Wounded of the Somme

[Great Uncle Ted]

In an attempt to identify the number of British and Dominion wounded during the 1916 Somme offensive, I am searching for the figures for killed , missing and wounded that make up the widely accepted total casualty figure of 419,654 (said by the Official History to be the unadjusted - for the missing who subsequently returned - British Somme casualty numbers from 1 July to 30 Novemeber 1916).

Wikipedia, in its article on the Battle, gives a figure of 95,675 for the number of British and Commonwealth "killed and missing", however, the Imperial War Museum's on-line Somme exhibition gives the number of British and Empire "dead" as 125,000. Can anyone either suggest which of these two figures is most authoritative or identify the breakdown of the 419.654 figure?

Much appreciated

Mark

[phil andrade]

Mark,

The higher figure is undoubtedly nearer the mark, since it is authenticated by CWGC records.

Actually, the registers of the CWGC list 127,751 British Empire dead in the area of the Somme battlefields between July 1st and November 20th, 1916 : these are the names of men buried or commemorated there. Middlebrook cites this figure in his book on the Somme battlefields, but emphasises that it does not allow for the thousands who were mortally wounded and died of their wounds in base hospitals far away from the Somme after they had been evacuated. If we account for these, the final toll of the battle would surely be in the order of 135,000.

The figure of 95, 675 might be authentic, but it alludes to killed and missing only, and does not - presumably - include perhaps twenty to twenty five thousand died from wounds.

In an attempt to ascertain how the breakdown of the casualties might be comprised, I encountered a footnote in the Australian Medical History which cited a figure of 316,073 wounded admitted to the field ambulances of the 4th, 5th ( Reserve) and 3rd Armies between 1st July and 30th November 1916.


On the strength of that statistic, I would venture a guesstimate of 100,000+ killed or missing, and a mortality rate of seven or eight per cent amongst 315,00+ wounded. Perhaps five thousand or so of the missing would have been prisoners. The CWGC figure would include several thousand who died from accident or illness, and are not properly battle casualties attributable to the Somme fighting.

You can be fairly confident that no fewer than thirty per cent of the 415,000 to 420,000 British Empire casualties were fatal : posted as killed in action, died from wounds, or missing presumed dead.

I'll try and find some more precise reckoning if you wish.

Edited for error

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Another thought, Mark..

You might do well to refer to official British tabulations of casualties for Third Ypres. For some reason, the British Official History gives a breakdown for " Passchendaele", while it fails to do so for the Somme (as far as I know).

Different battle, of course, but enough similarity to afford extrapolation.

Breakdown for Third Ypres, after final " adjustments" :

Total : 238,313

breakdown : confirmed killed in action, 35,831 ( 15% of total)

wounded, 172,994 ( 72.6%)

missing, 29,488 ( 12.4%)

Total killed and missing, 65,319 ; comprising 27.4% of total casualties.

The Somme total - again, " adjusted" - is given as 415,640.

Applying those same criteria for breakdown would result in :

Confirmed killed: 62,346; wounded : 301,755 ; missing : 51,539. Total killed and missing : 113,855.

Hardly satisfactory, but worth considering. If you try and get an exact count, you would go mad.

Crucial to the assessment is awareness that a significant proportion of the missing were taken prisoners ; but against that we have to factor in mortality among the wounded ( 7.4% in 1916; 8.8% in 1917, source Medical Statistics).

According to Franky Bosteyn, the CWGC registers name 77,032 British Empire fatalities in Belgium between July 31st and November 12th 1917. he emphasises the same caveat as Middlebrook ....there were many more who were evacuated and died of wounds in hospitals further afield. All the same, his Passchendaele figure equates to just over sixty per cent of Middlebrook's Somme figure ; just as the official total casualty figures for the two battles equate - the consistency is remarkable.

