BEF 1914 - Early Disembarkation and Survivability

[Muerrisch]

Fascinating and very difficult thread.

Has one seen this:

CASUALTIES (PERCENTAGE OF RETURNS TO DUTY).

HC Deb 21 July 1915 vol 73 c14911491

§46. Sir G. SCOTT ROBERTSON

asked the Prime Minister whether he can give the percentage of wounded that return to duty; and is the figure of 60 per cent, still maintained?

§The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith)

The percentage of the sick and wounded who return to duty remains approximately at the figure stated.

then, of course, duty could mean many things.

[ss002d6252]

Possibly men who died after being discharged?

It's certainly possible that would explain the CWGC figures once RND etc are also deducted.

Craig

[Guest]

Fascinating and very difficult thread.

Has one seen this:

CASUALTIES (PERCENTAGE OF RETURNS TO DUTY).

HC Deb 21 July 1915 vol 73 c14911491

§46. Sir G. SCOTT ROBERTSON

asked the Prime Minister whether he can give the percentage of wounded that return to duty; and is the figure of 60 per cent, still maintained?

§The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith)

The percentage of the sick and wounded who return to duty remains approximately at the figure stated.

then, of course, duty could mean many things.

Medstats page 20 gives the following for wounded:

57% returned to duty in front line from hospital or convalescent depot

7% returned to duty in front line from front line medical unit.

18% returned to duty on L of C garrison or sedentary occupation

7% died

8% discharged from the service as invalids

3% disposal otherwise, but not stated

It is worth noting these were men treated by the Medical Services. Not all of the above were hospitalised. Page 15 Table 4 has the following for F&F 1914-18 (whole force)

Admissions : wounded .......................................1,988,969 (incidentally 7.61% died of wounds)

Wounded returned to duty in Theatre of War........584,959

= 29% of wounded admitted to hospital returned to duty in theatre of war. Rather different from the 60% quoted in parliament.

Note in typical style Asquith answered a different question to the one asked. His response was for sick and wounded which saw 60% of sick and 54% of sick and wounded admitted to hospital return to duty in theatre for 1914-18 (whole force) according to Table 4. Note he was answering in July 1915 and the numbers could well have been 60% at the time. Again huge differences between categories. The subtle addition of the words 'sick and..' magically doubled the recovery rates.

MG

Edited.

[Muerrisch]

Martin, thank you. Naughty old Asquith, although from the point of view of the receiving unit, probably not a lot of difference.

[Guest]

On 11/25/2014 at 17:39, GRUMPY said:

Martin, thank you. Naughty old Asquith, although from the point of view of the receiving unit, probably not a lot of difference.

I think there would be a lot of difference

1. More sick recovered than wounded

2. Sick recovered faster than wounded

From the receiving unit perspective these men would put less strain on the reinforcement chain as they would be recycled through it more rapidly. By way of reminder here is the flow chart based on the one in OH MedServices 1914-15. I have rebased all the figures and applied the splits of Wounded, Sick and Injured. It is also possible to calculate the numbers who died in the UK based on the total numbers died a less the numbers died in hospital in France.

I have a few reservations with this chart as the numbers died in hospital in France appear to be incredibly low for the number of admissions, but it gives a snapshot of what typically happened to every 10,000 hospitalised cases weighted proportionally for 1914-15 levels of Wounded, Sick and Injured.

Edited for minor adjustments. MG

Edited 19 December , 2017 by Guest

[ss002d6252]

I suspect Grumpy was meaning that the receiving unit probably wasn't bothered if the men they were getting back had been sick or wounded (happy to be corrected).

My next little project is to go through the 8th DLI diary and look at the weekly returns for sick & wounded as they seem to be pretty extensive compared to most diaries.

Craig

[Guest]

I suspect Grumpy was meaning that the receiving unit probably wasn't bothered if the men they were getting back had been sick or wounded (happy to be corrected).

Craig

Comprendre. Apologies if I misunderstood Mr Grumpy.

[ss002d6252]

Comprendre. Apologies if I misunderstood Mr Grumpy.

