BEF 1914 - Early Disembarkation and Survivability

[Guest]

What I note about the arithmetic of 63% of officers dying compared with 42% of other ranks is the exact fifty per cent disparity in the death rate.

Phil (PJA)

I think it is well understood that Officer fatal casualty rates were much higher than ORs. It is not surprising that Infantry Officer fatality ratios are higher than infantry OR fatality ratios, and equally unsurprising that this is also the case for the cohort of August 1914. The Officer groups, being small, are susceptible to distortions. I am more interested in the OR data as the law of large numbers begins to have an impact. It is interesting that despite the various experiences of the battalions we have looked at so far in this thread that the data is showing numbers in the same order of magnitude, and magnitudes far in excess of the aggregate data for the whole war. This strongly suggests that 1914 was particularly lethal despite the low absolute numbers engaged compared to later years.

I am deep into K1 and K2 on another thread and it will be interesting to compare the data for the Kitchener cohorts. My expectations were that the Kitchener battalions would have seen much higher ratios within the first 12 months, but having looked at Loos in some detail, my expectations (now) are that disembarking in Aug 1914 will prove to have been far more lethal. We shall see.

Separately I have just finished reading about Aubers ridge in May 1915. A very depressing read. MG

[phil andrade]

Martin,

Forgive me if this is a question too far.

Do you have any data that indicate the proportion of these deaths from the contingent that landed in August 1914 that can be attributed to First Ypres ? Do I remember a suggestion you made earlier that about half of all the dead in some of the samples can be attributed to the period ending by the close of the battle?

What about the battalion we've just been discussing ?

My guess is that, of all the combat fatalities suffered by the BEF in 1914 - including confirmed killed in action, missing subsequently presumed dead and died of wounds - sixty per cent might be attributed to the period October 20th to November 20th .

That is, I confess, just a guess, conforming with the 55,000 to 58,000 British casualties of the battle which might be assessed against an overall total of c100,000 BEF battle casualties sustained in 1914.

The reputation of 1st Ypres as especially fierce - maybe the hardest fought of all British battles - intrigues me ; your comments would be appreciated.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Do you have any data that indicate the proportion of these deaths from the contingent that landed in August 1914 that can be attributed to First Ypres ? Do I remember a suggestion you made earlier that about half of all the dead in some of the samples can be attributed to the period ending by the close of the battle?

Phil (PJA)

Phil

I have daily data for every battalion of the BEF broken down by month in 1914 - all CWGC data - on spreadsheets. With a small amount of work I can refine it for First Ypres. Let me know what dates you use to define First Ypres (I would use the battle honour dates but happy to adjust to your preference). The CWGC data does not of course allow us to identify the Main Body cohorts etc.

For the Cameron Highlanders I can do the proportion for all Cameron Highlanders that served to end Nov 1914 (i.e main body plus 6 or 7 reinforcement drafts) rather than separate the Main Body. With a small amount of work I can get an answer for the Main Body

As a starter the 1st Bn Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders saw 594 fatalities in 1914 of which 292 happened between 19th Oct and 22nd Nov inclusive (= 49% of 1914 fatalities). The proportion of the 292 suffered by the Main Body will require some work.

By contrast;

1st Bn Scots Guards suffered 450 fatalities in 1914 of which 344 happened within the dates for Ypres 1914 (= 76%)

1st Bn Irish Guards suffered 348 fatalities in 1914 of which 264 happened within the dates for Ypres 1914 (= 76%)

1st Bn Black Watch suffered 359 fatalities in 1914 of which 238 happened within the dates for Ypres 1914 (= 63%)

etc...

The battalions that suffered at Gheluvelt in particular will show a disproportionately high skew towards First Ypres.

[phil andrade]

Thanks, Martin : a kind offer.

The SMEBE tabulations show about 60% of all confirmed KIA occurring in October and November. Likewise DOW. The MIA are rather less heavily represented, on account of such a preponderance of POWS being captured in August. A little less than half registered POW are consigned to October/November.

All the same, I get the impression that sixty per cent of all 1914 KIA, MIA ( presumed dead) and DOW can be attributed to First Ypres.

If you can confirm or refute that - without excessive work ( please! ) - I would be very grateful.

Edit : Please base this on official dates of the battle.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Phil - CWGC data for 1914 France and Flanders;

Fatalities 19th Oct -22nd Nov 1914 inclusive....13,930

Fatalities 4th Aug -31st Dec 1914 inclusive....25,212

Ypres 1914 as a per cent of all 1914 Fatalities = 55.25%

I will revert with more data and add to this post rather than create a long thread. MG

Edit. There are some very big distortions. Battalions that arrived with 7th Div and went straight into First Ypres show an understandably high percentage of Ypres causlaties v 1914 casualties for obvious reasons...

2nd Bn Gordon Highlanders: 206 Ypres fatalities v 217 for 1914 = 99.5%

1st Bn South Staffordshires: 247 Ypres fatalities v 269 for 1914 = 91.8%

etc..

