official card-carrying us navy mascot

His name was Apache, 25 pounds, black eyes and black and white hair, rated Dog1c.  Or in any case that's what his Navy ID card said.  In honor of Veterans' Day, I'd like to send you to the Naval History Blog's article introducing us to Apache and others: the journalist Scoop, the freshly buzzcut Musume, and Rickey at attention.  Here you go.
And to all veterans, human and animal, thank you for your service!

marengo rides again

Antoine-Jean Gros [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

He seems such a gentle little grey creature to carry so much history.  This is Marengo, Napoleon's warhorse, captured by the British on the battlefield of Waterloo.  He outlived Napoleon by ten years, and seems to have been very well treated by his captors (is that how to think of it still?) in that time.  Upon his passing his skeleton was placed in the National Army Museum till a recent stay at the Natural History Museum.  You might call it a bit of a spa retreat:  Marengo's bones were in need of cleaning, his stance needing perking up, and his mounting hardware needed updating.
If you'd like to see a bit of how that was done, have a look at this page over at the Natural History Museum in London.  The National Army Museum also has a detailed account of Marengo's conservation adventure here, but just a note - there is a large closeup of his skull at the top of the page, if you need to steel yourself for that.  I found his skull interesting in its delicacy, and could see he must indeed have been a handsome fellow.

this poem is not actually about cats

british library flickr (PD)

From a slender anthology of verse written at the University of Cambridge during a period that included WWI: this brief, sad verse, in which we are all mice under the cat of Fate.

MICE
I see the broken bodies of women and men,
Temples of God ruined; I see the claws
Of sinister Fate, from the reach of whose feline paws
Never are safe the bodies of women and men.

Almighty Cat, it sits on the Throne of the World,
With paw outstretched, grinning at us, the mice,
Who play our trivial games of virtue and vice,
And pray—to That which sits on the Throne of the World!

From our beginning till all is over and done,
Unwitting who watches, pursuing our personal ends,
Hither and thither we scamper. The paw descends;
The paw descends and all is over and done.

 - Gerald Bullett (1893-1958) in Davison, Edward Lewis, 1898-. Cambridge Poets 1914-1920. Cambridge [Eng.]: W. Heffer & sons ltd., 1920. 31.

poem for a lonely horse

Based on when this was published, I imagine this was inspired by a soldier who never returned from the Great War. . . 

Wounded and Missing.

The old bay mare is standing
Facing the setting sun :—
The orchard grass waves round her
And her work is nearly done.

She waits for a loving whisper,
Pricking a silken ear,
For the sound of a dear familiar voice
Which she never more may hear.

There’s a joyful whinny to greet him,
Soft eyes that watch and wait :
For the old bay mare is standing
Beside the orchard gate.

The worn old hoofs are weary,
The loving eyes are dim,
And the master she loves will come no more,
But she’s waiting still for him.

by "F." in Newbolt, Henry John, Sir, 1862-1938, Mary Lancaster Nott, and Kohler Collection of British Poetry. Animal Poems And Stories. London: H. Rees, 1916. 30.

memorial day: those who also served

Bain collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-19163

I'll go back to our Australian pioneer friend tomorrow, but today I want to thank all those who served.  That includes those who walked into war zones on four legs instead of two, such as this canine medic providing supplies in WWI.  The caption at right, "Bandages from kit of British Dog."

animals of wwi: jackie the baboon

Friend of the Museum Laura Del Col Brown has published the latest in her series of "Animals of World War I."  This time we'll hear the story of Jackie the baboon, who became part of the Third South African Infantry Transvaal Regiment.  I have to warn you that it's sad, but a worthy look at what happens when we expect the wrong thing from animals.  Here's the story.

a pet chicken in war

In the horror and destruction of war, soldiers find a living creature to cherish...but war is war.  This curious poem offers an unvarnished look at what even the oddest mascot means to those on the front lines.

LITTLE PET CHICKEN

Went to a house in Belgium;
Folks all dead—place on the bum—
All on account of a bloomin' shell;
I tell yah war is jest plain hell.
There was a gal about fourteen year;
To think of her now it brings a tear;
An' right atop of her shinin' hair
A little pet chicken a-nestlin' there.
We tuck 'im back to make us a fry,
When somebuddy said: "Don't kill 'im, le's try
To feed an' keep 'im an' make 'im our pet."
An' that's jest what we done, you bet!
That dern little chicken, ef you'll b'lieve me,
Jest loved a fight the same as we;
Follyed us everywhere, ev'ry minute;
Wasn't a scrap that he wasn't in it;
Tell one foggy day we'd been plantin' mines,
An' got way inter the inemy's lines,
An' started back, we heard a squawk
Like a chicken makes when it sees a hawk;
An' there on the ground was a red hot wire,
A snaky line o' livin' fire.
Burned to a crisp was our little pet chicken!
Think of it now an' it makes me sicken.
We flattened out an' the bullets went over,
The current went off an' we crawled back to cover.
An' some of us cussed an' a few of us cried
When we thought how our little pet chicken died.

Dora Nelson, A Farm in Picardy (Cornhill Company, 1919) pp. 33-4