Don't worry - he'll remain the same level of grumpiness.

The figures are interesting though when put in to context against political statements (some things never change). The chart should allow me to run the 8th DLI figures through once I have them to see what comes out the other end compared to the actual. Shouldn't take long to knock up a excel sheet with the relevant calculations.

Craig

[phil andrade]

Comments made by soldiers and politicians at the time are so interesting.

I have a recollection of reading in Lloyd George's memoirs that his information was that five out of every nine wounded men were able to return to the front line - or was it the other way round ; that five out of nine were effectively removed from the firing line ? I'll have to check.
It's exasperating when you think you remember something important like that, and trawl through the old volumes, and fail to find the passage.

What I definitely do remember being rather " excercised" by was an upbeat comment made by Haig regarding his assessment of the results of the opening day or two of his Ypres offensive in the battle for Pilkelm Ridge. Most of the wounded were " cheery", and the preponderance of " slight cases" was encouraging. One has to wonder about a significant ratio of " slight" cases. There is a dismal corollary : that the badly wounded were not being recovered, and were being abandoned to a dreadful fate.

Edit : Got it ! Lloyd George's memoirs, volume 2, page 1584

...a considerable proportion of wounded recover and return to active service. In the British Army the proportion that recovered and returned to the forces was five out of nine, while of the remainder, the larger part recovered sufficiently to return to civil life and take up work which released other men for the Army.

Phil (PJA)

[Muerrisch]

Grumpy serene having been understood.

In this context "serene" is to be seen as a state of customary grumpiness.

This thread is GWF at its best.

[phil andrade]

Agreed. People have worked hard, and helped and supported each other.

Martin,

Before I tuck this away into my repertoire of rough and ready statisitcal references for the casualty figures of the Great War, I would like to make sure I've properly assimilated the gist of this.

One third of all the BEF infantry who disembarked in August 1914 were dead by war's end ?

Of those who perished, roughly one half died by the end of 1914 ?

These assessments, if correct, are very sobering, especially if the non fatal casualties are taken into account.

They testify to the ferocity and intensity of the opening phase of the war.

My observation that about 2,750 of the 8,500 or so New Zealanders who served at Gallipoli died in that campaign might serve to dispel any astonishment, though.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Agreed. People have worked hard, and helped and supported each other.

Martin,

Before I tuck this away into my repertoire of rough and ready statisitcal references for the casualty figures of the Great War, I would like to make sure I've properly assimilated the gist of this.

One third of all the BEF infantry who disembarked in August 1914 were dead by war's end ?

Of those who perished, roughly one half died by the end of 1914 ?

These assessments, if correct, are very sobering, especially if the non fatal casualties are taken into account.

They testify to the ferocity and intensity of the opening phase of the war.

My observation that about 2,750 of the 8,500 or so New Zealanders who served at Gallipoli died in that campaign might serve to dispel any astonishment, though.

Phil (PJA)

Phil - put simply, I don't think the sample sizes are large enough to draw any conclusions. Of the three samples we have, one is close to average fatalities for 1914, the other two are among the very lowest, so the data by pure chance has a very big skew towards two battalions with (relatively) low battle casualty levels for 1914. 3 of 52 battalions represents a 6% sample.

Among the three samples (2 RWF, 1ESR and 2RSR) the Royal Sussex Regiment has by far the most extreme data with 33% fatalities. The other two are around 22% so there are large variations. We need to tread with caution. A simple measure of 1914 fatalities (CWGC data) shows the 2 RSR had close to average number of fatalities. The other two battalions had fatalities that were the 2nd and 7th lowest of the 52 battalions. This might indicate two things:

1. The data from the 2 RWF and 1 ESR will give us something close the the minimum number of overall casualties for a battalion's main body landing in Aug 1914

2. There are likely to be many other main bodies that saw fatalities for the whole war even higher than the 2 RSR.

The experience of three battalions is not necessarily representative of the experiences of all 52 battalions that landed in August 1915. It might be, but we don't yet know. The random nature of warfare means casualties were far from evenly distributed and other factors yet to be explored may well have a profound impact. The massive differentials between casualty ratios of the regular infantry and the TF on the Western Front from 1915 onwards being one glaring example. We need more samples to make any conclusions statistically meaningful.