At the other end of the scale a battalion annihilated at Le Cateau:

2nd Bn Suffolk Regiment: 13 Ypres fatalities v 148 for 1914 = 8.8%

I am not sure we can extract much from this. It simply states the obvious.

[phil andrade]

Thank you very much, Martin.

This equates to a daily average of four hundred fatalites, approx, for Ypres.

Presumably, the crisis days of the Gheluveldt phase incurred a much higher daily fatality than that.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Presumably, the crisis days of the Gheluveldt phase incurred a much higher daily fatality than that.

Phil (PJA)

Phil - average daily fatalities for Ypres (19th Oct - 22nd Nov) was 398. By comparison Gheluvelt:

30th Oct: 740

31st Oct: 1,107

Interestingly the crossing of the Aisne (14th Sep 1914) was more costly in a single day at 1,130. Clearly one needs to think of continuous battles rather than single days and this will completely miss the DOW, so it can only be seen as a rough estimate. Data is CWGC for France and Flanders and does not included men evacuated to England who subsequently died. MG

[phil andrade]

All tremendously helpful, Martin.

My thanks to you.

Pinpoint accuracy not required here ; it's clear enough.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

The data below shows that for every 1,000 infantrymen killed during the war, 968 other men were discharged as invalids. This surprised me. There are some huge variations across the years which defy explanation. Note the stability in the ratios for 1915-1917. It looks as if the decision to classify men as invalids changed somewhat in 1918 - possibly revealing a delayed effect?

Note: the Year End is September (the Army Year) so 1914 mostly reflects just Aug and Sep of that year.

[Guest]

The History of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry in the Great War 1814-1918 page 64 lists one officer and nine ORs that served with the 1st Bn KSLI throughout the war. The battalion started the war with 27 Officers, 1 Warrant officer and 969 ORs.

The History of the 1st & 2nd Bn Leicestershire Regt in the Great War recods just one Officer (the QM), one Sgt and one Private who had served throughout the war with the 1st Bn Leicestershire Regt

[Drew-1918]

Martin,

Just getting back to you regarding the 4^th Bn Royal Fusiliers. First of all, apologies, but I made a mistake with my original calculations. I wrote that 70.8% of the main body fatalities were in 1914. I should have written 66.1%. This error basically resulted from my misreading three 1915 deaths as 1914 ones. I have corrected the original post. The proportion of the main body cohort fatalities that occurred in the first year from 13.8.14 to 12.8.15 was 77.4%. Hope that this is of help.

Phil,

Further corroboration of what you were saying regarding the men listed as died (though I dont think any further proof was needed).

Firstly, the CWGC confirms that almost every died man is commemorated on a memorial. Surely this is at least a strong indicator that many of them were indeed originally listed as missing.

Secondly, nearly all of the men who feature as died in the 14 Star Roll are listed as KIA on SDGW. Figures in the table below show how the main body cohort fatalities from the 14 Star Roll appear when adjusted against SDGW. This table is now quite different from that I originally attached to post#209. It corresponds almost exactly with your estimates and the evidence you kindly looked up for my in the Medical Services, Casualties and Medical Statistics, 1914. Thanks again for your help with that.

4th Bn RF fatalities from the 1914 Star Roll adjusted against SDGW

Regards,

Chris

[phil andrade]

Chris,

Good of you to provide that endorsement of my suggestions.

This triangulation of sources through CWGC, Medical Stats, and SDGW works well, and you win my thanks and respect for getting to grips with the figures.

Phil

[Guest]

Martin,

Just getting back to you regarding the 4^th Bn Royal Fusiliers. First of all, apologies, but I made a mistake with my original calculations. I wrote that 70.8% of the main body fatalities were in 1914. I should have written 69.6%. This error basically resulted from my misreading three 1915 deaths as 1914 ones. I have corrected the original post. The proportion of the main body cohort fatalities that occurred in the first year from 13.8.14 to 12.8.15 was 81.6%. Hope that this is of help.

4th Bn RF fatalities from the 1914 Star Roll adjusted against SDGW

Died adjusted against SDGW.jpg

Regards,

Chris

Chris many thanks again. First year fatalities as a per cent of total are indeed high. The fact that there were four times as many fatalities in the first 12 months compared to the subsequent 40 months is a very large skew in the data. Again this might support the idea that many of the survivors who were evacuated in this period were never to return to the front. MG

[RHead]

The War the Infantry knew 1914-1919 has a photograph of all the men of 2nd Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers who landed in Rouen on 10th August 1914 and who served continuously with the battalion until re-embarkation in May 1919

There were just 10 of them

Not quite on topic but it is interesting to note that this research paper says that the casualty rate amongst the infantry was nearer to 90% - of which 17% were fatalities)

"On the first of August 1914 there were 948,965

soldiers in the British Army of which

236,632 were ‘regulars’ i.e. professionals.

Between August and the end of November

1914, 1,250,000 men volunteered to fight.

By the end of the war, there were 4,970,902

recruits; 1 in 4 of all UK males were in the

Army.

