CONFUSING casualty figures for WW1

[doctorno]

In Maj Mitchell's "History of the Great War ... Medical Services ... Casualties and Medical Stats" (p12) he states that total cas figures 1914-1918, British and Dominion, = 11,096,338. With total men served at 8,700,000, I assume the additional casualties are men sick / wounded more than once?

However, in the Encycl Britannica, total casualties for the Brit Empire were 3,190,000.

Then on the LLT website, adding up all officers and ORs sick, wounded and killed, the total = 15,315,517,201.

Which one is correct?

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/648646/World-War-I/53172/Killed-wounded-and-missing

Dr N.

[auchonvillerssomme]

I believe The Encyclopaedia Britannica figures are taken from a revised 1921 report and exclude sickness. I base this on the 1920 report, also excluding sickness, stating 2,998583. Killed or Dow 908371 wounds 2,090212.

Mick

[phil andrade]

The very high figures include admissions to hospital for sickness ; these allow for trivial ailments and inflate the totals by millions.

The " hardcore" figures allude to killed or died from all causes ( roughly one million ) ; wounded and gassed ( just over two million) and prisoners of war ( just under two hundred thousand).....about three and a quarter million casualties for the British Empire in all.

As with casualty figures in general, a lot depends on who - and how - you count. If you count all those millions of soldiers who were treated for sickness - of whom the vast majority recovered quickly - you're going to get a hugely blown up figure....especially if, as you suggest, you count admissions for men who went sick more than once. Likewise, men who were wounded and gassed again and again could inflate figures.

Mick's cited figures from the 1921 report which are very widely accepted ; but they allude to the army only and do not include forty thousand sailors and airmen who died ; nor several thousand of their comrades who were wounded, and, in addition, there were about 190,000 prisoners of war.

What I do find rather disconcerting is the difference between the CWGC figure of c.1,100,000 deaths and the c.950,000 tabulated in the other widely cited source ( SMEBE).

A difference in the order of roughy fifteen per cent.

Phil (PJA)

[auchonvillerssomme]

Apologies I didn't mention the other exclusions, the Mercantile Marine figures also need to be taken into account.

[Ron Clifton]

I think the SMEBE figures are for army only, plus RND, and RFC before 1 April 1918. SMEBE does not have any figures for either the Royal or Merchant Navies.

Ron

[phil andrade]

Ron,

There is a figure of 947,000 deaths from SMEBE.

Within that figure are navy deaths of 32,000 and airforce deaths of 7,000.

I state that with a degree of diffidence, because my memory is not the power I would wish !

If you are able and willing to check this, I would be grateful.

I must reiterate how irreconcilable this figure seems with that of CWGC : we're talking about a difference of 175,000, more or less.

Phil (PJA)

[EastSurrey]

Of the 947,000 armed forces fatalities, it seems 745,000 came from the British Isles.(Gary Sheffield' Forgotten Victory' p.6.)

I am also puzzled by the major discrepancies between different sources. According to the article on the 'Dead Man's Penny' in IWM Review 3, it was originally intended to produce 800,000, but later estimates put the total produced at 1,150,000 (which I suppose could have included a very few extra where originals were wrongly engraved, etc.They were issued to commemorate those who died between 4.8.14 and 10.1.20, for Home Establishments, Western Europe and the Dominions; and up to 30.4.20 for other theatres of war, including Russia, and those who died subsequently of attributable causes.

Michael

[doctorno]

Thanks everyone, it would appear that the Encyc Britannica was correct

[phil andrade]

That Enc. Brit. compilation comes from a US govt. official estimate pubished in the early 1920s.

It is pretty accurate as far as British Empire casualties are concerned, for the Army only.

It strays rather widely in respect of other belligerents.

The French figure of 4.3 million wounded includes many sick who were invalided out through sickness ; likewise the Russian figure of nearly 5 million wounded. I daresay the same applies to the Austro- Hungarian total of 3.6 million.

Numbers for military deaths are understated in several cases, especially Belgium and Serbia. German deaths of nearly 1.8 million do not allow for nearly a quarter of a million of the missing who were subsequently counted as dead. All in all, the aggregate of about eight and a half million deaths for all combatants that it cites falls short by about a million and a half : the total was surely around ten million.

It's a snapshot of the accepted estimates of the time. It is still wheeled out as the standard figure, and cited by too many commentators and historians as definitive.

Phil (PJA)

[doctorno]

Thanks Phil. Why I wanted the figures was to demonstrate how many casualties doctors in the British Army had to deal with. I also wanted to indicate a ratio of 1 doctor to xx cas at the beginning and again at the end of the war just to show what they had to deal with (plus tend to horses and civilians).

its all a bit difficult I know.

[phil andrade]

You could not do better than that Casualties and Medical Statistics that you cited in your OP, then.

It's a bit like trying to read a telephone directory, but it is the best source on British medical stats.

It also gives a rather good breakdown between battle and non battle casualties.

I never make a foray into the world of casualty statistics without it ; what comes over loud and clear is the enormity of the task, and the even greater enormity of the achievement of the medical services.

What especially captures my attention is the incredibly small number of British Empire soldiers who died from disease on the Western Front 1914-18. From a total of 709,000 deaths from all causes, more than ninety five per cent were victims of battle. Of the thirty two thousand non battle deaths, a significant proportion died from accidental injury rather than from illness. Bearing in mind the notorious conditions in the trenches, and the impact of the Spanish Flu, such a tiny proportion of disease deaths is pretty astonishing.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

You could not do better than that Casualties and Medical Statistics that you cited in your OP, then.

It's a bit like trying to read a telephone directory, but it is the best source on British medical stats.

It also gives a rather good breakdown between battle and non battle casualties.

I never make a foray into the world of casualty statistics without it ; what comes over loud and clear is the enormity of the task, and the even greater enormity of the achievement of the medical services.

What especially captures my attention is the incredibly small number of British Empire soldiers who died from disease on the Western Front 1914-18. From a total of 709,000 deaths from all causes, more than ninety five per cent were victims of battle. Of the thirty two thousand non battle deaths, a significant proportion died from accidental injury rather than from illness. Bearing in mind the notorious conditions in the trenches, and the impact of the Spanish Flu, such a tiny proportion of disease deaths is pretty astonishing.

Phil (PJA)

Sorry, double posted !

[EastSurrey]

Deaths from causes other than wounds would include those who died of disease or hard usage as POWs.

Michael

[phil andrade]

There is a table in the Medical Stats on page 12, which gives totals of Britsh Empire POWs on all fronts as 7,358 officers and 184,054 other ranks, of whom 487 officers and 15,845 ORs died in captivity.

My take on the stats for France and Flanders is that the 32,000 non battle deaths do not include died as POW. But I admit there is a need for clarification here.

About 175,000 of the POWs were captured on the Western Front.

Phil (PJA)

[EastSurrey]

'Soldiers Died' has many men who died as POWs, or returning POWs, as 'Died , 'France & 'Flanders'. Whilst some may have died of wounds,these include, to take a few examples from 9/E. Surrey, which served exclusively in France & Flanders: Samuel Argyle, died Latvia September 1917, probably, at least in part, of maltreatment; Allan Horlock, captured March 1918, buried Ham, France, August 1918 (perhaps kept in France to clear the battlefields);James Watford, captured September 1915 died December 1918 of influenza leading to pneumonia, buried Switzerland; William Dennison, captured March 1918, died December 1918, buried Sangatte, France; Joseph Wrigley captured October 1918,died November 30, buried Nijmegen, Holland.

Michael