BEF 1914 - Early Disembarkation and Survivability

[Guest]

I think the differences may be explained by men serving in the Regiment v men serving in the Battalion.

An interesting point here is that the 2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regt 1914 Star medal roll has hundreds of men with no comments in the remarks column. Blank. One might assume they were still with the battalion, however the Regimental Ledger shows 95% of these men wounded, hospitalised and evacuated at some stage to England. Some were discharged or transferred but the vast majority the last entry is simply "to Englnad". My reading of this is that they wer medically downgraded but not discharged and took on other roles within the Regiment in the UK - Depot, Reserve battalion staff, instructors etc. The pooint here is that while the 1914 Star roll shows a blank, the ledger shows they were elsewhere and does not record any return to the battalion.

It is possible that the 1914 Star rolls are recording the men serving in the Regiment on the qualifying date (22nd Nov 1914), rather than the men serving in the regiment when the rolls were prepared in April 1919. Given the rolls show men transferred out to other units, it seems this is a possibility. It is clear from the RSR ledger that a blank on the roll does not capture the whole story.

MG

[Derek Black]

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

The data is from the medal roll,with checks against CWGC for missed deaths as the bulk of the roll was prepared in January 1918, although 1914 deaths are missing on occasion form the roll too.

Highest standard number: 9999 (13/08/14)

The highest 3/ number: 3/9800 (29/09/1914

The only four S prefix men:

S/2894 (30/08/14)

S/3251 (22/09/14)

S/3573 (09/11/14)

S/4182 (09/11/14)

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

Mike

The dead are included in the fatality figures above.

Pow's

44 survived.

31 died in captivity.

Derek.

[phil andrade]

This should have been blindingly obvious to me ; but, like so much that is blindingly obvious, it can sometimes be overlooked.

A quick survey of mortality rates for British soldiers who served 1914-18 indicates that about one in eight died. If we focus on an infantry battalion that served throughout, we might expect to see a significantly higher death rate : perhaps in the order of one in five or six.

What this fails to reveal is the extent to which certain contingents experience far more fatal exposure, and how their record is subsumed by the overall totals.

I still find it shocking that one in three of all the infantrymen who disembarked in mid August 1914 perished in the war ; perhaps half of them dying in the three months between the first shots at Mons and the end of First Ypres. This reflects the conditioning of my perception to the overall death rate of twelve or thirteen per cent. Now we're countenancing mortality three times that figure, and it's sobering.

That said, this cohort of August 1914 infantrymen accounts for a tiny percentage of all who served. And this little army stood up to an extreme ordeal....I'm pleased that I suggested in an earlier post that First Ypres might be considered the sternest test ever faced by a British army.

I like Martin G's reminder that our perceptions of the First Day of the Somme might alter if we better appreciated the ordeal of 1914....but whatever the death rate that those men of August 1914 suffered, it must not be forgotten that July 1st 1916 took nearly as many British lives as all the France and Flanders fighting of 1914 combined.

Phil (PJA)

[Muerrisch]

Black Watch numbering will pose problems, as I expect readers and writers will know.

Just for the record, from Paul Nixon:

This post will look at numbering in the two regular battalions of The Black Watch between 1881 and 1914. Service records for all of the sample numbers and dates below survive in the seriesWO 363 and WO 364 at the National Archives (and also online at Ancestry.co.uk) and WO 97 (on line courtesy of Find My Past).

The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) was formed on the 1st July 1881; the 1st Battalion from the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot (The Black Watch), and the 2nd Battalion from the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot. The newly formed regiment was established as the county regiment for Fifeshire, Forfarshire and Perthshire. It started numbering from 1 in July 1881.

