, a wonderful
inscription, and through another low door into an ancient room
with magnificent timbered ceiling.
In front of me is the most striking picture. What a
beautiful horse! A beautiful horse with a gallant, what looks
like a general in uniform. And behind, chalky cliffs, which I
guess are the Isle Of Wight. I don't know. It says 1920s. But I
wonder who this chap is.
As I stand there pondering, I hear footsteps behind me.
I recognise your face, Brough Scott. What a pleasure to meet
you.
BROUGH SCOTT: It's lovely to be here because obviously I've
known this picture since I can remember pictures. And that's
Grandpa on his horse Warrior, which has become quite famous
really as a sort of symbol of the First World War.
JAMES GRASBY : Brough, it's an astonishing story. I mean, to so
many people, you are the face of British racing, TV presenter,
writer. I had no idea that you as well are the grandson of
General Jack Seely. And I've got this relationship with
Mottistone.
BROUGH SCOTT: In fact, Grandpa, who is an extraordinary
Victorian, Edwardian figure that you couldn't invent now, but he
went to the Boer War with a white horse of his called a
Maharaja when he got to the port. Sir you can't take that
white horse, it'd be bad for camouflage. So he took it round
the back and... dyed it brown. I mean, literally. And it went
right through the war with him.
JAMES GRASBY : Between 1899 and 1902, the Boer War raged in
South Africa. It was here that Jack Seely learnt the realities
of battle on horseback.
BROUGH SCOTT: And when he was looking for a replacement to
that horse when he got very old, he saw a thoroughbred mare and
he galloped down after it and bought it there and then off the
man. She was called Cinderella and she was incredibly sweet.
She used to walk round behind him like a dog. My mother can
remember sliding off her back, she was really sweet and her son
was Warrior.
JAMES GRASBY : From the day he is born, Warrior is Jack Seely's
constant companion in both war and peace. They cross the
channel together in 1914, and for the following four years,
they endure the mud and hardships of the Western Front.
Two decades later, in 1935, Jack Seely publishes a book about him
called My Horse Warrior. By then, Warrior is 27 and a living
reminder of the bond they share.
BROUGH SCOTT: That book, My Horse Warrior, it's a love
letter to this horse. He would have remembered the last canter
he did alongside his son who got killed, Frank. He remembered him
with his first wife who died. He remembered him through that
picture there of the whole family. The horse was his
connection. It's a testament to a quite unique equine life and
therefore I'm really proud that he recorded it.
JAMES GRASBY : But Warrior's story isn't just published in
books and remembered in portraits. It's written into
this very landscape. And today we set out to trace his hoof
prints on a circular footpath around Mottistone, known as the
Warrior Trail.
Brough, we're just rising up out of the valley from that ancient
house, up a deep and sunken track. This is the beginning of
the trail, I guess.
BROUGH SCOTT: It's a footpath now, but of course... Warrior
and Grandpa would have ridden up here to the Downs. You can
uplift yourself and your mood by going up on the Downs and when I
come down here which I still do a lot I go up on the Downs and
then my spirit lifts.
JAMES GRASBY : And that moment on the Isle Of Wight famously
where the chalk Downs stop beside the sea where they've
been broken away into those incredible cliffs that appear in
the background of that picture we're just looking at
BROUGH SCOTT: That particular Chalk Cliff is called Tennyson
Down because that's where Tennyson used to walk up,
purportedly reciting somebody's great verse.
We're walking up towards the Downs, but actually down below,
a little bit south of here, is the Yafford Mill where Warrior
was born. We're talking about 1908, and Grandpa was a minister
then, and there was a very stuffy private secretary.
And the guy at the stables, sent a message to Grandpa, which was
handed over by this very stuffy civil servant. The message was,
Cinderella had a booming boy today, mother and son really
well. Lovely phrase that Grandpa said, well, Yafford is one of
the most delightful places one could possibly choose to be
born.
JAMES GRASBY : Lovely. And before us, a bridal way. We're
into the shade of a SBorycamore in flower. Which way are we
heading, Brough?
BROUGH SCOTT: We're going south-west, up onto Brook Down,
and out ahead of us we'll see the totemic chalk cliffs of
Freshwater Down.
JAMES GRASBY : And it's chalky underfoot, isn't it?
BROUGH SCOTT: you can see the chalk.
JAMES GRASBY : Brough, the view is beginning to open.
