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Remembered Today:

BEF 1914 - Early Disembarkation and Survivability


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38 minutes ago, phil andrade said:

Do you share my surprise at the relatively low percentage of soldiers who were discharged for medical reasons ?

 

     Actually, No!!  Not quite- I think 2 statistical quirks, if measured properly, would bump the figure up:

 

1)  The time lag between being seriously wounded and discharged from the Army as unfit for further service.  -I suspect that many of the seriously wounded men of the fighting of 1914 were only discharged in 1915-statistically, in a different year. I have no idea about what the average time-lag was but would take a reasonable bet that many of the badly wounded were only discharged in the first quarter or so  of 1915. Added to which, a comparatively under-loaded medical system meant more time could be given to those who were still in British hands.

 

2) Badly wounded POWs- would be on the books even longer. Although there are some repatriations in 1914, the system of repatriation of the badly mained and blinded took a while to get up and going. Repatriation was a slow process- and a man was "on the books" of the British Army  as in service until treated by the Germans, assessed by Red Cross et al-and repatriated,treated and assessed at the British end. Again, all bumps the figures into 1915 (and beyond)

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A significant time lag between wounding and final confirmation of invalidity has distorted the figure ; that, and the fact that so many of these casualties were in German hands and off the British radar when it came to assessment.

 

I think you’re right to suggest that the high proportion of POWs in the BEF’s 1914 casualties has not been properly countenanced.

 

They are, in a sense, the ghost at the feast in the British folklore of the 1914 battles.

 

Phil

 

 

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The data on 'Discharges', 'Pensions', 'Not Likely to Become and Efficient Soldier' and 'Discharged Invalids' is eye-opening and shows some quite remarkable skews.  

 

Discharged as Invalids is one of the most heavily skewed data there is. There is a gigantic lag effect. My reading into this is that men were held on the books for a very long time having first been medically downgraded and then later discharged as invalids. Given the 1914 Star medal rolls were compiled many months before the end of the war this means that the rolls may have have missed a significant number of men "Discharged as Invalids". We see similar misses with the fatalities that occurred after the rolls were complied. With fatalities it is easy to back-fill using SDGW and CWGC data. It is not as easy with the men invalided.

 

(All figures are from GARBA 1913-1919 for the Regular British Army and do not include the TF)

 

Year Ending      Pension*     NLTBES**     DAI***

YE Sep 1914       19,985         6,536          3,881  

YE Sep 1915     171,854    107,229       37,019

YE Sep 1916    148,395        29,849      78,953

YE Sep 1917    133,712          2,188      93,692

YE Sep 1918     282,196             749    224,940

YE Sep 1919    793,588              439    239,048

 

    * Does not include Discharged Terms of Engagement (until 1919) 

  ** Not Likely to Become an Efficient Soldier

*** Discharged as Invalids

 

Reserve Battalions and Recovering Invalids. Separately on the Reservists thread I posted fortnightly data on the returns at the Depots and Reserve Battalions. In early 1915 the authorities realised that these institutions were full of invalids. The reported data was giving misleading ideas of the number of men who were "Fully Trained and Effective" (FTE). With the stroke of a pen the returns added separate columns for invalids and the number of FTEs effectively dropped by 40%.....the moral of the story is that the data is meaningless unless we know what it represents. The chart below is a snapshot of the Reserve Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regt in early 1915 when the second re-classification took place. The returns introduced  the following criteria:

 

  • Permanently Unfit for Foreign Service
  • Invalided from Expeditionary Force - Now Fit for Foreign Service
  • Invalided from Expeditionary Force - Temporarily unfit for Foreign Service

 

By 26th April 1915 (8 months into the war) some 412 invalids  of the 2,070 Other ranks on its books unfit for Foreign Service in some shape or form - some 19.9%

 

Invalids from BEF.jpg

 

For the Regular Infantry on 19th Apr 1915 (the last return I have an image of) of the 175,984  Other ranks on the Books of the Reserve Battalions, some 14,289 were FTEs temporarily unfit, 19,895 Permanently unfit (but critically, not yet discharged) and another 18,728 Invalids from the BEF who were temporarily unfit for foreign service. The total is 52,912 or 30.1% of Other ranks. Three in every ten men in the Reserve Battalions were unfit for Foreign Service.

 

My theory (and it it very difficult to prove or disprove empirically) is roughly:

 

1. Mass recruiting allowed many unfits to join.

2. These were thrown out in 1915 - the evidence being the spike in the number Not Likely to Become and Efficient Soldier

3.  Non fatal casualties were split almost evenly between wounded and sick. @Wounded' in the returns only counts those hospitalised. The former group were mostly invalided back to the UK. The latter groups largely recovered in Theatre.