22 joined on 14th July 1881
1152 joined on 18th February 1882
2074 joined on 22nd March 1883
2222 joined on 16th January 1884
2566 joined on 8th January 1885
2852 joined on 5th January 1886
3177 joined on 2nd February 1887
3658 joined on 19th January 1888
3882 joined on 16th May 1889
4049 joined on 11th March 1890
4530 joined on 22nd April 1891
4962 joined on 28th March 1892
5290 joined on 4th July 1893
5460 joined on 8th January 1894
5916 joined on 28th January 1895
6359 joined on 25th February 1896
6642 joined on 18th March 1897
6874 joined on 13th January 1898
7226 joined on 14th March 1899
7228 joined on 27th February 1900

During the South African War the Black Watch raised three Volunteer Service Companies. Men joining the 1st VSC in January 1900 were issued numbers in continuance of the series then in use for the regular 1st and 2nd Battalions and not allowing the clear one thousand digit gap that had been stipulated in AO 29 of the 2nd January that year. Numbers in the range 7540 to 7666 were issued to these men and on the 17th February 1900, the 1st VSC comprising three officers: Captain Cook, Lieutenant Hunter and Lieutenant McArthur,and 114 men embarked aboard SS Gascon for South Africa.

Men joining the 2nd VSC were issued numbers from within a wide range of numbers which I had originally noted as within the range 8522 to 9024. More work needed here.

Men joining the 3rd VSC in January 1902 were issued numbers between 9083 and 9176.

Meanwhile, numbering of regular enlistments in the regular battalions continued apace:

8083 joined on 16th January 1901
8525 joined on 2nd January 1902
9424 joined on 13th January 1903
9735 joined on 11th January 1904

A new number series commences
Queen’s regulations for the Army, 1895 had stated: “The regimental series of numbers will commence with 1. The numbers will be given in sequence, according to the date of application. When the series approaches 9,999, application should be made to the Adjutant-General in sufficient time to obtain authority to commence a new series.” The new King’s Regulations of 1904 which permitted infantry regiments to number up to 19,999 came too late for the Black Watch which reached 9,999 in September 1904 and immediately started a new series from 1.

182 joined on 20th March 1905
495 joined on 18th January 1906
876 joined on 5th April 1907
1243 joined on 30th March 1908
1580 joined on 28th January 1909
1791 joined on 4th February 1910
1955 joined on 6th January 1911
2333 joined on 10th April 1912
2560 joined on 18th August 1913
2652 joined on 20th January 1914

The First World War
When Britain went to war in August 1914, men joining the new service battalions were issued with numbers from the same series that had, up until that point, been the sole preserve of the regiment’s two regular battalions. The only difference between men enlisting for war-time service only and those enlisting as career soldiers, was that the former’s numbers were supposed to be prefixed with the letter S/.

[Derek Black]

41% of 1st BW Officers who qualified for the 1914 Star died.

27 fatalities in the battalion, or while attached elsewhere.

66 on the roll (not including 2 RAMC & 1 A&SH officers).

Derek.

[westkent78]

I think the differences may be explained by men serving in the Regiment v men serving in the Battalion.

An interesting point here is that the 2nd Bn Royal Sussex Regt 1914 Star medal roll has hundreds of men with no comments in the remarks column. Blank. One might assume they were still with the battalion, however the Regimental Ledger shows 95% of these men wounded, hospitalised and evacuated at some stage to England. Some were discharged or transferred but the vast majority the last entry is simply "to Englnad". My reading of this is that they wer medically downgraded but not discharged and took on other roles within the Regiment in the UK - Depot, Reserve battalion staff, instructors etc. The pooint here is that while the 1914 Star roll shows a blank, the ledger shows they were elsewhere and does not record any return to the battalion.

It is possible that the 1914 Star rolls are recording the men serving in the Regiment on the qualifying date (22nd Nov 1914), rather than the men serving in the regiment when the rolls were prepared in April 1919. Given the rolls show men transferred out to other units, it seems this is a possibility. It is clear from the RSR ledger that a blank on the roll does not capture the whole story.

MG

Martin,

That's a very interesting discovery. The RWK 1914 roll has most entries in Red ink, but the 'survivors' with the regiment appear in Black/Blue ink. My intent is to track down these 'survivors' and by a combination of service papers and BWM & VM roll work out some approximation of those still with the battalion rather than the regiment, unless a Register surfaces. It does appear that the apparent 1914 roll 'survivors' are in reality just men who are still in the RWK in some form. I have discovered that some of what appeared to be the 'survivors' transferred to the ASC in June 1919 and are on the ASC BWM roll, but in the RWK 1914 roll they appear in Black/Blue ink, so that may indicate some time frame to consider. The RWK 1914 roll is a bit of a pain to work through as they seem to have included many men who weren't entitled to a 1914 Star- they catch it in the roll, but it takes a while to sift it properly.

