Dead Reckoning

[phil andrade]

6 hours ago, QGE said:

 

 

Ron, Thank you. I am assuming (maybe incorrectly) the parameters of the above are widely understood by the GWF alumni...

 

My core interest is what the Great British Public believe (rather than the informed GWF)...as I mention above, there is no right or wrong answer....I am just trying to gauge popular perceptions. 

 

There was a TV broadcast on the Yesterday Channel last October called THE GREAT WAR IN NUMBERS. 

 

This purported to be a statistical survey which would convey some idea of the magnitude and intensity of the conflict .

 

The opening vignettes contained the statement that, of all the men in Europe aged 19 to 22 when the war began thirty per cent were dead by the end of it .

 

This, it must be reiterated , is for that entire age cohort throughout Europe, irrespective of whether the men were in belligerent nations , let alone whether they served in the military.

 

Confronted with claims like that, any member of the Great British Public who guesses that twenty five per cent of all the nation’s soldiers who served in the army in the Great War lost their lives, is to be congratulated on his discernment.

 

And, as for Nial Fergusson’s claim that more than one quarter of all Scotsmen who served were killed, that would stand in urgent need of rehabilitation !

 

Phil

[Steven Broomfield]

As an observation, I have never asked my fellow commuters on the 0708 from Southampton Airport Parkway to London Waterloo ... and nor will I. Why not? Because they don't care. They're not interested.

 

When I was at school, algebra was on  what passed for a national curriculum, but I confess I couldn't have had less interest in the subject if I tried and I now can't (indeed, in 1973 couldn't) tell an isoceles (can't even spell it) triangle from a bass drum, and as for the hypoteneuse ...

 

I fear the GW is a subject of huge interest to those to whom it is of interest: the rest don't care, and why should they? It's history .. a broad knowledge is sufficient. I'd be appalled if someone doing a Mastermind specialist subject made the mistakes to which you allude, but does it really matter if the man on the Clapham Omnibus (or the 0708) doesn't have the facts at their finger tips?

 

Lighten up. People don't need to know this stuff. If they're interested, fine, but as most of the population probably can't name their MP or bother to vote in elections I am not going to lose any sleep over the mistakes Joe Public makes. I confess to being a bit rusty on the facts and figures of the Penisula War, and much of the Korean war is a blank to me ... the latter is a war in my lifetime.

 

And lay off Penny Mordaunt: she was doing what an MP should do - puffing up her constituency. if she was fed duff gen by a researcher, so what? Not a hanging offence.

 

Oh, and the Shrouds of the Somme? My elder daughter (brought up to visit CWGC cemeteries from birth) saw them in Exeter and was extremely moved by them, as were all the other people (masses) who saw them at the same time. OK with me.

[seaJane]

I'm with Steven. Does it really matter?

Whatever the percentage, that is too many deaths. Not numbers in a box.

[keithfazzani]

I too am with Steven. Statistics and suchlike mean very little if anything. Standing looking at Tyne Cot and remembering is what matters, not counting the graves. 

[Guest]

The question is simply about perceptions.

 

Arguably the Great War was the the most important event in our history, so I am merely curious to understand if our nation's knowledge has changed in recent years. It doesn't really "matter" what people think and I wouldn't expect them to know the exact figure, but it is interesting (to me at least) to understand perceptions, particularly in the centenary years. It is distinctly possible that the Great War was irrelevant to the vast majority of people. If so, one might wonder why there has been so much focus on remembrance at a national level. I can't think of any historical event that has had so much Govt money dedicated to it. £110m according to the Govt's own website.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/we-will-remember-them--2

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/320244/First_World_War_centenary_programme_2014-2018.pdf

 

Given the massive focus on remembrance these past few years, understanding the scale of the sacrifice might be a reasonable question. That many people are orders of magnitude out in their perceptions is, to me, interesting. I am particularly fascinated by the fact that people can believe (for example) that more than 50% of those who enlisted were killed... And more interested how this idea was planted in their minds. Could it remotely be linked to images of fields of ceramic poppies for example? What explains the gap between reality and perceptions. 

 

If if someone asked me how many cars there were in the UK for example, I don't know exactly and have zero interest in cars, but I don't think I would be out by 100% or 500%. If someone guessed there were 500% more cars that there actually were, one might wonder how they came to the number. Ditto any guesses on say the number of mobile phones or a host of other subjects of which most people will not know the exact answer. M

 

Edited 30 January , 2018 by Guest
added links to Govt websites

[Dust Jacket Collector]

I suspect people might be confusing ‘casualties’ with ‘killed’. The former might well give a figure of around 35%.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

I suspect people might be confusing ‘casualties’ with ‘killed’. The former might well give a figure of around 35%.

 

I suspect it is because they have no idea.  If you ask people a question about a subject they have no knowledge of, one usually gets randomly distributed answers. People are just as likely to underestimate than overestimate. With Great War deaths almost everyone overestimates by a very big margin. There must be a reason behind this skew....

Edited 30 January , 2018 by Guest

[phil andrade]

Doesn’t Martin have a point here ?

 

I think he does.