4.  Large proportions of the wounded were medically downgraded - the "Discharged as Invalids" alone totaled 677,533 - a figure that is equivalent to 89% of the 759,022 men killed or died serving in the British Army. Put another way for every 10 men killed, 9 Regulars were Discharged as Invalids. The figure for the TF is not given in GARBA. It seems highly probably that more men were discharged as Invalids than were killed or died. 

5. Not shown are the men medically downgraded but not (yet) discharged.

 

Transfers between Arms: Masking Medical Downgrades. On point 5 we can drill into the data by Arm. The 1917 data is very telling. The other elephants in the room large data points in the annual balance sheets are "Increase - Other Causes". Under the Labour Corps for YE Sep 1917 we see;

 

Specially Enlisted for the Duration of the War .............8,382

Increase Other Causes..................................................260,664

 

Which would suggest Increase Other Causes is code for transfers from other Arms. To corroborate this we see that All Arms saw a Decrease Other Causes of 243,575. The correlation seems compelling as no other line items come close to explaining where the Labour Corps men came from. 

 

We can the look to see what happens subsequently. Increase Other Causes added another 153,846 men to the Labour Corps by Sep 1918  and a commensurate Decrease Other Causes of 228,649 (men were of course being transferred to other Arms as well as the Labour Corps - units such as garrison Battalions (incidentally not shown as a separate line item). 

 

Here is the crux of the matter: at the same time the Labour Corps shows 'Discharged as Invalids' in the year ending Sep 1918 of 36,713 men. It is the second largest decline after the Line Infantry and when measured against the Total at the end of the prior year represents a Discharge as Invalids ratio of 14.2%. This compares to a Discharge as Invalids ratio for the Regular Army all arms ex Labour Corps of 7.0%. The Labour Corps is over-represented in Discharged as Invalids relative to all other Arms by a factor of 2

 

In 1919 another 32,262 were Discharged as Invalids. Again second only to the Line Infantry and again proportionally the highest ratio (8.4% v infantry 2.7%). This time an over-representation by a factor of 3.1   My conclusion would be that medically downgraded men were significantly over-represented in the Labour Corps and a high per centage succumbed to the continued rigours of service despite being less at risk as Battle casualties. 

 

The data is compelling and effectively confirms what we know anecdotally; that the Labour Corps often acted as a half-way house for medically downgraded men. This is no great revelation but does help put some numbers down on the magnitude (absolute and relative) of this important dynamic.  

 

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You allude to 677,533 men being discharged as invalids, in a paragraph dealing with the wounded.  Does this mean that all those men - more than two thirds of a million - were discharged as invalids on account of wounds ; or does the total conflate wounded and sick ?

 

If it’s just a figure for the wounded, then it implies that one third of all the wounded were permanently hors de combat .

 

phil

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Due to the gigantic lag effect men were receiving medical treatment and pensions relating to war time wounds, sickness and injuries as late as the late 1920s. In rough terms 1.3 million. That's not a typo. Had they still been serving they would have been medically discharged. The brutal facts of the matter are that many hundreds of thousands were discharged termination of engagement at the end of the war who probably should have been DMU. The medstats data in the 1920s shows the shameful consequences of this policy as does the Pension data.

 

Medstats Statistics has a whole chapter on the detail of medical pensions with a breakdown of battle casualties v non battle casualties. 

 

Hardly any any of these (after early 1917) would appear on the 1914 Star medal rolls. ...which means that the summary data on the rolls is probably substantially understated in terms of who should have been DMU. Massively understated I think. By about  50%. MG

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   I raised the question of POWs for the 1914 statistics as it  varied the debate about "survivability" versus "casualties" for the BEF of 1914.  Of course, "survivability" as a POW was neither pleasant nor guaranteed ( Just how many men of the BEF/Mons Star qualified died as POWs-taken in 1914??)  The POW numbers of 1914 were-in my humble judgment- a significant dislocator of the army structure in 1914 but not adequately factored in the historical narrative of the demise of the professional British Army in 1914. Manpower requirements vis a vis replacements have no concern with cause of the losses- just what had to be replaced and how to do it. Consequently, for an Adjutant, Brigade Major, GSO 3-whoever- ALL losses were important. 

     Martin has come close to a sensible comment on a post-war problem.  I do not know offhand how many men were POW by the end of 1914 (I'll zap SMEBE in a bit). The greater number of these men were repatriated in November-December 1918- though the number died or repatriated through the course of the war is quite shocking. As the bulk of the  1914 POWs were in the army on regular terms of engagement (including reservists), then I suspect that the returning POWs  were quickly discharged as "end of engagement", save for those who wanted to continue a service career.  I cannot recall any regimental history stating that  x number of men reappeared at a regimental depot or a battalion they were formerly with- suggesting ,to me at least, that  as manpower they were not only expendable- but were more convenient for the administrators if considered as "expended"

     A theme that interests me is how the memorialisation of the Great War has arrived at it's current manifestations. To me, there is a significant divergence between the 15 Rounds a Minute, Old Contemptibles school of history-"splendid chaps"-and their actual treatment both through and after the war. The POWs -both in numbers and treatment -seem both an historiographical and administrative inconvenience. And, of course, the ability to zap  CWGC to get casualty figures masks our capacity to see what the effect of  POWs and wounded were- despite the innumerable  entries in war diaries as roll calls were taken.