BROUGH SCOTT: Below us is Sidling Paul, which is where a
Warrior ran with his mother Cinderella as a yearling and a
two-year-old. And indeed, where Grandpa got on him the first
time and he immediately bucked him off. And then you go on down
past the church. Where actually in 1917 Grandpa came back from
the war and Cinderella - he was particularly close to the mother
of Warrior- and he went to see her, she'd gone got pretty old
by then.
When he whistled, she came running up to him and very
obviously recognised him. The next day was a Sunday. They'd
walk up there to the church, and when they walked up, Cinderella
was lying there dead, and she had kept herself alive to see
him again.
I know my mother was very struck by that image, and so was my
grandfather. Again, it's always a danger, this anthropological,
putting human sentiments into horses, but they still have
sentiments and that one was a very much I think stay alive for
something and then it's over and I like to think of that.
JAMES GRASBY : As we leave Sidling Paul we follow the lane
past Brook House where Jack And Warrior are based until 1925.
From here the path drops down towards Brook Bay, a stretch of
coastline long associated with shipwrecks and treacherous seas.
And it's here that Jack first realises Warrior has the makings
of a warhorse.
Brough, we're down on the beach and this beach has a special
place in Warrior's story, hasn't it?
BROUGH SCOTT: It wasn't called Warrior entirely by chance. The
likelihood of him being a cavalry horse was always there.
And If you're going to be a cavalry horse, you're going to
have to be brave.
And so what he did from a very young age, he went and stood him
in the waves. Grandpa had a very vivid memory is that he was
trembling, but he would stand there, even though the waves
came in and hit him. One of them knocked him over.
But he realised then, he said, that this horse was brave
because he would stand and he would face something. And of
course later in life he stood and faced shells and rifle fire
with men behind him and was inspiration as you can imagine.
JAMES GRASBY : As the waves break over his horse's legs,
Jack Seely senses Warrior's destiny. At six, Warrior is sent
to military school in Rutland. Then in August 1914, as war
breaks out in Europe, Jack and Warrior set sail to Le Havre to
face t he battlefields of France.
The following year, when Jack Seely takes command of the
Canadian Cavalry Brigade, Warrior returns briefly to
England for further training, but by Christmas they are back
at the front, and from then until the war's end Warrior
never leaves it, through the battles at the Somme, the horror
at Ypres, and the endless mud of Passchendaele.
There is traumatic and famous early film footage of mules and
horses in the deep mud of Passchendaele, getting stuck
down to the tops of their legs in mud, struggling to get out. I
mean, the mud was a dreadful killer of pack horses and
cavalry horses. Was that something that Warrior
experienced at first hand?
BROUGH SCOTT: Not for the first time he was lucky to be a
general's horse, or he certainly wouldn't have survived. Because
there was usually a hard area where you could probably be
alright. But if you strayed off it for any reason, you'd go into
the mud, it'd be so difficult, you couldn't pull the horse out,
it would take too many people.
Quite early on they would decide, relieve the pain, shoot
the horse, take the saddle off. Warrior went in, but he had the
general, and he had people around him, and they really
heaved and pulled and they got him out. But if he'd been an
ordinary horse he probably wouldn't have got out.
JAMES GRASBY : For Warrior, it's a lucky escape.
BROUGH SCOTT: I did count it up once I think it's seven times
when at least 50 - 50 he would have got killed. I mean, very
early on, bullets coming through. The horse next to him
being shot, that happened twice. Him standing nose to nose with
another horse, and while he was standing there, the other horse
has a bullet through it.
JAMES GRASBY : Time and again, Warrior defies death. Bullets,
collapsing buildings, shells landing close by. By now, it's
becoming clear Warrior is no ordinary horse.
Brough, take me to France in 1918 and the charge at Moreuil.
BROUGH SCOTT: The Canadian Cavalry were basically circling
the German advance. Big scare was that the Germans got to
Amiens and fundamentally it could be over.
Grandpa was in charge of the Canadian Cavalry, about a
thousand men and horses. And he was told not to get too
involved, and he saw the Germans had broken through. So he
decided, regardless of any instructions, he needed to take
it back.
The important thing, you had a signal group, which were the
people to go up in front - a spearhead of 16 people - and you
planted a big pennant.
Because then the units coming galloping up behind would know
one lot had to go left of the panel, the other would go right
the pennant. Of course, being Grandpa and Warrior, Warrior led
it.
Anyway, they came up and six of the guys got shot. You are
literally galloping into bullets.
Imagine the scene you've got five hundred six hundred horses
galloping up behind you and all going round and then actually
entering this wood, leave your horses. You then march in with
bayonets fixed, you know, thrusting and disemboweling,
things like that. It was hand-to-hand fighting.
