Boer War veterans in the Great War

[Muerrisch]

 

The Victorian Wars Forum is defunct, destroyed.

 

On the Victorian Wars Forum web site there is a massive mine of information on Boer War veterans serving in the Great War. A superb in-depth piece of research.

 

By an ex-member of our Forum who contributed much but incurred wrath in proportion.

 

http://www.victorianwars.com/viewtopic.php?f=93&p=69449&sid=191fd93563def129b6816fe4de43f640#p6944

Edited 29 March , 2020 by Muerrisch
Update.

[Terry_Reeves]

How do you know his research is correct?

 

TR

[Muerrisch]

8 minutes ago, Terry_Reeves said:

How do you know his research is correct?

 

TR

 

Other than checking every name and number, I prefer to take such a prodigious effort of original research on trust. All the medal rolls are out there for anyone prepared to do the hard yards.

 

However, the Royal Welsh/ Welch Fusilier detail agrees completely with my unpublished work, and the membership of the Forum referred to have found nothing to complain about.

 

I expect that there are errors, but the man who never made a mistake never made anything.

 

Do you have reason to doubt the research please?

 

 

 

[Kimberley John Lindsay]

Dear All,

Yes, I am inclined to agree with Muerrisch.

Surely it would be futile in the extreme to somehow make up such lists?

Kindest regards,

Kim. 

[Muerrisch]

7 minutes ago, Kimberley John Lindsay said:

Dear All,

Yes, I am inclined to agree with Muerrisch.

Surely it would be futile in the extreme to somehow make up such lists?

Kindest regards,

Kim. 

 

I am sure that nobody is questioning the author's integrity.

[Terry_Reeves]

Sorry, but nobody has said that he has made up this research. My argument is that for research to be valid it needs to be peer reviewed, not just accepted at face value. Can Martins supporters say that they have done that? 

 

 

TR

 

[Muerrisch]

16 hours ago, Terry_Reeves said:

Sorry, but nobody has said that he has made up this research. My argument is that for research to be valid it needs to be peer reviewed, not just accepted at face value. Can Martins supporters say that they have done that? 

 

 

TR

 

 

You would have to ask on VWF I suppose.

I expect that a fair number of GWF members will be happy to have a chance to look up their favourite regiment, compare the results with what they know, and let us know of errata.

The work is there as a resource, readers must make up their own minds.

[Terry_Reeves]

Of course David. It is my experience however that often people with no expertise  tend automatically to believe what they read. When I took my history degree my excellent academic supervisor warned against such supposition. Always challenge "facts".

 

TR

[Muerrisch]

Either way this thread has occupied a few slots and hopefully attracted some viewing of the "facts".

 

Feedback, critical or not, would be good.

[Keith_history_buff]

I see that Martin and others contributed to the following thread on this topic

 

[Guest]

Mate,

 

My research in this area of Australian Light horse members who served, while can can never say I found all of them as many men hid there age and there BW service when they reduced their ages to serve in WWI.

 

But I show some 1588 LH men (between 1914 to 1919) of some 40,000 + LH men on my DB who served in the Boer War

 

some further details

 

This is by no means complete but these are the known BWV that embarked with these LHR's that I have found.

1 LHR - 91 BWV

2 LHR - 124

3 LHR - 80

4 LHR - 109

5 LHR - 64

6 LHR - 76

7 LHR - 91

8 LHR - 84

9 LHR - 63

10 LHR - 103

11 LHR - 65

12 LHR - 67

13 LHR - 46

 

So if each ALH Regt recruited around three thousand men each then the BWV's are but a small part of the whole.

 

Cheers

 

S.B

Edited 28 March , 2020 by stevebecker

[Muerrisch]

A taster, cut and paste from the original:

 

Yorkshire Regiment

This Regiment had just one Regular Battalion in South Africa during the Boer War and one Battalion with the BEF in 1914 - the 2nd Bn (21st Inf Be, 7th Div), which disembarked on 6th Oct 1914, leaving a small window of just 47 days for reinforcements to arrive before the 1914 Star cut-off date of midnight 22nd Nov 1914. Despite this, a staggering 1,928 men still managed to be recorded on the 1914 Star medal roll (a quarter were Special Reservists) -something approaching two times War Establishment