     The shabby treatment of  POWs and the wounded of 1914 post-war comes as no surprise- administrative legerdemain seems to me to be geared to 2 objectives in the immediate post-war years- save money even if any number of men who had given good service were "shystered" out of their due benefits by  civil servant manipulation of the pension and benefit rules of the time. And it seems that after 11/11/18 the governments of the time were anxious that the tally of deaths from the war should not grow if possible. 

     All in all,  the statistics suggest that the Old Contemptibles were poorly treated post 1918, despite the celebratory guff and the "puff" literature and history, of which there is no shortage

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SMEBE gives 16,973 prisoners for 1914.

 

Medical Stats gives 19,915.

 

If forced to choose, I would opt for the Medical Stats as the more reliable source.

 

By and large, the disparities between the two sources are reassuringly small ; but for some reason, the figures for prisoners in 1914 are quite widely adrift.

 

Phil

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Most regular Infantry battalions have around 1,900 men on their 1914 Star rolls (in general terms; annihilation of the originals plus 100% reinforcements) There were 100 regular battalions meaning around 190,000 regular infantry other ranks served up to 22nd Nov 1914. Easily 200,000 by end 1914 if the December disembarkations from the 1914-15 star are included. If the 20,000 POWs were all infantrymen (unlikely) this would equate to roughly 10% on average. Put another way I think it would provide a reasonable upper limit to the proportion of POWs in the infantry in 1914. Some of the sample rolls show significantly lower proportions. 

 

My sense from the war diaries and published histories is that the BEF's POWs were highly correlated and concentrated in a series of small disasters rather than evenly spread. It has never been clear whether the RND's catastrophe on the Belgian coast is included in the headline stats for the 'Army'. MG

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On 21/12/2017 at 09:57, phil andrade said:

SMEBE gives 16,973 prisoners for 1914.

Medical Stats gives 19,915.

If forced to choose, I would opt for the Medical Stats as the more reliable source.

By and large, the disparities between the two sources are reassuringly small ; but for some reason, the figures for prisoners in 1914 are quite widely adrift.

Phil

]

      Failed to find the right tables in SMEBE.  Could this be both?    ie 35,000 or so.  I cannot see how able-bodied POWs would make it into medical statistics.   Intriguing- there is a parallel here with the retreat to Dunkirk in  1940- plenty of "British Spirit" stuff but,again, quite hard to find the actual casualty figures-or the POW figures.

     Just slightly curious about all this- stuff on POWs is abundant-it's a major academic cottage industry at the moment but that is on POW camps, conditions, etc-an awful lot of interesting stuff in recent years.  But POWs seem to have been airbrushed from the narratives of 1914. Of course, most fought as valiantly as those who remained in the British lines but their stories are rather subdued in the literature that I have stumbled through. But I hope we can get to a hard figure of number of POWs by the end of 1914, set against number of  men engaged in France and Flanders. The number of 1914 Stars is a rough guide- albeit the early December cut-off date gives a slight statistical slew, while Antwerp, Ostend etc will be another factor to be discounted.

 

   (And I am not too confident about the total SMEBE figures  for POWs) Not sure that it does not exclude internees- which is a big chunk for 1914, with the RND escapade meaning a long holiday in Holland-while the use of Switzerland as an agreed "repatriation" for medical cases  is another unknown.

    

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1 hour ago, QGE said:

Most regular Infantry battalions have around 1,900 men on their 1914 Star rolls (in general terms; annihilation of the originals plus 100% reinforcements) There were 100 regular battalions meaning around 190,000 regular infantry other ranks served up to 22nd Nov 1914. Easily 200,000 by end 1914 if the December disembarkations from the 1914-15 star are included. If the 20,000 POWs were all infantrymen (unlikely) this would equate to roughly 10% on average. Put another way I think it would provide a reasonable upper limit to the proportion of POWs in the infantry in 1914. Some of the sample rolls show significantly lower proportions. 

 

My sense from the war diaries and published histories is that the BEF's POWs were highly correlated and concentrated in a series of small disasters rather than evenly spread. It has never been clear whether the RND's catastrophe on the Belgian coast is included in the headline stats for the 'Army'. MG

 

   My post crossed with yours-  I would agree that 10% is a good working figure.  The effects of these localised disasters is as profound on BEF as any battalion taking a thumping from battle casualties.  Just thought it might change the perspective a bit oif both were factored together-might change the league tables a little and show which brigades and divisions might have had extra problems to deal with.

