German losses on 1 July 1916

[phil andrade]

Ralph,

Yes...I'll be patient ; you will, I'm sure, appreciate that I'm rather fretful, thinking that I have so misread the import of these figures.

Should it transpire that the German loss on the first day was well below ten thousand, then the implications for the change in the exchange ratio in the ensuing week or so are striking.

Editing here: Ralph, might it be that there were significant French gains in the areas South of Curlu, in which major loss was suffered by German units outside the remit of your research ?

I note that Gary Sheffield, in a concise survey of the battle, alludes to the French capturing four thousand prisoners that day, many of them in areas south of the Somme. This might account for overall German losses for the day being as high as the figures I'm suggesting.

Phil (PJA)

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

Phil, Your last message was possibly the best one you could have posted. We are looking at different parameters for the numbers involved in this discussion. I wrote about the fighting from Gommécourt to Curlu on the River Somme. This area overlapped the French portion of the attack but did not include the events further south of the river. If you are looking at the overall battlefield then we will never be talking about the same numbers.

In fact, as you brought this aspect up, I will have to eliminate some numbers from my lists for the comparison I am making. I am only looking at the German/British front (with the small overlap by Curlu). Since I can identify the units that fought against the French I can remove them from the overall review and hopefully come up with the closest comparison possible at the present time.

I have discovered a possible method on how to identify more 1 July losses from the regiments where the Stammrolle records have been destroyed or lost. When presenting the names of the men shown on the VL, I copied from the lists and then placed them in alphabetical order by company. This was more for my use as in the case of the names in the available Stammrolle books, the index used is normally alphabetical.

By returning the names to the order in which they were published, a pattern has emerged in many instances that will allow me to identify 1 July and bombardment losses to a high degree of certainty.

Ralph

[phil andrade]

Thanks for that rejoinder, Ralph.

It seems as if the German front south of the Somme pretty well fell apart rather quickly : there was the prospect that the French might actually take Peronne.

In those circumstances it's plausible that a large number of prisoners were taken, swelling the total German loss for the first day to something in the order of twelve thousand - maybe even fourteen thousand, if the statement made by Gary Sheffield that the French took four thousand prisoners is correct.

I found it rather annoying consulting books and looking at maps : so many are " Anglo centric" accounts of the battle that the maps seemed to stop at Curlu and then just mark the area as " The French sector"....as if that was not worth focusing on.

If I'm correct, this was ground occupied by the German XVII Corps, whose casualties are excluded from the studies in your book.

These German losses were, of course, also to be reckoned with in the tally for the first day. They certainly make the 46,000+ for the first ten days easier to account for.

If we are to look at the purely British/German exchange, then I would endorse the assessment made by Liddel Hart that the first day imposed a fifty thousand surfeit in favour of the Germans.

Phil (PJA)

[phil andrade]

Woe betide anyone who places unconditional reliance on the memoirs of David Lloyd George when it comes to an assessment of Allied strategy and the appraisal of generalship on the Western Front, but I reckon his comments regarding the initial phase of the Somme offensive have some merit when it comes to the French performance :

The Germans were expecting the British, but not the French attack, and in consequence the French advanced with lightning speed, pushed the line forward five miles on the first day, and within five days could report 9,000 prisoners and 60 guns captured for less than 8,000 total French casualties.

Volume 1, page 834.

If we reflect on the exchange ratio implicit in those figures - allowing for additional German killed and wounded - we might justifiably reckon that the French achieved at least a two to one advantage in this respect : this must have impinged very significantly on the German total loss for the 1st July 1916, and, even if the British succeeded in inflicting only six or seven thousand casualties - let alone eight thousand -that day, it's plausible to claim that the French accounted for a comparable total.

Phil (PJA)

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

I have been experimenting with a new method of trying to identify 1 July losses with a high level of accuracy. In cases where regimental loss numbers are not identified it has been almost impossible to determine which men might possible have been losses that day.

I tried the method on 4 regiments and the results are quite encouraging. In the case of RIR 91 the losses were estimated at 150 men. Using the new method, I have identified a total of 153 that fits the criteria used. The next step is to take a regimental VL list, compare the Stammrolle entries for the regiment and see how the records match the VL entries. If each list is formatted in the same manner then there is a possibility of identifying the names of 1 July losses other than those already listed at better than 95% accuracy.

