Jump to content
Free downloads from TNA ×
The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

BEF 1914 - Early Disembarkation and Survivability


Guest

Recommended Posts

Apparently Churchill quotes 329,000 casualties alone to 5 Sep 14 for the French - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Frontiers#Casualties

Craig

Craig,

Believe it or not, that is for killed and missing only ! A fantastic total, almost freakish. Add on to that figure the huge numbers of wounded, and heaven knows what the overall total was. I'll get hold of my Churchill World Crisis and post the actual words.....here we are :

" In the fighting from August 21, when the main collision occurred, down to September 12, when the victory of the Marne was definitely accomplished ( a period of scarcely three weeks ) , the French armies lost nearly 330,000 men killed or prisoners, or more than one sixth of their total losses in killed or prisoners during the whole fifty-two months of the war. To these permanent losses should be added about 280,000 wounded, making a total for this brief period of over 600,000 casualties to the French armies alone ; and of this terrific total three fourths of the loss was inflicted from August 21 to 24, and from September 5 to 9, that is to say, in a period of less than eight days. "

I have never been able to escape from the spell of Churchill's rhetoric, and he combined this with deft use of statistics. A lot of my research into the casualty figures from the Great War was inspired by these words and others written by Churchill, and I have forever been grappling with the task of trying to establish how accurate his analysis was. To attribute a loss of 450,000 men to a period equivalent to barely one week of fighting is mind boggling.

You can understand, I'm sure, why I wish to expand the debate about the BEF's 1914 casualties into a more generalised view about the intensity of fighting for all the main belligerents in those early days ; but at the same time I am sensible of the more specific theme of the OP.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Craig,

Believe it or not, that is for killed and missing only ! A fantastic total, almost freakish. Add on to that figure the huge numbers of wounded, and heaven knows what the overall total was. I'll get hold of my Churchill World Crisis and post the actual words.....here we are :

" In the fighting from August 21, when the main collision occurred, down to September 12, when the victory of the Marne was definitely accomplished ( a period of scarcely three weeks ) , the French armies lost nearly 330,000 men killed or prisoners, or more than one sixth of their total losses in killed or prisoners during the whole fifty-two months of the war. To these permanent losses should be added about 280,000 wounded, making a total for this brief period of over 600,000 casualties to the French armies alone ; and of this terrific total three fourths of the loss was inflicted from August 21 to 24, and from September 5 to 9, that is to say, in a period of less than eight days. "

I have never been able to escape from the spell of Churchill's rhetoric, and he combined this with deft use of statistics. A lot of my research into the casualty figures from the Great War was inspired by these words and others written by Churchill, and I have forever been grappling with the task of trying to establish how accurate his analysis was. To attribute a loss of 450,000 men to a period equivalent to barely one week of fighting is mind boggling.

You can understand, I'm sure, why I wish to expand the debate about the BEF's 1914 casualties into a more generalised view about the intensity of fighting for all the main belligerents in those early days ; but at the same time I am sensible of the more specific theme of the OP.

Phil (PJA)

I know pretty much nil about the French in WW1 but the sheer number of casualties shows what sort of impact was absorbed by them - if the BEF had similar casualties it would have been obliterated rather than just severely damaged. The 56,000 per day averaged over the worst 8 days would see the BEF gone in 2 days.

Craig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does it record what casualty rates were? Esp for the infantry? Curious to know if they were seeing similar rates to the British. My expectations would be that French Infantry casualty rates in 1914 would be higher* than British. MG

* as a per cent of numbers engaged.

No, I'm afraid it doesn't provide us with the casualty rates. Bearing in mind the catastrophic dimensions of the French experience as cited in my Churchillian quote above, you're surely right to expect that those French infantry casualty rates were more extreme than the worst suffered by the British that year, and, by Jove, that's saying something.

