The "machine guns" of Mons ?

[phil andrade]

Phil you still seem to be missing the essential point, which is that every source produced under the auspices of the Nazi state is inherently suspect.

In other words, I can't see the wood for the trees.

Strange as it sounds, I hope you're right, George.

I would be pleased to accept that the SB compilations are unsound; that they were deployed by a bureaucracy that was shot through with Nazi ideology. My goodness, I've been busy offering evidence of disparities by comparing them with published official figures in the Great War itself.

Have you taken a look at the SB statistics, George?

I've glanced at some of the tables, but I cannot read German. The headline figures are clear enough, and I reckon I've got the gist of the general conclusions. I'll take this further, and ask some of my daughter's German speaking graduate friends to translate some of the text. I will happily expose anything and everything that looks suspect.

I get the overwhelming impression that the tabulations are above board and compiled with a view to giving as truthful an account of the experiences of the German medical experience 1914-1918 as possible. I have to say, though, that the figures for the Western Front August-November 1914 are not in harmony with those of the Reichsarchiv or the Central Enquiries bureau. This I believe is more due to the gargantuan scale of the events and the difficulties of keeping track of the statistics than to a distortive or supressive agenda. If statistics were distorted in order to comply with Nazi dictates, then I would expect this to have been more apparent in the tables for casualties in the Kaiserslacht in March-April 1918 than in those for 1914. It transpires that the SB gives higher losses for that period than does the RA.

I promise to keep an open mind on this.

Phil.

[George Armstrong Custer]

GAC, lest anyone is unclear on this, this part of the discussion revolves around a very specific aspect of British scholarship, namely British historical interpretations of what happened to the Germans with respect to casualties caused. It is not, as far as I can tell, about invalidating British historical accounts with respect to what they did, and is definitely not about invalidating the skill and performance of the BEF infantry. It is not where I am coming from, and unless I have misread Jack, it is not where he is coming from either. Any account by one side that seeks to interpret what happened to the other side should also be treated with caution, IMHO.

Sorry Robert, but I have to disagree with you there. This part of the discussion clearly revolves at least as much around specific aspects of German historical scholarship and the circumstances in which they were produced. Jack has consistently suggested that his German casualty figures do not support the numerous British contentions of casualties inflicted in August 1914. If they are as irreconcileable as Jack suggests then one surely has to make a choice of which to accept on the balance of probability.

I'm not entirely clear what your final sentence which runs "Any account by one side that seeks to interpret what happened to the other side should also be treated with caution, IMHO" is trying to say. Nor do I wish to put words into your mouth which you may not intend. However, it seems to me that this could be read as suggesting that British accounts of what happened to the Germans should be treated with equal caution to that applied to German sources compiled during the period 1918-45. I'd be grateful if you could clarify your meaning on that point.

George

[Robert Dunlop]

Yes, GAC. I am cautious about German accounts too. One example that comes quickly to mind relates to the German interpretations of the limited advances during the various battles in Third Ypres. Very often, the German commentators state that their actions brought the advances to a halt with stout and determined defending. Knowing the details of the British accounts, however, brings a very different perspective to bear. In many cases the advances stopped because the pre-determined objective lines had been reached. A simple example but I hope it illustrates the point.

Actually, all accounts need to be treated with caution. Anecdotal contemporaneous diary notes or equivalent have certain shortcomings in common, plus the idiosyncracies of the specific authors. War diaries have a different set of shortcomings, as do post hoc recollections. It is great that we able to review more and more of this material. Although there are many gaps, it is more possible than ever to glimpse what happened from multiple perspectives. These discussions enliven and enhance that process IMHO.

Turning again to British scholarship in official histories, I love reading them. Some of them are rivetting, particularly the accounts in the March through May 1918 volumes for example. It is interesting, however, that one of the key contributors, Captain Wynne, felt compelled to write an alternative perspective in a series of journal articles later collated together and published as the book 'If Germany Attacks...'. It provides a very very different perspective, drawing on German sources to illustrate the deeper principles behind their offensive and defensive performances - principles that one can see underpinning their performance at Le Cateau for example. By all accounts, Wynne was slated for his publications, no doubt in part because he was suggesting that, in essence, the then British Army had to learn from these principles if they were not to be decisively beaten by the Germans in the next war.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

To be more specific, Wynne said in his postscript:

"Since this chapter was written last July the British and French empires have again been forced to the crude expedient of war. Armed masses are facing each other across the Franco-German frontier, and a mighty blow by Germany's armed strength next spring (1940) with a consequent clash of doctrines which have been discussed in these pages, seems to be as inevitable as it is inconceivable. It is to be hoped that by the time the essentials of a defence in depth will have been established, and that an array of suitably trained counter-attack formations will be ready as an echelon of reserves behind the Maginot barrage. If the blow should be struck, and no other idea, such as 'sleeping army' of Loos fame, supplant Weight of Metal, it may be said with confidence that none shall pass."

He was not talking about the final outcome of the Second World War, lest my inadequate summary be misinterpreted.

Robert

[George Armstrong Custer]

Would either of you like to comment and perhaps talk us through where on the Le Cateau battlefield the Germans suffered 'stupendous' casualties and 'losses far heavier than ours' and who caused them?

Jack I now find that there are three posts from you since I was on earlier today. So let me cut to what I understand you to see as the heart of the matter. That phrase "stupendous" is one that has exercised you throughout the thread. Everything you have adduced from German - and now British - sources has the aim of demonstrating the lack of evidence for the Germans having sustained "stupendous" casualties at Le Cateau. An obvious first question might be "How do you quantify 'stupendous' in a way which will find general agreement?" I believe providing an answer to that might test you, but it is in any case irrelevant in my opinion. What matters is to put the single use of the word "stupendous" which you have repeatedly focussed upon in its correct context. It was, after all, initially on the basis of his use of that word that you dismissed Edmonds, the British Official Historian, as a 'fantasist.'

