The Anzac Legend

[PhilB]

My own figure for total casualties was a guess based on typical killed/wounded ratios. I readily take your better estimates.

[Bryn]

Here's a breakdown of the problem in getting reliable casualty figures, as mentioned by Andrew P.

11th Battalion AIF fatal casualties first week, Gallipoli

25 April: 51

26 April: 0

27 April: 0

28 April: 6

29 April: 5 (all DOW)

30 April: 2

1 May: 0

2 May: 28

Obviously the battalion sustained casualties during the heavy fighting of 26/27 April, and probably did not sustain any on 2nd May, when it was out of the line reorganising.

[Crunchy]

Peter and Phil.

I have used the sources available to me. The 2000 Bean quoted is probably at the low end of the scale as Peter says , but I think his figure of 4000 is too high for the 25th April. Any attempt to determine the casualties for the 25th is dealing in the realms of speculation.

According to Bean (Vol I, tables on pp 536 -537) the casualties (killed, wounded and missing) for the 1st Division up until noon on 30th April, that is the first five days of fighting, were: 1st Brigade - 1385, 2nd Brigade - 1681 and 3rd Brigade - 1865 giving a total of 4931. It is doubtful that 4000 casualties would have occurred on 25th and only another 1000 on the succeeding four days, during which attacks were undertaken by both sides; including the second Turkish counter attack and the disastrous 4th Battalion attack on the 400 Plateau on the 26th.

In the same table the killed are shown as 500, wounded are 2468 and missing are 1963. Of the missing a proportion would be killed, a proportion would be wounded sent off without the knowledge of the units and others intermingled with other units and yet to return to their own battalion.

I doubt these tables are entirely accurate, however, in Leg's Eleven, the History of the Eleventh Battalion, p88, records "The official diary for April 30 runs thus: 'About 350 of the battalion assembled on the beach today and were marched into bivouacs in reserve' " It then gives a parade state for 30 April of 617 All Ranks and then a casualty return on 378 in exactly the same numbers for killed wounded and missing as in Bean's table on p536 of Vol I. The 1st Battalion history, p31, gives its casualties for 25th -29th April as 366 as opposed to Bean's figure of 429. The 2nd Battalion History "Nulli Secundas" gives its casualties up to 30 April as 450 All Ranks the same as Bean's figures for the Battalion, while the 3rd Battalion history, p70, gives its casualties for the five days as 301 (39 killed, 193 wounded and 69 missing) as against Bean's 316 for the battalion. The 7th Battalion, who's initial boatloads were virtually destroyed at the Fisherman's Hut north of Ari Burnu, records in its history, p18, 70 killed, 244 wounded and 227 missing for the period the 25th -29th April; a total of 541 the same as Bean gives in the table on p537 of Vol I.

If anyone has any other sources regarding casualties during this period it would be useful to see them.

Cheers

Chris

[Bryn]

Peter, Phil and Andrew,

I have listed 920 killed on 25th April, but this includes those with a 'date spread' beginning on 25th.

894 KIA

26 DOW

[Crunchy]

I know Crunchy is going to comment on this so I will respond now that the evidence is in my book.

Good afternoon Peter,

I sorry, I don't have your book. Can you please advise the sources or evidence you were using as "at least 4000" for the 25th April is about 1000 less than the total casualties of first five days fighting according the tables Bean has used. The generally accepted view is between 2 - 3000 for the 25th April and your figure brings a different perspective to the issue. Bean himself says the figure of 2000 cannot be relied on as accurate and feels the casualties were higher, given 1800 wounded were evacuated in the first 24 hours. If we add Bryn's 920 killed to the 1800 wounded we have 2700 which is closer to the 3000 figure. The only reasonable data I have seen is Bean's tables on pp 536-537 of Vol I so I would be keen to see the sources you were working from - that is after you have submitted your thesis.

Regards

Chris

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Mates

According to 3rd Echelon calculations compiled sometime in April 1916, we have these figures:

Available for 25 April - 22,264

Available at 1 May - 24,766

However, the 1 May figure includes 4,021 men evacuated sick or wounded for the period 25 - 30 April 1915 to either Egypt (3,700) or Malta (321).

If you check the maths, you will find there is a discrepancy of 1,519 men. This, I believe is the butcher's bill for the period 25 - 30 April 1915. (AWM252/A76)

Since the 3rd Echelon returns were lost in 1916 after they were transferred to London, there is no possibility of even tracking the real figures. However, I think these may be the closest considering that they were calculated soon after the event.

Of course, if the loss of the records regarding the MEF occurred in 1916, I am curious as to the source utilised by Bean in constructing his figures which are divergent to those above in my post by 788 - this done by taking the total casualties in Bean which come to 4,752 and subtracting them from the casualties reported by 3rd Echelon - (4,021 + 1,519 = 5,540). Obviously they came from somewhere but they are not consistent with the figures from 3rd Echelon of 1916.

