German Casualty discussion

[Guest]

Brilliant thread

" Do you, by any chance, have the loss figures for 51st (Highland) Division for the day they stormed Beaumont Hamel "

Jack, is this any help?

From Bewsher's History

" The casualties sustained by the Division during the

month of November amounted to 123 officers killed,

wounded, and missing, and 2355 other ranks. For modern

warfare these were not heavy, particularly when compared

with the number of prisoners captured during the

operations. It must, however, be borne in mind that at

the time of the battle the battalions were extremely weak

in numbers. The casualties during the action represented

45 per cent of those who took part in the attack. "

I think by the action, he means Beaumont Hamel?

Mike

[Jack Sheldon]

Mike

Thank you. That is most helpful. Tomorrow (too knackered tonight) I shall try to compute the numbers of defenders who were available to cause that outcome and see if I can say something about the losses they suffered n the process.

Jack

[George Armstrong Custer]

I see Mike has already apparently supplied the needful for the 51 HD, Jack. On the issue of casualty ratios in attack and defence, Haig makes some interesting observations particular to the Great War in his Final Despatch of 31 March 1919. He prefaces these by joining, amongst numerous others over the years, Edmonds and Dr Zoske in emphasising the difficulties in arriving at accurate German casualty figures - though from British Intelligence he is clearly in little doubt as to the scale of what the overall losses must have been:

The calculation of German losses is obviously a matter of great difficulty. It is estimated, however, that the number of casualties inflicted upon the enemy by British troops during the above period* exceeds two and a half millions."

* 1 July 1916 - 11 November 1918.

Haig then makes an interesting observation in respect of the British experience of casualties in attack/defence:

It is of interest, moreover, in the light of the paragraph next following, that more than half the total casualties incurred by us in the fighting of 1918 were occasioned during the five months March-July, when our Armies were on the defensive.

The British lines of defence in the first half of 1918 were not comparable in strength to those occupied by the Germans over 1916/17, of course, but interestingly Williams ( Treatment of German Losses, p 73) cites Churchill as claiming that most of the additional German Nachweisamt losses occurred in the last few months of 1918 - ie when the Germans too were on the defensive in less purpose built positions.

Haig then goes on to make the more general point that:

Closely connected with the question of casualties is that of the relative values of attack and defence. It is a view often expressed that the attack is more expensive than defence. This is only a half statement of the truth. Unquestionably, unsuccessful attack is generally more expensive than defence, particularly if the attack is pressed home with courage and resolution. On the other hand, attack so pressed home, if skilfully conducted, is rarely unsuccessful, whereas in its later stages especially, unsuccessful defence is far more costly than attack. Moreover, the object of all war is victory, and a purely defensive attitude can never bring about a successful decision, either in a battle or a campaign. The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory.

Haig certainly articulates a harsh reality here, but was speaking no more than the truth if the Allied armies were to execute their political instructions to remove the invading German armies from occupied territories. At any time that the politicians thought the price of achieving that objective was too high they could have opened negotiations. They did not do so.

You may be in awe of Churchill Phil but at the time and for more than a decade after, very few of his contemporaries were. He had been sacked from his post as First Lord for incompetence, spent a few months on the Western Front then returned to the House of Commons where he was a back bencher at the time of the Somme.

Further to Tom's excellent reminder that Churchill was not infallible, and was certainly not seen as such by contemporaries after the Great War, I would direct anyone interested to William Philpott's incisive dissection (Bloody Victory pp 598 - 600) of Churchill's motives behind the version of casualty figures on the Western Front which he published in his history of the war. To which I'd add that it ought never to be forgotten that 'Gallipoli' Churchill was the man who years later stated with confidence that "History will be kind to me, for I will write it!" And the eloquent Churchill and his team of researchers certainly set out to do just that after both world wars. The canny Esher's judgement ought to be borne in mind, however, particularly in respect of Churchill's post war treatment of the victorious 'Westerner' faction in the Great War: "He [Churchill] handles great subjects in rythmical language, and becomes quickly enslaved by his own phrases. He deceives himself in the belief that he takes broad views, when his mind is fixed upon one comparatively small aspect of a question."

