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Remembered Today:

The "machine guns" of Mons ?


i_m_bob

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Interesting item there Robert. It is often asked for how long rapid fire was kept up. This implies 15 minutes at least. That would use about 150-200 rounds per man. A platoon would lay down something like 10000 rounds on their nominated target in that quarter of an hour. Ball park figures but very scary if you are the target.

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Interesting item there Robert. It is often asked for how long rapid fire was kept up. This implies 15 minutes at least. That would use about 150-200 rounds per man. A platoon would lay down something like 10000 rounds on their nominated target in that quarter of an hour. Ball park figures but very scary if you are the target.

Any idea how many rounds the British infantry might have expended on 23rd August 1914 ? A ludicrous, perhaps impossible question though it might seem, it may yet be pertinent. There must be enough info on the battalions that were closely engaged for us to take a stab - a long shot, excuse the pun.

I studied the battles of the American Civil War for many years, and arrived at a very rough and ready conclusion that, in the great battles of Stones River and Chickamauga, 200 rounds of musketry were fired for every man hit. This was in battles that were fought with muzzle loading rifles, where a good man could fire three rounds a minute, where powder smoke clogged up the battlefield, in terraine that was heavily forested.

Move forward 50 years, to 15 rounds rapid, smoke-less, with fields of fire that were relatively unobstructed in some parts of the field, and with some formations of the advancing Germans being caught in the open, and there might be someone bold enough to come up with a formula. Allow for just five thousand men, firing fifteen rounds per minute, for ten minutes, and allow one casualty for every two hundred bullets fired, and you come up with 3,750 casualties, without counting the effects of the machine guns and shrapnel.

I'll duck now!

Phil.

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At this point I must put my head over the parapet.

...And I do think, Salesie, on the evidence of that part of the Macdonough report that you focus on, that if there was an "agenda" to manufacture dubious statistics, the British were culpable. It seems that there was a contrivance to present the British offensive on the Western Front in late 1917 in the most favourable light; keep pressing on in Flanders and Germany will break. At that juncture it was imprudent to persist in attacks in the mud, especially after the middle of October. I don't buy into the claim that the class of 1918 in Germany was "killed off" in 1917. On no account imagine that I view the ordeal of the German army with one iota of complacency - there must have been examples of extreme casualties in some of its divisions. I would hate to be depicted as glorying in the argument that German losses were nearly always far lighter than those of the British, and I am certaily not a junkerphile. I am more persuaded by Churchill's argument "...On the terms of 1915,1916 and 1917 the German man power was sufficient to last indefinitely.....It was not until 1918 that the change fatal for Germany occurred".

Phil.

Contrivance about 3rd Ypres, Phil? Perhaps you should read the post I referred you to again, especially the second paragraph, where I show Haig's diary entry of the 15th October 1917 (two days after publication of Macdonogh's report) which clearly shows that Haig mistrusted Macdonogh's assessments about the levels of German Army morale.

Also, Churchill's view was wholly in line with Macdonogh's assessments of 1917 that German reserves would be exhausted some time during the spring of 1918 and not in 1917 (before Russian collapse, of course, and then re-assessed to later in 1918). Churchill had the benefit of hindsight; Macdonogh's assessments were pure foresight, based on reliable intelligence.

You don't buy the claim that the class of 1918 was "killed-off" in 1917? Firstly, you've seen Tom's posting of the intelligence report which states that parts of the class of 1918 had been called-up as early as September 1916 (but would have been under training). And, secondly, here's an actual graph, one of many, compiled by British Military Intelligence with data extracted from German paybooks (they got hold of many hundreds of thousands of them throughout the war).

post-7386-1222806381.jpg

Sorry about the quality of the scan, but I think you'll be able to see that members of the class of 1918 were actually in the field (training finished) as early April/May 1917. And don't forget, this data was in every German soldier's paybook, so any prisoner or dead German could tell British intelligence which class they belonged to, and the roll number in the paybook led to pretty accurate assessments of a unit's wastage in manpower (they simply needed to be compared with the roll numbers from paybooks captured at an earlier date).

British Military Intelligence knew all along the true level of German casualties - it didn't take a team ten years to come up with figures the Nazi party would have burnt.

Cheers-salesie.

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British Military Intelligence knew all along the true level of German casualties -

Cheers-salesie.

That's a controversial statement.

How can you be so sure?

Phil.

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That's a controversial statement.

How can you be so sure?

Phil.

Prussian efficiency told 'em, Phil - the Germans told 'em without even being asked.

Cheers-salesie.

