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Is it actually possible in a 19th century setting to build horse-propelled, non-steampunk tanks?
This would mean armoured carriages with gatling guns and artillery on them, with several people sitting inside.
Also, how would could the horses and the person steering the carriage be protected?
It's not only possible, it has actually been done in the Middle Ages. Check out the Wikipedia page on the Hussite War Wagon, essentially an armored cart with heavy weapons (cannons, guns, or crossbows) inside. It contains additional information on how these were used, if you need to go more in-depth.
Horse-pulled artillery actually did exist in the 19th century and earlier. However, as the emphasis was on mobility, they usually were lightly armored or unarmored.
From what I can tell, vehichle armor in the 19th century consisted of several inches of iron plate, backed by wood, and was used on ships and trains. The weight of such armor would be prohibitive for use with horses. However, this armor was made to withstand cannon fire. If you only needed to stop bullets or musket balls, you could do with a lot thinner armor, that might be more practical. Of course, if they're vulnerable to cannon fire, they wouldn't be especially useful as battle tanks. However, there are other roles for armored vehicles that might have a horse-drawn alternative.
Your best bet for function is something similar to an infantry tank, which is a relatively slow-moving tank designed to support infantry attacks. For this, you wouldn't want artillery on your carriages, since you'll be too close to the enemy for that to be of much use. You could still have small cannons, like swivel guns, that are lighter and designed as anti-personnel weapons. Also, breech-loading versions existed at that point, meaning soldiers don't have to get out of the carriage to reload them, which is a plus.
Armoring the horses themselves is impractical, at least if you do it directly. However, you could have them carry a sort of armored wall, like a mantlet, around with them. The design of this is a bit tricky, since it needs to be flexible or segmented to get over rough terrain, but you don't want gaps in the armor. Just having some overlap between segments should be enough. You will also want them to be able to turn easily, to be able to bring the guns to bear once in range.
The real question is whether this sort of vehicle or structure would be worthwhile. Anti-cannon armor is too heavy for horses, but a lightly armored version is still a fairly large and slow-moving target. Enemy artillery would be a serious threat. Still, if the vehicle stayed in motion firing broadside, it could be useful.
Having looked at it from an engineering point of view, I will just add something from a horsemanship point of view: Horses are animals that live and survive through movement. They are uncomfortable being enclosed- to the point that some horses do not tolerate being stabled particularly well- even the equipment required for regular carriage driving is relatively hazardous ( and wrecks involving it tend to be very dangerous for humans and horses ) and sudden loud noises and strong odours tend to scare them, making them more inclined to try and run to safety.
Placing an animal of this type into a small box in the middle of a war zone and expecting it to behave like a mechanical engine is both cruel and exceedingly unlikely to offer you any practical benefit. You are more likely to have an armoured box full of panicked horses desperate to escape at any cost. This is probably one of the reasons that the tank required a mechanical engine before it's invention. From what I can tell of the armoured wagons mentioned in other answers, their purpose was more that of a mobile fortification- they probably would have been used to create a defensive structure quickly rather than as a mobile weapon.
You also have to consider the weight of armour, which would need to be supported by wheels ( the advantage of driving horses is that they carry no weight, only offer forward motion ) so you start to run into trouble the moment you get into muddy or wet terrain where your horses are stuck in a box that can no longer be moved. Or you go down a hill and start to accelerate under gravity. Or you go up a hill and can barely move due to the weight.
Putting it all together I fear this adds up to a somewhat impractical invention, but also consider why the tank arose at all: Even until 1914 cavalry were still a practical force on the battlefield, able to traverse ground rapidly and deliver fast and intimidating assault, although by the turn of the twentieth century they were more strategically deployed as a way of getting light dragoons into place fast. The inventions that limited that effectiveness were the machine gun and barbed wire, along with the standing front-lines of trench warfare. If you don't have those, then the necessity that lead to the invention of the tank is somewhat mitigated.
Before machine gun, you do not need tank, because plain cavalry was more mobile, can pass over obstacles easier (horses do not have enough "horse power" to move armor around).
After machine gun, but before combustion engine (reliable and powerful enough to move tank), you have cavalry with machine-gun chariots.
And once you have combustion, it is over for cavalry.
In war, it is not only about firepower and armor (protection against firepower). Mobility (and reliability) is also extremely important.
It would really depend what you have in mind when you think of a tank.
A quick internet search brings up a number of examples of armored horse drawn carriages which would have been used in the 19th century.
The 1967 film The War Wagon featured an armored horse drawn stagecoach which transported gold and other valuables.
These kind of carriages have some aspects of tanks, but they aren't true tanks like we think of today. They did not carry heavy artillery and they had wheels instead of tracks. They were also much more lightly armored than a modern tank because they had to be light enough to be drawn by horses.