The method apparently applies to enlisted men only as far as I can tell so far. The officers and non-coms are listed separately and there is no identifiable pattern seen so far. If this changes, then even more names will be known.

Ralph

[AOK4]

I have been experimenting with a new method of trying to identify 1 July losses with a high level of accuracy. In cases where regimental loss numbers are not identified it has been almost impossible to determine which men might possible have been losses that day.

I tried the method on 4 regiments and the results are quite encouraging. In the case of RIR 91 the losses were estimated at 150 men. Using the new method, I have identified a total of 153 that fits the criteria used. The next step is to take a regimental VL list, compare the Stammrolle entries for the regiment and see how the records match the VL entries. If each list is formatted in the same manner then there is a possibility of identifying the names of 1 July losses other than those already listed at better than 95% accuracy.

The method apparently applies to enlisted men only as far as I can tell so far. The officers and non-coms are listed separately and there is no identifiable pattern seen so far. If this changes, then even more names will be known.

Ralph

How can you that when the Kriegsstammrollen are lost?

[nigelcave]

It seems as if the German front south of the Somme pretty well fell apart rather quickly : there was the prospect that the French might actually take Peronne.

It was a very, very remote prospect that the French were going to capture Peronne with operations immediately south of the Somme: the river and its associated waterways made that an all but impossible prospect on Day One and even less of a possibility as the battle progressed. Hence the French emphasis for much of the Battle north of the Somme and the bitter fighting in the latter stages at Bouchavesnes, Sailly Saillisel, St Vaast Wood etc as they tried to swing in to Peronne from the north whilst continuing to press up towards the west bank of the Somme.

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

The method can be used without the existing Stammrolle. I am using the regiments where they do exist are being used as controls. If the regiments where Stammrolle records exist show the same results consistently then the method has a good chance of being a reliable method to identify the losses. The control regiments are Bavarian RIR 6, Bavarian RIR 8, RIR 121, IR 169 and IR 170 (The 2 latter regiments are still not complete as not all Stammrolle records are on-line yet).

If it works as I suspect then it also means that the records were being published in the VL in the same manner with each regiment from each major VL.

Ralph

[phil andrade]

It was a very, very remote prospect that the French were going to capture Peronne with operations immediately south of the Somme: the river and its associated waterways made that an all but impossible prospect on Day One and even less of a possibility as the battle progressed. Hence the French emphasis for much of the Battle north of the Somme and the bitter fighting in the latter stages at Bouchavesnes, Sailly Saillisel, St Vaast Wood etc as they tried to swing in to Peronne from the north whilst continuing to press up towards the west bank of the Somme.

Thanks for putting me right here, Nigel....it must have been something that I read.

In regard to German losses, I note that the figures used by Wendt, based on riechsarciv sources, give just over forty thousand German casualties for the first ten days ; the figure Ralph uses is significantly higher.

The Wendt figures give German casualties for the entire month of July on the Somme as 103,000 ; the significance being that this implies a daily average of three thousand daily for the twenty one days July11th to 31st.

Using that as a criterion, might it be fair to assume that the three thousand daily average applies for the nine days 2nd to 10th July ?

If that is valid as a reasonable assumption, we could attribute the balance of thirteen thousand to the first day : one third of the total for the entire ten day period.

If we use Ralph's figure of 46,000+ for the ten days, we could use the same ratio and come up with fifteen thousand or so.

I keep coming back to the French, and those several thousand prisoners they took that day.

It's an astonishing testimony to their effect , that they suffered one twentieth the loss sustained by the British, and yet inflicted half the total German loss on the first day.

We need a book devoted to the French attack on July 1st 1916. I reckon a case could be made that it was one of the most portentous actions of the war.

Editing here : Sly has already brought my attention to such a book, written by a French general ; but it has never been translated into English.

Phil (PJA)

[nigelcave]

I am in the process of commissioning what I hope will be five books for the Battleground Europe series on the French effort on the Somme (or in the French sector - there was British interest south of the Somme in 1915 and again post Somme to the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, which will be covered to some degree). The first will be a general one for the 1916 battles and then, I anticipate, four detailed ones, which will include fighting pre Somme but not the 1918 battles.