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Slightly more than a million men received medical pensions in the post War years. The process lasted more than a decade. Roughly speaking around 16.6% of all who served. If one accepts that the Infantry bore most of the casualties; 65% of those who served v 82% of fatalities for example would suggest they were over-represented by a factor of 1.26. Applying this number to the 16.6% might suggest around 21% of Infantrymen received medical pensions or gratuities after the war. Very few, if any of these will be shown as medically downgraded or medically discharged on the medal rolls. One might also argue that the longer one served the more likely one was to be impacted. It is a reasonable assumption that the 'survivors' of the 1914 cohorts would likely to have been over-represented in those medically downgraded or discharge in the post war years. My speculation. 

 

One can debate the exact numbers at the margin,but I would argue that casualty stats calculated from regular infantry medal rolls, particularly the 1914 Star rolls will significantly understate the true picture of those who were medically affected by war service. 

 

Edit: Within the infantry, the regulars had a significantly higher proportion of the casualties; the ratios above might well be conservative. 

 

Below is my precis of Page 315 "Ministry of Pensions Medical Review" in the History of the Great War Medical Services Statistics. The parts in italics are verbatim transcriptions.

 

4th Aug 1914 - 11th Nov 1918 (all numbers are as stated in Medstats and are approximate)

Numbers served : .......................................6,000,000

Death casualties: ..........................................750,000

Discharged on Medical grounds:................600,000

 

11th Nov 1918 - 31st Mar 1919

Discharged as disabled by war service:...335,000

War disablement pension or gratuity:.......485,000

 

"By 31st March 1920 1,420,000 or 23.6% of the total who served had been awarded [medical] pensions or gratutities."

 

"By 1925 this total had increased to 1.654,000 and by 31st march 1930 to 1,664,000 or 27.7 % of those who had served. It to this total is added the 750,000 death casualties, the total numbers affected by war service in the sense of death or some form of war disablement for which State compensation was given, may be estimated at approximately 2,414,000 or 40.2 % of those who served"

 

120,000 men died while in receipt of their medical pension. 

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Failed to find the right tables in SMEBE.  Could this be both?    ie 35,000 or so.  I cannot see how able-bodied POWs would make it into medical statistics.   Intriguing- there is a parallel here with the retreat to Dunkirk in  1940- plenty of "British Spirit" stuff but,again, quite hard to find the actual casualty figures-or the POW figures.

Just slightly curious about all this- stuff on POWs is abundant-it's a major academic cottage industry at the moment but that is on POW camps, conditions, etc-an awful lot of interesting stuff in recent years.  But POWs seem to have been airbrushed from the narratives of 1914. Of course, most fought as valiantly as those who remained in the British lines but their stories are rather subdued in the literature that I have stumbled through. But I hope we can get to a hard figure of number of POWs by the end of 1914, set against number of  men engaged in France and Flanders. The number of 1914 Stars is a rough guide- albeit the early December cut-off date gives a slight statistical slew, while Antwerp, Ostend etc will be another factor to be discounted.

(And I am not too confident about the total SMEBE figures  for POWs) Not sure that it does not exclude internees- which is a big chunk for 1914, with the RND escapade meaning a long holiday in Holland-while the use of Switzerland as an agreed "repatriation" for medical cases  is another unknown.

No question of the figures being combined to reach 35,000.  The higher figure, compiled by the Medical Stats, would probably allow for the internees : they would not have exceeded fifteen hundred, anyway.

 

My belief is that the Medical Statistics are thorough and at pains to include POWs, since these needed to be extracted from the large numbers of missing.  The endeavour was, it appears, to have as meticulous a reckoning as possible, indicating how many casualties were “ permanent “ i.e killed or died, missing or prisoner : the fact that the prisoner totals for 1914 exceed those tabulated in SMEBE indicate how determined the compilers were to get a grip not only on the totals, but also how they were comprised.  These Medstats were written up much later than the 1922 SMEBE, and were better equipped to sift through things after the dust had settled. There was something of a wing and a prayer in the way that the 1914 figures were presented, reflecting the chaotic nature of the fighting in the first shock and the commensurate difficulty in getting a grip on the figures.  

 

Considering the problems that confronted GHQ in this regard, the SMEBE figures are remarkably impressive : you’ll find a very much more complete assessment therein than you would find in the French counterpart, where the official returns compiled in AFDLGG  fall very far short of the totals revealed in other studies of the 1914 fighting. 

 

Editing : SMEBE, 1914 casualties Western Front : Killed and Missing, including POWs , 40,026. Died of wounds, 4,395. Died from illness and accident , 594.

 

           Medical Stats : Killed and missing, including POWs, 39,520.  Died of wounds, 3,657. Died from accident and illness , 496.

