War Animals

by Paul Watkins

How did pigeons help set Europe ablaze? Why did some men of the Polish Army fighting in Italy have an insignia of a bear on their uniforms? What was the fate of Dr Brydon’s horse?

Find out the answer to these and many more questions in the first book to document the stories of various animals’ battles throughout many different wars. This book covers the contributions, roles and fates of these animals using individual stories and vignettes set against a wider context of the conflicts. For example, the graphic portrayal of Dr William Brydon in the painting Remnants of an Army clearly shows him mounted on his exhausted horse. But what were the sources of horses for the East India Company? What became of the wretched horse depicted in the painting?

Throughout history, wars have affected animals as well as humans, and often in remarkably diverse ways. Although the ‘War Horse’ of the First World War has recently become well recognised, there are a large number of stories relating to animals in war that have yet to be told. Watkins makes use of first-hand accounts to explore in detail their recruitment, their service and their fate.

304 pages, Hardcover

Published February 28, 2017

About the author

Paul Watkins is an American author who currently lives with his wife and two children in Hightstown, New Jersey. He is a teacher and writer-in-residence at The Peddie School, and formerly taught at Lawrenceville School. He attended the Dragon School, Oxford, Eton and Yale University. He received a B.A. from Yale and was a University Fellow at Syracuse University, New York. His recollections of his time at the Dragon School and Eton form his autobiographical work Stand Before Your God: An American Schoolboy in England.

Writes crime fiction set at the birth of Stalin's Russia under Sam Eastland.