It is sad that there is so little readily available material in French, let alone English, on the French and the Battles of the Somme (note the qualifier, 'readily available'). There is the new Michelin guide, which is a very useful book - and Holts', to be fair, has good coverage (and even more of it in the latest edition of their Somme book). But one only has to look at the shelves of the Historial to see the, to my mind, woeful lack of current publications. I suppose it must be due to lack of interest and therefore commercial viability. Such a shame, as there is a lot to see in the French sector, in some beautiful country (especially in the Somme valley); and the men of these battlefields deserve better.

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

'If we use Ralph's figure of 46,000+ for the ten days, we could use the same ratio and come up with fifteen thousand or so.'

Phil, I do not have a copy of the book with me, but I do not recall using this number. Do you know where it came from? Thanks.

Ralph

[phil andrade]

'If we use Ralph's figure of 46,000+ for the ten days, we could use the same ratio and come up with fifteen thousand or so.'

Phil, I do not have a copy of the book with me, but I do not recall using this number. Do you know where it came from? Thanks.

Ralph

Ralph,

That's a pleasure.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIRE, Volume 2, Review of German casualties, 1 July 1916, Appendix III, page 474...

During this period, 1-10 July, the losses of the 2nd Army consisted of 7,539 officers and men reported sick, 22,095 wounded, and 24,224 killed or missing, of whom 18,438 were officially shown as missing. This leaves 5,786 men listed as killed during this period. In the same 10 day period, 5,273 officers and men were returned to duty.

​​The above arithmetic gives a total of 46,319 battle casualties - killed, wounded and missing ; of these, almost exactly one quarter ( 11,632) were sustained by the by the XIV Reserve Corps.

What are we to make of that figure of 5,273 returned to duty ​? Are these sick or lightly wounded men who recovered ; are they returning from leave ? I am wondering whether that might have some bearing on the difference between the figure of 46,319 battle casualties you cite and the figure of 40,187 that Wendt used.

Earlier on I cited Middlebrook's estimate of German casualties against the British, in his THE FIRST DAY OF THE SOMME, page 264, he writes

a rough estimate would place German losses at about 8,000 men from Gommecourt to the boundary between the British and French armies. Of these 2,200 are known to have been taken prisoner, leaving under 6,000 killed and wounded. A simple mathematical calculation shows the losses on 1 July to have been seven to one in the Germans' favour, an exact reverse of the British and German numbers involved.

Note that this implies, in terms of killed and wounded only, a ten to one disparity in the Germans' favour.

Phil (PJA)

​​​​

[phil andrade]

Hello again, Ralph,

Further to the citation of your work above, I would like to invite comment regarding the implication of the ten to one killed/wounded ratio against the British that Middlebrook implies in his estimate.

It is a freakishly high figure, for an action of that scale. Even the hideous debacle at Fromelles a couple of weeks later did not approach it - that gave the Germans something like a five to one advantage - as did Gommecourt on 1 July itself.

I doubt that even Longstreet's men, protected by the Stonewall at the base of Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg on 13 Decembe 1862, enjoyed a better kill ratio.

It's going to be interesting to see how far your meticulous research bears out the estimate of Middlebrook.

Forgive me straying off topic a bit when I allude to the American Civil War, but there is a degree of analogy between the amazing work you have done on German casualty statistics and comparable research that has been made into the regimental muster rolls and service records of the men who fought at Gettysburg.

One historian extrapolates and makes a guess - effectively taking a stab ; the other engages in devoted research into primal sources and leaves no stone unturned.

There is an astonishing degree of harmony in the results.

Phil (PJA)

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

There has been much discussion in previous threads regarding the reporting of German casualty numbers, how they were reported, what, if any were omitted etc. While working on a project I have found numerous descriptions of the injuries that were reported on the Verlustlisten as Slightly wounded, Severely wounded, etc. These categories simply do not provide the level of detail that allows the reader to understand what these terms represented to the men whose names appeared on the Verlustlisten. The following entries were taken from the Stammrolle records of RIR 121 on or about 1 July.

It can be seen by the descriptions that every type of injury was reported, from the very serious wounds down to almost insignificant injuries. All of these were from men whose names appeared in the printed Verlustlisten associated with the fighting during the opening phase of the Somme.

Severely wounded on right shoulder by artillery projectile and on shoulder joint by infantry projectile.

Severely wounded by mine fragment penetrating his lungs. Died of wounds 4 a.m. 7 July 1916.