George

[Robert Dunlop]

" The casualties sustained by the Division during the

month of November amounted to 123 officers killed, wounded, and missing, and 2355 other ranks.

Mike, thank you very much for posting this information. What would be even more interesting (and I am not asking you to answer this one ) is to uncover how long it took to collate this figures, and to understand how accurate they are. We have grown used to accepting such numbers [british and Dominion] without understanding the processes involved.

Robert

[George Armstrong Custer]

What would be even more interesting (and I am not asking you to answer this one ) is to uncover how long it took to collate this figures, and to understand how accurate they are. We have grown used to accepting such numbers [british and Dominion] without understanding the processes involved.

Without wishing to usurp any response from Mike on this, Robert, there's an interesting passage in Andrew Green's Writing the Great War (p. 75), which casts some light on how time consuming some cross checking evaluations on British casualties could be:

In order to obtain more accurate figures it was decided to examine the Part II Battalion Orders, which 'sooner or later' accounted for every man. To do this for 1 July alone took a member of the staff of the Historical Section nearly six months whereupon he was stopped for 'reasons of economy'. However, the results of this exercise revealed that the original returns for 1 July were 7 per cent too high.

George

[Guest]

Mike, thank you very much for posting this information. What would be even more interesting (and I am not asking you to answer this one is to uncover how long it took to collate this figures, and to understand how accurate they are. We have grown used to accepting such numbers [british and Dominion] without understanding the processes involved.

Robert

Hi Robert. Not the answer, but interesting, from The People's Journal

Mike

[phil andrade]

Perhaps you will explain to us how you reconcile your pikestaff of 537,919 German casualties for the entire Western Front during July to October 1916 with Williams' reference that "the German Official total for the Somme is 500,000." If the latter were true, then the total German casualties on the Western Front between July - October 1916, exclusive of the Somme, were under 38,000.

Not so, George : the 500,000 figure was for fighting that extended well beyond the end of October, so your 38,000 figure is erroneous.

I can only make the suggestion that the Williams half million figure that was cited by German accounts is a general, rounded total : I'm sure that Jack alludes to this in one of his earlier posts ( number 41) when he cites Kabish " about 437,500", and Grote "estimated at 500,000". It's the work of Wendt that is most pertinent to the Reichsarchiv statistics from which the 537,919 figure is compiled, and he's much more specific.... Somme, July to October, 392,000; Verdun, July to October, 85,000; other sectors of the western Front, July to October, 60,000. I cannot vouch for the exact figures he gave, but I'm sure that that is about right for the breakdown of the 537,919 figure. I can also vouch that he estimated the German Somme figure for November at 45,000. Add that on to the aforementioned 537,919, and you have the "pikestaff" reckoning, which constitutes the basis of BOH corrected figures of 582,919 German casualties for the battle of the Somme.

How can you be convinced by such a statistical foul up ?

Phil (PJA)

[George Armstrong Custer]

Not so, George : the 500,000 figure was for fighting that extended well beyond the end of October, so your 38,000 figure is erroneous.

Williams' error, then. It's his citation of 'the Official German figure for the Somme', not mine. Your attempt to explain this 500,000 figure is highly speculative to say the least, and yet you've berated other posters on this thread for precisely the same thing.

George

[Jack Sheldon]

George

I am just about to sack it for tonight, but will return to your points tomorrow. In the meantime, just a comment that Green's point contained in your post at 1202 to Robert was of course not a fresh insight. It was a straight lift from Edmonds' 1931 preface to BOH 1916 Vol I p ix, viz.

'The question of casualties at the Somme presented a problem. The British returns rendered were really the record of absentees, with only those who were definitely known to be dead and wounded reported as such. The number of dead was comparitively few, the number of 'missing' excessive.* It was decided to examine, as regards the infantry, the heaviest sufferers, the Part II. Battalion Orders, which account, sooner or later, for every man. To do this for the 1st July 1916 alone took a member of the Historical section just under six months, and for reasons of economy the enquiry could not be pursued further. The examination showed that the original returns for the 1st July were nearly 7 per cent too high."