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This implies 15 minutes at least. That would use about 150-200 rounds per man.
Thanks, Tom. Interesting analysis. If men did fire off 150-200 rounds each, then it interesting to note the following information from Lt. Woollcombe, 4/Middlesex's Adjutant during the Battle of Mons:

'We were very soon [after 8 am] subjected to very heavy shell fire, but nothing was heard of the enemy's infantry for about 2 or 2 1/2 hours. I went back to the Transport Officer to see if the Transport were closed up under cover... The C.O. on my return sent for the Sergeant Major and gave me orders for him about the ammunition. They were as follows:- (each cart holds 6 boxes). Two boxes were to be taken down the road to B. Company, 10 boxes were to be taken out and 5 given to A. Company and 5 to C. Company. The cart with remainder was to be sent to D. Company who were to return the cart immediately. This cart was then to be sent back to the brigade to join the Brigade Ammunition Reserve. Another cart was due to join this reserve but it was not to be sent until it was empty when the Brigade would send up two full ones. When we emptied a third and fourth the Brigade would let us have two more and so on. This had all been agreed on beforehand, in fact it was the usual procedure. We got our next message from the Brigade at about 11 a.m. which was as follows:- "If and when defensive positions are occupied O.C. 1st Gordon Highlanders will immediately send his Transport Officer to Brigade Headquarters at HYON to take charge of the Brigade Reserve of Ammunition. Battalions will retain all their S.A.A. carts so long as they are full. Empty carts will be sent to Brigade H.Q. at HYON for refilling as Brigade Reserve of S.A.A. which will be established there."'

It gives a very rough idea of when the C.O. began organising for replenishment of S.A.A. when his men were actively engaged.

Robert

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Prussian efficiency told 'em, Phil - the Germans told 'em without even being asked.

Cheers-salesie.

Let's put some flesh on the bones of these arguments, salesie.

How accurate were the estimates that British Military Intelligence made of German casualties?

By the beginning of November, 1916, GHQ arrived at a "low" estimate of German casualties in the Somme fighting : 600,000.

The Reichsarchiv figure for the Somme, against the British and the French up until the end of October, is 392,000. British military intelligence appear to have inflated the German total by 50%.

A brief glance at the method used by Edmonds is enough to expose his fudging of the statistics. If you have not already read this, I suggest you do so. In the Official Military History, operations in France and Belgium, 1916, pages 496-498, Note II, Allied and German Losses, Edmonds attempts to justify his reckoning of German casualties. He cites what he claims are official German figures for the Somme: "....The Naichweisant gross figures for July-October only are 537,919...." Now that, to start with, is a monstrous error: that figure is for German casualties on the entire Western Front in that period. I say that it is an error, but that is rather a charitable interpretation. I think Edmonds knew that these were for the entire front, but didn't imagine that people would be sufficiently interested to check the provenance of his figures.

More mischievous still was his insistence that the German casualties needed to be inflated by a factor of 50% in order to allow for lightly wounded. He really did act like a conjuror. The 437,222 German casualties on the Somme, meticulously compiled by Wendt from the Reichsarchiv, suddenly become 650,000. AJP Taylor was right when he wrote "...Many years later the editor of the British official history performed a conjuring trick on the German figures, and blew them up to 650,000....There is no need to take those figures seriously". This tendency was even more marked when it came to Third Ypres; the official German casualties of 200,000 were inflated to double that total: "...No one believes these farcical calculations" wrote Taylor.

In regard to Germans calling up recruits a year earlier than their age class allowed, it should be noted that German military custom insisted that only men of 20 or more were to be sent to the front - they did have to flout this as pressure mounted, but the soldiers moved forward one year were no younger than their British counterparts. Indeed, there are photos of POWs taken on the Somme that reveal the German soldiery to be older looking men than their boyish looking British captors. Hankey visited the front in September 1916, and wrote in his diary for 9th September:

" The Germans are undoubtedly still very strong. They dig better than our men...and consequently their losses are probably far less. The prisoners, of whom I saw hundreds on the roads, are fine, well set-up, intelligent looking men, with no sign whatsoever of indifferent morale or phsyique..."

This is pertinent. I will post a more studied response tomorrow.

Phil

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Firstly, Phil, you are confusing British Military Intelligence (War Office and Macdonogh) with GHQ Intelligence (Charteris). As I've already said, GHQ figures were flawed, but not massively so, and when their methods were brought more in line with Macdonogh's methods these flaws were rectified (also, Charteris was sacked in December 1917).

Secondly, and more importantly, you seem to be missing the point about German classes being called-up early. It has nothing at all to do with the apparent ages of prisoners and their guards in old photographs of 1916 or the fact that the "premature" classes would be around the same age as some British recruits - the point is why were they needed?