It looks like the Royal Sussex BWM roll is similar to the RWK BWM roll in that battalions are mentioned, but not transfer dates, so you should be able to corroborate the Ledger's data regarding the 'England' men. I wonder if they show up later in the Ledger on their next excursion across the Channel with a new entry, or have you already worked that out?

Best regards,

Matthew

[Guest]

Cameron Highlands 1914 Star (ORs only). 2,048 men of which 762 were fatal casualties. This equates to 37.2%. Based on simply counting the fatalities on the medal roll. Error ratio will be in low single digits.

The 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders were originally Army Troops and used to plug a variety of gaps in the line. When the 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers were nearly annihilated and taken out of the 1st Guards Brigade, the 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders took their place. The 1st Bn Black Watch was in the same brigade. It also included the 1st Bn Colstream Guards and the 1st Bn Scots Guards - both of which were annihilated in 1914 and reduced to less than 100 men at one stage. This was a rather unfortunate Brigade.

The fatality stats for August infantry disembarkations are beginning to cluster around 35% on average. MG

[Guest]

Martin,

That's a very interesting discovery. The RWK 1914 roll has most entries in Red ink, but the 'survivors' with the regiment appear in Black/Blue ink. My intent is to track down these 'survivors' and by a combination of service papers and BWM & VM roll work out some approximation of those still with the battalion rather than the regiment, unless a Register surfaces. It does appear that the apparent 1914 roll 'survivors' are in reality just men who are still in the RWK in some form. I have discovered that some of what appeared to be the 'survivors' transferred to the ASC in June 1919 and are on the ASC BWM roll, but in the RWK 1914 roll they appear in Black/Blue ink, so that may indicate some time frame to consider. The RWK 1914 roll is a bit of a pain to work through as they seem to have included many men who weren't entitled to a 1914 Star- they catch it in the roll, but it takes a while to sift it properly.

It looks like the Royal Sussex BWM roll is similar to the RWK BWM roll in that battalions are mentioned, but not transfer dates, so you should be able to corroborate the Ledger's data regarding the 'England' men. I wonder if they show up later in the Ledger on their next excursion across the Channel with a new entry, or have you already worked that out?

Best regards,

Matthew

RSR has the same black ink and red ink. both in separate handwriting so presumably coming from separate sub-lists.

The ledger has a single entry for each man followed by a long string of dates and events. A simple example:

L/8895 A/Sgt Horace Marchant

• MIC only shows 2 RSR
• 1914 Star shows no comments under Remarks
• Ledger shows 13th Dec 1914 To Base...14th Dec 1914 To England.

There are many hundreds of similar entries where the next entry records 'Re-embarked' or 'returned' with a date showing men who came back from the UK. In this case Marchant's records in the ledger do not record him returning. I need to find men in this list whose service records survive to see if the records tally with the ledger. I expect the ledger to be a good record - there would be no point maintaining it for 5 years unless the information in it was up to date. We shall see. MG

[Drew-1918]

Here are some results from the 1914 Star Roll for the 4^th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. The table also incorporates data from the CWGC, IRC, SWBs, MiCs, BWM&VM Roll, and Service/Pension Records. The original figures I got from looking at the 1914 Star Roll were, in a few columns, 2-6% lower than that shown here. I could not find any further details on 3 soldiers.

Notes:

Fatalities

As I think some others may have found, there was a high incidence of “died/dead”, as opposed to KIA, for 1914. I am not quite sure as to why this might be.

Proportions of fatalities for the Main body cohort, 4^th Bn RF

(33.3% 'Died'/18.9% 'Died on or since')

The number of 4^th Bn RF fatalities on the CWGC for 1914 appears to be around 395, which would mean the main body cohort would account for about 69% of these. It is clear that I will have to look at the other drafts to confirm this.

POWs:

16.1% of the main body cohort became POWs. This seems like quite a high figure, though I am not very familiar with other Regiments at this time. This figure appears to be in large part due to many men being taken prisoner at Mons on the 23.8.14.

