BEF 1914 - Early Disembarkation and Survivability

[ss002d6252]

Finally finished the Main Body. Only 1.8% made it to demobilisation in 1919 with the battalion without being wounded or hospitalised. Some made it to demobilistion having been transferred out. The 50% sample (see above) proved to be a good indicator. 18 men out of 1.014* made it through unscathed with the Battalion. A fair number of these has been employed in HQs. The number serving continuously without being temporarily posted away and coming through unscathed or not having been hospitalised was just 12, men or 1.2%.

Fatalities were 32.1%

I have some number crunching to do and some charts to create. It will be fascinating reading. The Life and Death of a battalion. MG

* There were 5 duplicates.

MG.

A good article for StandTo!

As an aside - does anyone have the submission guidelines for articles ?

Craig

[Muerrisch]

Martin, well done, and I look forward to the nitty gritty. If collateral were needed for your analysis [which it is not] perhaps my conclusion re. 2nd RWF made as early as 2003 provides it. You will recall that my method was totally different from yours.

There were probably about 25 men in 2nd RWF making the same claim to extreme good fortune at the same time that he {Frank Richards] was making it.

2nd RWF had a relatively softer experience in 1914 ............ nevertheless, in my terms, your result and mine are in the same ball park.

Death of an Army of Mercenaries indeed.

[Guest]

Here is an extraordinary Chart. It shows the number of the original Main Body of the 2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regiment still serving with the battalion throughout the war. The battalion disembarked on 12th Aug 1914 with 26 Officers and 989 ORs. The chart below shows the ORs only*. The data is extremely complex as men were hospitalised, wounded, sick and returned. I am working on a more refined version which will show men who returned (the numbers are extremely low) over the period.

Some reference points (note the calendar year ends are shown as vertical lines)

• Half the men had left the battalion Killed, wounded, sick, discharged, transferred etc by 7th Nov 1914 - only 88 days after disembarking.
• By the end of 1914 over 69.8% of the men had left the Battalion,
• By 12th Aug 1915 (exactly one year after disembarking) 91.7% of the original ORs wee no longer with the Battalion
• On Armistice day only 6 12 men were still with the battalion who had served continuously without being wounded, injured or hospitalised sick.

It is the most extraordinary chart I have seen in some time. MG

* 941 ORs. data on 48 is patchy or non-existent. Sample is 95.1%. Variance is +/- 0.2%

 

Edited 24 September , 2016 by Guest

[charlesmessenger]

Martin

This is most illuminating. I fear though that it is just the beginning of another long road. What we now need to know is the make up of the replacements - returned originals, Special Reserve, Volunteers, former TF (after conscription was introduced) and conscripts.

I think we all appreciate just how valuable the work you are doing is. Finally, you are replacing supposition with some hard fact.

Charles M

[Guest]

Martin

This is most illuminating. I fear though that it is just the beginning of another long road. What we now need to know is the make up of the replacements - returned originals, Special Reserve, Volunteers, former TF (after conscription was introduced) and conscripts.

I think we all appreciate just how valuable the work you are doing is. Finally, you are replacing supposition with some hard fact.

Charles M

Charles

I have all the data for each Reinforcement Draft. I can slice and dice the data any way imaginable. I have charts for the 8 reinforcement drafts sent out in 1914 and can combine any number to look at Main Body, Mann Body plus 1st reinforcement, or every man sent out in 1914. The charts all have similar profiles. As mentioned, it is very complex with well over 50,000 data points.

I did not want to data-dump at this stage. The quality of the data is on a different level to anything I have seen before. It will take six months to transcribe and analyse properly I think (24,000 individuals). By the end I will be able to write the Life and Death of a Battalion.

My early conclusions is that authors don't really understand what happened to the men of Aug 1914. They didn't all die, they were wounded and invalided in vast numbers and very very few returned to active service with their original battalion. Fewer returned to active service with other battalions.

