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Remembered Today:

Battle of Neuve Chapelle, 1915


Beselare

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I am increasingly being 'absorbed' by the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. It is so relatively small compared to other major battlefield sites and that makes it very interesting to tour. I would like to be able to clarify two statistics if possible:

1. What were the British and German casualties from 10th to 12th March, broken down into killed/mia and wounded? (I know the German casualty lists were very unreliable) and what percentage of the British casualties were Indians from the Meerut and Lahore Divisions? In Geoff Bridger's book the Bitish casualties are listed as 3,500 killed or mia and 8,533 wounded but the figure of 3,500 killed begs to be clarified given that a much more definitive figure is given for the wounded.

2. What is the size of the area of the battlefield in square yards or square miles.

If anyone has made a study of those statistics I would very much appreciate any information you have.

Bob

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Bob,

There is info.on this in my books at home. I can give you a better answer later when I'm there.

I think the 3,500 figure for killed might be a bit understated. Just under thirteen thousand casualties overall ; probably no less than thirty per cent of them killed or died from wounds....I'll beef that up later.

The Indian divisions were bolstered up by British contingents : one of my family was a rifleman in the City of London Regiment, and he was mortally wounded on the opening day of the attack , dying a day or two later. He is buried at Cabaret Rouge. I was intrigued to find out that he was attached to one of those Indian divisions. Whether he is counted as a British or Indian casualty is something I would like to know. He came from the East, but only in London terms....Bromley -by- Bow ! Poor chap was nineteen years old.

German casualties are generally stated to be of the same magnitude : twelve thousand being the usual estimate. I've often wondered if that reflects wishful thinking. Reichsarciv officialdom gives German casualties against the British on the Western Front February -March 1915 as about 18,500 ; British official returns for the same period give a figure of about 33,500. As you suggest, German figures are controversial, and I would guess that the exchange rate was better than that for the British....but it's difficult to reconcile the data we have with the claims made by the British. I would hazard a guess that the Germans sustained two thirds of the damage they inflicted at Neuve Chapelle, and would have taken fewer casualties had it not been for a costly counter attack.

There were about 1,700 German prisoners taken by the British ; these probably equated to nearly one fifth of the total German loss there.

If memory serves me, there were claims by the British that six thousand enemy dead were counted on the field.

To say the least, that implies double counting in my opinion.

Phil (PJA)

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A thought or two before I get back to my house :

This was a battle of remarkable intensity.

Again, I don't have figures to hand, but I'm sure that the deployment of artillery by the British was exceptional and entailed an unprecedented weight of shell per square yard. Far in excess of that of the programme for the Battle of the Somme.

The battlefield was small ; what I've read - and seen - of the arena tells of a very violent engagement concentrated in a relatively tiny space.

Compared with what the French were doing at that time, and with the battles to come over the next years, Neuve Chapelle was a small scale affair ; but it was extremely intense and very portentous.

I am sure that even the official German figures I alluded to demonstrated that - in terms of the casualty exchange rate - the British did better on the Western Front in the period February to March 1915 than at any other time of the war until 1918 ; they certainly outperformed the French in this respect during that brief time period - a thing most unusual in the static fighting of 1915-17. This suggests that for all its notoriety , the British attack at Neuve Chapelle was conspicuous for the proportionate damage it inflicted.

Phil (PJA)

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Here you are, Bob :

Official British casualty return for Battle of Neuve Chapelle :

Killed : 190 officers ; 2,337 men ; Total : 2,527

Wounded : 359 officers ; 8,174 men ; Total : 8,533

Missing : 23 officers ; 1,728 men ; Total : 1,751

Aggregate : 572 officers and 12,239 men ; Total : 12,811

The figure for killed alludes to confirmed killed in action ; to this must be added most of the missing, and a proportion of wounded who were to die from their wounds. I wonder if my family member, who was struck by artillery fire on the first day of the battle and died several days later, was counted as wounded rather than killed....I expect he was.