If you are designing a tank which would fit that era, there are a couple of things you would need to keep in mind. Steel was a rare and very expensive material in the 19th century. Iron was much more plentiful. Welding was also rare in the 19th century. It didn't become widely available until the turn of the 20th century. The armored panels would most likely be joined with hot rivets. Iron was, and still is very susceptible to rust, so the panels should be painted.
Since it is horse drawn, you would need to pay special attention to the weight. A team of horses can comfortably pull a carriage 2-3 times their weight over smooth surfaces for several hours without much risk of injury.
I think this gets into a definition of a tank. Horse drawn artillery is not really a tank...it's artillery, there is quite the difference. Horse drawn artillery such as cannons date back to the 1700's pretty readily, probably further back than that. The horses were not armored and relied on the standard tactics of artillery for defense (stay in the back and depend on indirect fire). Incidentally, it was horse drawn artillery, not artillery fired from a wagon...Artillery comes with quite the recoil and I'm not fully sure if a wagon could hold up to it.
The interesting part that you throw in here is 'Gatling gun'. Ultimately it was these rapid fire guns that did away with horses and cavalry in battle and relegating horses to a transportation role instead. This small gunfire that did away with horses was the driving need behind a tank...something that could resist this small arms fire with negligible effect. Having horses pull around a tank is a bit counter intuitive as the tank is meant to replace the unarmored horse that's pulling it. Had the horse been able to be armored to a degree where it could pull around the tank and resist small arms fire, then the tank wouldn't be needed and you'd simply ride around on the well armored horse.
So a mixed answer for you...when it comes to horses pulling wagons equipped with artillery, then yes...all for that as it's an artillery piece thats not meant to engage in direct fire. A horse pulling around a Gatling gun is also effective as the Gatling isn't very mobile and could use a horses help to get to where it's needed...but neither of these are really 'tanks' by definition. A tank needs to resist the small arms fire that slaughters horses so very well...having your tank dependent on what it's intended to replace isn't very helpful
Lets take a look at this from an engineering perspective.
We'll take the original Mark-1 tank, the first tank to be called a "tank" (the name came from the fact that they were shipped to the front lines disguised as "water tanks").
It's around 27 tons with a 105 horsepower engine. And it barely managed to crawl with that power. So let's round the numbers up and say that 100 horses can pull a 30 ton tank.
A small 10 ton tank would require around 33 horsepower to crawl slowly.
Leonardo da Vinci's "tank" weighs in at around 5 tons. So let's be generous and say that it could be pulled to crawl slowly with 16 horses. That 5 ton "tank" can barely fit one horse inside it. It was designed to be pushed by humans.
Which means, for horses, it's impossible to build any steel armored carriage to be pulled by horses with all the horses inside the armor. Simply because any size you build would need at lest 10 times the space to accommodate the number of horses needed to pull it.
Any horse-drawn solution requires the horses to be outside the tank.
So it depends on how you want to define "tank". If the horses need to be protected as well then no, it's simply not possible. If you can accept exposing the horses to enemy fire then yes its possible (in fact, as mentioned in another answer, it actually exists historically).
I don't have the calculations for elephants though. Anyone know horsepower to elephantpower conversion?
A solution similar to a tank (everyone is protected) would require the horses to be inside (or rather underneath) a shell, but horses are not strong enough to carry the weight of the armour plus crew and weapons.
Here you can find a list of the strongest animals http://www.onekind.org/be_inspired/top_10_lists/strongest/
What about an armoured elephant? They can carry up to 9 tonnes and there is already history of using them in battle. You could "dress" them with a thick armour, hang gatling gun on the sides and have some one sitting in a cabin on top of the elephant.
Next option would be an ox, or bison. In that case the armour would have to be thinner and the weapons smaller, but could be faster compared to the elephants. The rider could lay on the back (as on a bike) to be enclosed in the armour and have small guns poking out of the shield. The structure of these animals, with a shorter neck than the horse, would facilitate such a solution.
There used to be something similar called horse drawn artillery. barding would provide some sort of protection, but considering the power of guns it would be rendered next to useless. I have no evidence for past use, but I am sure some sort of metal box could be placed around the "charioteers" and the artillery. Holes could be drilled in the sides big enough for a machine gun barrel.
Leonardo da Vinci dabbled with this and I believe his first thought was that the horses would be inside. Later he rejected that idea because they might panic and replaced it with human power.
Enclosed treadmill
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/31068574@N05/15622416604/
Depicted: the horse treadmill from the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland. You could enclose something like this within the tank. The horses would be protected in there. The horses would walk around and around, just like they do in the mine, and the rotary motion would be turned by gears into a motion to move the tank around. Oxen might be even better for this because they are stronger and more docile. If you are worried about them being spooked by war sounds, use deaf animals. Horses do fine without seeing much which is what blinders are for; the depicted horses here have them on.