In the small number of robust samples we have, fatalities for the whole war among the main bodies range from 22% to 33% - this is between two and three times higher than the average for the British Army during the war. Data from the other sources strongly suggests that wounded would be at least twice the number of fatalities meaning these cohorts would probably have seen between 66% and 99% battle casualties (ex POWs) throughout the war.

There is some evidence that the cohorts of the main bodies landing in Aug 1914 experience a very high proportion of their fatalities within 12 months of landing. The proportion of men who died within a year of landing (compared to all deaths from the cohorts through the entire war) averages at 63%. This number needs to be treated with caution as the sample size is only three battalions the samples are 41%,72% and 72%.

For the proportion that died in 1914 the number is 37%. Again this number needs to be treated with caution due to the small sample size and the skew in the data.

A long-winded way of saying we need more data. MG

[Derek Black]

Hint taken, I'm typing my fingers to the bone on the 1st BW data when i get a free minute!

Derek

[phil andrade]

Martin,

Thank goodness you ally your heroic efforts with an awareness of the dangers of extrapolation.

And how fortunate the British people were .....the relatively tiny size of the contingent they exposed to battle in those deadly early months spared them the huge numbers of casualties that were sustained by their continental counterparts ; although, as you demonstrate, the ordeal suffered by that comparatively small number of Britons was fatal to too many of them.

The psychological shock of sustaining monstrous loss in the first clash was so great for France that it's hard to exagerrate the impact at the time and for a very long time afterwards. I believe that the Austro - Hungarians also sustained irreparable damage to morale as a result of catastrophic casualties in the first months ; the Russians took an especially hard knock, too, sustaining half their total casualties in the first twelve months of the war. The German experience is rather more " steady" in this respect : sustained levels of great loss throughout, with peaks of extremely high casualties in following years rivalling those of 1914.

For the British, of course, it was the mid point of the war that produced the everlasting shock : The First Day of the Somme.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Hint taken, I'm typing my fingers to the bone on the 1st BW data when i get a free minute!

Derek

I know just how big a task it is. The Black Watch is interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is its claim that every trained man was in theatre by mid October....which, if true, should indicate that Kitchener men were filtering through in the November data. It also had the 9th highest level of killed in 1914 of the 52 battalions. It had 100 more fatalities in 1914 than the unfortunate 2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regiment so I expect the data will be off the charts.

I have weekly analysis of the BW reserves for 1914-15 and they almost certainly accelerated Kitchener men through training. There is a big collapse in the number of men under training and a parallel increase in trained men within the Reserves. The inverse correlation is extremely high. They are mirrors of each other and can really only be explained by a re-categorisation of Kitchener men whose training had been shortened. Magically they became 'trained'...so it will be interesting to see if post declaration numbers appear in the November and December drafts.

The other reason the Black Watch is interesting is that it was (as I am sure you know) in the 1st Guards Brigade. Two of the other battalions in the Brigade - the 1st Bn Coldstream Guards and the ubiquitous 1st Bn Scots Guards had the 4th and 5th highest fatalities in 1914. The last battalion to complete the Brigade was the 2nd Bn Royal Munster Fusiliers which had low fatalities but extremely high POWs after being cut off. The 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders, having been Army Troops were thrown into the gap left by the 1st RMF and eventually saw the highest number of fatalities of any battalion in 1914. So, in one Brigade we have the battalions with the highest, and the 4th, 5th and 10th highest fatalities as well as a battalion that was destroyed and mostly captured. Bad luck? Bad leadership? Overzealous use of a single Brigade? Extreme commitment? one wonders.

As a tangent to this thread, it seems that randomness was not the only factor. If death was randomly distributed among the BEF's original 52 battalions it is unlikely that one Brigade would see such a gigantic concentration of destruction. I suspect there are other complex factors at play. This brigade saw even more fatalities than the doomed 3rd Infantry Brigade. Both were at Gheluvelt. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time had a major impact.