One thing that might be of interest is that the data is revealing tranches of men sent to Garrison Battalions. All had been wounded, evacuated and subsequently sent in substantial numbers to select Garrison Battalions in 1915. My guess is that these were medically downgraded men sent to release more able bodied men. The sort of things we know happened, but we can now start to understand the flows. Interestingly they were sent to Regiments in counties with low population densities. Food for thought. MG

[Guest]

Martin, I tried to pm this to you, but inbox full. Thought this might be of interest, and relevant, if you haven't seen it? Click

Mike

[phil andrade]

Martin,

Here's hoping that you'll like this passage that I lift from Arthur Conan Doyle's history of THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS 1914, being that it was published literally two years after the commencement of First Ypres...on page 51 :

No finer force for technical efficiency, and no body of men more hot-hearted in their keen desire to serve their country, have ever left the shores of Britain. It is a conservative estimate to say that within four months a half of their number were either dead or in the hospitals.

Editing : Add on to those who were dead or in hospital the men captured by the Germans, and we have two thirds to three quarters of the entire original contingent hors de combat by the end of First Ypres.

Phil (PJA)

[Scalyback]

The six men that stayed what rank did they start at and finish at? If you have looked at detail at these men.

[westkent78]

Martin,

Very interesting chart and quite thought provoking. But possibly something that most of us will not be able to mirror to the same degree without the luck of a similar register surviving. It's something to aspire to though, and perhaps by cross-referencing with surviving papers we might get closer.

Perhaps something that we could all produce and would be directly comparable would be an estimate for the number of men who stepped off on embarkation day and who were still with the battalion at the end, even if they'd been back to Blighty for wounds/sickness etc. I'd assume that the six surviving men probably received at least one UK leave each so technically no-one would have remained with the battalion for the duration.

Looking forward to the "refined" version. You allude that the wounded/sick who returned were a small number for 2nd Royal Sussex. I wonder if there was something specific about the return process which might have impacted that battalion and regiment in a different way to other regiments or battalions.

Matthew

[Guest]

The six men that stayed what rank did they start at and finish at? If you have looked at detail at these men.

Scalyback... I have found another 6, so there are 12 in total. All Privates and one L/Cpl. All discharged in Jan 1919.

[Guest]

Martin,

Very interesting chart and quite thought provoking. But possibly something that most of us will not be able to mirror to the same degree without the luck of a similar register surviving. It's something to aspire to though, and perhaps by cross-referencing with surviving papers we might get closer.

Perhaps something that we could all produce and would be directly comparable would be an estimate for the number of men who stepped off on embarkation day and who were still with the battalion at the end, even if they'd been back to Blighty for wounds/sickness etc. I'd assume that the six surviving men probably received at least one UK leave each so technically no-one would have remained with the battalion for the duration.

Looking forward to the "refined" version. You allude that the wounded/sick who returned were a small number for 2nd Royal Sussex. I wonder if there was something specific about the return process which might have impacted that battalion and regiment in a different way to other regiments or battalions.

Matthew

I have been very fortunate to have the ledger so close and be able to peruse it in detail. I would not be surprised if other Regiments kept similar records. I have seen a few publication that list every man served, say, in a battalion, that has similar detail. I guess it is simply a question of trawling the Regimental archives for more examples. I know the Hamsphire Regt journal kept detailed records of wounded men, dates etc for 1914-15 for example.

The refined version will take some weeks as it is extremely time-consuming. Every change in every man's record has to be carefully plotted. Some men went through Hospital, England, returned, returned to Bn etc over a dozen times and each change needs to be plotted accurately. I am also thinking about how the data needs to be recorded. It will potentially impact the way it can be manipulated and impact what can be extracted from it. I have put everything on a spreadsheet and every day of the war is a separate column with a separate row for each man. That is the simple stuff. If a man is serving with the Battalion the cell is simply annotated 'S', if wounded 'W', Hospitalised 'H', sent to England 'E', Transferred 'T' etc Transferred to the 7th Bn 'T7' or 9th Bn 'T9' etc. The spreadsheet then automatically countsthe number of each letter code for each day of the war, so I can plot the total number of serving men, total number of wounded, Hospitalised, sent to England etc for each day. All cells with T can be consolidated or just T7 or just T9 etc. This can be done two ways: a 'static' or net calculation i.e. when a wounded man is hospitalised W reduces by 1 and H increases by 1, which prevents double counting of casualties. If a man is transferred to the 7th Bn 'S' reduces by 1 and T7 increases by 1. I can also do this on a cumulative basis - i.e. the number of wounded against time which will capture men wounded two, three and four times.

Still have lots of additions to the data to do. Should be a few weeks.