 

The accuracy of the guesswork is not the essential  question : it’s the whys and wherefores of the disparities.

 

The folklore of the  Great War, it seems , is especially susceptible to sensation and distortion.

 

I submit this with diffidence, but contend that if you were to ask random members of the public the proportion of the population that died in the Black Death, there would be a significant degree of harmony in the answers.  Likewise as to the scale of the Holocaust, which has been dominating our TV screens lately.

 

Not so with the Great War.

 

I rang both my daughters last night to ask them the question posed ; they were happy to venture their guesses, and also those of their husbands.  More than that, they were anxious to learn what the actual figure was.  I think that they’re interested, albeit in a fleeting way.

 

BBC radio programmes - and I allude especially to that excellent programme MORE OR LESS - indicate that there is an emphasis of the need to marshall a better awareness of statistical information  - it’s use and abuse - in different realms of life.

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

[SiegeGunner]

12 hours ago, QGE said:

 

30 years ago I would have said 50% while being able to quote Dulce et decorum est flawlessly ...

 

Just about right for the attrition rate among poets, I would have thought ...

 

Seeking to set the Great War in context, two 'statistical facts' are often cited:

 

*  More people around the world died of the 'Spanish flu' than were killed in the Great War.

 

*  The 1921 census found that there were more men of military age in Britain than there had been in 1911.

 

Myths?

 

 

[Ron Clifton]

54 minutes ago, SiegeGunner said:

More people around the world died of the 'Spanish flu' than were killed in the Great War.

This does appear to be true: in fact, about three times as many, according to some estimates. Googling "1918 influenza pandemic" produces some interesting results, from reputable sources.

 

Ron

[Heid the Ba]

3 hours ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

I suspect people might be confusing ‘casualties’ with ‘killed’. The former might well give a figure of around 35%.

This was my first thought, and it is a mistake the media regularly make with both historical and current events.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Heid the Ba' said:

This was my first thought, and it is a mistake the media regularly make with both historical and current events.

 

I am not sure the media does make this mistake as often as we might think.

 

When the 100th anniversary of the First Day of the Battle of the Somme was being covered in 2016, it was extremely difficult to find any media reference to 60,000 dead. Almost every journalist managed to get the numbers in the right order of magnitude  (20,000) and most managed to get the figure exactly right. While one or two made the mistake the vast majority didn't, and all the main newspapers and news channels were on the mark and managed to differentiate between casualties and killed... so I would conclude that the print and TV media's role in inflated perceptions of Great War deaths is not that great. 

Edited 30 January , 2018 by Guest

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Ron Clifton said:

This does appear to be true: in fact, about three times as many, according to some estimates. Googling "1918 influenza pandemic" produces some interesting results, from reputable sources. Ron

 

I wonder if axioms found on Google should be called troogles? 

 

 

Edited 30 January , 2018 by Guest

[Gardenerbill]

Well I will stick my head above the parapet. On reading Martin's first post without recourse to Google, I thought 10 million in the field approx 1 million dead so 10%.

[phil andrade]

Dad experienced the Battle of El Alamein at first hand.

 

He often  alluded to its fourteen thousand British ( and Commonwealth) dead.

 

I would then  remind him that these were casualties, and only  about one quarter of them were fatal.

 

Oh, right ! , he would say, and then carry on as before.... more than a thousand men killed every day for nearly two weeks, he would comment.

 

In the end, I gave up.

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Derek Black]

As it's my day off i thought i'd partake in some research to guage my friends perceptions to Martins question.

I chucked this question out to my snapchat contacts "Without googling, what do you think was the percentage of UK soldiers who died in WW1".
I fairly quickly received 28 replies. All but 1 of the respondants are in their late teens, 20's and 30's.

lowest - 10%
median - 32.5%
highest - 70%

average - 34.2

Many wanted to know the correct answer after submitting thier guesses. Some sent a second message stating they googled it afterward as they were interested to find out.

Cheers,
Derek.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Derek Black said:

As it's my day off i thought i'd partake in some research to guage my friends perceptions to Martins question.

I chucked this question out to my snapchat contacts "Without googling, what do you think was the percentage of UK soldiers who died in WW1".
I fairly quickly received 28 replies. All but 1 of the respondants are in their late teens, 20's and 30's.

lowest - 10%
median - 32.5%
highest - 70%

average - 34.2

Many wanted to know the correct answer after submitting thier guesses. Some sent a second message stating they googled it afterward as they were interested to find out.

Cheers,
Derek.

Thank you. Fascinating. I would be really interested in understanding how the person who guessed 70% came to their answer. What is driving their perceptions.M

[phil andrade]

Sad to say, my two grand kids opted for seventy and eighty per cent.

 

I didn’t have the heart to ask them what motivated their perceptions ; I feel that their arithmetic skills have not been honed as sharply as their history awareness !

 

They were astonished at the figure being less then one fifth of the lower estimate.

 

They changed their minds when I explained that only a part of the army actually got into the fighting. They had not considered the wounded....they groaned in unison when I pointed that out to them.

 

I’m being a tad harsh : they’re only eleven and eight years old !

 

Pleased to reiterate though, that they were enthusiastic about participating in the poll, and genuinely interested in the discussion.