It is an interesting fact that both Brigades formed part of 1st Div - part of I Corps which was seen to have done a lot less than II Corps during the Retreat. Clearly this asymmetry changed after the Aisne. 1st Div's battalion-level fatalities in 1914 were 52% greater than 2nd Div's, again suggesting that the formation a unit was in had a very big impact on the fate of the men.

For all the above reasons, the 1st Bn BW data will be of great interest. MG

[Guest]

Very rough calcs on 1st Bn Scots Guards. Half of the medal roll seems to be AWOL as I can only locate 505 Scots Guardsmen on the 1914 Star roll with disembarkation date of 13th Aug 1914...however of these 505 here are the stats:

Killed...........................................73

Died on or Since..........................71

Died of Wounds...........................30

Sub Total...........................................174 = 34.5% fatalities

Medically Discharged..................72

Prisoner of War...........................78

Discharged for other reasons......47

No remarks................................134

Total.......................................................505

Assuming the other 505 have similar distribution, the fatalities are the same order of magnitude as the 2nd bn Royal Sussex Regt. Note the very high proportion of POW (15.4%) which should distort this cohort. 34.5% fatalities implies around 69% wounded.i.e. it is distinctly possible that every survivor in this cohort was wounded at some stage during the war. MG

[Guest]

2nd Bn South Lancs. Disembarked 14 Aug 1914. 929 ORs on 1914 Star medal Roll disembarked on this date.

Killed..................................182

Died.....................................13

Died of Wounds...................38

Sub Total................................233..= 25.0%

Discharged (Para vi)..........143

Discharged (other).............131

No remarks.........................422

Total........................................929

Again, more than double the fatality rate of the Army for the whole war. Disembarking early appears to have at least doubled the chances of becoming a fatality. MG

[MartH]

I am in awe what has been down on this topic. Especially with respect to the impact on the learning curve in the BEF. Has anyone looked at the casualty rates amongst senior NCO's and their Officers.

[westkent78]

Update on 1st RWK:

A long long way to go but with about 10% done.

The 14th-16th August Originals are currently showing:

Killed: 16.96%

Died: 0.89%

Died of Wounds: 5.36%

Missing P.D: 3.57%

Sub Total: 26.78%

Discharged Para XVI: 10.71%

Discharged Term of Engagement: 6.25%

Discharged (Other): 1.79%

Transfers to other Regiments (almost all Lab Corps or Garrison Bns/Depots so far): 15.18%

POW: 8.04%

Deserters: 4.46%

Commissioned: 0.89%

No remark: 25.89%

Matthew

[Guest]

I am in awe what has been down on this topic. Especially with respect to the impact on the learning curve in the BEF. Has anyone looked at the casualty rates amongst senior NCO's and their Officers.

Ref: Officers. Yes. It is quite horrendous. Not yet complete but beyond doubt very disturbing. August BEF infantry subaltern casualty, killed, wounded rates simply put everything else into the shade. The nearest I have seen is K1 Gallipoli and K1 and K2 Loos. The Somme (1st July) is I think an absolute focus rather than a relative one. When considered in the context of the numbers engaged, I think 1914 is potentially worse . I think Gheluvelt in particular may have been the British Army's worst day. Another six months of research to go but it will be interesting reading. Of the 100 BEF regular battalions I have done the analysis Officer numbers on 78 battalions. The numbers are simply unbearable. Battle casualties well in excess of 90%.

MG

[Guest]

Update on 1st RWK:

A long long way to go but with about 10% done.