So, where does Edmonds use the word "stupendous" and in what context? Well, he doesn't use it at all in his account of Le Cateau which appears on pp. 134 - 200 of volume I of the Official History Military Operations France and Belgium 1914. That applies to the first edition of 1923 and the second edition of 1925. He uses it on page x of the Preface in the second edition of 1925, to which a Note dated March 1925 is added to the text of the 1923 first edition's Preface. The Note concerns itself with the publication the first two volumes of the German official history which had appeared at Christmas 1924. The Note concentrates exclusively on being a critique of the less than 7-page account in the German history on the battle of Le Cateau. "Stupendous" is the very last word in the Note. It is used in the context of refuting the conclusion of the German history that "the result of the Battle of Le Cateau was an unqualified success for the First Army." Edmonds observes that "The losses in gaining the 'success' are not mentioned; there is no doubt that they were stupendous." So there we have the single British use of your bete noire, Jack. It is used to emphasise the difference between the German OH's account of an unqualified success where no cost in casualties are mentioned and the British OH's account on pp. 134-200 which concludes that "there is no doubt that the enemy suffered very heavy losses, and for that reason has said little about it." "Very heavy losses" it seems to me can rightly be described as "stupendous" in the context of comparing them to an account which claims an "unqualified success" with zero casualties mentioned. In other words, the text of the British OH on Le Cateau in neither the 1923 nor the 1925 edition uses the word "stupendous" when describing German casualties at Le Cateau. It describes them as "very heavy" - which, in my view, is an entirely sustainable phrase. "Stupendous" is only used in a Note added to the Preface of the 1925 edition after the appearance of a less than 7-page account of Le Cateau in the German OH (the British OH runs to 66 pages on Le Cateau), and is used in the context of drawing attention to the yawning gap between the German silence on casualties in describing an "unqualified success" and the British contention of "very heavy" casualties being incurred by the Germans.

It seems to me, Jack, that you're chasing a chimera in trying to use German sources to disprove British claims of "stupendous" casualties inflicted on the Germans at Le Cateau - the British OH never used the word in the context you imply. His text refers to "very heavy" German losses before Le Cateau. Speaking for myself I'm afraid you won't convince me to throw the British claim of inflicting heavy losses at Le Cateau out the window on the basis of German publications from the years 1918-45. And neither, I think, do any of the British sources that you've now referenced undermine the British OH's reference to inflicting "heavy losses".

I've made my views on the limits of usefulness of German histories produced between 1918-1945 as clear as I can on this thread. Whilst not writing them off as comprehensively useless, nor their authors as fantasists, I believe that the unique circumstances of the people who compiled them, and the milieu in which they were produced makes their usefulness a distinctly limited one. I pretty much agree with Richard Holmes in his Foreward to your Somme book that the German sources can be compiled into a fine collection of accounts from individuals which reveal that the battles of the Great War were "a supreme test of human qualities" as much for the German soldier as any other. I wonder though whether, like myself, Holmes would have reservations about German sources from the 1930's being used to call into question his own conclusions which are based upon British sources as you do in post #70. As I say, I've made my thoughts on the limitations of such sources as clear as I can. I know from your Appendix III that you endorse the fact that caveats ought to be applied to German histories produced 1918-33, and although you haven't yet addressed the issue of using post-1933 German material as sources I don't doubt that you too must have even stronger reservations about these.

ciao,

George

[Jack Sheldon]

Stupendous = Amazing, prodigious, astounding, especially by size or degree [OED]. I have seized on this word, George, because it exemplifies my point precisely. The British accepted view of the casualties suffered by the German army at Le Cateau is a wild exaggeration and the reason I am concentrating on that battle is because the degree of exaggeration, the factor by which they were inflated, is greater than was the case at Mons. The casualties suffered, even by the small proportion of First Army engaged, were not amazing, prodigious, or astounding; they were in line with the sort of casualties incurred in 1914 when one set of formations advanced on another.

I notice that you have not mentioned Smith - Dorrien in your reply. It may not have been intentional, so I draw nothing from the omission, but I think that his words are also significant. What are we - what do you - make of the phrase 'far greater than ours?' bearing in mind that at the time he wrote that the British casualties were reckoned to be 7,800 or so. Nobody has attempted to define what 'far greater' means. I suggested 10,000 as a minimum and nobody has challenged that, but it is only a guess. It does seem to me, though, that he must have implied and others must have accepted, that he was more or less correct, so we need to try and understand what kind of figure he had in mind and I would welcome any more suggestions.

I have tried three different approaches to persuade you to accept that German casualties at Le Cateau were very much lower than the generally assumed figure. First of all I told you what the outcome was based on a reading of the German sources. You were not content with that. I then described which German formations were committed to the battle and gave you figures which were as high as I could possibly make them and asked you to comment on how every unit within miles could have lost 30% of its strength, bearing in mind the length of the battle and its nature. That did not elicit a response and, after much to-ing and fro-ing regarding sources, you made your position clear by expressing a personal preference for British sources. I then supplied you with a long selection of quotations from the British regimental histories which describe the experiences of the units in the line of battle and asked you to comment and, in particular, to say where on the battlefield the slaughter occurred.

You have given us a comprehensive answer, in which inter alia you state once more that I am trying to use German sources to disprove British claims, but I have moved on. To accommodate your concerns, I am now using British sources to disprove British claims. I have, naturally made a selection, which is why I invited you to repeat the exercise. Go through the relevant British histories which are easy to find in any specialist library in UK and pick the ones which support the view that where Germans appeared within range, British fire of all types effectively wiped them out, as they must have had to have done to produce casualties 'far greater than ours' from the small proportion of the German First Army which fought them.

If it cannot be done and I maintain it cannot, what does that tell us about the innate superiority of British sources?

Jack

[Steven Broomfield]

Without being terribly scientific, I've just taken the 2nd Essex History off the shelf; it talks of the Brigade (12th) suffering in excess of 1,000 casualties, of which 141 were Essex (3 officers and 107 men killed or Missing). It refers to two Companies opening 'destructive fire' at a range of 1,300 yards on German supports, but doesn't quantify - can't quantify figures.

It's utterly unscientific, but one point strikes me: the Essex assumed their fire was 'destructive', but at a range of 1,300 yards, how did they know? They knew their own casualties for sure, but any attempt to assess the damage inflicted on the other side has to be more or less guesswork, given that we didn't have control of the field after the battle.

[George Armstrong Custer]

[Stupendous = Amazing, prodigious, astounding, especially by size or degree [OED]. I have seized on this word, George, because it exemplifies my point precisely. The British accepted view of the casualties suffered by the German army at Le Cateau is a wild exaggeration and the reason I am concentrating on that battle is because the degree of exaggeration, the factor by which they were inflated, is greater than was the case at Mons. The casualties suffered, even by the small proportion of First Army engaged, were not amazing, prodigious, or astounding; they were in line with the sort of casualties incurred in 1914 when one set of formations advanced on another.

