The German Army entered the campaign with little or no arrangements to feed any horses. The most compelling logistical problem was most acute for the cavalry, but it extended to all units equipped with horses. The issue was fodder. The ratio of men to horses, approximately four-to-one during the Franco-Prussian War, had decreased to three-to-one by the 1914 campaign. The warning signs raised by fodder issues in 1870–1871 went unheeded. No special arrangements were made or even contemplated. The problem was too complex, too difficult, and overshadowed by operational matters. The simplest solution was to hand it down to the lower-level commanders to solve—which in the early days of campaigning proved no solution at all.
After that day’s supplies were used, the divisions were supposed to draw replenishment from a designated army corps. Logically, a corps-level unit would be logistically tied into its respective numbered army HQ. By these means, reordering supplies, ammunition, and feed for the horses could be made relatively routine. Unless the cavalry divisions changed their affiliation from one army to the other, and this is exactly what happened frequently. The army corps’ supply situations were already heavily strained by the pace of the advance, this additional and unpredictable demand had serious implications for the supply situation and resulted in severe shortages. The cavalry was consistently reduced to begging the nearest army corps for what support it could spare. Cavalry divisions were considered “a constant burden on the army corps so unfortunate as to be responsible for them.”
Horses were far from well cared for and fed. Frequently, horses were fed local green grain that sickened them. Reportedly, some artillery team horses died even before crossing the border into Belgium. Further, the prioritization of ammunition created by Great War battle conditions caused a strange anomaly. Because the movement of ammunition took precedence over all other classes of supply including gasoline, the drivers frequently could not find fuel for the vehicles intended to haul the ammunition. Hew Strachan shows that the General Staff did not develop a logistical concept to support operational mobile warfare. Instead, they simply ignored the inevitable consequences. They ignored the problem! As a result, logistical problems were marginalized in operational planning.