The casualty figures are equally

incomprehensible. On the Western Front

alone, there were 2,760,797 casualties of

whom 1 in 3 were killed. 5 out of every 9 soldiers

became casualties. The Somme alone

accounted for 498,054 casualties over 6

months. As in all wars, infantry take the

brunt of the physical (and psychological)

casualties, in WWI their casualty rates were

86 per hundred - of which 56% were

wounded, 17% killed and 12% taken

prisoners of war"

Palmer, I. P. (2003). No Pain, No Gain: Part I. A Brief History of British Army Psychiatry Origins, Experiences, and Understandings. Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 149(4), 364-368.

The 10

and Winter, J. M. (1977). Britain's ‘Lost generation’of the First World War.Population studies, 31(3), 449-466. further show that the casualty rate amongst officers was also much higher than it was amongst other ranks - this is obviously as a proportion of each group rather than in absolute numbers

October 1914 - end Sept 1915 for example - 14.2% of officers and 5.8% of other ranks killed (24.4 and 17.4% were wounded during that same period!)

It's astonishing how they kept fighting given those attrition rates

[Muerrisch]

The 2nd RWF photo is a little misleading: we know that some soldiers were long gone by the time it was taken.

Notable among them was Frank Richards DCM MM whose service was definitely continuous.

[RHead]

The 2nd RWF photo is a little misleading: we know that some soldiers were long gone by the time it was taken.

Notable among them was Frank Richards DCM MM whose service was definitely continuous.

Exactly as you say - Frank was demobbed in Liverpool on December 5th 1918 according to his book but even with the men who were demobbed before the photograph was taken in May 1919 the number of survivors were pitifully few given that many of the original 1000 or so in the battalion were replaced several times over during the course of the war

[phil andrade]

Sorry for being such a quibbling and ungracious commentator on a very constructive and welcome post from RHead, but do you think that the citation about infantry casualties in post 239 passes the sniff test ?

There's no way that the infantry would have suffered a loss of twelve per cent taken prisoner. By that reckoning, nearly one in seven of all the casualties were POW ; the actual number was about 175,000 from a total of 2.7 million from all branches of the service.

I suspect that the author of the article assumed that all those posted missing were taken prisoner ; the reality was that approaching forty per cent of them were killed.

As far as the August 1914 embarquees are concerned, though, I would guess that a good deal more than twelve per cent were prisoners by the end of First Ypres.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

As in all wars, infantry take the

brunt of the physical (and psychological)

casualties, in WWI their casualty rates were

86 per hundred - of which 56% were

wounded, 17% killed and 12% taken

prisoners of war"

RHead... Thanks for flagging the article. I am not sure I can believe the 86% figure. There are a host of reasons why this is unlikely.

[ss002d6252]

I only glanced at it but it does seem out % wise.It may be that they're assuming missing = pow but they may have just picked a % and assumed it was constant across the war.

Craig

[phil andrade]

Now, if someone had stated that of all the battle casualties suffered by the army 1914-18, eighty six per cent were sustained by the infantry...yes, that would pass the smell test, or at least seem feasible.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

I only glanced at it but it does seem out % wise.It may be that they're assuming missing = pow but they may have just picked a % and assumed it was constant across the war.

Craig

Official stats from SMEBE generate a figure of 55%... I am reluctant to start a casualty stats blizzard on this aspect.

[Guest]

Now, if someone had stated that of all the battle casualties suffered by the army 1914-18, eighty six per cent were sustained by the infantry...yes, that would pass the smell test, or at least seem feasible.

Phil (PJA)

All Infantry Killed as a per cent of all Arms killed .........................................82%

All infantry Battle Casualties as a per cent of all Arms Battle casualties......83%

I think the author has got his numbers mixed up. It still does not explain how he gets the breakdown. I suspect NBCs might have been included. MG

Source: SMEBE. page 252

[David Filsell]

Martin,

Picking up on this rather late, are you confident about your figure of deaths at 740 on October 30th?

David

[Guest]

Martin,

Picking up on this rather late, are you confident about your figure of deaths at 740 on October 30th?

David

Ref 740? which post?

PS I received the 8th Div lecture notes. I am in your debt. Thank you. MG

Edit: 740 (actually 739 on re-checking) comes from British Army fatalities on 30th Oct

France: 151

Belgium: 588

5 miles from the French border seems to demand the died in France data is included. I use Gheluvelt as the marker for the date. I realise other actions were happening very close by Zandvoorde, Messines. Wytschaete etc. It really is to compare the order of magnitude of fatalities. The spike in fatalities on these dates is quite sharp.

Chart again for reference: Le cateau (blue) Crossing of the Aisne and the mass of Ypres are distinctive. Within Ypres the date that coincides with Gheluvet is pronounced.

[phil andrade]

On the strength of that chart, I would venture a statement that the Battle of Gheluvelt cost as many British lives as the Battle of Waterloo.

That's something.

Those men who disembarked in August 1914 hardly had time to draw breath.

The experience they endured was conspicuous for entailing sudden, sharp swings from defensive to offensive fighting, with high peaks of mortality in both.

What an ordeal !

Phil (PJA)