If you read post #265 again you will see that this point is covered i.e. ...By grading prisoners and casualties according to their annual class, Allied Intelligence was given a powerful insight into the state of German units, their fighting condition and the scale of their losses. This ran hand-in-hand with the study of the German Order of Battle, for the call-up of a new class would indicate either an increase in the size of the German Army or that more men were needed to maintain that Army at its existing strength, thus reflecting the losses it had suffered. The second important detail was the company roll number each young man was given when he joined his unit. If he was killed, seriously wounded, taken prisoner or otherwise released from the service, his replacement would be allotted the succeeding number in the company list, a system which, with typical Prussian thoroughness, would reveal the losses suffered by the company...

Let's take a look at the relevant sentence again, Phil - "This ran hand-in-hand with the study of the German Order of Battle, for the call-up of a new class would indicate either an increase in the size of the German Army or that more men were needed to maintain that Army at its existing strength, thus reflecting the losses it had suffered."

Did the German Army increase in size in 1916/17? I think the answer to that is no, or at least not enough to absorb two classes in the same year. Indeed, parts of the 1918 class were being conscripted in Sept 1916 so parts of the 1917 class must also have been called-up by then along with the class of 1916 itself. So, if these premature call-ups were not to form new divisions and increase the Army's fighting strength then logically they must have been to replace losses. In other words the German Army was running out of men! And, if the calling-up of two classes in the same year (in 1916, three classes in the same year, plus the class of 1919 was in training by late 1917, so three again) is taken to it's logical conclusion then how many years before fourteen year olds are conscripted? (I doubt if their prowess at digging would be worth writing home about)

Given that there was no appreciable increase in the size of the German Army in 1916/17, and that each class could yield up to 500,000 recruits, and that captured German paybooks provided confirmation of all this (unknown to the Germans, of course), then we can see that the German army needed considerably more replacements than their casualty returns would suggest.

Whatever Edmonds, AJP Taylor, or anyone else says, the arithmetic, as well as the logic, seems straightforward enough to me and beggars an answer to the highly pertinent and glaringly obvious question: does this provide a stock answer to those who glory in the persistent argument that German losses were nearly always far lighter than the British?

Cheers-salesie.

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Whatever Edmonds, AJP Taylor, or anyone else says ...

Salesie, wouldn't it be a lot simpler if you just wrote the definitive history of the Great War, and then we could all stop worrying about it ...

Mick

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Salesie, wouldn't it be a lot simpler if you just wrote the definitive history of the Great War, and then we could all stop worrying about it ...

Mick

Mick, why don't you contribute to the debate instead of heckling from the sidelines like Waldorf and Staedtler?

Cheers-salesie.

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Whatever Edmonds, AJP Taylor, or anyone else says, the arithmetic, as well as the logic, seems straightforward enough to me

Cheers-salesie.

Please tell me what you make of the arithmetic, salesie.

Phil.

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Please tell me what you make of the arithmetic, salesie.

Phil.

Well, Phil, you've told us what the SB and several other German sources made of the arithmetic, and that you agree with them all, despite your emotional turmoil. Whereas, my take on it is that the German method of counting was 2 + 2 = 4 minus whatever we think we can get away with (without realising that the actual figures, for every unit, were there to see in each and every German soldier's paybook that British Military Intelligence got hold of).

Even I can see, as a poor arithmetician/statistician, that if the replacements were greater in number than the casualty returns, but that the army did not increase in size, then the German supplied balance sheet does not balance. I can also see that Edmonds' arithmetic may have not have been "pure", but that he was on the right track.

This reminds me of a song, popular in my youth - "Where have all the young men gone?" The singer then went on to answer his own question, "Gone to the graveyard, every one!"

So, let's put my earlier questions aside for the moment (it seems a straight answer is unobtainable) and try a new one. I ask you, Phil, where did all the young Germans, the missing ones which are needed to balance their own accounts, go?

Cheers-salesie.

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my take on it is that the German method of counting was 2 + 2 = 4 minus whatever we think we can get away with (without realising that the actual figures, for every unit, were there to see in each and every German soldier's paybook that British Military Intelligence got hold of).

I can also see that Edmonds' arithmetic may have not have been "pure", but that he was on the right track.

Cheers-salesie.

A very tall claim. The Germans deliberately distorted their casualty returns. British Military Intelligence had thorough and comprehensive information that gave a complete overview of Germany's manpower situation. Edmonds was on the right track in making his assertions on the probable level of German casualties. To say that Edmonds' arithmetic may not have been "pure" is something of an understatement, don't you think? Or are you suggesting that he was right, because he was basing his figures on the work of British Military Intelligence, who "knew all along"? This stands as a complete refutation of all the statistical analysis that was carried out by the SB - analysis which you insist is unsound because it was tainted by Nazi influence. The tabulations of the Central Enquiries office, which were meticulously compiled throughout the war, and subsequently revised upwards by half a million in the following years as the fate of German soldiers was investigated through hospital records and grave registration, are also to be discarded because they do not bear out what Edmonds claimed - that the true total of German war dead was four million, not the two million that the Naichwezant and the SB acknowledge.