And one of the German reports, it was hell in Moreuil Wood, and
I bet it was. But, you know, the fact is, Warrior survived it.
JAMES GRASBY : The battle at Moreuil Wood becomes one of the
last great cavalry actions of the First World War. Later,
General Seely would write, "I knew that moment to be the
supreme moment of my life."
Warrior is one of the lucky ones. Over eight million horses,
donkeys and mules perish in the First World War. Many drown in
the mud, are hit by gunfire, or simply die of cold and
exhaustion.
A month later, General Jack Seely is gassed, and as he
recuperates, Warrior stays by his side.
By Christmas that year, the war is finally over. Jack And
Warrior both return home to Brook on the Isle Of Wight. In
1925, they move to Mottistone, where Warrior spends the rest of
his days.
Brough, that was a wonderful walk. A wonderful walk, tracking
the story of Warrior and your grandfather. And we've now come
back to a really lovely, panelled room somewhere in the
north part of this great manor house. And we've got a pot of
tea.
BROUGH SCOTT: Much needed.
JAMES GRASBY : I've got the book that your grandfather wrote and
that you republished. And there's this lovely photograph
here of your grandfather on Warrior outside this house.
What's going on here?
BROUGH SCOTT: It's typical in many ways. It's 1934. Grandpa is
in his 60s, Warrior is 26 years old, and Queen Mary's there. And
she would have been at Cowes, and Grandpa is in his Cowes
yachting kit, which is a yachting cap, blue blazer and
white slacks.
And what the Queen clearly would have done is saying, "Oh, I'd
love to see Warrior." So they brought Warrior out of the
field, and he would have said, " Look, here he is," and he would
have jumped up on him. So he's riding Warrior bareback. And the
Queen is patting him.
JAMES GRASBY : So Warrior, a great celebrity. And by the
sound of it, Warrior lived to an extraordinary age. He went on
and on.
BROUGH SCOTT: It's one of the most extraordinary things of
all, really. And there's a terrific picture of Grandpa and
Warrior outside Mottistone Manor with Grandpa riding him when
Grandpa's 70 and Warrior's 30. I mean, 30 is very old for a
horse. And he's had the saddest of ends.
In 1941, things are very, very rough in England. And, you know,
it looks like we might well lose the war. And Warrior's getting
very ropey. And through the winter, Warrior was having to
have a lot of oats, things to keep him going. And Grandpa had
to decide, look, people are beginning to grumble. So we're
going to have to put him down.
JAMES GRASBY : During the Second World War, rationing means food
and fodder is desperately scarce. Non-essential animals,
retired horses, pets, even zoo animals were put down. As there
simply wasn't enough to keep them alive. It was in this
climate in 1941 that Warrior, by then 32 years old, is finally
laid to rest.
BROUGH SCOTT: This is the saddest bit really. He said he
couldn't bear to be there when the vet came to put him down.
But he wrote in his notebook, Warrior had been put down. He
said to quote poet Byron about his dog, Boatswain, "I do not
believe he'll be denied in heaven the soul he had on
earth," which is rather a lovely thing to have written in your
diary.
JAMES GRASBY : After more than three decades at Jack's side,
Warrior's Death makes national news with the Times publishing
an obituary and the Evening Standard running the headline,
The Horse... The Germans couldn't kill. But Warrior's
story doesn't end there.
In 1935, Jack Seeley writes a book about his beloved charger,
My Horse Warrior, a love letter to their bond. And in 2012,
Brough republishes the book, keeping his grandfather's words
alive for a new generation. In 2014, 100 years after the
outbreak of World War I, Warrior is posthumously awarded the PDSA
Dickin Medal. The Animals Victoria Cross.
BROUGH SCOTT: It was an extremely proud moment for me
and my family because Warrior was given this medal on behalf
of all the animals who suffered in the first war. And it was a
wonderful thing and the recognition that that horse born
at Yafford two miles from here at Mottistone who spent all of
his life, in the Isle Of Wight, with the minor exception of four
years when, according to Grandpa, he won the war
single-handed, that he should be honoured on behalf of all the
others, is something that we are all very, very proud.
JAMES GRASBY : From the cliffs of the Isle Of Wight to the
battlefields of France, Warrior's story is one of
loyalty, courage and survival against all odds. As we honour
the soldiers who never came home, let us also remember the
animals who stood beside them.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Thank you for listening to this episode of
Wild Tales i hope you enjoyed it if Warrior's tale has inspired
you you'll find more history stories in our sister podcast
back when i'm Rosie Holdsworth, I'll see you next time.