I have been surprised by the number who were simply evacuated to England never to be heard of again, and the number evacuated to England and subsequently discharged. It seems if men were wounded, many hundreds simply never made it back. I have also been surprised by the number that returned, but only for a short period before being evacuated again and discharged. I cannot prove this but I suspect some men were returned before they were fully recovered and the rigours of trench life quickly took their toll. The earlier chart simply shows the men who were left. It will change slightly as men who returned are added back, but I doubt that anyone will be able to spot the difference between the two charts if they were side by side as the Permanent Casualties are so dominant in this cohort. I have done some preliminary number-crunching of the subsequent reinforcement drafts and they exhibit very similar characteristics. There was no way of avoiding Ypres 1914, 1915 etc for these men.

If there was a factor that was specific to the Royal Sussex Regiment and these cohorts, it would be that there was only one Regular battalion in F&F. This meant that if the 2nd Bn RSR had a bad 1914-15, these men could not avoid the same fate. If the 1st Bn RSR had been in theatre, many men may have returned to the 1st Bn rather than the 2nd Bn and might have had a less arduous time. When we look at Regiments with two battalions in theatre, we sometimes see very big differences in casualty data - such is the randomness of warfare - so in these cases there were alternative outcomes for recycled men who,say, ended up with a different battalion. In the case of the 2 RSR we have about 20 men who transferred to the 7th and 9th Battalions after being wounded. It would be interesting to see their fates.

I would stress that the 12 men simply shows continuous service with the 2nd RSR unscathed. Others may have been unscathed having been transferred elsewhere, but in the vast majority of cases evacuation to England was a precursor to being transferred elsewhere. It didn't make sense to transfer fully trained and effective men out of a battalion that saw such high casualty rates.

There are a few batmen at HQs and base wallahs who made it through, but I regard these men as not having started with the Battalion in the first place . They can be counted on one hand.

Any mistakes are mine. MG

[Muerrisch]

Martin:

"Your mission, Jim, should you accept it ............."

is to find photographs of the hardy dozen.

May not be impossible: 2nd RWF cannot have been unique in gathering their similar group together early in 1919. It was, even for then, a no-brainer.

[Guest]

Grumpy - remind me of the number in 2 RWF? If I recall correctly one or two were missing from the group photo?

The biggest challenge is that the Royal Sussex Regiment does not have a contemporary published history. All that history lost. No-one to corroborate anecdotes or provide personal diaries etc. It is a crying shame. The 7th (Service) Bn and the 16th (Sussex Yeomanry) Bn TF have published histories but the history of the 2nd Bn is possibly lost forever.

They were doubtless hardy, but also very very lucky. There were called the Iron Regiment in 1914 presumably for good reason. MG

[Muerrisch]

The 2nd RWF survivors photo is not strictly comparable with your 2nd RSR.

First, it includes three officers, all ex-rankers, two commissioned during the war, one the QM appointed 1912.

Total ORs is seven, RQMS, Sgt Drummer, Armr Sgt, Sgt, Cpl, LCpl, drummer. Hardly typical!

Clearly the privates are missing. [No double-entendre intended].

Secondly it was shot in May 1919, long after anyone who could get away had returned to civvy street.

I know for a fact that Pte F Richards DCM MM was another with continuous service.

My statistical analysis, using a totally different method from you, suggested some 25 men as "continuous unscathed", excluding officers.

This is with a battalion recognised to be lucky, and lightly-stressed in 1914 in particular. 3/47 of the deaths late 1917 were Old Contemptibles but of course might have served with either regular battalion in the interim.

Not quite chalk and cheese, but it says nothing to disagree with your isolating a dozen.

For photos, there is always the regimental archive. The sort of treasure that might be in store would be junior officers' albums. RWF archive has 20 volumes of major Dickson's, almost all India and Burmah service, where he sits as subaltern in NAMED company groups, as i/c C Company Hockey Team, all named, etc etc. If RSR have similar, your hardy lucky dozen may be in them.

Another source is local newspapers. A "soldier from the wars returning" after serving all the war might well make a news item, even in war weary Britain winter 1918/19.

[Guest]

I guess these men should be called the Thankful Men or Thankful Soldiers in the same sense as Thankful Villages. A friend told me that his grandfather (HAC, disembarked in 1914) always understood that he was one of the 'less than 5%' who were unscathed. No source provided but that is what he 'knew'. Presumably the stat came from somewhere. I suspect a newspaper.

