Ceaser was the official mascot of A Company, 4th Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade during World War I. After taking part in an official parade with the troops down Queen’s Street in Auckland, he departed New Zealand for Egypt alongside his handler, Rifleman Thomas Samuel Tooman.
In February 1916 when they arrived in Egypt, Thomas Tooman was assigned to train as an Ambulance Driver and Ceaser as a Red Cross dog. There was a special area set up to train the dogs by recreating battlefield-like conditions with logs, branches, upturned wagons, bomb craters and the like. Tom, Ceaser’s handler, was also taught how to look after and support Ceaser is his special role as a Red Cross dog.
After intensive training, Ceaser left Egypt for France and the battlefields of the Somme which were muddy, full of crater holes from shelling, and scattered with barbed wire – a very challenging terrain for a small bulldog.
Ceaser wore a harness around his middle equipped with supplies including bandages, water and writing material. His job was to sniff out and help rescue wounded soldiers on the battlefront by helping guide them back to the safety of the trenches, or to carry messages from wounded soldiers unable to walk on their own.
Dogs like Ceaser were trained to be able to tell the difference between Allied and enemy soldiers. This was of great help to the stretcher bearers who sometimes struggled to find the soldiers in horrendous conditions on the battlefields of the Western Front.
Ceaser helped save many soldiers and was successful in locating the wounded at the front, many of whom may not have survived without Ceaser’s help. One such lucky soldier was Rifleman Johnson who was knocked out and buried in earth after an artillery shell exploded nearby. He could not move buried under a mound of earth and Ceaser dug and scratched an area around his head so in could breathe. Ceaser then ran off to get help from his handler Tom and the other stretcher bearers.
Sadly Ceaser was killed in action, shot in ‘no man’s land’ presumably by an enemy sniper alongside a soldier who had died with his hand resting on Ceaser’s head. Ceaser was buried with the soldier near a Casualty Clearing Station.
Ceaser’s collar has been donated to the Auckland Museum and bears a name plate with the inscription “Ceaser, 4th Battalion, NZ Rifle Brigade”. It is thought that his handler Thomas Tooman misspelt his name ‘Ceaser’ as at the time did not know of the traditional spelling of the name ‘Caesar’.
Thanks to the work of Nigel Allsopp and the Australian War Animal Memorial Organisation, an annual Blue Cross medal is awarded to a deserving animal in both New Zealand and Australia. The award is based on the guidelines and work of Blue Cross in the United Kingdom who have been awarding medals since World War I, firstly to soldiers who showed bravery and compassion to animals during the war, and from 1940 to animals themselves.