The Somme affords us a special insight into the most notorious casualty figure of all : that of the first day. We know that 57,470 casualties were sustained ; we know that of those, 19,240 were definitely killed or died from their wounds ; there were an additional 2,152 missing who could not be accounted for, and who, if included, yield a notional total of 21,392 fatalities. A uniquely awful figure, with deaths accounting for more than thirty seven per cent of the total casualties. The remaining period of the battle cost another 358,170 casualties. If we apply to that figure a notional thirty per cent for killed, missing presumed dead and died from wounds ( too low, perhaps ?), another 107,451 fatalities were incurred, producing a total of approaching one hundred and thirty thousand.

Hope that helps.

Phil (PJA)

[Great Uncle Ted]

Phil,

Very many thanks for your most helpful replies. Casualty recording on such a large scale is never going to be a precise art, and is not helped by the fact that wounded men can subsequently die and missing men turn up dead, wounded or as prisoners. The field ambulance, wounded admissions figure would seem to be the best available in the absence of a known breakdown of the 419,654 figure.

Much appreciated

Mark

PS

I like the banter and wonder whether it inspired Winston Churchill's response to the lady's charge that he was drunk.

[phil andrade]

Pleased to have been of some use, Mark.

Despite their bewildering contradictions, the casualty data contain some hardcore consistencies that can be discerned if one looks hard .

I think that it might have been Randolph, Winston's Dad, who made that classic riposte you allude to.

Winston Churchill's chapter THE BLOOD TEST in his history of The Great War contains some very hard hitting stuff when it comes to analysis and discussion of the casualty figures.

Edit : According to Wiki, I'm wrong....it was Winston to Lady Astor !

Phil(PJA)

[stripeyman]

Phil

Out of the blue this morning I have been asked by a friend what was the percentage of the total manpower of the British Army that became fatalities? Not knowing the answer and reading this thread I thought that you might know.......

Thanks

bob

[phil andrade]

About one man in eight lost his life in the British Army, roughly thirteen per cent of all who served. That's for UK only. Total casualties, dead, wounded, gassed and prisoner, were well in excess of forty percent.

For the entire British Empire, mortality reached about eleven per cent.

In the units that served in the frontline, especially the infantry, death rates were very much higher.

Roughly half of all the men who served in the British Armies on the Western Front became casualties. About fourteen per cent of them died. Again, that includes the rear support personnel. Infantrymen sustained heavier loss than that.

Phil (PJA)

[stripeyman]

Thanks Phil, I have wrote it all down and will present him with the info, also commit it to my mind so I can give a ready answer to any one else who asks.

[phil andrade]

Another piece of information - or, perhaps, I might do better to describe it as an opinion - regarding the casualties of the Somme is the way they are preponderant in British public perception of the Great War.

Approaching one fifth of all British soldiers who died in battle on the Western Front 1914-1918 fell in this battle.

That is a very high proportion attributable to a single battle.

To illustrate the point, Verdun - undoubtedly France's most " iconic" battle of the war - accounted for about one tenth of all French battle deaths in the conflict ; likewise, Passchendaele - notorious in British memory - reaped a toll of roughly ten per cent of all British fatalities in France and Flanders.

In this respect, the Somme does carry a pre-eminence.

Other battles were distinguished by comparable or even higher rates of British casualties assessed on a daily average basis, although it should be noted that none equals the rate for the month of July on the Somme - hardly surprising, given the catastrophe of the first day.

In view of this, it's rather odd that so little information has been made available regarding the breakdown of the figure.

Maybe the very fixation on that first day has so exercised the minds of people that the cost of the ensuing one hundred and forty days has not been properly investigated. The fighting in September, for example, was appallingly expensive in British lives, every bit as bad as July if we discount the first day.

The great battles of September 1918 are often mentioned as equally expensive for the British armies, but it is not acknowledged sufficiently that the casualties of the Hundred Days contained a much lower proportion of dead.

There is still much research to be conducted into the casualties of the Somme, and I am grateful to the original poster for his cogent and challenging question.

Editing : The British casualties in the sixteen days of the German Offensive commencing 21 March 1918 did exceed those of the month of July on the Somme : I should have remembered that. There is one crucial difference....the very high proportion of prisoners yielded by the British meant that the number of killed was nowhere near as great as it had been in the 1916 episode.

Phil (PJA)