By way of reminder, the OH in its 'Retrospect' Chapter claims that;

"In the British Battalions which fought at the Marne and Ypres. there scarcely remained with the colours an average of one Officer and thirty men of those who landed in August 1914. The Old British Army was gone past recall leaving but a remnant to carry on the training of the New Armies" *.

That implies roughly 97% casualties at battalion level. Maybe we should not be so surprised that so few 'august' men of the BEF made it through another 4 years unscathed. There is plenty of supporting evidence of this, but the fate of the 'originals' from August is very often masked by subsequent drafts.

MG

* 1914 Vol II, page 465.

[Guest]

Of the 1st Battalion The Black Watch on the 11th of November 1918, Wauchope says this " The Army kept advancing, and life in billets was uneventful until in the morning, the news came that the armistice had been signed. Very rightly Gen Strickland warned all ranks that cessation of hostilities did not necessarily mean peace. But when the news was received, there were few signs of any great outward rejoicing, such as were shown in the cities at home; men's senses were in some ways, dulled by the strain of marching, working, fighting, and marching again; in fact, if any effect were seen it was in the reaction to the strain of the last 6 months, the innate fatigue, both of mind and body, of gallant soldiers, determined to show no sign of weariness until their task was achieved. There were serving with the Bn on this day 1 officer, and 29 or's who had embarked on Aug 13th 1914, and had served with it continuously throughout the Great War. "

Mike

[phil andrade]

Maybe we should not be so surprised that so few 'august' men of the BEF made it through another 4 years unscathed.

Quite so.

The duration and severity of the war, especially the intensity of the first four months, were such that we might wonder how two thirds of them, by and large, lived to tell the tale.

The very smallness of the first contingents of the BEF was bound to exacerbate the burden of loss and might well have lent it a unique aspect ; but I wonder how the equivalent cohorts of Frenchmen, Germans and Austro Hungarian veterans of the 1914 fighting fared.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Dare I say, I think the first day of the Somme might be seen in a slightly different light if 1914 and particularly Ypres and Gheluvelt were understood slightly better. I am constantly being reminded that context is everything. French, despite his faults thought 31st Oct - 1st Nov 1914 as the most critical days of the war when a thin ragged line of men stood between Empire and a new world order.

The more I research this period the more I appreciate just how important 1914 was, and why the Old Contemptibles had such a strong bond. The nearest I can think is the first ANZACs whose rendezvous with death was just as severe. I think they were hard done by not getting a Gallipoli medal. To paraphrase Kipling;

A: I was a have

B: I was a have not

Together: What gavest thou that I gave not?

[Scalyback]

Scalyback... I have found another 6, so there are 12 in total. All Privates and one L/Cpl. All discharged in Jan 1919.

Old sweats indeed! A change to 2 RWF Grump highlighted with rankers holding commission. Showing each regiment is unique yet is the whole of the British army,

[phil andrade]

And - dare I say this ? - were those men of 1914 differentiated from their 1916 counterparts in so far as their status as regular soldiers set them apart from the citizens of the New Army ? The Old Sweats, the Reservists...professional soldiers all : not quite the same as those who came later. Another Kipling poem comes to mind :

IT'S TOMMY THIS

AND TOMMY THAT,

AND TOMMY 'OWS YER SOUL ?

( Sorry if I got it wrong, that's from memory)

These men of August 1914 who bled and died away...did their very professionalism deny them the same public " value" accorded to the men of the Somme ?

Phil (PJA)

[Derek Black]

Of the 1st Battalion The Black Watch on the 11th of November 1918, Wauchope says this " The Army kept advancing, and life in billets was uneventful until in the morning, the news came that the armistice had been signed. Very rightly Gen Strickland warned all ranks that cessation of hostilities did not necessarily mean peace. But when the news was received, there were few signs of any great outward rejoicing, such as were shown in the cities at home; men's senses were in some ways, dulled by the strain of marching, working, fighting, and marching again; in fact, if any effect were seen it was in the reaction to the strain of the last 6 months, the innate fatigue, both of mind and body, of gallant soldiers, determined to show no sign of weariness until their task was achieved. There were serving with the Bn on this day 1 officer, and 29 or's who had embarked on Aug 13th 1914, and had served with it continuously throughout the Great War. "

Mike

I've just finished transcribing into a spreadsheet the 1st Btn's 1914 Star medal roll, 1863 men, not including officers as they've yet to be done.

