There are many mysteries and myths about Napoleon’s horses. The most famous horse was known as Marengo, who carried him to victory in the Battle of Marengo, and the legends have it that he carried him to victory in almost all his other victorious battles as well.
Marengo was a small ( only just over 14 hh) grey of Arabian breeding . He was wounded eight times in his career and survived the retreat from Moscow but was captured at Waterloo (June 1815) and taken prisoner by William Francis Petre who brought him to England and sold him to Lieutenant-Colonel Angerstein of the Grenadier Guards. Marengo died of old age at the age of 38! Quite a long life for a horse.
His skeleton was preserved and later passed to the Royal United Services Institute and is now on display at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, London. In my opinion this is a curiously disrespectful thing to do with the skeleton of the valiant horse of a French Emperor. The British may have won at Waterloo but somehow displaying Marengo’s skeleton in a British army museum is not appropriate. However if it ads to his fame and position as s great War Horse then I suppose I can live with it.
Leave a Reply