The number of German prisoners counted was 30 officers and 1,657 men : I would think that these were unwounded, but I am not sure.

The only official German data I can find relating to this question are the figures returned by the reichsarciv for casualties against the British front in France and Belgium for the two months of February and March 1915, of which those at Neuve Chapelle must have represented a significant proportion :

Killed : 2,927 ; Wounded : 11,169 ; Missing ( including prisoners) : 4,394. Total : 18,490

Against this, the corresponding British figure was 33,678. The breakdown :

Killed : 6,648

Wounded : 24,279

Missing : 2,751.

Only 300 of the missing were verified as prisoners of war, but this is apparently an understatement : however, it seems that only one fifth of the missing were in fact taken prisoner. Of the wounded, 2,111 died from their wounds, equating to about 8.7% of those posted as wounded. Among them was my forebear Rifleman William Andrade, who died on March 15th.

To extrapolate from these general totals to the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, we might note that 19.7% of the general total was posted as killed, compared with a virtually identical proportion for Neuve Chapelle. The wounded represent 72% and 67% respectively ; the missing, 8.1% and 13.7%....that is the most striking difference. That said, I would be confident in assuming that no fewer than one thousand of the British missing at Neuve Chapelle had been killed. As for the wounded, we might reasonably apply that 8.7% mortality and estimate nearly 750 died of wounds. The total of British fatalities for the battle, by this reckoning, amounts to about 4,250 ; one third of the total casualties and about twenty per cent more than the 3,500 alluded to by Geoff Bridger. The difference might well be explained by the died of wounds category.

I submit this with diffidence, admitting that it is highly suppositional and might well be invalidated by specific figures from CWGC and SDGW etc. Please will any pals with access to those sources correct my guesswork if they are willing and able to.

As for the German figures, I would point out that the number of wounded reported is 3.8 times the number of confirmed killed ; a slightly greater proportion of wounded to killed than applies in the British figure. This, in my opinion, exposes the claim that German casualties need to be inflated to allow for lightly wounded if they are to be compared with British figures, as erroneous at best and downright mendacious at worst. That said, it must be the case that most of the German missing were also dead.

The casualties at Neuve Chapelle equated to roughly forty per cent of the total for the British on the Western Front in those two months ; by the same criterion, German casualties in the battle would not exceed 7,500....but I'm sure they were higher than that, on account of the spectacular success of the initial British attack and the cost of counter attacking. But I cannot see them exceeding ten thousand : that would be an absolute maximum.

There it is then...my guesswork and supposition.

Hope it helps.

Phil (PJA)

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Thank you Phil. I really didn't expect that amount of information. I would think it should help many other members to understand what when on with this battle. I thought there might be some correlation with Somme statistics. It has made me even more determined to make an in-depth study of this battle.

Bob

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You're more than welcome, Bob.

My own interest in the battle has been aroused by your post ; more especially on account of a family connection with its toll.

Incidentally, the total frontage of attack was confined to a distance of about four thousand yards - the focus of the bombardment being a good deal narrower. The depth of the battlefield was about one thousand yards.

This means that the firepower was concentrated in an area more redolent of the days of black powder warfare : battles fought with muzzle loading weapons, with ranges limited to hundreds of yards, had been fought in comparable areas in America fifty years before.

A bizarre anecdote of the battle indicates its intensity and its primitive character. The British and Indian soldiers who had been deployed in the attack became so exhausted by the night of the second day of battle that many of them fell asleep and needed to be roused to action.

A lot of time was wasted literally trying to wake the dead : so many corpses clogged the field that, in the darkness, they were mistaken for the living...so intermingled were the " Quick" and the dead !

I consulted Geoff Bridger's book and was surprised at his estimate of British fatalities, bearing in mind that he stated that most of the missing were dead. I guess that he hadn't seen the original breakdown of the casualty list that I had found in one of those old volumes of the history of the Great War.

A propos the German casualties, we need to bear in mind that relatively small numbers of Germans were manning the front - was it just two or four battalions ? - and most of those were taken prisoner in the initial attack.