Really, this is starting to get bogged down in semantics of the worst sort now Jack. We could go on for a considerable period quoting definitions of "stupendous" at each other from various dictionaries - I have three different dictionaries on the shelf and each gives differing sets of definitions. Encarte, for instance, the most recent says: "impressively large; excellent or great in extent or degree." But come on Jack, I was making it perfectly clear that the central point is the context in which the word you take issue with in the British OH is used. As I have taken some trouble to explain, it is not used in the text of the British OH to describe German casualties - the phrase used there in both editions is "very heavy losses". The use of "stupendous" is only used in a Note to the second edition of the British OH, which comments on the total silence on German casualties in the recently published German OH. A British assertion of "very heavy losses" can in my view quite properly be described as "stupendous" in direct comparison to a German account which mentions no losses at all. The British OH nowhere, as you are trying to imply, uses the word "stupendous" as an indicator per se of the level of German casualties. It is used solely in the context of the British OH taking the view that British reports of German casualties are "stupendous" in comparison to a total German silence on the subject and claims of an "unqualified success."

I notice that you have not mentioned Smith - Dorrien in your reply. It may not have been intentional, so I draw nothing from the omission, but I think that his words are also significant. What are we - what do you - make of the phrase 'far greater than ours?' bearing in mind that at the time he wrote that the British casualties were reckoned to be 7,800 or so. Nobody has attempted to define what 'far greater' means. I suggested 10,000 as a minimum and nobody has challenged that, but it is only a guess. It does seem to me, though, that he must have implied and others must have accepted, that he was more or less correct, so we need to try and understand what kind of figure he had in mind and I would welcome any more suggestions.

What I make of Smith-Dorrien is that he was a personally brave, very experienced and competent commander. He does not strike me as being given to lying or resorting to false braggadocio in order to enhance his personal reputation. If he felt something was his due he would certainly say so, though. His phrase "far greater than ours" means what it says in my view, and it was made in a sincere believe that it was a correct assessment. It was probably also actually true on localised spots of the field. But as the British were fighting a desperate holding battle from which they also had to withdraw at an opportune moment before becoming enveloped I think you are asking too much for there to be an accurate British count of German dead on the field before they did so. And I don't mean that facetiously, but as a purely practical observation on what was preoccupying the British during those hours. Could Smith-Dorrien have been wrong in terms of an overall rather than localised assessment of German losses in comparison to British? Yes, I think that would be quite understandable under the circumstances - though he certainly got a lot more right through the fog of war than did von Kluck, even with the benefit of hindsight. But Smith-Dorrien's statement does not preclude the British OH's assessment of German losses as "very heavy" being a fair one. I also happen to believe that your references to what was deployed against the British at Le Cateau is a reductive and misleading one.

I have tried three different approaches to persuade you to accept that German casualties at Le Cateau were very much lower than the generally assumed figure. I have

Yes, and unlike yourself on the subject of how much we may safely extrapolate from German accounts published 1933-45, I have not studiously avoided the issue. If you look back to my post #226 you will find that I wrote that "My own view is that German losses were neither as high as some of the more hyperbolic British secondary accounts suggest, nor as low as Reichswehr and Nazi era German sources suggest."

You have given us a comprehensive answer, in which inter alia you state once more that I am trying to use German sources to disprove British claims, but I have moved on.

Yes, and that has not gone unnoticed. I had not earlier pressed the point as you'd said you were working on other things against a publishers deadline and I respected that. However, you seem to have found enough time to come onto the forum to post selected material which on the face of it might be taken to bolster your German figures. But when I said that I found your reconciliation in your Appendix III of the stated purposes of German histories produced under the Reichswehr to be unconvincing in support of your conclusion that these sources were "produced with integrity and respect for the facts" you merely responded that you stood by your Appendix. And you have made not one comment upon the dangers of using German material on the Great War which was produced in Germany between 1933-1945. I'd be interested, for instance to learn if you've discussed with Richard Holmes your dismissal in post #70 of his casualty figures from Riding The Retreat on the basis of the 1934 German Sanitaetsbericht figures. Has Holmes indicated whether he's comfortable with extrapolating such sweeping reassessments of British calculations on the basis of such sources? I appreciate that your books are built upon German sources and that a public exploration of this issue might be uncomfortable, but I am not questioning your integrity nor your motives. I do have strong reservations about German sources, however. I note too that, whilst you make no mention of material produced from 1933-1945 in your Appendix III, and have not responded to concerns expressed about such material on this thread, Richard Holmes' Foreward to your Somme book also refers only to your use of "a whole raft of [German] regimental histories [which] had been written long before the Second World War." Long before the Second World War perhaps, but several of the books in your bibliography are dated after the Nazi state took control of Germany, with some being produced by agencies such as the Reichskriegsministerium (Nazi War Ministry). The volumes of the Schlachten des Weltkrieges 1914-1918 were produced right through to 1945. Are we supposed to regard such works as equally as reliable as British histories? And, of course, the work you've cited at the nub of this discussion is also the work of State buraucrats, the Sanitaetsbericht of 1934. As I've already said, I do not believe that such German histories should be accorded the same respect for their integrity as, for instance, the British official and regimental histories. If something was plain wrong or a misrepresentation, or omitted (as in the German OH's silence on Le Cateau casualties) in British accounts a letter pointing it out was likely to appear in the Times. A similar situation certainly did not pertain in Germany 1933 -45.

Go through the relevant British histories which are easy to find in any specialist library in UK and pick the ones which support the view that where Germans appeared within range, British fire of all types effectively wiped them out, as they must have had to have done to produce casualties 'far greater than ours' from the small proportion of the German First Army which fought them.

I'm sure you don't mean it to, but that could be read as being a little patronising - it should be clear from the references I've cited throughout the thread that I have access to such British histories. And I'd only be looking in them for "wiped out" German units if I accepted your contention that British accounts had asserted astronomical German losses of a "stupendous" level. As it is, I have more than once given my view that German losses were probably somewhat less than the more hyperbolic or simplistic British secondary accounts might imply - but that they were certainly not as negligible as German OH silences on the issue or the Sanitaetsbericht. figures suggest. Then, too, as I have said I think you are being reductive and simplistic in your references to what was actually deployed against the British. I will, however, for the sake of establishing something that makes sense do as you request and go through relevant British works next week and come back to you next weekend. I'd be grateful if in the meantime you would reciprocate by addressing the concerns I raise in the previous paragraph, most of which have been outstanding for several posts now.