Edit : Now I must confess to feeling a tad wobbly about this. In very rough and ready terms, French casualties, in absolute numbers, were ten times those of the British in 1914....but the French must have deployed at least ten times the number of men in the firing line as did the BEF. In the initial August to September fighting, though - if Churchill was right - the French casualties outnumbered those of the British by at least twenty to one. The disparity was most markedly reduced in the autumn battles, perhaps to something in the order of five to one. Overall, 1914 cost the French just under 300,000 in fatalities. The BEF took about one twelfth of that number. British POWs were just under twenty thousand, which suggests to me that the Germans might have taken two hundred thousand French prisoners in 1914, of whom, I should think, at least eighty per cent were taken in that calamitous period that Churchill alludes to.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The British Newspaper Archive-Dundee Courier - Saturday 03 November 1928

From a report on the unveiling of the La Ferte sous Jouarre Memorial

" Between Friday, 7th August, and Sunday, 16th August, 1914, the original British Expeditionary Force, composed of General Headquarters, one cavalry division (with an extra brigade), four infantry divisions and lines of communication troops-about 85,000 officers and men-left our shores for France. By Thursday, 20th August, it was concentrated between Maubeuge and Le Cateau, and two days later the 4th Dragoon Guards fired the first shots, our troops being then in position behind the Mons Canal. During the four weeks that followed the force was engaged in a continuous "war of movement" in which the battle line changed each day. The period was in many respects the gravest of the whole war. In those four brief weeks, thanks in no small measure to gallantry of the British troops, fighting stubbornly side by side with their French comrades, the elaborate and carefully considered German plan for ending the war at one blow was foiled and the final issue was deferred. The engagements included the Battle and Retreat from Mons, and the Battles of Le Cateau, the Marne, and the Aisne. The casualties of this "little band of brothers" in August 1914 numbered 14,409, of which 1382 were recorded as dead and 9765 as missing or prisoners, and in September they were 15,189, of which 2717 were recorded as dead and 3171 as missing or prisoners. On 20th September in the " Actions of the Aisne Heights " German attacks were repelled at a cost of 2000 British casualties and it then became clear that the danger of a break through on the Aisne had passed. Several considerations suggested the transfer of the British troops from that area to Flnders, and this was effected during the first fortnight of October. Precise figures of the casualties incurred in that movement are not available, but they were few. It may be assumed that the total dead for the period covered by this brief survey was 7700. Of that number, 3838 have no known graves and have perforce to be placed under the category of the "missing." Their names have been inscribed upon the memorial at La Ferte sous Jouarre.

Mike

At this point I feel it appropriate to pitch in with Mike's excellent citation, because it alludes to total BEF deaths in the August to September 1914 fighting being in the order of 7,700. My own suggestion that French losses in this period were roughly twenty times those of the British looks quite plausible, given the official French parliamentary tabulation of c.330,000 dead, missing and prisoners for August and September : if that figure is divided more or less evenly between dead and prisoners - which I think is a fair assumption - we have French losses in dead which would indeed equate to about twenty times the British total suggested above.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites



Not sure how reliable the figures are?


" Germany claim to have taken 296,869 officers and men. Amsterdam Sunday-According to Berlin papers the number of prisoners of war in Germany up ro October 21, was 296,869 including 5,401 officers. Of these the total number of French is 2,472 officers and 146,897 men; Russians, 2164 officers, 104,524 men; Belgians, 547 officers, and 31,378 men, and English, 218 officers and 8,669 men. Further convoys of prisoners are en route. Generals at present in German fortresses number 27, of which, 6 are French, 18 Russian including 2 Commanding Generals, and 3 are Belgian. Press Association War Special. "


Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mike,

Those figures look reliable : indeed, I suspect that they're understated.

I'm sure that the figure for " English" prisoners is only about half the actual total at that time....the remark that " Further convoys of prisoners are en route" implies that they were coming in thick and fast.

The British, at that very time, were about to undergo their severest ordeal at Ypres.

As an indicator of the ratio between French and British losses, I would place considerable reliance on that document.