[Addition later on]

A bit more thought about Bean's figures. I suspect that he utilised the clerks at the Department of Defence after the war. This would have brought to the fore the lack of records from 3rd Echelon possibly forcing them to recreate the records from brigade returns, which would have been incomplete as they were always subject to change as information became available. Thus what signal from which day was relied upon?

Another explanation for the discrepancy mentioned above could arise from men departing from Gallipoli evacuated sick, something that is included in the composite figures quoted above. The survey in 1916 did not discriminate between sick and wounded.

I have checked through Bean's papers and cannot find his specific source. My comments above are not to suggest that Bean did not do his job properly or to cast doubt upon his results but to suggest that the sources upon which he relied were incomplete and known to be so even in 1916 and thus his methodology needs to be scrutinised. In so doing, we might actually discover an answer. Since the 1916 was the closest to the actual date, it has a freshness through unprecedented access that gives it a level of credibility lacking from later figures.

Cheers

Bill

Australian Light Horse Studies Centre

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/

[PDW]

Chris

All are correct to say there is no reliable number for 25 April. My method is to start with reliable numbers from 30April/1May then work backwards. Bean and the Brits ( Aspinall-Oglander or the other historian that he replaced, cant recall which), after a serious disagreement about casualty figures settled on 8570 casualties from 25 April to months end at Anzac. The question is then how many of these were lost on day one. I calculate likely losses for each day from 25 April to 1 May by comparing the fighting on those days to other days later in May when we do have accurate figures. I try to show that the fighting on 26-30 was nothing like as nasty as day one and at least half of all the cas. to end of month- possibly even as many as 5000, were caused on day one. This is supported by Birdwoods report to Kitchener (Birdwood Papers, in Liddell Hart centre for military archives, Kings College, London. I am pretty sure there is a copy in the PRO too, maybe also in AWM but I didnt look there) written on May 3 or 4, where he states he lost 5000 men on the day of the landing. I cant see why people have ignored this. By May 4 he must have had a good though not precise idea of his casualties on 25 April.

See Winter D, 25 April, 1915 p 229 for a discussion of the Bean-Brit controversy.

Also NZ and Aust Div staff war dairy,

Aust army medical services in the war of 14-18,

3 Bde war diary

Pugsley, the New Zealand Story is also good for casualties

Peter

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Peter

G'day mate

Interesting comment regarding Birdwood's letter. As an aside, von Sanders estimated the Turkish dead at Gallipoli as 250,000 in a letter written after the campaign but no one accepts this estimate as well. However, since you have raised Birdwood's letter as a legitimate source of information, perhaps you could work the casualty figures in such a way as to lend credibility to the letter. I am only too happy to admit another source of information into the mix.

Cheers

Bill

Australian Light Horse Studies Centre

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/

[Crunchy]

Mates

According to 3rd Echelon calculations compiled sometime in April 1916, we have these figures:

Available for 25 April - 22,264

Available at 1 May - 24,766

...

Since the 3rd Echelon returns were lost in 1916 after they were transferred to London, there is no possibility of even tracking the real figures. However, I think these may be the closest considering that they were calculated soon after the event.

Of course, if the loss of the records regarding the MEF occurred in 1916, I am curious as to the source utilised by Bean in constructing his figures which are divergent to those above in my post by 788 - this done by taking the total casualties in Bean which come to 4,752 and subtracting them from the casualties reported by 3rd Echelon - (4,021 + 1,519 = 5,540). Obviously they came from somewhere but they are not consistent with the figures from 3rd Echelon of 1916.

Hi Bill,

Thanks for your post.

However, I am a little intrigued by it. If the 3rd Echelon returns were lost in 1916 after they were transferred to London, how do we know what the calculations in them were? Or are we talking about two different documents?

BTW, Bean's figures I quoted above are for the 1st Division only, less Div Arty and Div Tpt casualties, not the whole force. By "butcher's bill" do you mean the number KIA during the period 25th - 30th April?

Cheers

Chris

[Crunchy]

Peter,

Thanks for the reference to Birdwood's letter. Yes this is a useful source but is it necessarily more accurate than the tabulations made by Bean and Butler or was it a rough estimate?

I also agree with you that the greatest number casualties were probably taken on the first day. Note that the figures I have given above from Bean as for the 1st Division only. less Div Arty and Div Tpt, which along with the NZ Brigade took the brunt of the fighting on the 25th. I don't know what the NZ casualties are recorded as. The 4th Australian Brigade was hardly engaged, and in fact some of them came ashore on the 26th. Of these, the 14th Battalion History lists 57 KIA during the period 26th - 30th April, so there must have been a reasonable amount of fighting following the 25th.