George

[salesie]

Jack, a comparison between British accounts if I may - here's an account that you provided in post #232

"2 KOYLI (5th Div History description)

'Surrounded on three sides, swept by concentrated rifle and machine gun fire from front and flanks, battered by shells and with their ammunition exhausted, the battalion stayed to its death, faithful to the order.'

'In the last stage of the fight when a determined advance by the enemy must at any moment have settled the business, some officers told their men they could take their chance of getting back to the column... a few managed to win through, for there were men who later in the week were able to give evidence of what had taken place within the trenches in the last phases of the action. Such evidence was impressionistic, as evidence gathered under the circumstances was bound to be.'"

Here's an account of the same action at Le Cateau taken from the Regimental History, written by Lt.Col. R.C. Bond DSO, who commanded 2 KOYLI in the action and was himself taken prisoner that day; in other words he was in the thick of it. I would suggest, therefore, that this is an eye-witness account and should be treated without any caution at all, in that it is certainly not impressionistic and I can't think of any reason why he would need to exaggerate 2 KOYLI's stand or that of the Suffolk's or the Argyle's.

"Two battalions of the I4th Inf. Bde., cut off from the division the far side of Le Cateau, after maintaining for a time a fight against odds, gave ground and passed round the right flank of the position. They were followed up by German infantry, whose close formations had been viewed as they issued from the cover of woods some miles to the cast of Le Cateau, and these formations were then lost to view in the valley by the town. Their presence was later felt when the ridge was attacked. Some of these troops moved on past the flank till they came into contact with the 2nd Bn. Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who, with other battalions of the I9th Inf. Bde., were posted in rear of the 14th Inf. Bde. to support the right flank. It was about 11 a.m. when the 2/A. and S.H. moved forward into closer support and into the trenches of the Suffolks. The Suffolks were attacked from front and right flank, but were not finally overwhelmed in their trenches till late in the battle. The fight for the ridge was watched anxiously by the K.O.Y.L.I., who saw it in the hands of the Germans and again in the hands of the Suffolks...

...B company K.O.Y.L.I. had not been called upon hitherto to fire a shot, and their commander was careful not to disclose his position in the roadside prematurely, but about 11 a.m. Maj. Yate had the target had waited for, and opened fire. From that time forward the company were constantly engaged.

D company had been engaged from a much earlier hour in holding off frontal attacks, and in bringing a diagonal fire to bear on the place where the Germans were holding the top of the cutting through which ran the road to Cambrai. The remainder of the battalion was heavily engaged along its front...

...Following the artillery preparation in the afternoon there advanced over the ridge to the east of the position held by the Suffolks, two battalions of Germans in close formation. The range to the ridge was 600 yards. The fire from "B" Company was withheld until the masses were well down the forward slope, then 'rapid' was opened from both tiers of fire. There was a moment of confusion, hesitation, and the masses rolled back and disappeared from view, leaving the ground strewn with men..."

I could go on but I think the point is made, that this was a day, at least for three British battalions, of heavy, close quarter fighting i.e. a ridge changing hands over and over again, D Company holding off frontal attacks, at least one instance of German troops advancing in close formation over a ridge towards B Company, and the whole battalion being heavily engaged along its front.

However, Jack, I must point out that the account you gave in post #232 is a direct quote from R.C. Bond's Regimental History, but, and it is a massive but, it was preceded by the words that I've just posted - it seems to me that at least one of the British accounts you supplied is taken out of context.

Cheers-salesie.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Of related interest: These two responses in the 'Times' letter columns by Brigadier General J. E. Edmonds the British Official Historian, give some idea of how publicly such issues were discussed in 1930's Britain. Many of the letters challenged aspects of detail in the British history as well as German, and Edmonds responded to them publicly. Whether or not one accepts Edmonds' conclusions in each (which are consistent with suspicions he'd been voicing over German references to casualties since at least 1923), can anyone imagine the topic of the first letter, from The Times of Monday, Sep 18, 1939, being raised in the letters column of a German paper of that date?

The second letter dates from Wednesday, Dec 14, 1938:

ciao,

GAC

[Jack Sheldon]

George and Salesie

Thanks for your latest posts. This is just a short holder, but I shall try to make time tomorrow to answer the other points you have raised. First of all let me assure you that I was not in any way intending to be rude or anything else when I mentioned the location of regimental histories, George. I do not know what research materials you have on hand - there was no more to it than that and my only reason for suggesting that a second look be taken at them was to avoid any suggestion that I was being partial. I accept what these accounts say, so Salesie's latest post is a useful contribution. I should perhaps have quoted it more fully, but it was a lengthy post to assemble anyway. There is a serious point to this. If a regiment says it saw no German infantry, or that it was two miles off, then that is helpful. If somebody states that they dropped an entire platoon in one volley, then we are seventy casualties closer to our target.

And what a target it is, though I accept entirely in the spirit it was given the modification of your view regarding S-D, whom I, too, hold in considerable regard. His decision to stand took immense moral courage and I am glad that history has vindicated him, despite the shabby way he was treated subsequently. Talking of casualties, I suppose it is fair to remark that some British generals had a way of tossing figures around. What about French's absurd accusation that S-D's actions had cost 14,000 casualties and eighty guns?

As an aside, I have in fact addressed 'integrity and respect for the facts.' I named eight German histories which I checked with the material in the archives in Post 202.

George you are the second person in this thread to accuse me of posting misleading information; in this case concerning the number of German troops exposed to British weaponry, where you also throw in 'simplistic' and 'reductive'. You will understand that I do not find that type of aspersion easy to accept. May I suggest a re-reading of the chapter Landrecies and Le Cateau in John Terraine's 'Mons'? If you do not choose to believe me, perhaps you will accept what he says (and shows graphically) about the numbers of troops committed. He does suggest that two full cavalry divisions fought against the British left flank, with which I would disagree, but it matters not. I included all the cavalry divisions in the figures I provided earlier. I also think that he possibly overplays the influence of the artillery of IV Res Corps in the final moments of the battle. Reserve divisions only had one field artillery regiment each and those regiments only had two battalions with eighteen guns apiece. I do not know about RFAR 22, but the battalions of RFAR 7, which did not come into action until mid afternoon, only got off 1,600 and 200 rounds respectively.