Incidentally, if we accept Churchill's estimates - which are based on the French parliamentary document of 1920 - we have some 600,000 French casualties for August to September, as against the British return of 30,000 ; and there is a sea change in October and November, with 254,000 French compared with 55,000 British...a change from the twenty to one to fewer than five to one. In proportionate terms, the British loss in the later period was nearly - but not quite - as outrageous as that of the French in the earlier one. Bad as First Ypres was, though, I do not think we can compare it with Rossignol.

These press cuttings of yours are a wonderful source, Mike !

Edited : Every time I post, I am dismayed by the number of typos that I keep having to correct !

Thanks.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To attribute a loss of 450,000 men to a period equivalent to barely one week of fighting is mind boggling.

Phil (PJA)

It puts the British losses into a different perspective. A few authors have reminded us that the British contribution in 1914 was very small when compared to that of France - for reasons that are well understood. It is interesting that British histories tend to focus on how well the British did against overwhelming odds etc, and barely mentioning the French. I have read little about the French operations and must address that huge gap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Martin,

As a man who familiarises himself with official histories, you will be astonished at the HUGE gap between statistics furnished by the 1920 documents parlemenaires francaises and those of the official French Army histories.

The odd thing is, however, that while the totals are so different, both sources are fairly harmonious when it comes to figures for the dead and missing. There is a big problem with the statistics for the wounded : les armees francaises, for example, citing just under one million wounded by the end of 1915, while the parlement document gives a figure in excess of a million and a half. I suspect that the higher figure includes the sick - they come under the category of evacuated into the interior, without differentiating between illness and wounds. One French medical chief estimated that 800,000 of the 3.1 million evacuated were sick - about one quarter. My guess is that these men were suffering ailments sufficiently serious to warrant long term invalidity.

Compared with these disparities, the differences between MedStats and SMEBE are small beer.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Martin,

Compared with these disparities, the differences between MedStats and SMEBE are small beer.

Phil (PJA)

I do like the SMEBE abbreviation. Can I steal it please?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know pretty much nil about the French in WW1 but the sheer number of casualties shows what sort of impact was absorbed by them - if the BEF had similar casualties it would have been obliterated rather than just severely damaged. The 56,000 per day averaged over the worst 8 days would see the BEF gone in 2 days.

Craig

Almost equivalent to the first day of the Somme repeated eight times. Rather sobering.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A quote from PJA:

and I suspect that chances of survival thereafter were enhanced for those who came through the initial ordeal.

This does not follow, does it? For an individual [unless he learned to duck and dive more efficiently, and/ or unless his chain of command was strategically and tactically better] all that mattered for survivability [or unscathability!!!!!] is the grim reaper computing his chances using the day by day terms such as 450/500 x 490/510 x 480/ 765 etc etc.

Congrats on a super thread, to which I have contributed little as I have been in the pursuit of pleasure rather than erudition.

And I commend it to the House.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're right, Grumpy : that was an injudicious statement by me.

What I think I was driving at was the huge contrast between the appalling intensity of the initial phase followed by the more steady attrition of the following years.

That comes over loud and clear in that RUSI Roll of Honour that I cited on another thread on this section of the forum about groups of officers : more than thirty per cent of those who died between 1914 and 1918 in this sample died in the first five months, reflecting the shock of the first clashes and the very prominent role played by an elite group of professional soldiers as they committed themselves totally to their vocation.

EDITING : That said, I have to ask : didn't the old hands learn how to " duck and dive" ?

Military history is replete with examples of veteran units avoiding the fate of green troops who were massacred. And I must temper my comments about the more steady attrition of the later years : we have made too much of the notion that moblile warfare tended to be bloodier. Some of the war's most catastrophic episodes occurred in the static battles.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have to revise my post#55. There are 48 and 72 men from the 23rd Nov and 29th Nov 1914 cohorts whose 1914-15 Star details I have not yet traced . I am fairly certain these men transferred to other units which is why they are not included in the Royal Sussex Regt medal rolls. If they transferred, they certainly survived 1915. If we assume they all survived the war (unlikely, but bear with me) the cohorts for the the 23rd and 29th have fatality ratios of 32.4% and 34.6% - both fairly close to that of the 1914 Star cohorts.



