Canada’s own war horse,
Soldiers’ steeds lasted an average of 40 days. Bunny made it through
There were many heroes of World War I, men and women who lived and died for their countries. But until recently, the story of the animals that fought and suffered alongside them has been mostly lost to history.
That has changed thanks to both the stage and movie versions of War Horse, based on a book by Michael Morpurgo. Steven Spielberg’s recent film and the international hit theatre production now playing at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre reveal to the world these previously little-known tales.
“(The story) reminds us of the sacrifices made by these loyal animals during wartime,” said Toronto Mounted Police Staff Insp. Bill Wardle, who in his research discovered Canada’s own war horse.
Toronto’s hoofed hero was named Bunny. A large strawberry-chestnut-coloured gelding, Bunny served with Toronto’s 9th Canadian Field Artillery, known as the Toronto Battery.
Bunny’s story began in the summer of 1914. The Canadian military was having trouble finding strong enough horses to send overseas. The City of Toronto stepped in and donated 18 horses from the mounted police unit to the Canadian military effort. Four Toronto mounted officers, including Const. Thomas H. Dundas, famous for having stopped a runaway horse, enlisted with the Toronto Battery and went overseas with the department horses on Oct. 3, 1914.
They arrived in Britain during the worst winter on record. Bunny and the other horses lived in crude stables, exposed to the wind, cold and rain. “It was a terrible winter those horses endured,” said Wardle, who researched newspaper clippings, war correspondence and archival records.
The Toronto Battery, along with Bunny and other Canadian horses, was sent on to France in February 1915, then to Ypres in Belgium. They were on the lines on April 22 when the Germans launched the first gas attack of the war.
They held the line despite the retreat of French troops. At least a third of the horses had been lost by the next day, but the Canadians didn’t back down. It was chaos, as one Lt. Lovelace described in his diary: “The drivers came up at the gallop, elbows waving as they forgot the proper methods of riding and rode like cowboys and Indians.”
Few of the Toronto horses were still alive by the end of April 1915, said Wardle. The ones that survived, including Bunny, faced four more years of war.
A horse on the front had an average lifespan of 40 days, said Tim Jonkman, a hobbyist historian in Vancouver who also became fascinated with the story of Bunny.
“You’ve got to remember that horses were cannon fodder,” he said, adding that veterinary officers would pull hot metal shrapnel out of the animals, patch them up and send them back to work.
Throughout most of these years, Bunny was ridden by Const. Dundas, whose brother was briefly Bun- ny’s original rider until he was killed in action.
“Dundas and Bunny spent 41⁄
2 years together experiencing every battle the Canadians were in. That in itself is amazing,” said Wardle.
But unlike in the book, play and film, Canada’s story lacks a happy ending. Between 1914 and 1918, 81,000 Canadian horses went to war and only about 60 returned, said Jonkman. By the war’s end, only one of the 18 horses gifted by Toronto was still alive.
The story of Bunny’s survival became a symbol of hope, explained Wardle. The mayor of Toronto, the board of police commissioners, the chief of police, the members of the police force, the media and citizens all saw something good in this horse’s survival and wanted to celebrate and recognize his service by bringing him home. In a months-long exchange between the city and army officials, the city offered to pay for Bunny’s transport back to Canada.
“You’ve got to remember that horses were cannon fodder.” TIM JONKMAN HOBBYIST HISTORIAN
In the meantime, the men of the 9th Battery, including Dundas, returned to Toronto amidst fanfare, music and parades. “You can imagine what that would have been like if he’d had that horse back with him,” said Wardle. But just when it seemed Bunny might come home, the quartermaster general dictated that only the horses of officers would be returned to Canada. The military had made a deal with the Belgian government to sell all the surviving war horses for $40 a head. “What difference would it have made, one horse out of thousands?” asked Wardle as he tells the story. “Can you imagine personally how you would feel? The emotions that must have been going through those officers,” he said shaking his head. Bunny was a hero, but not by choice and the officers who rode with him saw that, he added. “However in the end, just like many of those he served with, Bunny would never see Toronto again.” Those themes of heroism, loss and friendship are echoed in the Mirvish production of War Horse, now in previews. We never think about war in terms of the costs of animals, said John Karastamatis, director of marketing and communications for Mir- vish. “All these animals killed for no purpose whatsoever.”
He said the show’s success can be accounted for because of “how brilliantly it portrays the relationship between man and animal, and how one is dependent on the other.”
On Nov. 21, 2002, 84 years after he was left behind in Europe, Bunny’s heroism was recognized in the Canadian Senate. Senator Lowell Murray stood up in chambers to acknowledge what he described as “a very special horse.”
“I’m still searching for (what happened to) Bunny,” said Jonkman. The trail of the horse’s life ends with the army correspondence refusing his return. “We will never know what became of this brave horse after he was sold,” said Wardle. “This unsatisfying ending allows our imaginations to create our own ending for this story.
“Unfortunately, in my mind, it is not a happy one.”