 

All honour to their Mum, who opted for twenty per cent.

 

Phil

[Gareth Davies]

20 hours ago, Ron Clifton said:

If we are looking only at the Army (including RFC but not RAF), and including the Dominions, the figures are very roughly (but not that far out):

1 million died (all causes including disease and accident)

2 million wounded or affected by injury or disease

5 million survived uninjured (though some will have been mentally affected)

so 12.5% is the ball-park percentage for those who died.

Sources: Statistics of the Military Effort ... and Casualties and Medical Statistics in the Medical OH series.

 

Perhaps more surprising still is the fact that, of every six men wounded, one was discharged, one was medically downgraded but retained in the Army at home or on the L of C, and four recovered sufficiently to return to front-line service. (Same sources)

 

Ron

 

Can you refine these figures by theatre? 

[Guest]

SMEBE page 248. British Regs and TF only 

 

..............................Killed and Died

France......................12.06%

Italy...........................0.84%

Salonica....................2.72%

Egypt.........................1.93%

Mesopotamia...........5.94%

Dardanelles...............6.32%

East Africa.................5.25%

Other Theatres..........2.77%

Edited 30 January , 2018 by Guest

[Gareth Davies]

Thank you.  

[Guest]

On 1/30/2018 at 20:48, Gareth Davies said:

Thank you.  

 

Weighted average for all theatres is around 11.52% if memory serves but for the life of me I can't find the source for the exact number. The number will change slightly depending on a host of subjective parameters. Anything between 11% to 12% would be a decent benchmark. 

 

Edit. I think more like 12.8%  so a range of 12%-13%

 

MG

Edited 1 February , 2018 by Guest

[Guest]

Dan "The History Guy" Snow; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25776836

[phil andrade]

The archives of the former Soviet Union reveal that almost exactly one quarter of all personnel in the Red Army died from all causes in the Second World War.

 

This includes outrageous mortality among their POWs in German hands, as well as stupefying loss of life in battle.

 

This death rate equates to roughly double that of British soldiers in the Great War.

 

Consider the fact that the British army was spared the ordeal of sharing the main burden of that conflict until it was half way through: and it’s POWs were spared the atrocious treatment that was meted out to their Russian counterparts 1941-45......viewed in that light, a mortality rate that was only half that suffered by the Soviets is bad enough, by any reckoning. 

 

Phil

 

[phil andrade]

20 hours ago, QGE said:

 

I suspect it is because they have no idea.  

 

 

How right you are, Martin !

 

They don't know.

 

It's tempting to say that they don't care, either ; but conversations with family members indicate a reassuring degree of interest when statistical implications are  discussed.

 

It's apparent to me that, by and large, people are unaware of how huge the number of soldiers deployed away from the battlefield is in industrialised warfare.  They neither know nor appreciate that hundreds of thousands of soldiers remained in the UK ; likewise, they have no idea of how many who did go to the fronts were used in non combat roles.  Their perceptions of the Great War are shaped by images of everybody being  under fire in the trenches, from the  beginning to the end. They are unaware of how troops were rotated through tours of duty that allowed them more time out of the line than in it.  The fact that - very roughly speaking - four fifths of British army fatalities 1914-18 were incurred in the second " half" of the war (i.e. from July 1st 1916 onward ) has not entered their minds ; nor the fact that ( again in rough and ready terms) only , half of the entire force were infantrymen who bore four fifths of the loss of life.  They do not appear to realise, either, that for every soldier killed, two, three or more were removed by wounds, sickness or were captured by the enemy. When they are invited to consider the prospect that - if one  third of all the soldiers were killed - the additional casualties would pretty well destroy the entire army , their jaws drop in astonishment.

 

My eleven year old granddaughter was taken back when I explained some of this to her : I felt that she was interested, and reflected on my own introduction to the topic when I myself was eleven  years old in 1964, and was so shocked by images of the Great War that I saw in that ground-breaking BBC2 documentary commemorating the 50th anniversary.

 

Another personal anecdote, if I may....

 

Tomorrow I am to  receive a family heirloom : a roll top desk that was given to my Welsh grandfather by his parishioners as he was dispatched to the Western Front to do his tour of duty as an army chaplain.  It's quite a poignant thing to possess, containing a little plaque in welsh thanking him and wishing him good luck in his travails. At the moment it is in my cousin's house : she is moving and wants me to have it, because our house is large enough and old enough ( 1912) to do justice to the desk.  She also knows how interested in the Great War I am.  She herself is a retired history teacher, a year or two older than I am.  Her other grandfather and her great uncle both served in the Lancashire Fusiliers ; her GF was wounded, his brother was never able to recover psychologically and was forever after remembered as being " shell shocked ".  When I commented that her GF was lucky enough to get a " Blighty one ", she didn't know what I meant. As we talked about the Great War, it became increasingly apparent to me that - despite her history degree and her subsequent MA - she was pretty unaware of all those attributes of the conflict that I alluded to above.  I'm tempted to put her to the test as well, and ask her the question .....but would that be rather a mean thing to do to someone who is being so kind to me ?

 

Phil