Fate....................................Number..........% Fatalities


Main body...........................1,019...................32.8%


1st Reinforcements................94......................36.2%


2nd Reinforcements...............94......................25.5%


3rd Reinforcements...............94......................38.3%


4th Reinforcements............158......................28.5%


5th Reinforcements..............99......................34.3%


6th Reinforcements..............93......................32.2%


7th Reinforcements.............128 (+48).............32.4% - this draft disembarked on 23rd Nov 1914


8th Reinforcements.............159 (+72).............34.6% - this draft disembarked on 29th Nov 1914



What is very clear is that one in three men who disembarked in 1914 became fatalities. (696 of 2148 men or 32.4%) - a number which I still find quite astonishing. It is three times the average of the whole of the British Army. Assuming 2 wounded for every man killed, we get to 97.2% battle casualties. The 2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regt was the only battalion from the regiment in theatre, and we know that the equivalent to two times War Establishment disembarked, so the numbers appear to resolve reasonably well.



Incidentally the authorities started recording the number of recovering invalids from mid Feb 1915. The weekly data for the Line Infantry shows an average of 19.8% of the reserves were recovered invalids. The absolute numbers for the Line infantry were slightly over 7,000 or roughly 473 men per battalion. For the Royal Sussex Regiment the numbers were lower than average; on 15th Feb 1915 (first record) some 297 men at the Reserve battalion were recovering invalids. notably only 9 were declared fit for service. From a base of some 2,148 men sent out in 1914, this suggests that 13.8% of men who disembarked were invalids. Doubtless there were still many men in hospital or convalescent camps who would eventually swell these numbers.



We know from the flow charts in Medstats that 55% of sick and wounded were evacuated to the UK, so we might expect around 766 Royal Sussex Regt men to have been evacuated. If 297 were recovering invalids, this suggests around 4 in every 10 medical evacuees made it back into the regimental reserves. There are also 138 men described as 'permanently unfit for overseas service' which might indicate as many as 5 in 10 medical evacuees made it back into the regimental system, although not all recovered sufficiently. This last group is I believe the body of men who were subsequently transferred to Home Service Garrison battalions etc. There are some small assumptions in these arguments, but I think they do not stretch the realms of probabilities very much.



Any mistakes are mine. MG


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Martin,

You deserve great credit for this research.

I freely admit that - but for your efforts - I would have refused to believe that one in three of the infantrymen who disembarked in 1914 failed to survive the war.

Another edit : Forgive my twisting this way and that....but now I remember being astonished to read that about one third of the New Zealand contingent perished at Gallipoli. This makes the revelations about the mortality of 1914 infantrymen of the BEF rather more easy to take on board.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My latest revised figures for the main body + 1s & 2nd drafts - unless by some miracle I can dig out some more men from the initial body (approx 50 men missing) then there's nothing more I think I can add numbers wise to the data. Total fatalities for the main body was 16.7% for the war.

post-51028-0-38378000-1416777230_thumb.j

post-51028-0-52642100-1416777246_thumb.j

Craig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So in Craig's sample we have 218 killed or died from a total of 1,212 men who served ; in Martin's we have 696 of 2,148. What differentiated the battle experience of the two ? A two to one disparity in mortality rates catches the eye. But I suppose it would be bizarre if there was evenly spread loss throughout. Think of the Mons Campaign : the difference between the losses suffered by Haig's and Smith Dorrien's commands speaks volumes about the way battle exacts a preponderance of sacrifice from one contingent, while sparing another.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So in Craig's sample we have 218 killed or died from a total of 1,212 men who served ; in Martin's we have 696 of 2,148. What differentiated the battle experience of the two ? A two to one disparity in mortality rates catches the eye. But I suppose it would be bizarre if there was evenly spread loss throughout. Think of the Mons Campaign : the difference between the losses suffered by Haig's and Smith Dorrien's commands speaks volumes about the way battle exacts a preponderance of sacrifice from one contingent, while sparing another.