* (original footnote) See page 483 where they are set out, for the 1st July: 8,170 killed, 17,758 missing.

I am not sure I understand the footnote, but is Edmonds saying that because of the cost of the exercise, the only reliable British figures for the Somme are those concerning the infantry on 1 July 1916? Did the Germans eventually try harder by pursuing corrected figures right through to 1933?

Jack

[phil andrade]

Williams' error, then. It's his citation of 'the Official German figure for the Somme', not mine. Your attempt to explain this 500,000 figure is highly speculative to say the least, and yet you've berated other posters on this thread for precisely the same thing.

George

This is not good.

You're one of the best there is, George, and yet you are determined to stand by one of the most blatant "smoke and mirrors" excercises in statistical manipulation .

I don't like it. Heck, I would like to be wrong.

I wonder if Edmonds himself believed these figures he produced. I doubt it. Perhaps his heart wasn't in it.

And as for that fatal error by Oman.....

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Phil, when you get access to your copy of SB again, are you able to take some screenshots of the relevant tables? These could be posted as images. PM me if you need any help to sort this. Several of us can read Fraktur so you will get a very fast turnaround on the translations. It will also help Ralph to focus and to give you an interpretation of the significance, limitations, etc of the numbers.

Robert

Yes, of course I will try, Robert. In the next hour a guy is coming round to restore my PC to decent working order, and then, I hope, I can comply with your kind request.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Churchill was definitely able to see the wood rather than the trees. He certainly had an agenda, and was, in my opinion, a propagandist for a concept of warfare that was not consistent with the strategic rationale and requirement of defeating the main enemy on the main front. But in his actual deployment of casualty statistics, I think he puts Edmonds to shame.

Phil (PJA)

Please, Tom, let me draw your attention to what I wrote concerning Churchill. I am in awe of his prose, and I think that he does a much more decent job of presenting his casualty figures than Edmonds, but I am under no illusions about his strategic foibles, and his ambitions.

Phil (PJA)

[Glenn J]

Phil

I have a set of the Sanitäts-Bericht. If you have any problems, please let me know the pages you require and I will scan and upload them.

Regards

Glenn

[George Armstrong Custer]

In the meantime, just a comment that Green's point contained in your post at 1202 to Robert was of course not a fresh insight. It was a straight lift from Edmonds' 1931 preface to BOH 1916 Vol I p ix, viz.

No surprises there, surely, Jack, given that Green's subject is the writing of the OH under Edmonds' aegis. In his endnotes Green references the passage I quoted to the same BOH citation you give, so I'm not sure what you're suggesting here.

I think it's pretty clear that the cross checking exercise was begun for 1 July 1916 for the particular reason that that day was an anomaly not just in the Great War but in the entire history of the British army. It might be expected that the absentees from roll calls on such a uniquely traumatic day might not give as accurate as possible a picture of dead to missing figures. Would it have been nice if time and funds had allowed that double checking to be done for the British army on every day of the war? Possibly - but unlike my contention about the German army, I'm not aware of anyone seriously suggesting a gaping hole between published British casualty totals and the depletion of its pool of reserves by 1918. Are you suggesting that there is? Even if you were, the difference is, of course, that someone with the time and inclination could still work through the British records. But as Zoske pointed out to Williams in 1963, "The situation of the old documentary materials is hopeless, a completely irreplacable gap exists....." On the loss of the records for 90% of the German army in the Great War, your The German Army On The Somme notes that "the seriousness of the loss of these documents cannot be overstated."

This is not good.

You got that right. Your failure to explain Williams' references to Churchill's figure of 537,919 for the entire Western Front and a German Official total for the Somme of 500,000 for the same period is noted. Certainly Williams offers no reconciliation of the two. They are, however, entirely representative of the contradictory nature of various German figures being bandied about - particularly when we try to reconcile these figures with the German manpower situation in 1918. Smoke and mirrors just about sums it up - another thing you've got right, albeit in the wrong context.

