World War I facts... excerpt from War Horse Theatre programme

From Dave Robinson:

“Having seen the play War Horse last November in England and the Stephen Spielberg movie over the Christmas holidays, one cannot but to be deeply moved the by the horrors of World War I as seen through the eyes of a complete innocent, in this case a horse. It made me want to look closer to the true cost of war, a war that in reality in its simplest form had as its root cause a ‘family feud’ between the royal families of Europe. A fight over nationalistic ‘bragging rights’ that cost nearly ten million lives.

The Western front stretched 440 miles, from the Swiss border to the North Sea, as a line of trenches, dug-outs and barbed wire fences, with an area known as No man's land between them. And the line moved very little between 1914-18.

On the Eastern Front, the vast eastern plains and limited rail network prevented a trench warfare stalemate, though the scale was just as large. The middle eastern and Italian fronts also saw fighting, while there were also battles at sea, and for the first time, in the air.

WWI caused the collapse of four empires: the Austro-Hungarian; German; Ottoman and Russian. Germany lost its colonial empire and states such as Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Yugoslavia gained independence. The immense cost of the war also set the stage for the break-up of the British Empire and left France mired in debt for 25 years.”

Quick Facts:

Area of France invaded and devastated        10%

Livestock Numbers in That Area               Pre-War                 1918

Cattle & draft Oxen                                   892,000            58,000

Horses & Mules                                         407,000            32,000

Sheep & Goats                                         949,000             25,000

Pigs                                                        356,000            25,000

Agricultural Production Lost to Area

Wheat                          50%                            Oats                30%

Sugar Beet                   60%                            Potatoes          18%

Damage In That Area

Houses destroyed                                         293,000

Houses seriously damaged                             435,961

Trenches & Shell Holes to be filled             436 million cubic yards

Barbed wire to be removed                      448 million yards

Munitions to be destroyed                         21 million tons

Wells to be restored                                     12,118

Railway track destroyed                              1,500 miles

Roads to be remade                                  33,000 miles   

(Note: One million horses were taken to France from Britain, 62,000 were returned)

Content of this General Overview is cited from: “War Horse”, New London Theatre Programme