You base your argument on the premise that because British Military Intelligence was absolutely correct in its calculations about the numbers of Germans being called up, and because these numbers exceeded the published number of casualties, and because the German army did not increase commensurately, then it is incontestable that those casualty returns were distorted: you imply that this was by design. I disagree.

It worries me that you might think me excessively adversarial about this, salesie. I will be happy to be proven wrong.

Here's a suggestion. The German equivalent of the CWGC might be willling to throw light on this. If one of our members fluent in German is able and willing to contact the German War Graves, and enquire about the total number of 1914-1918 fatalities, including the missing who were never recovered, then we might get some evidence that is pretty well irrefutable. Should it transpire that the number of German military personel who are recorded as dead or permanently missing is well in excess of the 2,037,000 officially acknowledged, then I will have to concede that I am wrong : unless, of course, I argue that the source might be suspect,

Phil.

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It seems to me highly unlikely that 15 rounds a minute could be sustained for 15 minutes, certainly not regularly at least - not for nothing was it known generally as "the mad minute". There seems little doubt that it was used selectively and purposefully to "brown the mass" - when the mass was apparent as a target. The Germans clearly did not stand around waiting to be shot en masse. Deliberate, selctive, targeted shooting must have been the norm when the need for a massive level of fire had passed.Quite apart from the fact that targets were unlikely to remain targets for 15 minutes, such fire would have far to readily depleted ready ammunition. Officers and ncos were well aware of the need for fire discipline, and not infantryman ever wants to get down to the last round.

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David that is almost exactly what I would have said until I read the piece quoting the officer who implies rapid fire was sustained for 15 minutes. In another thread with a similar topic, I have said that I have never been asked to do a mad minute. I was expected to qualify with a 303 and did, but that was taking all the time I needed. I reckon, like you, that if it was kept up for 15 minutes, the men would be exhausted. We need someone like TonyE to comment on whether the rifles themselves would have withstood that rate of fire. They would have been bloody hot, I can vouch for that. My opinion is that the mad minute was practised for the purpose of breaking up mass charges by poorly armed natives. It was not useful against a modern sophisticated army except when they carelessly left themselves open while still in column or close order on the approach. Once they had adopted a skirmish line for the last charge, single aimed shots at individuals would be the desired mode.

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Elsewhere I quoted details of the German rates of fire, which depended on a range of factors:

 

As per Tom's point, the rapid fire rate of 7-12 rounds per minute was reserved for very specific situations, particularly at close range. From the detailed descriptions that I have read, it seems that this rate would be kept up for a few minutes only. As noted, the effects were devastating and few infantry advances could survive against it. This is exactly what happened to the German attack against the Gordon Highlanders and the Royal Scots late on August 23rd, 1914.

 

Robert

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A very tall claim. The Germans deliberately distorted their casualty returns. British Military Intelligence had thorough and comprehensive information that gave a complete overview of Germany's manpower situation. Edmonds was on the right track in making his assertions on the probable level of German casualties. To say that Edmonds' arithmetic may not have been "pure" is something of an understatement, don't you think? Or are you suggesting that he was right, because he was basing his figures on the work of British Military Intelligence, who "knew all along"? This stands as a complete refutation of all the statistical analysis that was carried out by the SB - analysis which you insist is unsound because it was tainted by Nazi influence. The tabulations of the Central Enquiries office, which were meticulously compiled throughout the war, and subsequently revised upwards by half a million in the following years as the fate of German soldiers was investigated through hospital records and grave registration, are also to be discarded because they do not bear out what Edmonds claimed - that the true total of German war dead was four million, not the two million that the Naichwezant and the SB acknowledge.

You base your argument on the premise that because British Military Intelligence was absolutely correct in its calculations about the numbers of Germans being called up, and because these numbers exceeded the published number of casualties, and because the German army did not increase commensurately, then it is incontestable that those casualty returns were distorted: you imply that this was by design. I disagree.

It worries me that you might think me excessively adversarial about this, salesie. I will be happy to be proven wrong.

Phil.

Phil, given the lack of any answers at all to my questions, let alone viable ones, I do believe the logic contained in my last post is irrefutable. If the German Army was not running out of men in late 1916, contrary to what their casualty returns said, then why were the classes of 1917 and 1918 called to the colours up to two years early? And, seeing as those premature German conscripts outnumbered the German casualty returns, and the German Army did not grow in size, then where on earth did they go? It seems to me that this was a classic case of off balance sheet accounting on the German part.

