Divisional Losses on 1st July 1916

[bmac]

Jack,

You make the point in your penultimate message about the figures in the Official History and how it might appear that:

"The compilers of the relevant volumes of the British Official History which appeared in 1932 and 1938 made selective, not to say manipulative, use of information published in Germany after the war to bolster this argument."

Another thing to bear in mind is that Edmonds was put under considerable personal pressure by supporters of Haig to tone down, for example, the idea that the Somme was intended, by Haig, to be a breakthrough battle. Launcelot Kiggell wrote many lengthy letters to Edmonds on this subject. They read to me not as corrections of matters of fact but pressure to change an opinion initially written by Edmonds. Who knows what pressure was brought to bear on the casualty figures?

I suspect, though, given the numbers you have supplied that the argument may be on the "slightly wounded and not struck off unit strength" numbers, which take the totals to 600,000+. I do not know, for example, whether British casualties include 'at duty' wounded which I assume to be the British Army equivalent.

And I still cannot find out who this M J Williams is that Prior and Wilson mention!

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

One thing I want to try is to compile the actual loss returns reported to the Verlustlisten and published almost daily. I have already started to compile an accurate accounting of the German losses for July 1st and should have an exact number in 2006. I have compiled a listing of the regiments involved, now it is time to look through and identify all those lists relating to the battle.

It will not be fully acurate as dates were not listed with the losses and there could be overlap with periods outside of the Somme. Still, perhaps we will finally have a number close to the actual losses.

Ralph

[Jack Sheldon]

Ralph

What an enormous task; I wish you well with it.

Bill

I take your point entirely. For a related discussion about Edmonds, take a look at http://www.warchronicle.com/british/first_officials.htm and I could think of plenty of others. On the other hand, in Edmonds' favour is the fact that the production of this massive work over a thirty year period remains a triumph. As far as MJ Williams is concerned, I suspect that someone is going to have to contact P&R and ask for their reference. It may be a relatively old piece of work. As far as I can make out MJW was at one point associated with King's College, London and cooperated with Brian Bond. It seems that he contributed a chapter entitled 'The Egyptian Campaign of 1882' to 'Victorian Military Campaigns' (Ed. Brian Bond), published by Praeger in 1967, but I can find no other published work and can only pull up oblique references to him and Somme casualties; none of which has led me to the source, which as you say, P&W do not list in their bibliography.

Jack

[bmac]

Jack,

Thanks for the link. Interesting material. Another site to bookmark!

As to P&W I will try writing to their publishers see what I can find out. One thing I do find odd is that, try as I might, I cannot find anything about Somme casualty figures in a Denis Winter book. Now there's a man you would have thought would enjoy the argument!

[RodB]

Ralph

What an enormous task; I wish you well with it.

Same here.

Rod