the bloodiest front in WW1

[Guest]

hello

my question is simple,which front in ww1 do you think was the bloodiest?

regards

william

[truthergw]

The Russian front particularly against the Germans.

[armourersergeant]

Anywhere a rifle was held.

[Tom W.]

The question needs to be refined a little. Numbers are tricky.

If you're talking raw numbers of deaths and woundings over the entire war, it's going to be one answer.

If you're talking the rate of deaths and woundings in proportion to the total number of men serving at a particular front during particular periods, it might be a different answer.

A good example of how numbers can be misleading: According to the Joe Lunn's Memoirs of the Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War (Claremont, South Africa: David Philip Publishers (Pty) Ltd., 1999), pp. 140-154, the accusation was made after the war that the French army used black African troops as cannon fodder in order to spare white French lives.

French military historians presented figures showing that as a percentage of all the soldiers mobilized during the war, West African losses were slightly less than those of white French soldiers. The West Africans lost 15.5 percent killed, while white French soldiers lost 16.5 percent killed. Therefore, the accusation was unfounded.

However, if you look at only combatants and not total numbers of troops, you find that of the 140,000 West Africans serving as combatants, 31,000 died, representing 22.14 percent. By contrast 6,987,000 white Frenchmen served as combatants, of whom 1,255,766 died, or 17.97 percent of the total. Thus West African deaths were 18.84 percent higher than those of white Frenchman over the course of the war.

On the other hand, West Africans served mostly as infantrymen. If you compare deaths of black and white infantrymen over the course of the war, you find that losses were about 22 percent for both groups, again undercutting the accusation that blacks were used as cannon fodder.

However, the French didn't use West Africans as combatants in Europe in any significant numbers until July of 1916. If you look at only the final two years of the war, you find that West African deaths were 27,900 out of 140,000 combatants, or 199 per thousand. White French deaths were 532,000 out of 5,057,000 combatants, or 105 per thousand.

Thus the black death rate compared to the white death rate, for infantrymen fighting in the same period in the same place, was 89.45 percent higher.

There may be lots of different reasons why this was so, none having to do with racism, but my point is that numbers alone don't tell the whole story. You have to be very specific in your question.

[bob lembke]

I could add to Tom's impressive statistics that French and UK colonial (non-Cacausian) troops tended to break down in the cold wet conditions of the Western Front, so perhaps the percentage figures should be further adjusted by their probably being at the front for shorter periods.

I have seen astonishing statistics for the losses of the Serbs, who supposedly lost three times as many men, per capita, than the French or the Germans. But I imagine that their statistics are wobbily, and (if I may be so non-PC) they have a national tendency to dwell upon their woes, real or imagined. I have been there a number of times, and have fair Serb, last crossing Serbija by train three years ago. (Tom does not like Serbian train journeys.)

Bob Lembke

[truthergw]

I still think that the losses of the Russian army will outnumber those of any other army and by that simple, as requested, fact be found to be true.

[centurion]

Tom W

Your African figures may need some adjustment as they do not include deaths to porters from disease, starvation and just plain overwork which seem to have been horrific (see Hew Strachan's The First World War in Africa)

[Kate Wills]

As far as British and Empire forces were concerned, I would hazard a guess at Gallipoli, since no-one was ever truly beyond enemy firepower.

[Guest]

first off,i would like to thank you all for your responses to this thread,,well if we take the rate of deaths and woundings in hand in proportion to the total number of men serving at Gallipoli and the western front!,what will your answer be?

regards

william

[centurion]

With ADR I think the original question is effectively meaningless. The WF was a very long front that was in existence for four years. Parts of it were extremely active and others almost quiet backwaters (and which was which changes over time). It cannot reasonably be viewed as one homogeneous thing as one has to ask the question which bit and when? (One could for example compare day one on the Somme with Gallipolli ) The same could be said of other fronts. We are in danger of comparing averages which don't really tell us anything useful.

[Tom W.]

Tom W

Your African figures may need some adjustment as they do not include deaths to porters from disease, starvation and just plain overwork which seem to have been horrific (see Hew Strachan's The First World War in Africa)

I'm sure the death rate for African porters was horrendous, but the argument I was referencing was about the death rate of white and black combatants.

The point is that figures alone don't tell the story. If you read that 50,000 men died, it doesn't tell you much. Did they die in one day or over four years? Were they part of a force of 1 million, or a force of 75,000? Did they die in ten assaults or 100?

These factors will determine how bloody a front really was.

[tommarmot]

I'm sure the death rate for African porters was horrendous, but the argument I was referencing was about the death rate of white and black combatants.

The point is that figures alone don't tell the story. If you read that 50,000 men died, it doesn't tell you much. Did they die in one day or over four years? Were they part of a force of 1 million, or a force of 75,000? Did they die in ten assaults or 100?

These factors will determine how bloody a front really was.

I would propose Mesopotamia as a possibility as well. I'm new at this, but looking just at 2nd Black Watch and 1st Seaforth it seems that losses from disease and combat approach 80% for these units. Perhaps malaria doesn't fit the bill as bloody (unless you have it) and some of these men returned to service but for sheer misery...

Mesop is often overlooked

Tom

[MartinWills]

If you start looking at casualty figures some of the % rates (they reach above 100%) for places like Gallipoli & even more so, Salonika, are amongst the highest simply because of the effect of disease, dysentery, malaria etc - these figures tend to add a different perspective to casualty returns. We perhaps need to "annualise" the figures to get a fairer idea. Figures would also vary wildly for different units in different places at different times (or even in the same places at different times) so I suspect that to generalise about particular theatres is probably to over generalise .........

[barbierir]

In absolute numbers the russian front was the bloodiest. If we instead consider the ratio between casualties and serving troops then the Caucasus, Serbia and perhaps Gallipoli are the main contenders...

Andrea