Now, I've left most of your latest post intact, Phil, so the massive contradictions with your earlier posts can be easily seen:

Post #107: ...There is, though, a significant disparity between these figures (Sanitatsbericht) and those that were released by the German government during the war. To illustrate this, the official German casualty list released on October 31st 1917 gave a total of 1,138,768 army combat fatalities on all fronts. This, it must be stressed, was the actual total of killed and died of wounds recorded by that time. It does not allow for hundreds of thousands of missing who were, in reality, dead, and nor does it include soldiers who died of disease or accident. Now the German Medical tabulations give a much lower figure of fatalities. By July 31st 1918, even after the huge losses in their spring and summer offensives, the total from that source was 1,061,740, suggesting a very significant understatement: that the German governmemt acknowledged a significantly higher total of battle deaths seven months previously, when the most gigantic fighting on the Western Front was yet to occur, suggests that the Sanitatsbericht figures, however carefully tabulated, might be incomplete in so far as its count for killed and died of wounds is concerned....

Post #209: At that time the record of the Sanits Bericht shows a total for killed and died of wounds of roughly 865,000 ( there were also an additional 680,000 mising and prisoners acknowledged by that time). The disparity in terms of recorded combat fatalities is significant - the Central Enquiry Office indicating a total 270,000 higher i.e. more than thirty per cent - than those allowed for in the sanits bericht...

Post #244: For the life of me, I cannot make up my mind either. I don't think that the SB tabulations are an assortment of lies, I really don't...But I do notice the disparities, as mentioned in my previous posts. And it's also hard to cope with the notion of so many British accounts of Mons being rubbish. No doubt there were exagerations, but it's no good "leaning over backwards" either...

I won't spell out the contradictions, they're glaringly obvious, but I will ask another question, Phil. Which Phil will be the author of your next post, the one who treats the Sanitatsbericht figures as being irrefutably accurate, or the one who thinks they contain significant disparities and may well be incomplete, or will it be the one who now regards the Central Enquiries Office's figures as being gospel?

I admire you for contributing to the debate and not just heckling from the sidelines, Phil. But come on, how can it continue with any semblance of reason with such glaring contradictions punching massive holes in your primary argument?

Cheers-salesie.

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I've spent some time reading the Sanitaetsbericht figures, including the long explanatory preface that explains the methods used. I feel they are the most accurate figures available for German casualties suffered during the war.

The finalized numbers were completed as of 31 December 1933. This allowed the committee to reconcile the missing with those later reported wounded, dead, simply atomized, and prisoners. It also allowed for those who were captured and never reported to be counted.

As is stated in the preface the figures released by the units during battle were only "The perception of the casualties at that time." What does that mean? Because of the ten-day reporting system a man who went missing towards the end of the cycle could be reported as missing within one cycle, only to return from whatever circumstances he was in (cut off in a shellhole in no-mans's land, for example) in the next cycle. The units, reporting within the ten day cycle would not go back and reconcile the previous report--it was already gone--a moving snapshot of the situation at that time.

The ten day cycle tended to build the following bias--missing numbers were too high, numbers for dead and wounded too low. If soldier Schmidt was killed in some lonely corner of trench while attacking, he would probably be reported as missing initially. The Sanitaetsbericht figures were able to reconcile a lot of the missing numbers as either dead, wounded, or POW.

I've seen the assertion put forward on this board a number of times that the Germans were basically cooking their casualty figures for various reasons, either during the war or afterward as some plot to support Nazi propaganda. Most of this (all?) is coming from people who have never seen the Sanitaetsbericht figures, or examined and compared them to the surviving ten-day returns.

In the case of the German Official History, and the Sanitaetsbericht figures, this would presuppose a massive plot which spans the regime of the Kaiser, the Weimar Repuplic, and the Nazis. Having seen the massive amount of work that some poor officer had to do in relation to compiling an accurate casualty count for the German forces at Verdun, it would have to be an elaborate plot indeed, and one that is not reflected in the papers of the OH writers--work papers which were never intended for release and research.

No casualty figures for the war are ever going to "totally accurate" for any of the forces involved. When looking at the number of men involved, even an error or 1 or 2% can result in a shift in the 10's of thousands. We can however have a "most accurate" set of figures, in this case the Sanitaetsbericht are what I mean.

The conspiracy theories and lack of trust in the Sanitaetsbericht figures are, in my opinion, unfounded and their genesis comes not from a careful examination of the sources, but a lack of knowldege of them on the part of the doubters.

Paul

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All-

The original poster continues to follow this extraordinary response to his question.

I am grateful for the restraint shown in disagreement, and trust that it will continue.