 

Phil

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Dardanelles distracton. I have nearly finished transcribing the Hampshire Regt 1914-15 Star roll. Of the 995 original Other Ranks who disembarked with the 2nd Battalion on the Gallipoli peninsula I have tracked down 802 on the medal roll. Of these, 410 were killed or died during the war. 51%. I suspect it would take some time to track down the 193 men not on the roll. If all these survived the overall fatality ratio would drop to 40.4%...still rather grim. Two thirds were killed on the Peninsula and this perhaps demonstrates that Gallipoli was at times as unforgiving as the Western Front. 

 

The process involved over 5,000 names as other Battalions were mixed into one large medal roll. I should be able to extract the 10th Bn (Also served on Gallipoli), 11th Bn, (Pioneers) (part of 16th (Irish) Div), 12th Bn (Sep 1915 to France).  Untangling the various drafts will require some careful cross referencing with the diaries. The fates of the reinforcement drafts dont appear to have been much better. 

 

10th (Service) Bn Hampshire Regt (Gallipoli in Aug 1915) is converging on 44%. 

 

MG

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  Martin,

Gallipoli was at times as unforgiving as the Western Front .....as far as these Hampshire battalions are concerned, that comment could be taken as something of an understatement .

 

It seems that the “ Fatal Hellespont “ lived up to its name.

 

Is there anything in the annals of British battalions that fought in France and Flanders in 1914 that can rival the death rates you’ve cited, let alone exceed them ?

 

Phil

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On 23/12/2017 at 18:39, phil andrade said:

 

Is there anything in the annals of British battalions that fought in France and Flanders in 1914 that can rival the death rates you’ve cited, let alone exceed them ?

Phil

 

Phil, I am reluctant to start comparing battalion v battalion. As you know the influencing factors on casualties are manifold, complex and chaotic (as in chaos theory; small changes in initial conditions can have greatly differing outcomes). It is multi-factored and arguably partially non-deterministic. Comparing one battalion to another and trying to draw conclusions from casualty data is a hiding to nothing. I realise my interest in this subject could easily be misinterpreted this way. My belief is that if one battalion has x casualties more than another it has no bearing on the fighting prowess of either unit; it simply reflects the misfortunes of war.

 

My interest is in trying to isolate a single factor from this multi-factored model; timing. The aim is to try and determine if being 'first off the boat' in France (or Gallipoli or anywhere else for that matter) had any general impact on the fate of those cohorts. The underlying reason is to try and see if there is any evidence that the Army learned from its mistakes. Did the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc Cohorts fare any better in the same theatre with the same battalion? Arguably as the exact conditions are not replicated for each cohort, the inter-cohort comparisons might have little integrity.

 

This is why I am looking for Big Data; the Law of Large Numbers suggests that if one has enough data, the effects of the anomalies (outliers) becomes diminished and we can start to analyse the distribution of the casualty data. If for example we had all 100 Batalions' data, it could produce something meaningful. So far we only have glimpses and the data is far too small (10%) and the variations far too great (15% to 43%) to have any confidence. Looking at other broader stats such as battle casualties or permanent casualties (or both) might help smooth the data distribution. I am mulling this over.....

 

Studying the the data within a single unit (and seeing if it changed over time between cohorts) might tell us something about how units adapted to high casualties. There are other far more subtle dynamics; the use of Reservist and the time passed from last Colour Service as against being chosen for a draft is interesting. It seems to bear out the view that men who more recently left the colours were prioritised. Of greater complexity is the dynamics of choice of the 'older' Army Reservist v the Special Reservist, and again to add to the complexity the introduction of re-enlisted me and raw recruits put through accelerated training. Each of these sub cohorts has unique dynamics and it is interesting (to me at least) to compare the average fate of these.

 

As far the data suggests that regardless of past training and experience, 1914 warfare was completely indiscriminate, killing and maiming all variations of infantrymen in roughly equal share; within this, the earliest cohorts saw higher attrition; timing (first off the boat) was more highly correlated than training (regular, Army Reservist, Special Reservist, re-enlisted, raw recruit) with likelihood of being killed.

 

When we start to look at the Kitchener Battalion data for 1915 we see an almost exact re-run of the 1914 data. Those Kitchener units first off the boats were annihilated just as fast as the August 1914 men. This might suggest a number of things; despite massive casualty rates (90% for the first Cohorts) the Army was very slow to learn lessons and apply them to the New Armies.

 

More interestingly the data for Gallipoli (regular Divisons and Kitchener Divisions and the 42nd (East Lanc) Div) is barely distinguishable from similar units on the Western Front whose rendezvous with death was at Loos. In blind sampling it would be very difficult to separate the two sets of data. This is particularly interesting as the conditions on the Western Front, the nature of the ground, the weaponry (available artillery), opposing forces, were all radically different yet the outcomes (from the soldiers' perspective) were nearly identical; near annihilation.

