OLD WAR HORSE

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1934, Page 7

OLD WAR HORSE

VIRTUES EXTOLLED. LORD MOTTISTONE’S CHARGER. London, May 19. Seated on his 23-year-old charger, Warrior, Lord Mottistone told Boy Scouts camping on the Isle of Wight to-day: “I brought my dear old horse to see you, as I regard him as the embodiment of the virtues expected from Boy Scouts—courage, endurance, friendship.” “What a friend he has been to me throughout the years! He will not leave me now, if I can help it. “On one occasion during the war another officer and I left our horses while we went forward to the front line. The other horse was killed by a shell. Warrior might have sought safety over a ridge. He had sense enough to realise that. But he remained under fire awaiting me.” .

Lord Mottistone, before being raised to the peerage in 1933, was Major-Gen-eral J. E. B. Seeley, who was Secretary of State for War in 1914 when -“the Curragh incident” caused, him to resign. He commanded the Canadian Corps in the latter stages of the war.

In his books “Adventure”. and “Fear and Be Slain,” Lord Mottistone has told the full story of Warrior and his marvellous escapes under fire. He served for four years on'the Western Front. Warrior was a four-year-old when the war broke out, and his intelligence under fire was something to marvel at. A heavy beam fell on him once when a French farmhouse was being shelled, but Warrior kicked his way out of the ruined stable. Two years ago General Seeley won a point-to-point race on Warrior in the Isle of Wight.