Robert Dunlop-

Would you be so kind as to post the source of your quote from "Lt. Woollcombe, 4/Middlesex's

Adjutant during the Battle of Mons", given in post #306.

Many thanks.

--Bob

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The conspiracy theories and lack of trust in the Sanitaetsbericht figures are, in my opinion, unfounded and their genesis comes not from a careful examination of the sources, but a lack of knowldege of them on the part of the doubters.

Paul

Paul, a general defence of the Sanitaetsbericht figures but with no detail. My serious doubts about them spring from the following: If the German Army was not running out of men in late 1916, contrary to what their casualty returns said, then why were the classes of 1917 and 1918 called to the colours up to two years early? And, seeing as those premature German conscripts outnumbered the German casualty returns, and the German Army did not grow in size, then where on earth did they go?

Now that you've explained the differing principles behind the Sanitaetsbericht and the ten-day returns, you seem to confirm what Phil stated earlier that there are differences between the Government returns made during the war and the Sanitaetsbericht. Perhaps you could be so good as to tell us, in overall terms, what the differences are - did the Sanitaetsbericht lower the overall German casualty rate?

Cheers-salesie.

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Before dealing with your post, Salesie, in which you repudiate my reasoninng because I countenance figures which are hard to reconcile, I repeat my suggestion, and request that some one here who is fluent in German contacts the German War Graves people and tries to find out how many German military personel are on their records as having died in the Great War. The answer, I suspect, will authenticate the figure of just over two million, which, it should be noted, the SB appears to endorse on page 12 of volume 3. I say "appears" because I don't read German, and have assumed that is what it's saying because of the prominent headline figures it cites. In this regard it is in harmony with the information from the Central Enquiries bureau. But Heck, salesie, you may be right.....if we have a suggestion from the War Graves organisation that the true figure was several hundred thousand more, say 2.4, 2,5 or even 3 million, then I will have to honour you with winning the argument.

I look forward to presenting a more comprehensive answer later on.

Phil.

This is a quick edit - we must remember to enquire about more than the number of burials, since many German dead from the war were never recovered. There must have been hundreds of thousands of those.

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Salesie

You are attempting to defend Edmonds' outrageous claims concerning German casualties on a totally false basis. Nobody is denying that the German army faced major manpower problems from just after mid 1916 - certainly not the German army. If anything, the situation was worse than you have described after your reading of the work of British intelligence. I have a collection of copies of 50 original documents, exchanged at the very highest level, which are appended to an unpublished cover document entitled Die Ersatzlage um die Wende des Jahres 1917 und ihre Entwicklung bis zum Ende des Krieges [The replacement situation at the turn of the year 1917/18 and its development until the end of the war]. This paints a picture of an utterly dire situation which was rapidly worsening. Elsewhere in this thread I have already pointed out the enormous manpower gap published in the San-Bericht concerning the position in spring and summer 1918. Now all this is very interesting and, if that was the source of Edmonds' information before he began to employ every type of statistical trick on the figures in the two volumes of BOH concerning the Battle of the Somme, it would be highly relevant. But Edmonds worked on a different basis, so everything you have said in your recent posts on this subjects gets us no further forward.

I was pleased to see, bearing in mind your attempt to defend Edmonds, that you amended your position of casting doubt on his work, 'Whatever Edmonds, AJP Taylor or anyone else says, the arithmetic as well as the logic seems straightforward to me...' to only damning him by faint praise yesterday, 'Edmonds was on the right track...' Is that all? He was in charge of the BOH. Surely it is reasonable to expect him to do better than that? But do you even know what position you are defending? So far you have given no indication that you have read and understood Edmonds' published methodology. Here I must compare your approach unfavourably with that of George. You will recall that I posted material relating to British accounts of Le Cateau. George, not being familiar with them, but as a fair minded historian, is currently reading his way through, so as to be in a position to answer my two questions - 'Where on the Le Cateau battlefield did the German army suffer 10,000 casualties and who caused them? When he has had time to complete the work I look forward to what he has to say based on the knowledge he has gained. In the meantime in the same spirit of enquiry, I am keeping quiet on the subject until he is ready to reopen the discussion. If he demonstrates the case I shall amend my position in respect for his work and I am sure, based on the exchanges we had regarding Smith Dorrien, that he will amend his if necessary. This is not to say that we shall reach agreement, but there will, I am sure, be concessions.

You, on the other hand have rubbished, or at least brushed aside, Phil's information concerning where to look to understand Edmonds' case. He has told you to refer to Vol I of the Somme BOH and you should also take the time to read pp xiii - xvi of the Preface to Military Operations France and Belgium 1916 2nd July to the End of the Battles of the Somme. If you did so, you would not keep banging on about British intelligence work during the war, because you would know that Edmonds' starting point for his - off the scale - 1938 calculations were figures he obtained from the post war work of the Zentral Nachweiseamt. George has already indicated how swiftly his work became to be doubted. The letters to the Times which Geoge posted were, of course, in response to no less a person than Liddell Hart, who pointed out that at one stage in his calculations, he had counted 45,000 twice and then gone on to compound it by extrapolating from a false position!