 

Transcribing just one unit's medal roll generates many possible ways of slicing the data; age, date of enlistment, time served, training, time since last colour service, rank,  type (regular, reservist, special reservist), fate, and the correlations between all of the above. By manipulating the data (in a good way) and sorting and filtering it, I think it will produce valuable insights that have been hidden from view for a hundred years. 

 

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What you’ve just told me is hard to assimilate.

 

The trap that I fall into is the tendency to see various  phases and theatres of the war as so different from each other that their respective casualty rates reflect those very differences.

 

To think that Gully Ravine, Chunuk Bair and the Nek provide examples of casualty figures that are so similar to those of the Hohenzollern Redoubt and Hill 70 is quite a challenge.

 

This denominator of timing is something that I just hadn’t properly appreciated.

 

Thanks for giving me this perspective to consider.

 

Phil

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2nd Bn Hampshire Regiment at Gallipoli. Breakdown by cohort.

 

Note that only 789 o the original 995 appear on the medal roll. There are another 34 who land  within the subsequent weeks (too small in number to constitute a reinorcement draft (usually around 95 men). If these are included the total 'Main Body' comes to 833 of whom  422 were killed or died. This barely moves the numbers. It is important to note that the 'missing' men from the rolls were probably serving elsewhere when the 1914-15 Star roll was compiled. Assuming these were all still alive, the fatality ratio o the Main Body would be 42%. . An alternative explanation is that some o these were men who had previously served on the Western Front with the 1st Bn and had already been awarded the 1914 Star.

 

A similar approach could be made on the subsequent drafts. In addition there are a few dozen loose individuals who can not really be  identified with any large reinforcement.

 

Overall, 68% o the fatalities occurred at Gallipoli i.e within the first year.  We see similar skews in the 1914 data and the Western Front or first Cohorts.  

 

 

2nd Bn Hants at Gallipoli.JPG

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Hampshire Regiment at Gallipoli (regulars) - 2nd Bn and 10th Bn - Fates of men disembarking in the Dardanelles.

 

Note that the 2nd Bn landed on 25th April 1915 and departed Jan 1916. The 10th Bn landed on 5th Aug 1915 and departed 3 months later.  In both instances over two thirds of all fatalities occurred in the Dardanelles. Random sampling of SWB data indicates most of the Discharged were discharged for medical reasons; specifically wounds.  

 

Hants at Gallipoli 1915 Star Data.JPG

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  • 2 years later...

Before I retire for the night, I was surprised to discover there were a number of Old Contemptibles that ended up going to Gallipoli. The following men from the 1914 Star roll did not return. I have copied across from the medal roll the date that they arrived in France & Flanders. 

Colour code

Blue - Regular pre-war enlistment
Brown - Special Reserve pre-war enlistment
Pink - enlistment after declaration of war

 

Regimental Number First Name Last Name Rank entry from Date Of Birth Date Of Death ISO Death Category
6946 Isaac Price Private 13-Sep-1914 1883 28-Jun-1915 EG KIA or DOW
3/11085 Garfield Jones Private 20-Sep-1914 not known 05-Jul-1915 EG KIA or DOW
11911 David Jones Private 13-Nov-1914 Jan-1877 10-Oct-1915 EG Other
13340 Walter Goddard Private 09-Nov-1914 Jul-1877 03-Jul-1915 MT KIA or DOW
3/10554 William Hughes Private 31-Aug-1914 1886 5/07/1915 MT KIA or DOW
6139 Ernest Dewsbury Lance Corporal 13-Aug-1914 1881 19-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
6201 Edwin Matthews Private 13-Aug-1914 1881 28-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
6866 George Shakesheff Private 27-Aug-1914 1881 19-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
6888 Charles Patrick Leyshon Private 27-Aug-1914 1884 26-Apr-1915 TR KIA or DOW
7006 Herbert Joseph Stickler Private 13-Aug-1914 1879 15-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
7492 George Dixon Private 13-Nov-1914 1880 21-Aug-1915 TR KIA or DOW
7879 Arnold Marshall Private 13-Aug-1914 1886 28-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
8024 Gwilym Lewis Private 13-Aug-1914 not known 28-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
8183 Maurice Albert Hall Private 13-Aug-1914 1886 29-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
8344 Thomas Griffiths Private 13-Aug-1914 1887 21-Aug-1915 TR KIA or DOW
8812 William Thomas Goldstone Private 13-Aug-1914 1886 28-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
8980 Patrick Donovan Private 27-Sep-1914 1878 11-Aug-1915 TR KIA or DOW
9182 William Gibbs Private 13-Aug-1914 1890 05-Aug-1915 TR KIA or DOW
9448 John Murphy Private 13-Aug-1914 1888 19-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
10755 Richard Smith Private 08-Oct-1914 1893 29-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
10824 Albert Samuel Wood Private 13-Aug-1914 not known 28-Dec-1915 TR KIA or DOW
10859 Walter King Private 13-Aug-1914 not known 02-May-1915 TR KIA or DOW
11097 William Pritchard Private 20-Sep-1914 not known 11-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
11099 William James Jeremiah Private 22-Aug-1914 1894 19-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
11130 William Jones Private 13-Aug-1914 not known 21-Aug-1915 TR KIA or DOW
11767 Leonard Caddick Private 02-Nov-1914 1876 06-Jul-1915 TR KIA or DOW
14081 Lewis Jones Private 13-Nov-1914 Apr-1875 22-Aug-1915 TR KIA or DOW
14897 Austin Martin Private 13-Nov-1914 Jan-1874 16-Jun-1915 TR KIA or DOW
3/8924 John Marshall Private 13-Sep-1914 not known 21/08/1915 TR KIA or DOW
3/11122 Michael Welsh Private 13-Sep-1914 not known 01-Jul-1915 TR KIA or DOW
3/11431 William Albert Reed Private (Acting Corporal) 13-Sep-1914 04-Feb-1895 21-Aug-1915 TR KIA or DOW