Of these only 63 were recorded on the QSA medal roll, just 3.3%

This is a very interesting example as the 1st Bn Yorkshire Regt were stuck in India throughout the war meaning the 2nd Bn had the pick of the Reservists. On the eve of the War the Yorkshire Regt had 733 Section A & B men and 218 Section D men (total 951). Page 383 of he Regt'l History records 550 Army Reservists were required for mobilization which would have left 401 behind for the subsequent reinforcement drafts. Netting-off War Establishment from the 1914 Star medal roll implies total Reinforcements (not including the 1st Reinforcement which was part of War Establishment) would have been around 878 men. The roll tells us that 470 of these were Special Reservists implying the other 408 were Army Reservists or re-enlisted men. As we have seen, after mobilization the regiment only had 401 Army Reservists which implies all Reservists (including all Section D men) would probably have been sent out. It was very finely balanced yet despite all Reservists being required the 2nd Bn has remarkably few ABW veterans among its ranks.

I suspect that by the end of First Ypres the Yorkshire Regt was sending out younger Regulars an re-enlisted men as fast as if could.

Only 234 of the 1928 men of the 2n Bn Yorkshire Regt could feasibly have enlisted before the end of the ABW (12.1%). Some further analysis should be able to refine this and push the Army Number 'cut-off' for ABW service further back. Interestingly we are in the same orders of magnitude as the Suffolk Regt - both with one Regular battalion in the ABW and one Regular Bn in the BEF 1914


Unit...........1914 Star....ABW Vets........%.....Nos enlisted before end ABW........%......
2nd Yorks.......1,928.........64..........3.3%..............234.......................12.1%.
2nd Suffolks....1,987.........81..........4.0%..............231.......................11.6%

Remarkably similar. the number of ABW veterans differ by only 17 on a base of around 1,900 men. the big difference of course is that the Suffolks were one of the first off the boats on 13th Aug 1914 an the Yorkshires were one of the last off the boats on 6th Oct 1914...despite nearly 8 weeks separating these units they saw almost identical numbers pass through their ranks. 2nd Suffolks was annihilated at Le Cateau (600 casualties). That the Yorkshires processed so many men perhaps indicates the sheer intensity of First Ypres and the huge burden carried by the 7th Div who 'held the sky suspended'
 

[Michelle Young]

  A vast amount of research posted  on the GWF is not peer reviewed, and that there has never been a reason to doubt Martin's research.

 

Michelle on behalf of the admin team

[Guest]

Michelle,

 

Mate, Sorry but by placing the details here we now open ourselves up to peer review by all our peers, like you.  So you can check it out and make comments?

 

We are not perfect, and I welcome review by you and others to check our work.

 

If fact I always make that comment so others can correct my work if they feel I have made a mistake.

 

Mate, Feed back is always welcome by any researcher who is open to that review, some do not, but I am always open to review.

 

So if you can find any work I place on this site needs to be corrected please let me know.

 

Cheers

 

S.B

[Muerrisch]

Nothing on the sadly defunct VWF and the splenddidly lively GWF had, or has, "peer review" as such.

 

Peer review in any formal sense here is, in my opinion, neither necessary, desirable., nor possible.

 

However, work wishing to be taken seriously and purporting to be original needs to be properly referenced. The work and the researcher featured on this thread is meticulous in quoting sources, and in explaining details of his logic.

 

There are those who find such a meticulous approach, however original, however ground-breaking, both boring and tedious. I am sure that nobody with a bona fide history degree would agree with such a stance.

 

Who am I to speak, a mere retired scientist, a scribbler in the margins of military history, untutored and querulous?

Edited 28 March , 2020 by Muerrisch
clarification

[bif]

For more info in the same vein, see Guest's thread from 2 Feb 2017 here on GWF, titled:

VICTORIAN "OLD SOLDIERS" AND THE GREAT WAR

Lighten up guys.  We are, after all, amatuers, even the published.  We do the best we can with what we have at the time.

[TullochArd]

12 hours ago, bif said:

Lighten up guys.  We are, after all, amatuers, even the published. 

 

Well said Bif … I'm with you there … although with my new peer review hat on I'd submit a short thesis on why you should spell amatuer differently ... CFGB!

Edited 29 March , 2020 by TullochArd
Biff changed to Bif

[Steven Broomfield]

1 hour ago, TullochArd said:

 

Well said Bif … I'm with you there … although with my new peer review hat on I'd submit a short thesis on why you should spell amatuer differently ... CFGB!

 

Give the man a break. He's American (housetrained but still prone to little accidents).

[bif]

Consider it an Americanism.  D**n vowels are always dancing about !