I don't know about the rest of you but I was inspired to do this as the film is kind of a tribute to the lives of all those who died in the war and how the people who lived through that time did not all want the war on both sides. That and it was very inspiring.

Disclaimer: I do not own War Horse. Technically Michael Morpurgo does.


The Somme. It was one of the most terrible and greatest wastes of human life that this world had ever seen. I was a young man then, barely into my twenties. Oh, people remember us as the bad guys, the ones who started war, the ones who thought that they could do what they wanted without there being consequences. Hardly anyone remembers the poor boys, I being one myself, being forcibly conscripted to the army and forced into a living hell. In fact hell seemed much better compared to the place we lived. Rats. Lice. Guns roaring and people dying. That was the reality of the war and not some noble cause to go and die for. The Somme especially.

But the one thing that has stuck with me all this time was one moment. The moment where a young German farmer like me and a young Welsh man like Colin had been able to come together for just a moment and free a strange beast. Our strange beast as red as the sun with a mane and tail (of what I could see of it) as black as night. Red bay. Our strange beast was a beautiful red bay and I heard that he was found by his long lost master, his trainer, his friend. And it still makes me smile to this day to think of our strange beast.

I have lived through two world wars and write this as even now women within Britain strive for equality. Life seems too peaceful now and every day I expect some new catastrophe to occur, to force us all back into those pits that had been our home for a constant four years. I was one of the lucky ones. I lived through the worst things that mankind had ever seen. I had been drafted into the army during the First Great War and barely survived the Gestapo for secretly hiding Jews during the Second. I sit and look out of my window and still see our strange beast which gave me strength to do the right thing. The pain he had witnessed was greater than any that I myself had been able to see in my lifetime.

I do not really know what happened to our strange beast. I have lived a long and hellish life but I finally found peace. My name is Peter and it was I who gave wire cutters to a young Welsh boy. It was I who lived through the worst war that mankind had ever seen. And it was I who had given up our strange beast, who had tossed a coin and refused to start war over something as trivial as a horse.