 

In addition to the thirty one above, the following perished when HMT Royal Edward was sunk
 

Regimental Number First Name Last Name Rank entry from Date Of Birth Date Of Death ISO Death Category
8174 Albert Smith Private 13-Aug-1914 1884 13-Aug-1915 TR Other
8927 Stephen Bennett Private 13-Aug-1914 1884 13-Aug-1915 TR Other
10435 Richard Morgan Private 20-Sep-1914 1891 13-Aug-1915 TR Other
10967 John Hurley Private 02-Nov-1914 1895 13-Aug-1915 TR Other
11657 Edwin James Beck Private 31-Aug-1914 1885 13-Aug-1915 TR Other
13153 Albert Edward Hales Private 02-Nov-1914 1882 13-Aug-1915 TR Other
3/10112 Harry Salter Private 13-Nov-1914 1880 13-Aug-1915 TR Other
3/11088 Harry Hayes Private 08-Oct-1914 1894 13-Aug-1915 TR Other


 

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The 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers deployed to France with the BEF. Gillott, via Atkinson, has 961 Other Ranks disembarking at Le Havre on 13 August 1914. The medal roll has one man arriving on 7 August and 953 Other Ranks on 13 August. Between 17 August and 13 November, a further 1044 men were to disembark and thereafter join the battalion. Of these 1998 men I have identified 703 who died at the time of the first world war, which is proportionally similar to their oppos in the 2nd Battalion. The 1st Battalion suffered particularly heavy losses in 1914, in particular at Chivy on 26 September 1914, Langemarck on 21 October 1914 and in particular at Gheluvelt on 31 October 1914.
 

Year Of Death
1914 403
1915 158
1916 59
1917 38
1918 32
1919 6
1920 5
1921 2
Total Result 703

2041810716_1stBnfatalitiesperquarter.png.a549d9566937004fb4f4dcf1e44235ad.png
 

I did wonder if there were differences between the 954 identified as initially landing, versus the subsequent 1044 reinforcements. Other than Q3 deaths, losses were showing as consistent between the two.
1110166494_1stBnfatalitiesperquarterinitialtosubsequent.png.16634deca9666fce317d7b7199e26bc9.png

I have been able to use SDGW to determine the cause of death. These were recorded as combat deaths (classed as "KIA or DOW"), versus other.
 

Death Category Cause of death  
KIA or DOW Died of wounds 120
  Killed in Action 514
Other Attributable to military service by CWGC 33
  Drowned 8
  Not War Related 5
  Soldier died after discharge 7
  War Related Sickness 16
Total Result   703


2011565610_1stBncauseofdeathbreakout.png.f698ffd0372c0e6628d942f19cad9d19.png

This fits with the statement that the First World War was the first time that combat deaths were higher than deaths by illness. 

 

1367307322_1stBnSWBveteransandlatterregiment.PNG.e3890282e26fb0190d927891a5d60631.PNG

 


Whilst there were men transferring to other regiments during the course of the war, most of the men died whilst latterly serving in the South Wales Borderers, which also featured with the deaths of the 2nd Battalion, too. Rees Breacher appears to have been transferred to a Reserve Battalion after recovering from wounds, and this was not to his liking. He enlisted in the RNVR under an assumed name of Albert Davies, and was killed at the Battle of Jutland aboard HMS Invincible. 

790507551_MonsStarfatalitiesoftheSouthWalesBorderers.PNG.978e9b5cbe744478a471039df909161e.PNG


566 of the 706 fatalities were latterly associated with the 1st Battalion of the South Wales Borderers. Of the 54 men who were latterly associated with the 2nd Battalion, thirty nine are named in the post above.

