Cavalry Budget

[MarkoZ]

Hi just been looking at a site showing a break down of Polands military Budget in the late 30's spending on the Cavalry was a whopping 58 million Zlotys,Army 250 million,Airforce 38 million,Artillery 8 million etc.
How much were they spending on horses?. you see pictures of well mounted Polish uhlans from the period.
In real terms were they more expensive than Cars ?
South Yorkshire Police pay £6,000 for and Irish Draught horse today.
Regards Marko.

[Eugen Pinak]

This number seem to be too high.
The only detailed breakdown or Polish military spending I've seen (for 1936) gives annual upkeep of the cavalry, as 0,31 million zlotys. Of course this is without armaments, horses, etc - but that same year money military spent on horses for the whole army totaled c.5,1 million zlotys.
Now about the costs of horses and cars. Premium cavalry horse could cost up to 2000 zlotys. Bicycle costed c.200 zlotys, private car PF 518 - 9000 zlotys, 10-men 1,5-ton truck PF 618 - 7100 zlotys.

[MarkoZ]

Thank you Eugen,you can see why armies rushed to motorise,interestingly the British sold all of their horses in 1938 enough for 14 Divisions,to guess who ?....German horse dealers!

[Stephan]

We must also remember, the horse regiments werent just horses, it was top of the line fighting units, with cannons, light panzers, heavy infantry equipment, etc...

[Ironmachine]

Thank you Eugen,you can see why armies rushed to motorise,interestingly the British sold all of their horses in 1938 enough for 14 Divisions,

No, they did not sell all their horses in 1938. For example, there were British horsed cavalry regiments in 1938, 1939, 1940.... See:
https://www.army.mod.uk/documents/gener ... istory.pdf
and
http://www.karkeeweb.com/patterns/1940/ ... ction.html

[Eugen Pinak]

Thank you Eugen,you can see why armies rushed to motorise,interestingly the British sold all of their horses in 1938 enough for 14 Divisions,to guess who ?....German horse dealers!

Actually, cavalry was the last to rush. For example, last British cavalry division survived till 1941.

[MarkoZ]

A Yugoslav Infantry Division had 11,2000 animals, British Army had 14 Infantry Divisions in 1938 so they sold approx 150,000 Horses to the Germans.
When they created the Cavalry Division for Iraq they struggled to get 9,000 remounts.
Incidentally my uncle Was recruited into British Army in 1945 from A POW camp for Yugoslav in Germany.
Mainly used to guard military installations he spent some tome at Bicester where he saw Hundreds of thousands of spoked wagon wheels and millions of Horse shoes stored. The wheels where no doubt off the gun carriages and Caisons when they converted in the late Thirties to Motor transport.

[gebhk]

The budget plan for 1935/36 projected 5.373.000 zl for the purchase of horses for the Polish armed forces as a whole.

MarkoZ - it looks like your original figures (some of which I recognise) come from a mixture of sources, so are not necessarily compatible. My best guess is that the figure of 58mil spent on cavalry comes from 'Wydatki na Polskie Sily Zbrojne w roku budzetowym 1938-1939 i ich analiza' (Expenditure on the Polish Armed Forces in financial year 1938/39 and their analysis) by the Polish Historical Institute (in London), puiblished in 1947. This paper estimates the total budget at 800 mil, giving the cavalry 7.25% of the total pie. The infantry get 225mil (28%); the air force 46.3 mil (5.8%) and the artillery (the heavy artillery - light field artillery is included in the infantry total) 16 mil (2%).

There can be little doubt that horseflesh is expensive to buy and maintain and fragile (both physically and in terms of supply). It takes a few days to build a truck, it takes 4-5 years to produce a usable cavalry mount. Economy was undoubtedly a major factor behind the mechanisation of all armed forces and life in general. Why this process was so prolonged in the case of Poland cannot be explained easily or simply and therefore remains the subject of heated debate to this day. However, undoubtedly the mechanisation of the army is heavily dependent on the mechanisation of the country as a whole and the resultant infrastructure. In Poland this progressed very slowly, even by comparison with countries like Romania, due to a complex set of circumstances.

[MarkoZ]

It was a massive rural country in 1939 maybe there was an over abundance of horses,the sandy soil in the east did not suit vehicles,and then of course there was the wonderful tradition of cavalry in the Polish military elite,winged hussars,the battles of the Polish Russian war.
They just did not seem to be paying attention to what their neighbour was up to.

[gebhk]

in 1939 maybe there was an over abundance of horses.

That in fact was not the case - at least as regards horses of military quality. On the contrary, for most of the interbellum, there was a dire shortage of cavalry mounts. Only a big effort and the cutting of establishments permitted for that shortage to be reduced to a manageable situation by 1939 - but by no means was there an abundance. Things were worse with regard to artillery horses as Poland did not produce such horses prior to it's independence. Farming suitable traction beasts for the artillery had to be built up from scratch and good results had been achieved with regard to heavy artillery horses by 1939 - though by no means, again, was there an abundance. The situation regarding horse artillery horses remained dire. A reasonable argument can be made therefore, that the considerable effort and expenditure fed into creating a horse-breeding industry, could have been more profitably pumped into the motor industry.