George

[phil andrade]

Your failure to explain Williams' references to Churchill's figure of 537,919 for the entire Western Front and a German Official total for the Somme of 500,000 for the same period is noted.

It's not for the same period, is it ?

Or am I wrong ? Was Williams alluding to July to October only when he cited the 500,000 figure ?

If so, then I would be nonplussed.

Let me promise you, the moment that I suspect that Edmonds was correct in his statements about those casualties, then I will be the first to admit it and fall on my sword.

Damn it all, I've been the first to point out that the tally of killed in the Sanitatsbericht is suspiciously low. If I could find a case to support Edmonds, then I would be pleased to acknowledge it.

In the meantime, I refer again to the huge disparity in the body count in the cemeteries ( post number 122 ) and suggest that this might make the supporters of BOH estimates of German casualties feel uncomfortable.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Phil

I have a set of the Sanitäts-Bericht. If you have any problems, please let me know the pages you require and I will scan and upload them.

Regards

Glenn

Thanks, Glenn : and also, Robert and Jack.

My Document section has been restored, and the most conspicuous pages that I've seen in Vol III are pages 12 to 14. If you could just give me a quick summary of what the authors are saying in those passages, I would be most grateful.

There are no doubt many more parts that I would like to understand, but the section above has reached out and grabbed me first.

Ciao

Phil (PJA)

[Jack Sheldon]

Sorry about the delay George. The page crashed earlier, so I lost my post and then had to go out. I was not really making any point when I commented last night but, as I looked at the quote, I realised that the BOH motivation was to attempt a reconciliation of missing and KIA figures and that, in that sense, it mirrored Chart 8 of the SanB, which appears on p 12 of Vol III and which was designed to show first, how the casualty figures increased and then how the ratio of killed to missing changed over time as more information became available and the fate of more individuals became clear. I should add that there is an additional note beneath the chart detailing Kriegsmarine fatal casualties as 34,836 and those in the former German colonies as 1,185. This sort of meticulous attention to detail is typical of what you find in the SanB and I hope that you will find it interesting.

Jack

[Robert Dunlop]

Not the answer, but interesting...

Very interesting, Mike. Thanks again. It helps to bring home some of the processes that went into the creation of the divisional and regimental histories.

Just as an aside, it is intriguing to see how, even today, this Group is still surfacing anomalies, missing data, etc on men who died during the war. Not many but it is noticeable. And then there is the case of Leonard Bocking in the Classic Threads Forum...

Robert

[Jack Sheldon]

I should, perhaps explain the headings etc for those who have trouble with Fraktur. The date column is headed 'On the basis of the official Verlustlisten'; the second column is headed 'Dead (killed or died of wounds or disease); the third column is headed 'Non-mortal Woundings (Number of instances, not number of wounded); the fourth column is headed 'Prisonersof War and missing, less those determined to have died in captivity (included amongst the dead). Note 1 amplifies the 'Wounded' heading, stating that it was not possible to separate out individuals and instances. Note 2 states ' It must be assumed that a large portion of those still missing were, in fact, killed: estimate - approximately 100,000 The number of dead will therefore rise by this amount'.

[phil andrade]

Thanks very much for explaining how the columns are headed, Jack. I hope you won't mind if I ask a few more questions : if you would prefer them to be confined to the realm of PM, so be it.

A comment : note the huge number of total casualties by the end of 1915...well over two and a half million. The total by the end of 1914 was under 840,000 ; the implication here is that virtually one and three quarter million casualties were incurred in 1915 : this seems an excessive figure, and suggests that a large number of casualties in 1914 were not tabulated until the following year. The Reichsarchiv estimate for 1914 on the Western Front considerably exceeds the total provided by the San B for that year. Do you think that I'm right in this supposition ? If so, then we might assume that a large proportion of the roughly half milion casualties that were added on after the close of hostilities reflect an accumulated total of shortfalls - a kind of "catch up" - rather than a huge mass of casualties that occurred in the final weeks of the war.