As I say I shall return to this tomorrow and hope to be able to offer some more material to help the discussion forward.

Jack

[George Armstrong Custer]

A quick interim rejoinder myself, Jack, as I happened to catch your post when on posting the Times articles. Yes, French's reference to 14,000 casualties was indeed absurd, effectively doubling up the reality, and must be seen as another exemplar of his antipathy towards and continuing vendetta against Smith-Dorrien (of which his siezure of Corbett-Smith's manuscript was another). He also, as you'll know, stuck it to Smith-Dorrien in 1919 by reneging on the fulsome praise which he'd showered upon the latter in his Despatch of 7th September 1914.

As to my references to 'misleading' and 'reductive' they do not intend to infer that you were being deliberately misleading by omission - god knows these posts are long enough! - but simply that their conclusion would stand expanding upon. This is something I will try to do next week - like you, I have other things on my plate, interesting and important though the themes of this discussion are.

Right, now I'm off to enjoy the rest of the weekend, and hope that all others here will likewise enjoy theirs.

George

[phil andrade]

George, Those arguments that Edmonds submitted to the Times 70 years ago have been discredited. He insisted that, because the Germans did not include lightly wounded in their casualty lists, their figures need to be inflated by at least 30% in order to make them valid for comparison with the British. Hence, in the Battle of the Somme, the official total of 437,222 German casualties is increased to 650,000+ ... a 50% increase. He explianed this by reckoning that one third of their total losses were lightly wounded remaining with units. This was an outrageous distortion.

The SB figures indicate, very clearly, that the German casualties included lightly wounded. This is apparent in the ratio of wounded to killed. In the 1914 Western Front fighting, the German casualties, according to the SB, were 85,061 killed in action, 431,726 wounded and 126,450 missing. The BEF counted 13,009 killed, 59,346 wounded and 26,511 missing in the same period. In both cases, the missing included many killed, and large numbers of wounded died from their wounds, but the ratio of those posted wounded to killed is revealing : just over 5 to 1 in the German case, and barely 4.5 to 1 in the British. If Edmonds is correct, we would have to increase the German wounded to about 650,000, implying that their wounded to killed ratio was nearly 8 to 1 ! How could we accept that?

In my post 209 I referred to a German governmet statement of army losses, and included therein was a very large category for wounded "remaining with units".

AJP Taylor was right - there is no need to take Edmonds's figures seriously.

Phil.

[salesie]

Without being terribly scientific, I've just taken the 2nd Essex History off the shelf; it talks of the Brigade (12th) suffering in excess of 1,000 casualties, of which 141 were Essex (3 officers and 107 men killed or Missing). It refers to two Companies opening 'destructive fire' at a range of 1,300 yards on German supports, but doesn't quantify - can't quantify figures.

It's utterly unscientific, but one point strikes me: the Essex assumed their fire was 'destructive', but at a range of 1,300 yards, how did they know? They knew their own casualties for sure, but any attempt to assess the damage inflicted on the other side has to be more or less guesswork, given that we didn't have control of the field after the battle.

A pertinent point, Steven, but there seems to be enough evidence around to say that even those who controlled the field after the battle were not terribly scientific either.

As an aside, perhaps you would be interested in reading what Smith-Dorrien had to say about 4 Div in his memoirs (that is, if you haven't already read it):

"The die was cast, and it is lucky it was, for it appeared afterwards that the 4th Division did not commence moving back from opposite Solesmes until long after dark, the rear Brigade not until midnight, and only reached the fighting positions allotted to them on the west of the II Corps from Fontaine-au-Pire to Wambaix (a front of three miles) after daylight on the 26th. They were very weary, having journeyed straight from England, detrained at Le Cateau on the 24th, and marched thence at I a.m. on the 25th eight or nine miles to Solesmes, been in action there all day, and marched back over ten miles in the dark to their position, which was reached after dawn on the 26th. The unfortunate part about this Division was that it lacked the very essentials for a modern battle. It had none of the following: Divisional Cavalry, Divisional Cyclists, Signal Company, Field Ambulances, Field Companies R.E., Train and Divisional Ammunition Column, or Heavy Artillery. Let the reader think what that means - no troops to give warning, neither rapidly moving orderlies nor cables for communication, no means of getting away wounded, no engineers, who are the handy men of an army, no reserve ammunition, and no long-range heavy shell fire - and yet the Division was handled and fought magnificently, but at the expense of losses far greater than, if they had been fully mobilised...

...Fergusson's order to his Division to retire naturally took some time to reach his troops, and it was well after 3 p.m. before the rearward move of the 5th Division commenced. The troops were so hopelessly mixed up, and so many leaders had gone under, that a regular retirement was almost impossible, especially too as the enemy was close up and pressing hard. Thanks, however, to the determined action of Major Yate of the Yorkshire Light Infantry, who sacrificed himself and his men in holding the Germans off, the troops of the 5th Division got back on to the road. Luckily the 15th Infantry Brigade was intact, and they about Troisvilles, the 19th Brigade about Maurois, and the R.H.A. guns of the cavalry farther to the east and south kept the enemy off and prevented the envelopment of our flank and enabled the troops to get away. When the 3rd Division saw the 5th retiring they took it up, and finally the 4th Division. Both these two last-named Divisions, less heavily assailed than the 5th, and with their flanks better guarded, could have remained where they were certainly until after dark and had little difficulty in retiring, in comparatively good order, the 9th Brigade in perfect order taking all their wounded with them. If the 4th Division were slightly more mixed up and irregular in their formations, it was due to the fact that they were immensely handicapped by their shortage of the necessities for fighting a battle (already described), largely in consequence of which their losses had been so heavy, amounting to about 25 per cent. of their war strength."

As I stated in an earlier post, being off-balance was not a handicap that Von Kluck suffered in isolation.

Cheers-salesie.

[salesie]

I was going to save the information that I'm about to post for later in the debate, but seeing as I'm going to be "otherwise engaged" over the next few days, and it is highly relevant to the veracity of German casualty returns, especially the post-war Sanitaetsbericht figures, then I may as well introduce the fact that British Military Intelligence had very good figures for the actual numbers of German casualties and from relatively early in the war, though I might add that they're not so accurate for 1914.