I have been able to track down the following in the Australian Medical OH which supposedly are based on the records of the Medical units mentioned.

Describing the work on the night of 25th/26th April. p145 "the fatique parties worked into the night, embarking wounded in barges and transferring them to the transports. By 3am the Beach was clear. Over 1700 had been evacuated, and, o fthe last 500 of these, more than half were stretcher cases" I do not take this to mean that all of the wounded on the 25th were evacuated by then but only those who had been collected and taken down to the Beach.

Then on p146. " The fighting on the 26th and 27th was a bitter srtuggle for existence. These days saw little respite for the stretcher bearers.

Then he provides a table for the evacuation of wounded over the period 25th -30 April with the numbers recorded as follows. Note the descrepancy between the 1700 quoted above and the figures for the 25th and 25th April below:

1st ACCS

25th April - 800

26th April - 700

27th April - 659

28th April - 398

29th April - ...

30th April - 199

NZ Fd Amb

25th -27th April - 250

28th -30th April - 250

RND Medical

29th April - 1310

He also says another 670 were evacuated unrecorded by these units.

Based on these records, this gives a total wounded evacuated for 25 -30th April of 5226, including casualties from the 4th Australian Brigade and the Royal Naval Division.

A footnote on p 146 says of the 1st Division casualties quoted from Bean, which I quoted above, 3 - 400 of the missing later returned to their units.

Regards

Chris

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Chris

G'day mate

Glad to give your some clarification.

However, I am a little intrigued by it. If the 3rd Echelon returns were lost in 1916 after they were transferred to London, how do we know what the calculations in them were? Calculations were made then the documents transferred. When it was requested to recheck the documents a year later, it became clear the the primary source documents had disappeared. There is a bit of correspondence about that. You will have noticed that I have cited the AWM file if you wish to follow this line.

Or are we talking about two different documents? See answer to the first question.

BTW, Bean's figures I quoted above are for the 1st Division only, less Div Arty and Div Tpt casualties, not the whole force. - Thanks for that otherwise we are comparing apples with oranges.

By "butcher's bill" do you mean the number KIA during the period 25th - 30th April? Yes.

Cheers

Bill

Australian Light Horse Studies Centre

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/

[Crunchy]

Hi Bill,

Many thanks for those clarifications. Do you have any other documents relating to this issue?

Regards

Chris

[1st AIF]

Here's a breakdown of the problem in getting reliable casualty figures, as mentioned by Andrew P.

11th Battalion AIF fatal casualties first week, Gallipoli

25 April: 51

26 April: 0

27 April: 0

28 April: 6

29 April: 5 (all DOW)

30 April: 2

1 May: 0

2 May: 28

Obviously the battalion sustained casualties during the heavy fighting of 26/27 April, and probably did not sustain any on 2nd May, when it was out of the line reorganising.

Hi Bryn and all. I find that the Roll of Honour on the AWM site is a fairly reliable indicator of deaths on a particualr day. http://www.awm.gov.au/roh/ The troble is you need to trick it so that you can search by day or unit. You can do this simply by following this link http://www.awm.gov.au/roh/?t=a or you enter a common name like Smith and the next screen offers you an advanced search that you search using date and unit. I would expect the ROH to be fairly accurate as a lot of effort was put into it after the war. The DOW figure of say someone who was hit on 25th April but died a month later is still very hard to work. For as I see it if the wound killed you then the "KIA" death should be recorded the day of the wound. Of course there is no such register though.

By using the ROH we get these figures for the period 25Apr to 30 Apr, the number in parenthisis are the 11th Bn casualties

25th Apr749

[1st AIF]

...whoops don't know what happened then. Deaths for 25-30 Apr 1915 with 11th Bn in brackets according to the AWM Roll of Honour

25th Apr 749 (62)

26th Apr 97 (0)

27th Apr 136 (1)

28th Apr 69 (7)

29th Apr 75 (7)

30th Apr 75 (2)

Total 1201 (114)

1st May 100 (0)

2nd May 490 (35)

Very interesting. The above figures for say 30Apr would include some DOW from those hit on 25Apr. If the killed to wound to ratio is 1:3 then first day casualties would be around 3000 probably a bit less. The trouble with using CCS figures is that they probably include all nationalites passing thorugh it - Aussies, Kiwis, Indians, Brits etc. What is interesting is the number of deaths on 2nd May compared to the landing. 2nd May was a lot more local than the 25th and these figures don't include the Kiwis or the British marines. The poor old 16th lost 163 men dead that day. Hope this is of interest.

Just for fun I have started going through the nominal roll of A company 9th Bn and am tracing the career of each man through the war. Will let you know how I go.

Regards, Len

[Bryn]

The figure I quoted before of 920 soldiers with official dates of death of 25th April, or where 25th April is the first day of a date range, or those confirmed by other sources as having died on 25th April, includes Australians and New Zealanders.