I should add that I was able to identify 61 ‘No Remarks’ men as prisoners, by using Paul Nixon’s very excellent blog on 1914 POWs.

Transfer to HS Garrison Bn etc:

Also included in this category were transfers to the Labour Corps, ASC, Employment Coys, Agricultural Coys, the MFP, those “On munitions work”, and those to Reserve/Training Reserve Bns. Quite a few of the Garrison Bn transfers were to counties with relatively low population densities, as I think Martin noted. I am not quite sure if I should have included the Labour Corps and ASC in this category. I assumed that some medical downgrading would most likely have taken place for many of these men in order for them to have left a line Regiment. Perhaps I am wrong in this assumption. If so, please correct me, and I will adjust the figures accordingly. The Garrison Bn type transfers were early on in the war and seemed to give way to more ASC and Labour Corps transfers later on.

‘No Remarks’:

When I had originally finished analysing the 1914 Star Roll, I was left with about 307 men who had nothing recorded in the ‘Remarks’ column. After looking at the various other sources of information mentioned above, I was left with 85 men who I could track no further. After then consulting the Service & Pension Records, I was lucky enough to find the details of 16 men. At the time, I felt this was a relatively high number to have found, not necessarily in terms of the numbers (only 18.8%), but at least compared to other searches I have done in the past. Of these 16 Records, only one man made it to the Armistice with no wounds, sickness, transfers, or anything else like that (Possibly two, though the record of another man is unclear at the crucial points). The other 14-15 men were mostly all sent to the Fusilier Depot. In other words, these 16 men all appeared, after I made nearly all the checks I could think of, to have ‘made it through’ as it were. Yet, when the Pension/Service Record is consulted, it is clear that 93.8% of the ‘No Remarks’ men in this case study, had suffered some sort of injury, or had been hospitalized for a long period, and thus ended up in the Depot. I think this might be like what Martin had suggested could be the case in a recent post of his.

I don’t think it is too much of a jump to extrapolate a 1:16 ratio up to a figure of about 5 or 6 out of 85 (10-12 if we accept the ‘blurred’ record). This implies that approximately 6-12 men remained ‘unscathed’, out of the 85 who I had left for November 1918 (and out of the 1,010 men of the main body cohort, who first landed in August 1914). With these ‘unscathed’ men at the Armistice, I also think there may have been, perhaps a further mere handful of men, who had been previously wounded or sick, but had returned. I found one Service Record which showed such a scenario. This evidence is not as good as the ledgers Martin found, of course, but I was quite happy at being able to get anywhere near an estimation, and I certainly did not expect to do that when I started.

I hope this is of use and that I haven’t made too many big presumptions. Though I have checked and rechecked the figures a number of times, I expect there will be a few mistakes in there.

Regards,

Chris

Edited twice: Correction of errors to fatality figures in tables.

[phil andrade]

What wonderful research, Chris.

Thanks.

Regarding that high proportion of ' DIED' among those 1914 fatalites : might this allude to men who were initially posted as missing in action, and who were subsequently presumed dead ? Not being properly accounted for, they were finally - perhaps - posted as died as a kind of default method. They were, I daresay, actually killed or abandoned as they lay dying - a fate of too many in the retreats and traumas of those 1914 battles.

By triangulating sources, cross checking, it's become apparent to me that those who died from wounds in the BEF in 1914 ( I allude to Medical Statistics here) equated to about one fifth the number who were posted as killed, if we allow for the missing who could not be accounted for being conflated with the killed . This would be in harmony with the proportions in your table, if we allow for the vast majority of those 52% posted as died being consigned to the missing. There would,of course, be a number of deaths from illness and injury in that category, too : but I would contend that at east four fifths of them,maybe nearly nine tenths, were originally returned as missing.

Phil (PJA)

[Drew-1918]

Thanks Phil.

I wondered myself whether they might not have been previously ‘missing’, but I think what confused me, was that there were a few cases of 'Death Presumed' in the Rolls. I wondered why the ‘died’ weren’t record as D.P. too, if they had previously been missing. However, I think you must be right in what youre saying. I can’t think of anything else it could be.