Severely wounded in neck and chest by artillery projectiles. Died 25 June from serious lung wound and destruction of clavicle and open pneumothorax.

Severely wounded in stomach by artillery projectile. Died 25 June from massive injury to intestines.

Severely wounded on left shoulder, head and back by mine and hand grenade splinters.

Severely wounded on both legs by artillery projectile, died evening of 1 July 1916, dressing station, III/R121, Beaumont.

Severely wounded in back of head and foot by artillery projectile. Died 3 July from brain swelling.

Severely wounded on head by artillery projectile. Died 28 June from severe shell splinter wound of brain.

Slightly wounded on face by hand grenade.

Slightly wounded on head by artillery projectile, remained with the regiment.

Slightly wounded on head by hand grenade

Slightly wounded on head by infantry projectile (chin).

Slightly wounded, crush injury to right leg from being buried, remained with the regiment.

Slightly injured, tear wound to left leg from fall on a screw picket.

Slightly wounded on left leg by fall.

Slightly wounded on left ear by artillery projectile.

Slightly injured, burn wounds, thumb and middle finger from rifle barrel.

Injured, concussion.

Injured, sprained left foot.

Slightly injured on head from falling tree branch.

Slightly wounded, crush wound to back and shock from artillery projectile, remained with the regiment.

Injured left foot while entrenching at 2 a.m., remained with the regiment.

What I also found interesting was several entries of men who apparently had reached their limits of shell fire, etc. While listed as being wounded or injured by accident, there is always the explanation that the war had become too much for them. One such entry was:

Injured by accident (shot in right foot by rifle bullet, self-inflicted). In looking further at his Stammrolle entry it was discovered he was 39 years old, and had 7 children. Perhaps this was the reason for the accidental discharge of his rifle.

These entries are only a small representation of the types of wounds and injuries reported in the Verlustlisten and from what I have read in thousands of such entries that every type of wound or injury was reported, no matter how large or how small.

Ralph

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

[phil andrade]

Interesting implications here, Ralph....how do these losses impinge in proportionate terms ?

 

Would I be right in assuming a company strength of 250 men ; or does that figure apply to notional, rather than actual, front line strength ?

 

I use the phrase front line : in this case, of course, the company was held in reserve in the second line....but it still was participating in the battle, albeit on a rather more removed footing.

 

As such, its losses give some indication of how the toll of the fighting extended beyond those units that suffered the full burden of direct attack.

 

It seems that one quarter or one fifth of this company's strength was reduced by casualties between 20 June and 14 July.

 

Have I overstated the strength of the company, and thereby understated the toll ?  And were  those losses replaced, and, if so when ?

 

Phil

 

 

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

Hi Phil, This is the start of an overall review of the losses that can be confirmed through actual records. The overall losses of these companies were quite small in the scheme of things and artillery was the big killer it seems. The companies probably fielded 225-250 men each at this time but there is no way to verify this at present. The losses suffered during each period was probably replaced quite quickly, within a day or two from the available reserves so there was no real drop in company strength.

 

What I got from this small sample is that the bombardment was generally ineffective and while the fighting on 1 July continued up to Serre, this reserve company was more than ready to provide men for the trenches in the days following 1 July. I have similar studies of several other companies that will also provide some interesting comparisons.

 

Ralph

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear Ralph,

I admire your tenacity. Good work!

Kindest regards,

Kim.

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

I have almost completed a large project regarding German losses on 1 July 1916 on the Somme (as well as during the bombardment period) and I can say that unless further records are still existing such as POW records from the British when troops were captured, medical files on all sick and wounded, etc. than even with the numerous Stammrolle books that are available I doubt the exact number will ever be known.

 

Most of the records are very detailed with dates, times, cause of injury or death, etc. However, in a few cases the dates provided as the official date of a casualty is not always the exact date it occurred, instead it is the date when the rolls were called and too many men were missing or disappeared without knowing the full details. An example of this is in RIR 111 where a large number of losses are dated 3 July 1916 when the regiment left the battlefield. Some may have occurred on that date but others probably happened earlier but the company clerks did not have the details available. I found some corrections made where 3 July was used but changed when an affidavit was received. This would show that while the man was captured on 3 July his injuries occurred on the 1st or 2nd. Still, a reasonable determination can be made regarding German losses and when the project reaches completion I will post the results.

 

Ralph