The 14th-16th August Originals are currently showing:

Killed: 16.96%

Died: 0.89%

Died of Wounds: 5.36%

Missing P.D: 3.57%

Sub Total: 26.78%

Discharged Para XVI: 10.71%

Discharged Term of Engagement: 6.25%

Discharged (Other): 1.79%

Transfers to other Regiments (almost all Lab Corps or Garrison Bns/Depots so far): 15.18%

POW: 8.04%

Deserters: 4.46%

Commissioned: 0.89%

No remark: 25.89%

Matthew

Beautiful. Thank you for all your effort. Greatly appreciated. This is helping some potentially ground-breaking research. MG

[MartH]

Ref: Officers. Yes. It is quite horrendous. Not yet complete but beyond doubt very disturbing. August BEF infantry subaltern casualty, killed, wounded rates simply put everything else into the shade. The nearest I have seen is K1 Gallipoli and K1 and K2 Loos. The Somme (1st July) is I think an absolute focus rather than a relative one. When considered in the context of the numbers engaged, I think 1914 is potentially worse . I think Gheluvelt in particular may have been the British Army's worst day. Another six months of research to go but it will be interesting reading. Of the 100 BEF regular battalions I have done the analysis Officer numbers on 78 battalions. The numbers are simply unbearable. Battle casualties well in excess of 90%.

MG

Looking forward to this. I think you have hit upon something really important about the people who learnt the lessons becoming casualties.

[Guest]

Looking forward to this. I think you have hit upon something really important about the people who learnt the lessons becoming casualties.

The OH mentioned this in Vol,1. I am in their slip-stream. Revisionist history at best. "I have seen further because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" etc....

[Guest]

There may be more useful figures in The British Medical Journal

British Medical Journal 1915 Vol 1 page 19 (73 of 1580)

" In Reynolds's Newspaper for December 20th, 1914, some statistics are given of the number of British officers whose names have appeared in the casualty lists up to that date. The figures given are: Killed, 1,133 ; wounded, 2.225 (of whom 216 were also missing or prisoners) missing and prisoners, 513 ; total, 3,871. Out of these numbers the Indian contingent in the British Expeditionary Force contributes just 200—killed, 83 ; wounded, 106 ; and missing, 11. The most striking feature of this list is the very high proportion of killed to other casualties—not far short of one in three—a much greater proportion of killed to wounded than has ever previously been recorded. Classified by rank, the killed are : Generals, 8 Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels, 29 ; Majors, 103 ; Captains, 356 ; and Lieutenants, 637. In this list, as in the statistics given above for the R.A.M.C, the great proportion of casualties among the junior ranks is most noticeable. Information is not available as to the number of battalions of the various regiments which are on active service, which prevents any exact comparison between them. But among the corps which have suffered most severely may be mentioned R.F.A., 43 officers killed ; Worcesters, 23 : Coldstream Guards, 21 ; Connaught Rangers and Middlesex, 20 each. The number of officers in the artillery is, of course, immensely greater than that of any individual regiment.

Mike

[phil andrade]

Your posts excite my admiration, Mike, not only because you have at your fingertips such an array of contemporaneous commentary : you also display discernment in how you deploy it.

Your post above, for example, serves to illustrate how shocked the people were at the time not just by how large the casualties were, but - even more - by how they were made up.

The proportion of the killed amongst those officer casualties was indeed an appalling feature of the statistics.

To reveal the extent of how bad this was, I have used the Medstats to compare officer casualties on the Western Front in 1914 with those of their counterparts in 1916 : the ordeal of the Somme impinged dreadfully on British officers, but, notwithstanding this, the proportion of fatalities in their 1914 casualty list had been significantly higher.

There were 30,293 battle casualties among officers in 1916 ; of these, 9,198 - 30.4% - were fatal. For 1914, the figures had been 3,710 battle casualties, of whom 1,519 - 41% - were fatal. That is shocking, and was clearly perceived so at the time.

Previous experience in South Africa had resulted in 701 officers being killed in action or dying from wounds between 1899 and 1902, so the impact of more than double that number being killed in less than twenty weeks is hard to overstate. As yet, I haven't been able to asses the proportion of those Boer War fatalities as a percentage of total casualties ; the comparison with 1914 F&F would be interesting.

For reasons which I invite fellow forumites to speculate and comment upon, this dreadful fatality among the officer casualties in 1914 on the Western Front was to be surpassed by that of the Gallipoli fighting, in which 45.4% of all British officer battle casualties were fatal.

Phil (PJA)