Should animals have armies?

I'm working with a story line, and right now, the characters are trying to fight against an opposing force, made up of very militarily influenced foes. All of my characters happen to be horses, and I'm wondering if this makes any sense, or if I'm writing a story with human issues stapled on a horse.

 

Definition wise, and army is 'a large number of people or things formed or organized for a particular purpose.' So, yeah, you could totally have an army of horses, especially if they've gathered for conflict. If you want to use it, it's a viable word that's unlikely to confuse anyone. Worrying about 'writing a story with human issues stapled on a horse' is a valid concern, but considering we can't actually think from an animals perspective, but only from the perspective our human brains trying to think like an animal, there's going to be some inevitable anthropomorphization, which isn't a bad thing. If your characters were totally alien to us, it would be hard for readers to relate to them. Not to mention most, if not all stories about animals are pretty much human problems stapled onto another animal, so at least you'll be in good company if you do.

 

There's nothing wrong with having anthropomorphic creatures as your main characters. Sometimes they work quite well to boil serious human issues down into more understandable ideas/ basics. Some good examples: Animal Farm, Zootopia.

That's not to say that the use of animals has to portray a significant point. There are a lot of popular stories out there featuring animals that don't attempt to make any social commentary (such as Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Warriors).

 

Very true, and I would like to not make a a social commentary, however, I'm wondering if it makes sense to have warring horse clans in 'real life'(in practicality I should say)

 

I would like to add that these are not anthropomorphized horses, they are plain real horses

 

Plain real, normal horses like ones you or I would ride live in herds, but don't have wars. I could never believe normal horses going to war because it simply doesn't happen. If your horses talk or think in any way close to formulating sentences, they're anthropomorphized, and I could believe them going to war because at that point they're obviously fantasy type horses. The fact that they live in herds vs. living alone makes it even easier to believe they could form a military.

 

And horses would certainly have learned war from humans if their society was like that. So yeah, if your horses have human intelligence, then they could totally form armies.

 

Normal meaning hops on all fours and living in dens, but still anthropomorphized (please note that I've never read Watershipdown, so I'm assuming here on how the rabbits walk and live).

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From Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online):

"Definition of anthropomorphize

transitive verb
:to attribute human form or personality to

intransitive verb
:to attribute human form or personality to things not"
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My understanding of what the OP is asking, the horses in his/her story cannot think beyond the way real horses think, thus I cannot picture them going to war or forming armies. If the horses are more like the movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron then yes I can see it happening because the horses are capable of thinking like us humans, even though they still walk on four legs and live like normal horses would (more or less).

 

You have a good point, I do plan to have more human intelligence with these horses, however when I said anthropomorphised, I meant like centaurs.

 

Thank you all for replying, this has helped alot!