They apparently used sixteen thousand men in their big counter attack, and this force was indeed badly punished by British and Indian fire.

Several thousand were killed or wounded : a high casualty rate from a force of sixteen thousand in a single day.

I consulted Wikipedia and was gratified to see that the article estimated German casualties at Neuve Chapelle to have been ten thousand for the period of 6th to 20th March - a much longer period than the actual battle - which rather bears out my suggestions.

If I get info. about the breakdown of the different divisional casualties among the British and Indians, I will post it.

Phil (PJA)

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'Morale' by Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Baynes Bt. is an excellent blow by blow account of the 2nd Scottish Rifles at this battle. He was an officer of this Regiment (1967)

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'Morale' by Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Baynes Bt. is an excellent blow by blow account of the 2nd Scottish Rifles at this battle. He was an officer of this Regiment (1967)

Yes, it was he who wrote the article on Neuve Chapelle for Purnell's History of the war, which I've consulted before posting in this thread.

Phil (PJA)

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I was a good friend of Sir John and I'll never forget his kindness as he helped me for several years with my PhD on Captain Malcolm D. Kennedy OBE who was a subaltern at the battle later much discredited as an apologist for the Japanese military. Thank you.

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The 3 figures I have for Neuve Chapelle range from the lower exist provided by Geoff Bridger to a higher figure of 11,200 provided by Chris Baker on the 1914-18 site:

“The British losses in the four attacking Divisions were 544 officers and 11108 other ranks killed, wounded and missing. German losses are estimated at a similar figure of 12000, which included 1687 prisoners.”

As PJA points out C-I-C dispatch that covered the battle provided causalities of:

190 officers and 2,337 other ranks, killed.
359 officers and 8,174 other ranks, wounded.
23 officers and 1,728 other ranks, missing.

In respect to German causalities the dispatch mentions:

The results attained were, in my opinion, wide and far reaching. The enemy left several thousand dead on the battlefield which were seen and counted; and we have positive information that upwards of 12,000 wounded were removed to the northeast and east by train. Thirty officers and 1,657 other ranks of the enemy were captured.

I would guess you can take the dispatch from SJF with a pinch of salt as a lot of “positive spin” was woven around the battle at first and over stated casualty figures might have been apart of this.

My particular interest from Neuve is how this shaped future engagements and planted the seed that sustained artillery bombardment could lead to general breakthrough on the Western Front. The element of surprise aspect of the battle is not achieved again until June 1917 and seems to be massively overlooked aspect of the battle.

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The 3 figures I have for Neuve Chapelle range from the lower exist provided by Geoff Bridger to a higher figure of 11,200 provided by Chris Baker on the 1914-18 site:

“The British losses in the four attacking Divisions were 544 officers and 11108 other ranks killed, wounded and missing. German losses are estimated at a similar figure of 12000, which included 1687 prisoners.”

As PJA points out C-I-C dispatch that covered the battle provided causalities of:

190 officers and 2,337 other ranks, killed.

359 officers and 8,174 other ranks, wounded.

23 officers and 1,728 other ranks, missing.

In respect to German causalities the dispatch mentions:

The results attained were, in my opinion, wide and far reaching. The enemy left several thousand dead on the battlefield which were seen and counted; and we have positive information that upwards of 12,000 wounded were removed to the northeast and east by train. Thirty officers and 1,657 other ranks of the enemy were captured.

I would guess you can take the dispatch from SJF with a pinch of salt as a lot of “positive spin” was woven around the battle at first and over stated casualty figures might have been apart of this.

My particular interest from Neuve is how this shaped future engagements and planted the seed that sustained artillery bombardment could lead to general breakthrough on the Western Front. The element of surprise aspect of the battle is not achieved again until June 1917 and seems to be massively overlooked aspect of the battle.

Hi

The use of 'Surprise' at Neuve Chapelle is covered to some extent in Chapter 4 of 'Conceal, Create, Confuse - Deception as a British Battlefield Tactic in the First World War' by Martin Davies, Spellmount, 2009. If you have not already read it this may be of interest to you.