I'll provide a unit-by-unit breakdown later.

[Crunchy]

The trouble with using CCS figures is that they probably include all nationalites passing thorugh it - Aussies, Kiwis, Indians, Brits etc.

Hi Len,

Welcome to the Forum. We are trying to get an estimate of the casualties for all nationalities at Anzac on 25th April, not just Australians.

Bryn,

If your figure of 920 includes Australians and New Zealanders, the AWM figure of 749 may be pretty close to the mark as it only includes Australians. How many New Zealanders do you have in the 920 you have identified to date?

Regards

Chris

[Bryn]

I've gone back over and revised my figures and have 908 killed (AIF and NZEF) on 25th April 1915.

Of these 156 were New Zealanders, 106 of whom were Auckland Battalion (including 6 officers), 43 Canterbury Battalion (including 3 officers), 5 Otago Battalion, and 2 Wellington Battalion.

That makes 752 AIF killed according to my figures, but does not include the 30-odd disputed 11th Battalion figures.

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Mates

Sorry to take so long to get back.

The difficulties in collecting the raw data is illustrated in this letter sent by Lt Marsland, 3rd Echelon which I have reproduced below.

The thing to note is that this letter was written in 1918, two years after the project for tabulating the cost of the Gallipoli campaign was undertaken. With all the staff resources and immediacy of the paper work, it was an impossible task even for the administrators.

The exercise was looking at establishing the per capita cost of the Gallipoli campaign. This meant analysing all the strength returns sent to 3rd Echelon in Alexandria from Gallipoli. These returns were collected as and when they arrived so a running total could be provided to Treasury. The finalisation task was commenced in April 1916 but never finished in any satisfactory manner. At the end of the day, with the loss of paper work, the figures became circular. 3rd Echelon had a series of figures which was used by DAG and then transmitted back to 3rd Echelon as their "DAG's figures" which were then used by 3rd Echelon to demonstrate that their figures agreed with independently extracted figures and so on.

The reason for my question of Bean's figures related to this very specific issue. Was he relying upon recycled figures which as illustrated by this letter, were unreliable? We don't know because Bean does not give us the basis of his casualty figures.

For this exercise, this is a cautionary warning not to accept the official figures since in reality, the official figure was nothing more than a recycled best guess as is illustrated by the problems in constructing the figures at the time. In the end, the caution is that we cannot rely upon these sources to authenticate casualty figures.

Cheers

Bill

Australian Light Horse Studies Centre

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/

[Crunchy]

Bill,

Many thanks for this. Your points about the accuracy of figures is spot on. I wonder if there are any other documents in the AWM that might throw light on this?

Cheers

Chris

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Chris

G'day mate

Thanks for your note.

I haven't found anything in the files to date that would even come close to assisting us resolve the issue.

However, for the budget minded folks, 3rd Echelon did calculate the per capita cost of Gallipoli as:

£2,416,428/5/10

This can be translated into current AUD by using the factor of:

1 penny = $1.67

It must be remembered that this is only the wages bill, not the in toto cost to Australia of the operation.

Again, as per the above, this is best guess.

As to actual figures, I would be inclined to bet my house on Bryn's figures probably being the best there is available.

Cheers

Bill

Australian Light Horse Studies Centre

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/

[PhilB]

You`ve lost me there, Bill. £2.4 million for each soldier`s pay for 8 months on the Peninsula? Which capita are we referring to?

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Phil

G'day mate

Sorry I wasn't clearer with my answer. Per capita is a bureaucratic way of saying per head. The survey aimed at working out the wages cost for the force engaged in the fight at Gallipoli. When a person was added to the force, then their capitation wage was attributed at the rate of 5/10d per diem. If the men were wounded but were still attached to the force, then the capitation fee remained attributed. Death, RTA, or re-allotment to another formation meant removal off the capitation list. So if you divide the daily capitation rate with the pounds quoted, you will come up with the Australian man days invested in the Gallipoli campaign.

Like all things, follow the money for accuracy. Capitation was an important technique employed to justify funding levels to Parliament and a plan for future funding of Australia's participation in the war. There was every incentive to produce accurate figures with the information available.

Hope this answers your query.

Cheers

Bill

Australian Light Horse Studies Centre

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/

[PhilB]

So it`s not the per capita cost but the total Aussie (or Anzac?) wage bill for the Gallipoli campaign?

[Guest Bill Woerlee]

Phil

G'day mate

Almost there mate. Let's go one step further.

£2,416,428/5/10d divided by 5/10d = the total number of man days employed by Australian forces [only Australian] at Gallipoli, ergo, per capita.

Hope this further helps you answer your query.

Cheers

Bill

Australian Light Horse Studies Centre

http://alh-research.tripod.com/Light_Horse/

[PhilB]

Thanks, Bill.