The fatality rate overall was 38.5%

20% were discharged from service.

23% stayed with the Btn til the end of the war.

Of the 13th of August men there are 292 who are listed as not transferred, discharged or dead. So not quite the same as in Wauchope's book.

Main Body

13/08/1914 (1139) 38%

Drafts

26/08/1914 (98) 49%

30/08/1914 (66) 46%

11/09/1914 (98) 44%

12/09/1914 (66) 34%

19/09/1914 (105) 40%

20/09/1914 (76) 30%

07/11/1914 (63) 37%

09/11/1914 (87) 38%

(plus 65 men in various small groups or individually joined)

There is likely an error here or there in transcribing, as well as more research needing done with other sources to iron out a few missing bits of info on one or two men, but generally i'm satisfied the numbers reflect the medal roll info.

Cheers,

Derek.

[Guest]

I've just finished transcribing into a spreadsheet the 1st Btn's 1914 Star medal roll, 1863 men, not including officers as they've yet to be done.

The fatality rate overall was 38.5%

20% were discharged from service.

23% stayed with the Btn til the end of the war.

Of the 13th of August men there are 292 who are listed as not transferred, discharged or dead. So not quite the same as in Wauchope's book.

Main Body

13/08/1914 (1139) 38%

Drafts

26/08/1914 (98) 49%

30/08/1914 (66) 46%

11/09/1914 (98) 44%

12/09/1914 (66) 34%

19/09/1914 (105) 40%

20/09/1914 (76) 30%

07/11/1914 (63) 37%

09/11/1914 (87) 38%

(plus 65 men in various small groups or individually joined)

There is likely an error here or there in transcribing, as well as more research needing done with other sources to iron out a few missing bits of info on one or two men, but generally i'm satisfied the numbers reflect the medal roll info.

Cheers,

Derek.

Derek

Fantastic work. Thank you for sharing it. It is a hard slog I know.

I would never have guessed a fatality rate that high. I see the first reinforcement draft had a fatality rate of nearly 50% which is rather sobering. I assume the 23% that stayed with the battalion is based on the medal roll? As you point out it is rather different from Wauchope's number of one Officer and 29 ORs which raises some obvious questions. I assume the 23% is based on the comments column being blank in the roll?

If it is on a spreadsheet are you able to share with us the highest Army Numbers of the 1914 Star men. The Black Watch claimed every trained man was in France by mid October, which may indicate re-enlisted men or Kitchener recruits may had appeared in the November drafts. I would be curious to know the highest Army Numbers in the data if possible.

MG

[Guest]

Where do POW's come into these figures (do they, or should they?)

Mike

[Drew-1918]

Hello,

Fantastic thread and have been following with great interest. Well done everybody.

I should be able to contribute with an analysis of the main body cohort of the 4th Bn Royal Fusiliers pretty soon. Analysis of the 1914 Star Roll done and just chasing up the survived/"no remarks" men mentioned in the 1914 Star Roll.

I hope I am not missing the point, but are the Black Watch numbers quoted above really that different? I mean, the figure of 29 ("continuous service") refers to the men with the Battalion from start to finish (The 'unscathed'), whereas the 292 figure refers to men with the Battalion at the start and at the finish but who may have temporarily left theatre at some point, doesn't it? Apologies if I am missing the point.

The 1914 Star Roll for the 4th Bn RF appeared to show a figure of about 313 who had survived (although it only goes up to January of 1918). However, after chasing these men down on the BWM & VM Roll, the number has dropped to just over 100 (currently). Whilst 100 men may have been with the Battalion at the start and finish, I suspect the number with "continuous" service from start to finish is in the region of what Martin and Grumpy have mentioned, and the figure Mike quoted above.

I was shocked by the Black Watch fatalities figure too. That seems quite a bit higher than the main body of the 4th Bn RF.

Chris

[Drew-1918]

Where do POW's come into these figures (do they, or should they?)

Mike

Mike,

I have been thinking the exact same things as I have been analysing the 4th Bn. RF. The 1914 Star Roll shows a figure of 10% of the main body cohort ending up as POWs (of which 82% were in 1914). I could not work out if I should group them with the figures for fatalities and discharged (since they were also put out of action as it were), or rather if I should group them with the TofE and other categories like that.