Now, so that we can move on, can you please do us all the courtesy of reading into the subject more widely, so that your contributions can add to our collective knowledge?

Jack

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I have been looking at the British Official History account of the Battle of Mons. It is interesting to compare the account with the British primary sources quoted above. Clearly something very serious happened in the region of the Nimy-Obourg salient. The BOH clearly notes that this related to the attack developed by the German IX. Corps: 'Before 9 am German guns were in position on the high ground north of the canal, and very soon shells were bursting thickly along the whole line of the Middlesex and the Royal Fusiliers.' IX. Corps obviously amassed a very significant number of guns at an early hour, then opened a significant preparatory bombardment. The intensity and effectiveness of the bombardment is confirmed by the accounts of Woollcombe and by St Leger. The former was knocked down at least once by an explosion. The effectiveness can also be gauged by the significant advances made by the German infantry, which were noted by the British sometime after the bombardment. The BOH records that 'by 9 am German infantry were pressing on to engage the Middlesex about Obourg... [and] by 10 am the company in Obourg was heavily engaged and, indeed, hard pressed...'

The BOH describes the Royal Fusiliers as 'meanwhile... ceaselessly shooting down Germans , who at first came on in heavy masses...' The same sentence, however, goes on to say that, as a result of the BEF rifle and machine gun fire, the Germans 'soon abandoned this costly method of attack. They then began working across the front in small parties, in order to form for a fresh effort under cover of the woods.'

The BOH concludes the description of this time period, up until 11 am, by commenting that 'the British troops in the Salient had orders to make "a stubborn resistance"; the Middlesex and the Royal Fusiliers, therefore, defended themselves with tenacity, and until past 11 am were still defending their original positions'. When the BOH account resumes, it suggests that the next phase of the battle for the salient resulted from the Middlesex finding that the 'Germans were nearly in rear of them', which meant the battalion 'began to fall back westward through the Bois d'Havre'. This suggests a deliberate process dictated by an appreciation of the vulnerability to encirclement, a very wise move. In fact, as noted before, urgent requests for reinforcements came through to the Middlesex HQ. Hence the movement forward of the Royal Irish. Furthermore, when the rearward movement began, it was associated with the premature withdrawal of at least one company that fell back without orders. Woollcombe noted other units falling back as well, and he spent some time rallying these men on a new defensive line. Loss of officers was mentioned as the cause for the former event, a testament to the significant casualties that were mounting under the pressure of a coordinated attack with artillery, machine gun and rifle fire.

The focus of the BOH shifts at this point and details are given about the effective response of the Gordon Highlanders and Royal Scots who 'in this quarter brought [the enemy] to a complete standstill three hundred yards from the British trenches'.

After recounting what was happening further along the canal to the west, the BOH again returned to 'the Salient the conditions were very different'. Again the point is made that the German infantry 'taught by experience... abandonned massed formation and advanced in extended order', a more sophisticated method of attack.

The BOH goes on to describe the difficult situation of the Royal Irish, drawing heavily on St Leger's account. One minor point, however, is the comment that 'local counter-attack to relieve the situation was out of the question, owing to wire fences and other obstacles'. While this was an accurate description of the terrain, it was not the primary reason for the inability to counter-attack, as emphasized by the next sentence: 'Far from gaining ground, the Royal Irish could only just hold their own'. German artillery, machine gun and rifle fire caused intense pressure, resulting in the rapid suppression and then destruction of the Royal Irish machine gun section as one example that is narrated in the BOH.

The BOH then accurately described the situation of the Royal Irish and the Middlesex as 'precarious in the extreme... their ground was under good observation from the heights north of the canal; and the Germans batteries [of the 18th Division], having complete ascendancy, kept them under heavy fire'. The comment is made that 'under the protection of this fire, the enemy infantry slowly gained ground by their sheer weight of numbers, although not without loss'. This comment does not accurately reflect what the German infantry, in combination with the bold pushing forward of machine guns, were achieving. The detailed descriptions provided by Woollcombe and St Leger confirm that the it took great personal leadership on the part of the remaining officers to maintain the semblance of order under the intense fire and the fact that, as the BOH reports, 'the German infantry, in great force, was within a furlong of the Royal Irish and working round both flanks'. The German attack was well coordinated and well supported. Thanks to the personal bravery and the persistence of the British officers, the remnants of the Middlesex and Royal Irish were withdrawn to a position where they could reestablish a line of defence that held. This was also a testament to the fighting qualities of the men, who responded well and did not disintegrate under the heavy pressure. My point is that we should not underestimate what the Germans achieved, nor how they set about achieving it.