I'm thinking perhaps I could compare the 1914 Rolls with SDGW/CWGC. That might give different proportions.

Many thanks for your thoughts,

Chris

Edit: After re-reading your post I see you made some suggestions as to why they may have been recorded as died rather than D.P. Apologies.

[phil andrade]

Chris,

A pleasure to be of help.

Suggest a reference to the Official Medical Statistics : Casualties, along with CWGC and SDGW.

Also, monthly returns of casualties GHQ as tabulated in Stats. Military Effort ( SMEBE).

You'll find - I think - that my suggestion is plausible.

I'm " skimming" here, rather than delving...giving a quick fire reaction without being thorough and checking the sources : but I'm convinced that nearly all - indeed, perhaps all - of that anomalous fifty two per cent were men who were killed or left dying on the battlefield, and were posted as missing.

If my circumstances allow, I'll get hold of my Med Stats and cite some hard data to back up my contentions.

Phil (PJA)

[Drew-1918]

Many thanks again. Will look up the sources you suggest.

Chris

[phil andrade]

Here you are, Chris.

Medical Services, Casualties and Medical Statistics, France and Flanders 1914 , page 122 table 4 :

Killed : 13,009

Missing ( almost certainly killed) 6,596

Died of wounds : 3,657

POW : 19,915

Wounded : 55,689

Died of disease : 372

Died of injury : 136

You will see that the total of confirmed killed and missing presumed dead comes to 19,605 ; the died from wounds, at 3,657, comes to 18.65 % of that total.

If you ascribe your confirmed killed ( 25.4%) and died ( 52% ) to a notional total of 76.4% killed in action, you will see that the 14.7% died of wounds comes to 19.4% of that total....conforming with the proportion cited in the Med Stats. I feel this vindicates - to a large degree - my suggestion that the 52% were actually missing, posted by default to died. The proportion is abnormally high, but this might reflect the experience of Mons and the Retreat, which must have entailed a greater than normal degree of abandonment of dead and dying.

More than that, if only 508 men were posted as died from non battle causes in the entire BEF for the whole of 1914, it's virtually inconceivable that a single battalion could have suffered more than half of its total fatalites as a result of disease or accident.

Hope this passes muster.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Here are some results from the 1914 Star Roll for the 4^th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. The table also incorporates data from the CWGC, IRC, SWBs, MiCs, BWM&VM Roll, and Service/Pension Records. The original figures I got from looking at the 1914 Star Roll were, in a few columns, 2-6% lower than that shown here. I could not find any further details on 3 soldiers.

I hope this is of use and that I haven’t made too many big presumptions. Though I have checked and rechecked the figures a number of times, I expect there will be a few mistakes in there.

Regards,

Chris

Chris

Many thanks for sharing this detailed analysis. I really appreciate the efforts you have gone to as I know just how much work it entails.. It is interesting that the numbers are in the same order of magnitude compared to other battalions. We are beginning to build a picture that is consistent across some random samples which is reassuring.

If I might prevail upon you for one more bit of data - I note that 70.8% of the fatalities happened in 1914. Is it possible to calculate the fatalities that happened within one year i.e. up to 12/8/1915 for this cohort?

All fascinating reading. Thanks again. MG

[Guest]

‘No Remarks’:

When I had originally finished analysing the 1914 Star Roll, I was left with about 307 men who had nothing recorded in the ‘Remarks’ column. After looking at the various other sources of information mentioned above, I was left with 85 men who I could track no further. After then consulting the Service & Pension Records, I was lucky enough to find the details of 16 men. At the time, I felt this was a relatively high number to have found, not necessarily in terms of the numbers (only 18.8%), but at least compared to other searches I have done in the past. Of these 16 Records, only one man made it to the Armistice with no wounds, sickness, transfers, or anything else like that (Possibly two, though the record of another man is unclear at the crucial points). The other 14-15 men were mostly all sent to the Fusilier Depot. In other words, these 16 men all appeared, after I made nearly all the checks I could think of, to have ‘made it through’ as it were. Yet, when the Pension/Service Record is consulted, it is clear that 93.8% of the ‘No Remarks’ men in this case study, had suffered some sort of injury, or had been hospitalized for a long period, and thus ended up in the Depot. I think this might be like what Martin had suggested could be the case in a recent post of his.