Out of the 706 fatalities among the Mons Star veterans, 20 were medically discharged from the army, 18 of whom were in receipt of a silver war badge.

For the 308 fatalities among the Tsingtao veterans, I have identified 4 who were recipients of the Silver War Badge. In addition, 9158 John Watkin Lewis was medically discharged, having been wounded and captured in 1916. He was repatriated to the UK in the following year. He died on 31 January 1920 and is commemorated by the CWGC. In common with several POWs repatriated during hostilities I have come across, he never applied for a silver war badge, and his MIC gives nothing away as to his story.

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Of the 706 fatalities, 697 are commemorated by the CWGC and 9 are not. Three deaths were not war-related, and for the remaining six, the soldier died after discharge, but there is ambiguity around the cause of death.

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Similar silver war badge data to that published for the 2nd Battalion on the Gallipoli thread. I have identified 422 men with Silver War Badges, and a further 7 men who were medically discharged and did not apply for badges. One of the latter was one of the first wounded POWs to be repatriated from Germany, in February 1915. I have wondered whether this man became something of a local celebrity, and did not feel the need to apply for a silver war badge, either because he was renowned, or his injury was so apparent that it was clear he could not serve, such as an amputated limb.

Langemarck_and_after_discharges.PNG.fe46e221df155e9bf9d1eb16e56cbb36.PNG

 

Yet again, it is interesting to see a rise in badges after the cessation of hostilities, although not as marked an increase as was for the 2nd Battalion, also in France & Flanders from April 1916 to the end of the war. 

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What first rate work, Keith !

 

As you point out, the preponderance of deaths from enemy fire  transcended anything else in British military annals.

 

Combat deaths account for ninety per cent of all fatalities in the analysis .

 

Not that there was freedom from squalour and hardship : illness and accidents were still major hazards ; but the relentless intensity of battle made this unique.

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

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On 17/12/2017 at 23:12, phil andrade said:

Martin’s research suggests that one third of all the men who disembarked in mid August 1914 were dead by the end of the war.  The great majority of these perished in the first twelve months.  We might legitimately assume, then, that one quarter of the entire August 1914 contingent was dead within the year ; perhaps another one fifth had been taken prisoner - GUEST is right to remind us of that.  Add on the permanently disabled through wounds or illness , and the destruction - within a year - of the best part ( ie more than two thirds ) of the entire force that disembarked is a statistical truth. 

Phil

 

Hi Phil, thank you for your kind comments. Whilst I was preoccupied with the technical aspects, I forgot to "say what you see", and as you rightly pointed out 90% combat deaths show up. I did provide Martin Gilllott some of this data in 2015, and a bit later on. I seem to recall commenting to him about also seeing the 30% in a later version of the data I sent him. For the SWB in the BEF, yes we see that 30% fatality figure, but we also see it similarly for the regiment's 2nd Battalion who lost a few men at Tsingtao but took significant losses at Gallipoli.

What I find interesting about the 1st Battalion's losses is that it doesn't fit the Alan Clark historiography (as taught to me at school) thus:

1914 - moved about, then dug a trench and not much happened

1915 - got gassed for the first time, and didn't do much

1916 - everyone went over the top on 1 July and died
1917 - not much happened

1918 - not much happened, and the war somehow ended

The severe losses in 1914, and 1918 for that matter, do not get a mention. Although there was mention of not comparing battalion with battalion, it does beg the question of which battalions suffered greater due to a given event, such as the Worcesters intervening at Gheluvelt and the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers getting captured. The surviving service records for those men injured in 1914 does not see them returning to France until the subsequent year.

 

Regards
Keith 

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On 17/12/2017 at 23:12, phil andrade said:

Martin’s research suggests that one third one third of all the men who disembarked in mid August 1914 were dead by the end of the war.  The great majority of these perished in the first twelve months.[K_H_B: agreed]   We might legitimately assume, then, that one quarter of the entire August 1914 contingent was dead within the year[K_H_B: 20 percent not so far from 25 percent] ; perhaps another one fifth had been taken prisoner - GUEST is right to remind us of that.  Add on the permanently disabled through wounds or illness , and the destruction - within a year - of the best part ( ie more than two thirds ) of the entire force that disembarked is a statistical truth. 

Phil

 

Hello again Phil, I was drunk on data, and whilst I found this of interest and reproduced it, I failed to comment, so I am belatedly doing that right now. Items highlighted in yellow agree with my figures.

I have a different figure for POWs of about 100 men out of 1,998. The POW info for the BEF is readily available. There were efforts made at the end of the war to list all men in captivity as at xmas 1914, in order that the Princess Mary Gift Tins could be provided. Paul Nixon has transcribed the bare bones and put them on line. He has the full details, with the genealogically important home address, which he can provide for a fee.

Regards

Keith

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