The evolving situation on the left flank of the Middlesex is handled in an interesting way by the BOH. A rather bland comment is made to the effect that 'at 2 pm, the Royal Fusiliers, in obedience to Br.-General Shaw's (9th Brigade) orders, withdrew southwards from Nimy', which is supplemented by information about the skill of the withdrawal whereby 'the supporting companies covering the retirement of the advanced companies with peace-time precision'. Even more interesting is the subsequent sentence that 'after re-forming in Mons the battalion moved southwards again to Ciply'. The Royal Fusiliers War Diary recorded that 'we suffered severly on the bridges over the Canal by rifle and artillery fire'. Heavy pressure was obviously exerted on the forward elements. The nature of the retirement seems to have been different from that carried out by the Middlesex. There is a very worrying aspect of this retirement that seems to have escaped comment. Whether the retirement was forced, or was the result of a pre-emptive order from 9th Brigade (the RF War Diary records the first order to retire as being given at 1.10 pm), the left flank of the 8th Brigade was threatened with being uncovered. The danger of this movement was further exposed in a following sentence in the BOH, which highlights the very effective 'destructive fire' of the Lincolnshires, supported by 109th Battery RFA, who prevented the Germans from following up the Royal Fuiliers' retirement south of Mons. In an almost throw-away line, the BOH concludes this segment by saying that 'unable to make any progress, [the Germans] turned westward, leaving the Lincolnshire to retire at their leisure...'. What the BOH does not point out is that 'westward' lay the now exposed right flank of the remainder of 3rd Division and the 5th Division, who were stubbornly resisting along the rest of the canal.

In relating this information, I want to highlight how the BOH can influence the way we perceive what happened in a battle. There is no doubt that the BEF fought well. But we must not underestimate what the Germans achieved, penetrating quite deeply into the BEF positions. It can seem as if the only reason the BEF retreated from Mons, having inflicted terrible casualties on the 'massed' German attackers, is because Lanrezac had withdrawn the Fifth Army on the British right. In fact, leaving aside the German crossings in the area of Jemappes, the success of those elements of German IX Corps that attacked the salient meant that the BEF's position was totally untenable. In a seemingly well-coordinated attack, as recorded by the British, IX Corps appears to have rapidly transitioned from an approach march into an encounter battle. The artillery fire was prepared early and in significant force. This covering fire appears to have moved forward as the infantry advanced, and the Germans rapidly deployed machine guns in commanding positions. The infantry quickly adapted their attack formations, although this alone would not have enabled the German success as evidenced by the result of the unsupported infantry attacks on the British right flank. Several British accounts comment on the 'lack of initiative' shown on the 23rd August. This comment needs to regarded with caution.

Robert

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Would you be so kind as to post the source of your quote from "Lt. Woollcombe, 4/Middlesex's Adjutant during the Battle of Mons", given in post #306.
Certainly, Bob. A copy of the original can be downloaded from the National Archives - WO 95/1422.

Robert

I've spent some time reading the Sanitaetsbericht figures, including the long explanatory preface that explains the methods used. I feel they are the most accurate figures available for German casualties suffered during the war.
Thanks very much for the extra information on this, Paul. Very interesting.

Robert

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Thanks for the extract Robert.

With regard to a statement toward the end of your post mentioning the skill with which the Germans ' transitioned from an approach march to an encounter battle '. We need not be surprised. One thing that Zuber's book, mentioned in an earlier post, emphasises, is the skill with which the Germans could perform this transition. The early battles in the Ardennes were of this nature and in the majority of cases the German army reacted much more effectively and inflicted severe checks and heavy losses on the French. It may be that the British were presenting the Germans with a much better tactical answer than they had been presented with before and this is why they were caught out exposing themselves to fire while still in close formation.

Phil, just one point. We have as contributers to this thread at least 3 people, who to my knowledge are professionally engaged in translating German and have access to a vast array of German source material. I do not think any useful source will be ignored by them.

The secondary discussion which has arisen on this thread seems to me to be highly unlikely to lead to any consensus. No historian can do better than quote the sources he is using in his work. We in turn accept or reject them. None of the sources are free from flaws. The importance we allot to these flaws will decide the trust we accord to that source and its weight in evidence. Unless someone comes up with some new evidence which all sides agree on, I fear we are doomed to reject the other chap's source and cling to our own. These are decisions which will have been made over years of consulting sources. They are not going to be easy to alter. I am in danger of teaching grannies to suck eggs here but it seems that the discussion is much more likely to generate heat than light.

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