Units

British Army Veterinary Corps

TThe British Army used the term veterinarian surgeon to distinguish veterinarians from human surgeons. It came into use shortly after 1796, when the army appointed its first veterinarian surgeon, Professor Edward Coleman. Until then, the British government employed farriers to shoe horses, perform equine medicine, and provide general animal care.

Before 1903, veterinarian surgeons were recruited directly into cavalry regiments and became regiment members. They cared for horses only within their regiment, and sick and lame horses were often abandoned when the regiment was on the campaign. A fully formed veterinarian service came into existence after the Boer War when the army lost hundreds of thousands of horses, mainly through ill health. Major General Sir Frederick Smith, in his book A Veterinarian History of the War in South Africa from 1899 to 1902¹ , gives figures of horse casualties during the Boer War, with daily losses of 336 and a total loss of 326,000 for the whole of the war.

The Army Veterinary Corps was established in 1903 and was officered by qualified veterinarian surgeons. The great innovation of the core was that it trained subordinate staff who could be used for duties in hospitals and other veterinarian units. As a result, it became possible to organise ways of limiting the spread of contagious diseases and controlling other significant animal wastage.

In 1906, the Corps combined with the Army Veterinary Department, and in 1907, Major General Sir Frederick Smith became Director General. He set about reorganising the force and introducing modern veterinary methods and equipment.

At the outbreak of World War One, there were 364 Army Veterinary Corps officers; by 1918, this had increased to over 1600, with over half the members of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons serving in the Army Veterinary Corps.

Finding an accurate record of the number of Army Veterinary Corps officers who died during the war has proved challenging in researching and developing this website. In his History of the Great War[^footnote2], Major General Sir Leyton Blenkinsop includes a table which indicates that 60 veterinary officers (including Quartermasters) were killed during the war. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons lists 67 Veterinary Surgeons who were graduates of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons who died during the war. The Commonwealth War Graves Commissions list 74 veterinary surgeons who died during the war.

The analysis section will explore this issue in further detail.

Canadian Army Veterinary Corps

Before 1910, Canadian Army veterinary surgeons were either Non-Commissioned or Commissioned Officers serving directly with mounted and artillery units.

The Army Veterinary Service (AVS) was created on 2 November 1910. It comprised qualified veterinary surgeons serving as officers and other rank-supporting personnel. Within three months of the outbreak of the First World War, veterinary surgeons were dispatched to Europe as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). A Remount Service was also created to provide reinforcement horses to the CEF. Canadian veterinarians served in the CEF and the British Army, with about 300 Canadian vets eventually seeing service in locales ranging from Europe to India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Russia. In 1915, Canadian veterinary students in their final year were permitted to skip their final exams in exchange for enlisting in the British Army to help ease the shortage of trained veterinarians. Those who agreed were enlisted as Second Lieutenant and graduated automatically.

Seventy-two veterinary Officers served with the CEF.

Australian Army Veterinary Corps

TThe Australian Army Veterinary Corps (AAVC) was formed in 1909 to replace the Commonwealth Military Forces veterinary department. Following the establishment of permanent artillery batteries and a remount department to supply them with horses, a permanent section of the AAVC was formed in 1911. Responsibilities included veterinary care of horses and training, as well as non-commissioned officers in shoeing, horse care, and veterinary first aid.

During the First World War, 120 officers of the AAVC served overseas with the Australian Imperial Force.

New Zealand Army Veterinary Corps

The New Zealand Veterinary Corps was formed in 1907, but apart from a nucleus of officers—all qualified veterinary surgeons—it possessed no “establishment.” On the outbreak of war, immediate calls were made upon the resources of the Corps for the purchase of military horses, the provision of veterinary officers for duty on transports, and in the training of essential personnel who had to be enrolled for the carrying out of routine duties. To do this, it was necessary to utilise the services of all available qualified veterinary surgeons in New Zealand. Most of those enrolled subsequently received commissions in the New Zealand Veterinary Corps.

Early in the war, the War Office requested the New Zealand Government to send two veterinary mobile sections and two veterinary hospital sections to Egypt. Arrangements were promptly made for this purpose. Suitable men were selected for the various duties which were to be done under veterinary officers and were trained at a remount depot, which was established at Upper Hutt, New Zealand, where experts gave a series of lectures and demonstrations. These men eventually left with the third reinforcements.