Mike

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The 3 figures I have for Neuve Chapelle range from the lower exist provided by Geoff Bridger to a higher figure of 11,200 provided by Chris Baker on the 1914-18 site:

“The British losses in the four attacking Divisions were 544 officers and 11108 other ranks killed, wounded and missing. German losses are estimated at a similar figure of 12000, which included 1687 prisoners.”

As PJA points out C-I-C dispatch that covered the battle provided causalities of:

190 officers and 2,337 other ranks, killed.

359 officers and 8,174 other ranks, wounded.

23 officers and 1,728 other ranks, missing.

In respect to German causalities the dispatch mentions:

The results attained were, in my opinion, wide and far reaching. The enemy left several thousand dead on the battlefield which were seen and counted; and we have positive information that upwards of 12,000 wounded were removed to the northeast and east by train. Thirty officers and 1,657 other ranks of the enemy were captured.

I would guess you can take the dispatch from SJF with a pinch of salt as a lot of “positive spin” was woven around the battle at first and over stated casualty figures might have been apart of this.

My particular interest from Neuve is how this shaped future engagements and planted the seed that sustained artillery bombardment could lead to general breakthrough on the Western Front. The element of surprise aspect of the battle is not achieved again until June 1917 and seems to be massively overlooked aspect of the battle.

Hi

The use of 'Surprise' at Neuve Chapelle is mentioned in Chapter 4 of 'Conceal, Create, Confuse, - Deception as a British battlefield tactic in the First World War' by Martin Davies, Spellmount 2009. This may be of interest to you if you have not already read it.

Mike

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Hi

The use of 'Surprise' at Neuve Chapelle is mentioned in Chapter 4 of 'Conceal, Create, Confuse, - Deception as a British battlefield tactic in the First World War' by Martin Davies, Spellmount 2009. This may be of interest to you if you have not already read it.

Mike

Thanks Mike another one to add to an ever growing reading list

One of things that constantly surprised me is the overlooking of surprise as an effective battlefield tactic, especially in large scale operations (if you exclude mining operations.)

At lower levels we appear to use it in spades with Trench raiding etc.

With regards the scale of the battlefield - I have not seen any written evidence but looking at trench maps I would theorise that it is approx. 2500 - 3000 meters x 700 meters at its more penetrative point (if you assume that was the edge of Boiz de Biez - if you consider that the Indian's "swung a right" from Port Arthur)

I always enjoy picking up Geoff Bridger's book and look at the rear cover......to semi-quote Blackadder - the Village of Neuve Chapelle looks exactly like a thingy :)

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The casualties for a part of the German 7th Army, the IR 16 "Infanterie-Regiment Freiherr von Sparr (3. Westfälisches) Nr. 16"

(from the "Erinnerungsblätter deutscher Regimenter - Berlin 1927")

Killed 6 officers 111 other ranks

Wounded 1 officer 398 other ranks

Missing 20 officers 827 other ranks

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Ref Post 16: Surprise on a small(ish)l scale was possible on the WF. Once it involved anything much more than that in resources it was all but impossible - at least the opposition would have a fair idea that something was brewing. This is a generalisation, of course, but it would be very difficult (all but impossible) to disguise any significant build up in forces though it has to be said that the secret shifting of the Canadian Corps south for the Battle of Amiens in August 1918 is a rather striking exception to the rule. That is, in part, largely understandable in the context of much more materiel available to the British, not to mention the far better infrastructure essential for any form of major action.

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Ref Post 16: Surprise on a small(ish)l scale was possible on the WF. Once it involved anything much more than that in resources it was all but impossible - at least the opposition would have a fair idea that something was brewing. This is a generalisation, of course, but it would be very difficult (all but impossible) to disguise any significant build up in forces though it has to be said that the secret shifting of the Canadian Corps south for the Battle of Amiens in August 1918 is a rather striking exception to the rule. That is, in part, largely understandable in the context of much more materiel available to the British, not to mention the far better infrastructure essential for any form of major action.