Phil (PJA)

The cautionary note with my figures is that they only cover the main body and 1st two drafts that went to France so the best comparison would be the overall fatality date - approx 18% which is approx 16% lower than that of the Royal Suusex. What you see with the Royal Sussex is the huge casualties levels in 1914 when there was the period of open warfare before the beginning of trench warfare, the 6th DLI didn't enter France until April 1915 when the trenches were already a feature. Interestingly the large losses the 6th suffered at 2nd Ypres were due to an advance over open ground of around 1.5 miles.

Both sets of casualty figures interestingly also show a big drop off in casualties for 1917/18.

Craig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My latest revised figures for the main body + 1s & 2nd drafts - unless by some miracle I can dig out some more men from the initial body (approx 50 men missing) then there's nothing more I think I can add numbers wise to the data. Total fatalities for the main body was 16.7% for the war.

Craig

Craig

Thank you for taking the time to do this. It is fascinating. I note that 1/6th Bn DLI and 1/8th Bn DLI amalgamated on 3rd June 1915 'owing to heavy casualties...and resume identities on 11th Aug 1915'. This suggests the battalion or battalions saw very heavy attrition only a few months into their war. 80 fatalities in 1915 might suggest around 240 killed and wounded, which by the standards of the Western Front in 1915 do not appear to be extreme. CWGC data shows thrre-quarters of the killed in 1915 happened within a month of landing - so we see a similar heavy skew towards the early weeks

Being mid summer it does not seem likely that the battalion would see high levels of sickness that is usually a feature of the cold winter months. In 1915 the battalion saw at least 1142 men pass through its ranks. I see the August drafts (total 264 men) more or less coincide with the battalion resuming its separate identity. MG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The cautionary note with my figures is that they only cover the main body and 1st two drafts that went to France so the best comparison would be the overall fatality date - approx 18% which is approx 16% lower than that of the Royal Suusex. What you see with the Royal Sussex is the huge casualties levels in 1914 when there was the period of open warfare before the beginning of trench warfare, the 6th DLI didn't enter France until April 1915 when the trenches were already a feature. Interestingly the large losses the 6th suffered at 2nd Ypres were due to an advance over open ground of around 1.5 miles.

Both sets of casualty figures interestingly also show a big drop off in casualties for 1917/18.

Craig

The disparities are interesting. The Royal Sussex Regiment saw fatal casualty levels in 1914 that were very slightly above average for the infantry battalions of the first five Divisions (64 battalions including 19th Inf Bde). The point here is that the Royal Sussex Regt was not an out-lier in the data for 1914. It was as close to the 'average' fatalities as it can be - so a rather useful reference point.

To put this into context, 32 battalions saw higher fatalities. The 1st Bn Scots Guards saw more fatalities in a single month (Nov 1914) than the 2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regt did in the whole of 1914. The 1st Bn Scots Guards were not the hardest hit in 1914. That rather dubious 'honour' goes to the 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders which had more than double the fatalities of the 2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regiment at 585.

The random nature of war and death becomes apparent when we look at the data in detail. The 2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regt - the closest to the average of all the battalions - suffered 22% of its 1914 fatalities on a single day. The 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders fatalities, while higher in absolute terms were more evenly spread across the five months. The 1st Bn Scots Guards suffered 39% of their fatalities in 1914 in a single day (11th Nov) and 51% of all its 1914 fatalities in just two days (11th-12th Nov 1914). The battalion was reduced to one officer and 61 men. The other battalions in the brigade - 1st Bn Black Watch (1+109) and the 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders (3+ 140) were in similar distress. One begins to understand the intensity of the actions of 1914.