Phil (PJA)

[Jack Sheldon]

Not according to the SanB Phil. There is a paragraph at the foot of p 13 of Vol III which says that the difference of 508,723 dead and missing are 'easily explained', in that reports for the final four months which produced a great many casualties were not received by the compilers in the normal manner, but that they were gradually made good by the Zentralnachweiseamt as information was received later and was incorporated and once they could count in the number who died in captivity. It goes on to say that this is shown by the fact that the final figures of 31 Dec 33 include a further 279,842 dead and 113,587 PW and missing: 393,429 altogether compared with 31 Dec 18.

Jack

[Halder]

That's an excellent - and rather sobering - chart, Jack.

For the figures running up to 1933 is that a case of the historians reviewing and checking old figures and revising them based on new information, or is it rather a case of men who succumbed to their wounds post-war?

As a total aside, I came across these figures in the papers of the Kriegsmarine liaison officer at OKH (Kapitän zur See Konrad Weygold) which is the General Staff's estimate of potential losses during the 1942 campaign in the East.

June 1st-November 30th 1942

Losses* 750,000

Replacements 800,000

Shortfall 690,000

* Includes dead, wounded, missing and transfers out of theatre

December 1st 1942-May 31st 1943

Losses 620,000

Replacements 360,000 (+260,000 1924 year group)

Shortfall 690,000

Losses assume that during the summer of 1942 they will be around 20 per cent lower than in the summer of 1941; and 33 per cent lower in the winter of 1942-43 than over the winter of 1941-42.

In other words the Germans expected to make good their losses in 1942, but could never make good their losses in 1941.

The actual losses show just how far off the estimates were:

June 1st-November 30th 1942:

Combat losses 573,000

Losses 899,000

Replacements 617,000

December 1st 1942-May 31st 1943

Combat losses 423,000 (including Stalingrad)

Losses 539,000 (including Stalingrad)

Arrivals 451,000

Apologies for the transgression into WW2. I shall let everyone get back to discussing WW1 German casualty figures now.

[phil andrade]

For the figures running up to 1933 is that a case of the historians reviewing and checking old figures and revising them based on new information, or is it rather a case of men who succumbed to their wounds post-war?

It's my guess that these were virtually all revised old figures, rather than post war wound mortality.

When you see a chart as comprehensive and open as that, it makes it hard to accept the argument that the German government sought to conceal the extent of casualties.

And it makes short work of Edmonds's suggestion that an examination of regimental histories indicates that the total officially revealed was barely half the true number.

Reverting to the Somme, which is a kind of fulcrum for this casualty controversy, I feel that the official German count of 164,055 killed, captured and missing, and 272,596 wounded - a total of 436,651 ( see Ralph's second post) is a figure heavy enough to justify some of the attritional claims made by Entente commanders. To a degree, it bears out Haig's contention ( cited by George) that a resolute offensive, if skillfully and remorselessly pressed, will start to impose unbearable pressure on the defender. In this regard, it is worth noting that the monthly figures from which the foregoing total is compiled indicate 125,000 German casualties in October and November, compared with 150,000 Anglo- French : a ratio of 5 to 6, dramatically different from July, when the Allies lost twice as many, chiefly, of course, on account of the outrageous British loss on the first day. And because a higher proportion of those German casualties in the final stage were prisoners - an irrecoverable loss - the permanent loss to the Germans during that period was absolutely heavier than it was to the Allies.

The case for Haig's generalship, in my opinion, has been compromised rather than flattered by the BOH reckoning of 650,000+ German casualties in the Somme battles of 1916. The record has been sullied by association.

Phil (PJA)

[SteveMarsdin]

Good evening All,

I didn't think a debate on casualty stats could be so educational. An excellent thread, congratulations to Ralph for starting it and all those who have contributed and helped develop it into a thread of such stature. If nobody else has nominated it already, may I suggest that it is elevated to "classic" status ?

[Robert Dunlop]

...the third column is headed 'Non-mortal Woundings (Number of instances, not number of wounded)...

Thanks, Jack. This sounds like the total number of wound stripes, rather than the number of men with wound stripes - if you will pardon the analogy.

Robert