The problem with this information, given the British obsession with secrecy in all intelligence matters, is that it remained out of the public domain for many years. Consequently, when senior British figures cast massive doubt on the German casualty returns they would have been unable to reveal their true sources for fear of revealing detailed intelligence techniques, or to fall foul of the official secrets act. However, when this information was finally released it seems that only one historian took note, this being a Dr Michael Occleshaw, and in his book, Armour Against fate, British Military Intelligence in the First World War, published in 1989, he tells us that:

"...Besides these official papers, a whole mass of revealing private papers were taken from prisoners or picked up from the bodies of dead Germans by parties specially detailed for this unsavoury and unpopular task. The private papers of enemy soldiers could corroborate much of the information that was found in official documents, with the added advantage that they revealed the stale of morale. According to Elliot, German soldiers had an almost universal habit of keeping personal diaries filled with details of places they had visited, of friends in other units, of where, when and how long they had stayed in rest billets. Letters often gave valuable information about their units. NCOs often carried battalion orders and, on at least one occasion, a man carried an order stating that his regiment was to be relieved by another at a stated time and by a specific route. Collecting and checking these papers was obviously vitally important and this accounts for the disapproval of the actions of souvenir-hunters.

Equally important and just as frequently found was the paybook carried by each German soldier. These slim booklets, about the size and thickness of a small notebook or engagement diary, contained all the details of its owner's military service, including two details of paramount importance in a war of attrition. One was the conscription class to which the man belonged. Every German male was a possible candidate for conscription when he reached his twentieth birthday and the young men reaching that age in any particular year constituted the conscription class of that year; thus all men reaching the age of twenty in the fateful year of 1914 would be the class of 1914. 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.

Thus it followed that if paybooks from all the companies in a battalion, regiment or division could be taken, then the losses of that unit could be established with reasonable precision, as would be the wastage of German manpower through the study of the conscription classes. When large numbers of paybooks fell into British hands after a major action, either by being taken from prisoners or rifled from the pockets of the dead and wounded, it was possible to calculate the composition of German units by classes, to arrive at a reasonably accurate figure for overall German casualties, to observe the fluctuations in German manpower and to project the strength of the German Army's future prowess. Perhaps most importantly of all, these calculations would be derived from German sources.

The paybooks were examined at GHQ by Captain A. P. Scotland, who closely correlated information with the French via three English-women who worked for GHQ Intelligence at the Deuxieme Bureau in Paris, the Misses C. E. Bosworth, S. M. Bosworth, and L. Brooking. They worked for Captain D. d'Almeida who

. . . showed us how to extract very important information from German soldiers' paybooks, taken from German prisoners captured by the French. Delivered in sacks at the French War Office after important battles, they were first classified by Captain d'Almeida and then passed on to us, to forward to Intelligence GHQ.

The tables on pp. 91 and 92 were compiled from 849 paybooks belonging to men of the 14th German Division captured on 23 October 1917 at Laffaux-Allemant. They provide an accurate rep-resentation of the composition of that division when compared with the composition of the same division in 1916, and also reveal the losses suffered by the division. The accompanying graph on p. 93 shows the staggering wastage by classes in the 10th Company of the 202nd Reserve Infanterie Regiment, showing that as early as April 1917 the lads of the 1918 class were being put into the line over a year early and that by September the only members of earlier classes remaining with the Company were returned sick and wounded. In human terms they make shocking reading: these cold figures mean that the hundreds of thousands of young men aged twenty in 1917 had mostly been slaughtered, maimed or imprisoned and that the men of 1918 were undergoing the same fate. They should provide a stock answer to those who glory in the persistent argument that German losses were nearly always far lighter than the British..."

It seems that Prussian efficiency ably assisted British Military Intelligence's efficiency in knowing virtually all along the true level of German casualties. So, I ask the question, based on Dr Occleshaw's research, does this indeed provide a stock answer to those who glory in the persistent argument that German losses were nearly always far lighter than the British, and show as being unfounded the Junkerphiles' insistence that British sources can't be relied upon when criticising German casualty returns as being understated?

Cheers-salesie.

[Jack Sheldon]

I acknowledge that I can put off no longer George's remarks concerning my use of German sources and the trust I place in them which he outlined in Post 258. I had been hoping that someone else would put their finger on the reason and save me having to explain it. I also did not want it to get in the way of a discussion which, for me, is shining a light on information and sources with which I was not previously familiar and I am finding very interesting. However, there is nothing for it but to state that I see no reason to go beyond the caveats outlined in the appendix on sources in my Somme book and the reservations I have outlined in this thread. Furthermore I am not going to get wrapped around the axle about the date of publication of any particular regimental history, or other book for that matter.

The reason for this is simple. What was good enough for the compilers of the British Official Histories is good enough for me. I am already more cautious in my use of German material than they were and I do not intend to make life any more awkward for myself than it already is, following the loss of so much primary material in Germany. As an examination of any of the relevant histories shows, Edmonds and his team were willing to treat as serious and to quote from more or less anything any Karl, Fritz, or Heinrich published about his experiences and the same applies to the regimental histories, the official histories and so on as soon as they became available. In fact, talking of Heinrichs, in the Mons-Aisne volume, Edmonds even quotes from a really obscure little book called Unter Emmich vor Luettich; Unter Kluck vor Paris, by Hauptmann Heinrich Huebner of IR 20 and published in 1915. The only caveats you really ever see concern points of detail or emphasis, 'Our reports suggest an earlier time.' etc Usually they are used to illustrate a point. There is never any expression of doubt about them of the type you have raised, George. I repeat, if they were happy with them, so am I.

The reference for the remainder of this post is Military Operations France and Belgium 1917 Vol II 7th June - 10th November 1917 Messines and Third Ypres (Passchendaele) I could have chosen any of them, but I have selected this volume because it appeared in 1948, twenty six years after the Mons-Aisne book. Work on it began in 1939 and continued slowly throughout the Second World War until Edmonds signed it off on 9 April 1947. In other words it was published when the full extent of the malign effects of Nazi rule were known to all, when anti-German feeling was running very high and when Edmonds had had decades to reflect on the material he was using. What was the effect on this volume? - not a blind bit.