I don’t think it is too much of a jump to extrapolate a 1:16 ratio up to a figure of about 5 or 6 out of 85 (10-12 if we accept the ‘blurred’ record). This implies that approximately 6-12 men remained ‘unscathed’, out of the 85 who I had left for November 1918 (and out of the 1,010 men of the main body cohort, who first landed in August 1914). With these ‘unscathed’ men at the Armistice, I also think there may have been, perhaps a further mere handful of men, who had been previously wounded or sick, but had returned. I found one Service Record which showed such a scenario. This evidence is not as good as the ledgers Martin found, of course, but I was quite happy at being able to get anywhere near an estimation, and I certainly did not expect to do that when I started.

I hope this is of use and that I haven’t made too many big presumptions. Though I have checked and rechecked the figures a number of times, I expect there will be a few mistakes in there.

Regards,

Chris

Chris

My only small observation would be that the 1 in 16 assumption is slightly vulnerable. If only one more record had been found showing an unscathed survivor, this would halve the ratio to 2 in 16 or 1 in 8. Applying this to the 85 would of course double the number assumed to have survived unscathed. The numbers are still small but perhaps illustrates how sensitive the end numbers are to small assumptions. It doesn't really change the conclusions that very few men served continuously through the war without harm. I would be fairly confident that the men sent to HS garrison battalions were medically downgraded.

It is not a criticism, as you have kindly laid out everything in fine detail. Anyone reading the detail will be able to judge for themselves. It is almost impossible to get the full picture and what you have done is simply marvellous. What is interesting is that it reinforces the theory that the Aug 1914 cohorts were particularly hard hit and their fatality ratios were roughly two to three times greater than the average for the whole army for the whole war.

I would concur with Phil's comments on his assumptions on 'Died'. I suspect the way MIA were treated changed through the war which might explain why there were so many classified as 'Died' rather than KIA. In the Royal Sussex ledger there are multiple ways men were described as died, and it seems depended on the dates they were recorded i.e the nomenclature changed over time.

MG

[Drew-1918]

Phil,

Thanks very much for going to the trouble of checking all that out. I must admit it took me a little while to get my head around it, but once I did, I could see you point clearly. Impossible to argue with your point about the BEF 'died' as well. I think I recall you made a similar point, earlier in the thread. I should have remembered that really.

Martin,

You needn't worry, I am very open to any criticism or discussion about points I have made, especially when its so politely and diplomatically put as yours was. We have to be rigorous. The only thing I would say is that I thought I had covered the scenario you mention when I wrote 6-12 men (i.e. If another 'unscathed' example did occur). It is a very vulnerable figure though. Who is to say that there wouldn't be another 4 men 'unscathed' in the next group of 16 soldiers, were I able to check them, and that would seriously change things. In addition, since the 2 RSR losses seem to have been a bit higher, I would perhaps expect a few more men from the 4th RF to have survived 'unscathed' (that is, if it was all in proportion). I do only have an 18% sample, but couldn't help but wonder.

I will get to work on looking at the first year. I am very glad to be of some small help in such an interesting thread. Let me know if there is anything else.

Many thanks,

Chris

[Guest]

More than that, if only 508 men were posted as died from non battle causes in the entire BEF for the whole of 1914, it's virtually inconceivable that a single battalion could have suffered more than half of its total fatalites as a result of disease or accident.

Hope this passes muster.

Phil (PJA)

Phil - I think you make an exceptionally good point here. Something that had not quite sunk in and now that it has, reinforces the integrity of the analysis on this thread. Even if the 508 were spread solely among the infantry units that landed in Aug 1914, it would only average at less than 10 men per battalion died as non-battle casualties or less than 1%. Given the infantry was less than 60% of the BEF, and illness/sickness was probably universal, I suspect the infantry numbers would likely be below 1%. If one considers the Mons Star was awarded to over 330,000 men and women, the stats become even more compelling. 508 as a per cent of 330,000 is 0.15%. MG

[Guest]

I stumbled on this today:

9th (Service) Bn Black Watch: in May 1918 it had one Officer and 83 ORs left from the original battalion still serving in its ranks and the History makes the comment that several had been wounded one or two times. 32 Officers and 1,141 ORs were with the Bn in early 1915 suggesting 93% fell by the wayside for one reason or another.