I struggle to understand how a battalion maintains any cohesion under these circumstances. If one out of every two men is killed, the 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders must have seen battle casualties far in excess of 100% of war establishment in 1914 alone. The data for the main body of the 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders would be depressing reading. I suspect hardly any men from the main body of this battalion made it to Armistice Day unscathed.

Any mistakes are mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I note that 1/6th Bn DLI and 1/8th Bn DLI amalgamated on 3rd June 1915 'owing to heavy casualties...and resume identities on 11th Aug 1915

They did the - the 8th got decimated at St Julien and the 6th got bashed about just outside Zonnebeke - when they amalgamated the 6th had approx 500 men and the 8th 340 men.

Between 26 Apr 1915 and 3 May 1915 the 6th had approx 220 men recorded as wounded and the 8th recorded at least 574 men dead, wounded or missing.

Although the 6/8th was a temporary measure the 8th appears to have various companies temporarily attached from other battalions in the brigade to keep them up to strength after they resumed their separate existence.

Craig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The dreadful fatality rate the afflicted the men who disembarked in 1914 was focused on a realtively small cohort if we take into account the more than five million men who served in the British Army 1914-1918.

A mortality rate of one third is outrageous when compared with an overall average of one in eight ; but it applied to a number which did not exceed eight per cent of the total number of soldiers who served throughout, and, of course, being in the infantry was bound to entail a vastly greater risk of death than that faced by the overall body....especially if we take into account the ferocity of the early fighting that this band of brothers had to face. So....should we be that surprised at the death rate that Martin has revealed ?

I admit that I was ; but on reflection, and looking at things " in the round", we might reconsider. Hope that doesn't appear complacent.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There may well be casualty figure tables and graphs etc, hidden away in Divisional level diaries. At Brigade level, there are many interesting facts/figures. Also worth looking in the RAMC diaries.Finding the right one among them will be the problem. Here's one I prepared earlier (from 1915 though) There is much of interest in the "Miscellaneous" sections in the N & MP Archive version.

f40g3p.jpg

Mike

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Craig,

Trench warfare was, I suppose, relatively safe so long as you stayed in the trenches. But if the requirements of an offensive meant that you had to come out of the trench, and advance into the deadly space towards an enemy in postition, then trench warfare becomes lethal in the extreme. I would have thought that in the fighting at Loos, the Somme, Arras and Passchendaele the fatality rates suffered by individual battalions in specific actions were as bad as anything suffered by their forebears in 1914 - perhaps even worse.

Maybe the open warfare allowed for a more general engagement for the entire army, with a greater number exposed to battle ; the positional warfare was localised, and the consequential loss was focused on small cohorts. Those cohorts faced an ordeal as lethal as it could get. Kiwis at Gallipoli, for example.

Phil (PJA)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

According to FSR Part II and FSM Oct 1914, pre war casualty expectations were 44% in the first six months of a continental conflict. and 80% for the first year. When battalions lose half of their establishment killed or wounded in just two days, and see battalions reduced to less than 50 men within a few months, it exposes just how little the Army understood of what lay ahead. This is not a criticism, merely an observation. Kitchener's calculated gamble that the regulars could hold the line for six months while the New Armies were being trained did not quite work out.

The technologies available in 1914 were not particularly new. There had been examples in the Russo-Japanese war of what impact contemporary technology could have on the battlefield. This had been studied by the British. The British Army knew the numbers available to the German and French Armies and yet doctrinal expectations for casualties were still very wide of the mark. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wonder if Kitchener really thought the regular Army would survive six months. I have not seen anything in writing on how the War Office's expectations might have changed as the disasters of 1914 unfolded.

The chart below shows daily casualties Aug 1914- Jun 1915 for the BEF. The three pillars of Le Cateau, The Aisne and Gheluvelt show just how concentrated fatalities were. The First Ypres cluster is significant. When seen against 1915 one gets a slightly different perspective. Note this data is for the Western Front only and will not include the significant losses of the first Kitchener Divisions at Loos in the second half of 1915. MG

191415cas.JPG

 

Edited by Guest
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...