Skim through the footnotes and they are full of references from German sources. Here are a few at random:

p 206 'Regt.No. 67' [standard BOH abbreviation for a regimental history] II P 71, states that the barrage formed by the combined artillery of three divisions fell short...' [N.B. published 1935]

P 223 'There is plenty of this: 'All signs pointed that the British attack would take place on the 15th' (Res. Regt No 10 p 139); 'on the evening of 14th August, the brigade warned us that a great attack would take place on 15th (Regt No 165 p 150); 'at 3.00 am the II Battalion reported from the front trenches that the enemy lay ready for the assault in wave after wave (idem);'the resting battalion I/65 as divisional reserve of the 185th Division was from 14th August in permanent alarm and ready to march at a moment's notice. (Regt No. 65 p 248)'

p 273 'A typical account of their advance is given in 'Das Buch der 236. Inf. Division' p 98 [published 1919].

p 276 'The history of the 234th Division ('Hohe Hausnummern an der Westfront' pp 94-111) gives a full account of this counter-attack from the German side...'

Check out the select bibliography 'List of Books to which most frequent reference is made' pp xxxiii - xxxvi. There amongst the Allied books, undifferentiated and uncaveated, appear:

Bavarian Official Account (BOA) Die Bayern in Grossen Kriege 1914 - 1918...

Flandern 1917 W Beumelberg [This is Vol 27 of the Schlachten des Weltkrieges series]

Gehre Die deutsche Kraefteverteiling waehrend des Weltkrieges

German Official Account (GOA) Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 Volumes XII [published 1939] and XIII [published 1942]

Kuhl Der Weltkrieg 1914-1918....'His story in two large volumes is an excellent general account based on official documents and his own intimate knowledge'

Lossberg Meine Taetigkeit im Weltkriege 1914-1918 [Published 1939]

Ludendorff My War Memories 1914 - 1918

Moser Ernsthafte Plaudieren ueber den Weltkrieg [Published 1937]

Regt. No.... 'These are references to the war histories of German units., Most of them are in the series Erinnerungsblaetter deutscher Regimenter'

Rupprecht In Treue Fest. Mein Kriegstagebuch

and last, but by no means least:

Sanitaetsbericht: Sanitaetsbericht ueber das deutsche Heer im Weltkriege 1914 - 1918

Was the San-Bericht in the bibliography just for show? No. Its figures are quoted in the text and it features in at least one footnote (on p 361): 'Sanitaetsbericht ii., pp 178-179'

If this material was deemed admissable by the Official Historians, who am I to take a different view?

Jack

[salesie]

If this material was deemed admissable by the Official Historians, who am I to take a different view?

Jack

Jack, I can see a problem with your conclusion about Edmonds use of German sources (previous post). If Edmonds, as you claim in an earlier post, was a fantasist then why would his use of German sources be OK for you now?

Also, is it not possible, as mentioned in my post about British Military Intelligence knowing all along the true level of German casualties, that Edmonds used "any Karl, Fritz, or Heinrich" rather than reveal his true source when relating to German casualty figures?

Cheers-salesie.

[Jack Sheldon]

Well spotted Salesie. I was hoping that this would not get raised, or at least not yet. I would welcome a discussion on these lines some time, but I do think it need a new thread. I do not have a problem with Edmonds the historia,n as I mentioned earlier. It is when he gets on to figures that I have trouble. He is demonstrably cavalier about them. I read somewhere, sorry I forgotten exactly where, that one person had stated that he would sooner trust a quote from Arthur Daley on a dodgy motor than Edmondds on casualties.

Jack

[salesie]

Well spotted Salesie. I was hoping that this would not get raised, or at least not yet. I would welcome a discussion on these lines some time, but I do think it need a new thread. I do not have a problem with Edmonds the historia,n as I mentioned earlier. It is when he gets on to figures that I have trouble. He is demonstrably cavalier about them. I read somewhere, sorry I forgotten exactly where, that one person had stated that he would sooner trust a quote from Arthur Daley on a dodgy motor than Edmondds on casualties.

Jack

The point is, Jack, that Edmonds may have known far more about the accuracy of "official" German casualty returns than he was allowed to openly divulge. And the questions I raised earlier, relating to Dr Occleshaw's research showing that British Military Intelligence knew all along the true levels of German casualties, are still begging an answer i.e. does this indeed provide a stock answer to those who glory in the persistent argument that German losses were nearly always far lighter than the British, and show as being unfounded the Junkerphiles' insistence that British sources can't be relied upon when criticising German casualty returns as being understated?

Cheers-salesie.

[Robert Dunlop]

A pertinent point...

salesie, your acknowledgement of Phil's point suggests that may be problems interpreted the observed effects of rifle fire. In the case quoted by Phil, it appears to be the range that argues against accurate assessment. This is consistent with Tom's previous point as well. Have I understood correctly?

Robert

[salesie]

salesie, your acknowledgement of Phil's point suggests that may be problems interpreted the observed effects of rifle fire. In the case quoted by Phil, it appears to be the range that argues against accurate assessment. This is consistent with Tom's previous point as well. Have I understood correctly?

Robert

Robert, as you know I rarely get involved in such pedantic points, but for the sake of clarity I will expand on my use of the word pertinent. In the context of this debate it was pertinent to ask about the correlation between range and the accurate assessment of results. But I also referred to the word unscientific, which Steven not Phil used in his post, meaning that I believe that having control of the field after a battle doesn't automatically mean that casualty reports will be reported accurately (if we take scientific to mean accurate, which, of course, doesn't always follow), after all, in this thread we have seen plenty of evidence that says the Germans almost routinely understated their casualties, but that British Intelligence, with high degrees of accuracy, knew the true levels all along.

In this way, I hoped to drop the hint that range may not be relevant, perhaps I should have been more forthright i.e. how do we know that 2 Essex didn't have spotters with field glasses and/or telescopes spotting their fall of shot? Or spotters, from their own or other units, closer to the target who reported back? Or when the history was written they had evidence from other sources to confirm that their fire on that day had in fact been "destructive"? There are many ways of confirming the effects of small-arms fire without it having to be seen with the shooters' own eyes - but, of course, when it's up close and personal the effects can become more readily apparent. Also, of course, at such a range it may have been pure guesswork on the part of 2 Essex but don't automatically assume so.

Cheers-salesie.

[Steven Broomfield]

The history of the 2nd Essex comments that, indeed, they did have range spotters: "For instance, the range-finder of D Company (Corporal Bloom) prepared and handed to each platoon a range chart, which was found extremely useful when the germans sought to press their advantage further." The history also comments that the fire checked their advance "which had died away by 11.00 a.m."