10th (Service) Bn Black Watch. Four officers, another three Officers (Commissioned from the ranks), nine WOIIs, 26 Sergeants , 22 Corporals and 243 Privates - Total 307 -'originals' of the 996 All Ranks that left the UK in Sep 1915 remained. The Battalion served in Salonika from Nov 1915 to until Jun 1918, then served in France. 31% of the original battalion saw it out to the end of the War. remarkably different from the 9th Bn.

MG

[Guest]

According to the General Annual Reports 1913-1919 (dated 1921) under AO 295 of 1914 some 64,223 men re-enlisted into the Infantry of the Line to end Sep 1914 and a further 27,188 to end Sep 1915. These men went into the Special Reserve (later Reserve) Battalions which pooled all the Reserves. Taking only the 1914 re-enlistments suggests (on average) the 68 Line Infantry Regiments this equates to roughly 944 men per regiment by the end of Sep 1914.

Re-enlistment suggests most would have been time-expired. The proportion of NCOs is not given. MG

[Guest]

Some very preliminary numbers on the 1st Bn Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders' recipients of the 1914 Star. 1,981 names. 746 fatalities through the war 37.6% fatality ratio. The fact that this battalion saw nearly two times its war establishment go through its ranks by 22nd Nov might suggest overall casualties were approaching 100% of War establishment.

The Battalion was originally designated as Army Troops, later drafted in to the 1st Guards Brigade to replace the 2nd Bn Royal Munster Fusiliers which was annihilated during the Retreat from Mons. Despite its rather late arrival in the front line, the 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders suffered the largest number of fatalities of any battalion in 1914. It is notable that the 1st Bn Black Watch (see Duncan's earlier post) was in the same Brigade and suffered similarly high fatalities.

Edit 1: Other Ranks: of the 1,066 men who disembarked with the Battalion up to 14th Aug 1914, some 447 became fatalities through the war; a 41.9% fatality ratio. This is more than three-and-a-half times the average for the whole Army for the whole war. Edit. Of the 447 fatalities, 351 or 78% became fatalities in 1914

Edit 2: Officers. Of the 27 Officers who disembarked on 14th Aug 1914, some 17 were killed during the war; a fatality ratio of 63.0%.

Overall fatality ratio for All Ranks of the 1st Bn Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders disembarking on 14th Aug 1914 was 45.2%

MG

[Derek Black]

Fascinating stuff Martin.

It'll be intersting to see more battalions and how they compare also.

[phil andrade]

Martin,

That's a startlingly low number of officers : 27 as against 1,066 men. A forty to one ratio. An anomaly, or an error ?

Editing : Aologies, Martin...I think I've jumped too soon again. I would have thought that thirty or more officers would have been consigned to a thousand men, so the twenty seven figure is hardly anomalous, and not erroneous.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Martin,

That's a startlingly low number of officers : 27 as against 1,066 men. A forty to one ratio. An anomaly, or an error ?

Editing : Aologies, Martin...I think I've jumped too soon again. I would have thought that thirty or more officers would have been consigned to a thousand men, so the twenty seven figure is hardly anomalous, and not erroneous.

Phil (PJA)

The BEF in 1914 had its Officer establishment temporarily reduced by 3 Officers - WO instruction on 7th Aug 1914. This was the flip side to the 3 Officers sent to raise the New Army battalions. It didn't last long and by October battalions were disembarking with 30 Officers, The first four Divs largely complied with the reduction to 27 although there are small variations. There is another thread on this somewhere. This does not include the one Officer in the First Reinforcements which arrived with battalions on or about 5th Sep 1914. Note: 1st Reinforcements were part of War Establishment. In the case of the Camerons this officer was also a fatality so 18 out of 28 i.e. 64%

First Reinforcements were typically one Officer and 93 ORs and experienced similar attrition levels as the main bodies. MG

[phil andrade]

Thanks for clarifying, Martin.

My challenge is exposed as flawed !

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

Phil (PJA)