Of course Nigel - it was a sweeping statement - just when I reflect on Neuve against some of the other 1915/6 battles the one thing (admittedly through 21st century eyes) that constantly spring to my mind is "the element of surprise" - reflections seem to be very much on the availability of artillery and positioning/deployment of reserves etc. rather than on this. I understand large scale movements are nigh-impossible to conceal but right upto 1917 concealment and confusion seems to take a back seat, certainly by early senior command.

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Hi

According to Davies, page 75, part of the 'surprise/deception' package at Neuve Chapelle was that:

"All the additional guns were moved up gradually at night into pre-prepared camouflaged positions. There was surreptitious, piece-meal artillery registration, utilising map references and aerial observations from spotter planes equipped with wireless, with a rate of fire no greater than that generally expected of any front, so there was no indication that any additional ordnance had been brought up."

Also Haig established a 'false' First Army HQ at Bethune, marked with his own flag. Actual HQ was at Merville. The false HQ being in a better position for the 'deception plan'.

I hope that is of interest.

Mike

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That certainly is of interest, Mike.

What you're telling us suggests that, in a very early stage of the war, Haig & Co. were very much " ahead of the game".

Phil (PJA)

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Very interesting Mike - certainly will have to pick up a copy of Davies book at some point

I assume this was just a false HQ he setup - perhaps responding to the injuries suffered by Lomax on 31/10/14 and wishing to avoid a similar incident of senior officers being spotted and targeted by observant artillery??

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I have the sense that this battle is the poster child for poor communications. That there were many British successes that had to be abandoned because the only people who knew about them were the soldiers up front occupying the ground. Is this correct?

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The only suggestion I can make that serves to explain the disparity between the 12,811 return of casualties filed by C-i-C and the 11,652 figure cited by Chris Baker is that the former was inflated by including, among the 1,751 who were posted as missing , a large proportion of men who were temporarily absent.

That might account for the difference.....but I would not be convinced. I would have thought that such a significant feature would have been mentioned in the dispatch : or that the return would have been withheld pending clarification of this category of the casualties. We are, after all, suggesting that nearly two thirds of those missing men were " bogus" casualties.....that just doesn't ring true to me, especially in view of Geoff Bridger's assertion that most of the missing were dead.

Edit : A simpler and more plausible explanation : perhaps C-iC dispatch alluded to casualties in a larger force than the four divisions that Chris Baker cited.

I have to confess that the 4,250 fatality total that I suggested is proportionately high. Geoff Bridger's estimate of 3,500 - about thirty per cent of total casualties as assessed in the 11,500 range - looks more " normal" for the British experience of the Western Front in 1915 ; although there was, I think, an inordinate intensity to the Neuve Chapelle battle, that would account for a rather higher percentage of fatalities among casualties than the average.

Phil (PJA)

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I have the sense that this battle is the poster child for poor communications. That there were many British successes that had to be abandoned because the only people who knew about them were the soldiers up front occupying the ground. Is this correct?

Hi

The problem of 'communications' between the advancing front line and HQs further to the rear was well known at the time, which is probably why Sir William Robertson, then with the BEF states in memorandum on the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, dated 14 March 1915, that:

"The complicated modern system of communication sometimes leaves Commanders completely at a loss when it fails. It must be recognised that telephone and telegraph lines are almost certain to fail during a successful advance." (AIR 1/674/21/6/120)

This is why throughout the war a lot of time and effort was spent by all armies in the conflict to try to 'solve' this problem with the technology that was available.

At Neuve Chapelle the British tried out an early form of what became known as the 'Contact Patrol', The Official History 'War in the Air', Vol. 2, page 97, states:

"A Capt. Pretyman of 3 Squadron RFC made two flights to locate the line of battle, with message bags being dropped at various report centres. A lamp station was also located at the First Army Headquarters for communication with 'lamp' machines with a view of early transmission of messages received from aerial reconnaissance."

I hope that is of interest.

Mike

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