However, it also states that "The tendency to take shelter whether it was a protection from gun fire or no was exemplified when later in the day groups of German dead were found lying behind the corn stooks."

Now that could mean almost anything: the Germans were killed in numbers ("Destructive fire"....."dead lying behing corn stooks"), or it could mean they 'merely' took cover.

I still say that it would be difficult to say whether a shot at 1,300 yards killed anyone. It may have been destructive in effect - i.e., the attack died away - but to say, at that range, through the fog of war, that riflemen were killing their target is another thing.

[phil andrade]

Salesie, Can you really stomach Edmonds's assertion that the Germans suffered more casualties in the Somme fighting than the Anglo-French armies combined? Or that, in the Third battle of Ypres, they lost 400,000 to the British 245,000?

It's clear to me that you're far too knowledgeable to be suckered by those preposterous calculations.

Here's a passage or two from Conan Doyle's history THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS 1914. This was written in the middle of the war, in 1916, and I reckon it's surprisingly accurate, or, at least, free from hyperbole - more so, indeed, than studies of a more recent time. In regard to Mons, page 76 "...The actual losses of the British were not more than three or four thousand, the greater part from the 8th, 9th and 13th Brigades. There are no means as yet by which the German losses can be taken out from the general returns, but when one considers the repeated advances over the open and the constant breaking of the dense attacking formations, it is impossible that they should have been fewer than from seven to ten thousand men. Each army had for the first time an opportunity of forming a critical estimate of the other. German officers have admitted with soldierly frankness that the efficiency of the British came to them as a revelation, which is not surprising after the assurances that had been made to them. On the other hand, the British bore away a very clear conviction of the excellence of the German artillery and of the plodding bravery of the German infantry, together with a great reassurance as to their own capacity to hold their own at any reasonable odds..."

In absolute numbers, he exagerrates the losses - the British casualties had been 1,600 - but in terms of the ratio between the two sides, he allows for roughly two German casualties for every one British, which, compared with the estimations of Holmes and Ascoli, is moderate.

Phil.

[salesie]

The history of the 2nd Essex comments that, indeed, they did have range spotters: "For instance, the range-finder of D Company (Corporal Bloom) prepared and handed to each platoon a range chart, which was found extremely useful when the germans sought to press their advantage further." The history also comments that the fire checked their advance "which had died away by 11.00 a.m."

However, it also states that "The tendency to take shelter whether it was a protection from gun fire or no was exemplified when later in the day groups of German dead were found lying behind the corn stooks."

Now that could mean almost anything: the Germans were killed in numbers ("Destructive fire"....."dead lying behing corn stooks"), or it could mean they 'merely' took cover.

I still say that it would be difficult to say whether a shot at 1,300 yards killed anyone. It may have been destructive in effect - i.e., the attack died away - but to say, at that range, through the fog of war, that riflemen were killing their target is another thing.

I was passing comment, Steven, that with the limited information you supplied in your post then assumptions should not be made i.e. that we had no idea how they knew their fire was destructive and I gave alternative sources to the shooters own eyes, and I wasn't talking about the compilers of range cards.

Now, I will also say that the groups of men behind the corn-stooks couldn't merely have taken cover, they were dead, something must have killed them and corn-stooks would offer no physical protection only visual. Which also means that either the 2 Essex advanced 1300 yards, in which case they confirmed the effect of their own fall of shot, or at least some of the action was at close quarters - otherwise how could they find groups of dead Germans behind the corn-stooks?

Cheers-salesie.

[salesie]

Salesie, Can you really stomach Edmonds's assertion that the Germans suffered more casualties in the Somme fighting than the Anglo-French armies combined? Or that, in the Third battle of Ypres, they lost 400,000 to the British 245,000?

It's clear to me that you're far too knowledgeable to be suckered by those preposterous calculations.

Here's a passage or two from Conan Doyle's history THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS 1914. This was written in the middle of the war, in 1916, and I reckon it's surprisingly accurate, or, at least, free from hyperbole - more so, indeed, than studies of a more recent time. In regard to Mons, page 76 "...The actual losses of the British were not more than three or four thousand, the greater part from the 8th, 9th and 13th Brigades. There are no means as yet by which the German losses can be taken out from the general returns, but when one considers the repeated advances over the open and the constant breaking of the dense attacking formations, it is impossible that they should have been fewer than from seven to ten thousand men. Each army had for the first time an opportunity of forming a critical estimate of the other. German officers have admitted with soldierly frankness that the efficiency of the British came to them as a revelation, which is not surprising after the assurances that had been made to them. On the other hand, the British bore away a very clear conviction of the excellence of the German artillery and of the plodding bravery of the German infantry, together with a great reassurance as to their own capacity to hold their own at any reasonable odds..."

In absolute numbers, he exagerrates the losses - the British casualties had been 1,600 - but in terms of the ratio between the two sides, he allows for roughly two German casualties for every one British, which, compared with the estimations of Holmes and Ascoli, is moderate.

Phil.

Phil, I'm sorry to say that I find your posts bemusing, you seem to see-saw with almost no control, in that your points are nearly always non sequitur. The point I made about Edmonds was not to defend him, but to point out to Jack that if he's a fantasist as Jack stated earlier in the thread then Jack shouldn't really be saying what he did about Edmonds' use of German quotes, and that maybe, just maybe, Edmonds knew more about inaccurate German casualties returns than he could publicly admit to (I used him as an example of "hidden" British intelligence). I have no idea whether his assertions about the Somme and 3rd Ypres are preposterous or not. But I am sure, that thanks to Dr Occleshaw's research into British Military Intelligence, that German casualty returns were almost routinely doctored downwards. Which is the more preposterous - Edmonds' assertions, or the German Army having it's class of 1918 "killed" off in 1917, a full year early, and then claiming much lower casualties than the British?

If those who glory in the persistent argument that German losses were nearly always far lighter than the British are correct, then how can they explain the German Army needing to replenish its ranks with classes up to two years before their time?

Then we come to your most contradictory piece yet. You tell us that you find Conan-Doyle's 1916 work to be "surprisingly accurate, or, at least, free from hyperbole" and then, virtually in the same paragraph, you tell us that "In absolute numbers, he exaggerates the losses" but that you believe his ratios are correct. I won't even comment on that one - I've no intention of becoming involved in nonsensical arguments.

Cheers-salesie.