![]() In a months-long exchange between the city and army officials, the city offered to pay for Bunny’s transport back to Canada. 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. The story of Bunny’s survival became a symbol of hope, explained Wardle. By the war’s end, only one of the 18 horses gifted by Toronto was still alive. Between 19, 81,000 Canadian horses went to war and only about 60 returned, said Jonkman. That in itself is amazing,” said Wardle.īut unlike in the book, play and film, Canada’s story lacks a happy ending. “Dundas and Bunny spent 41/2 years together experiencing every battle the Canadians were in. Dundas whose brother was briefly Bunny’s original rider until he was killed in action. Throughout most of these years, Bunny was ridden by Const. “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. ![]() ![]() The ones that survived, including Bunny, faced four more years of war.Ī 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. 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.”įew of the Toronto horses were still alive by the end of April 1915, said Wardle. At least a third of the horses had been lost by the next day, but the Canadians didn’t back down. They held the line despite the retreat of French troops. They were on the lines on April 22 when the Germans launched the first gas attack of the war. The Toronto Battery, along with Bunny and other Canadian horses, was sent on to France in February 1915, then to Ypres in Belgium. “It was a terrible winter those horses endured,” said Wardle, who researched newspaper clippings, war correspondence and archival records. Bunny and the other horses lived in crude stables, exposed to the wind, cold and rain. They arrived in Britain during the worst winter on record. ![]() Dundas, famous for having stopped a run-away horse, enlisted with the Toronto Battery and went overseas with the department horses on Oct. Four Toronto mounted officers, including Const. The City of Toronto stepped in and donated 18 horses from the mounted police unit to the Canadian military effort. The Canadian military was having trouble finding strong-enough horses to send overseas. A large strawberry-chestnut-coloured gelding, Bunny served with Toronto’s 9th Canadian Field Artillery, known as the Toronto Battery.īunny’s story began in the summer of 1914. Bill Wardle, who in his research discovered Canada’s own war horse. “(The story) reminds us of the sacrifices made by these loyal animals during wartime,” said Toronto Mounted Police Staff Insp. PHOTOS: Behind the scenes at Mirvish’s War Horse 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. That has changed thanks to both the stage and movie versions of War Horse, based on a book by Michael Morpurgo. But until recently, the story of the animals that fought and suffered alongside them has been mostly lost to history. There were many heroes of World War I, men and women who lived and died for their countries.
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