WWI

[superfractal]

Germay was successful in the first 2 years with far less expediture of ammo.

 

(Damn color codes aren't working!)

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Now your misleading people .

 

Early in 1914 When most of the german advance's were made, they had a number's advantage i belive.

 

And if mons and the first battle of ypres was anything to go they did so at an incredibly high price, which might explain the german defensive posture for much of the remainder of the war.

 

Statistic's i have for mons and ypres have the British army losing about 70-75k killed and wounded. The Germans lost anything from 210k to 340k depending on whether you belive the Official German history our not.

 

And this was in relativly mobile battle's in comparison to the rest of the war.

 

And the germans lost alot of troops of verdun, the germany army may have been succsesful but it was in more favourable situation and at a very high cost.

[superfractal]

They had lost before the US had troops in the line. They were done for after they blew the Spring 1918 offensives. US involvement was more of a psychological defeat - "We can't fight these new hordes, we have to quit."

 

I am refering to the military aid the USA was sending to the UK almost from the beginning.

 

 

371918[/snapback]

 

You have to remember that britain supplied france too.

 

Do you have any information on how much aid was sent? British Ammunition production realy picked up from 1916 and even before that the plan was to send most of the uk's production to russia.

[JWB]

Now your misleading people  .

 

Early in 1914 When most of the german advance's were made, they had a number's advantage i belive.

 

And if mons and the first battle of ypres was anything to go they did so at an incredibly high price, which might explain the german defensive posture for much of the remainder of the war.

 

Statistic's i have for mons and ypres have the British army losing about 70-75k killed and wounded. The Germans lost anything from 210k to 340k depending on whether you belive the Official German history our not.

 

And this was in relativly mobile battle's in comparison to the rest of the war.

 

And the germans lost alot of troops of verdun, the germany army may have been succsesful but it was in more favourable situation and at a very high cost.

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What does any of that have to do with ammunition expenditure?

[superfractal]

What does any of that have to do with ammunition expenditure?

372312[/snapback]

 

Think about it!

 

They had a numbers advantage in those situations and took relativly higher casulties.

 

So the Germans were not all that succsesful in firing less rounds. Especialy if you include the fact at that time the Entente had less rounds to fire as well.

 

So it's a misleading thing too say.

[Rich]

Statistic's i have for mons and ypres have the British army losing about 70-75k killed and wounded. The Germans lost anything from 210k to 340k depending on whether you belive the Official German history our not.

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Carefull. If the statistics you are using are drawn from the British Official Histories then you may have a problem. It's pretty evident that the "official" casualty figures are gross "underestimates" (note that I did not describe them as "lies" ).

IIRC if you refer to the war diary entries referenced in the history you will often find that the entry does not actually correspond to the "facts" given in the history. I'll see if I can dig back into some of the files and find the data on that, it's been a while. Sadly in my last trip at PRO I didn't have time or camera memory left to dig into WO 162 the way I wanted, it might have finally resolved the issue.

 

So it may not be a matter of believing the German Official History, but rather how much you can trust the British Official History.

[superfractal]

Carefull. If the statistics you are using are drawn from the British Official Histories then you may have a problem. It's pretty evident that the "official" casualty figures are gross "underestimates" (note that I did not describe them as "lies"  ).

IIRC if you refer to the war diary entries referenced in the history you will often find that the entry does not actually correspond to the "facts" given in the history.    I'll see if I can dig back into some of the files and find the data on that, it's been a while. Sadly in my last trip at PRO I didn't have time or camera memory left to dig into WO 162 the way I wanted, it might have finally resolved the issue. 

 

So it may not be a matter of believing the German Official History, but rather how much you can trust the British Official History. 

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No im ousing other source's for british statistic's.

 

Although Gary sheffeild for one thinks the British official history's Figures are fairly accurate in the context of British casulties.

 

Bearing in mind the Bef expanded from 100k to 160k from mons to the First battle of ypres. So even with double the casulties from mons, the britsh army could not have taken more than 200k even if they lost every man and they didnt.

[JWB]

Think about it!

 

They had a numbers advantage in those situations and took relativly higher casulties.

 

So the Germans were not all that succsesful in firing less rounds. Especialy if you include the fact at that time the Entente had less rounds to fire as well.

 

So it's a misleading thing too say.

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Yes the Germans were ineffective because they only advanced continuously across French soil for 2 weeks.

 

 

As for British imports from the USA> http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/comment/Clapp/Clapp5.htm

[Rich]

No im ousing other source's for british statistic's.

 

Although Gary sheffeild for one thinks the British official history's Figures are fairly accurate in the context of British casulties.

 

Bearing in mind the Bef expanded from 100k to 160k from mons to the First battle of ypres. So even with double the casulties from mons, the britsh army could not have taken more than 200k even if they lost every man and they didnt.

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But the other source you are using must have a root source itself correct? And almost invariably that is the official histories.

 

And without a thorough investigation of the source documents - the War Diaries and the statistical data in WO 162 - I can think one thing and Gary Sheffield another and we each have about an equal chance of being right.

 

BTW I did not address First Ypres or Mons specifically, I was making a remark as to the possible accuracy of the British official figures in general as counterpoint to your similar remarks about the German official figures. Of course our problem is compounded by the fact that the German source documentation is mostly destroyed so the official history can't be completely checked (although since the Stadt archives of Bavaria and Wurttemburg are intact those records can be and have been checked and found to be accurate ).

[superfractal]

But the other source you are using must have a root source itself correct? And almost invariably that is the official histories.

 

And without a thorough investigation of the source documents - the War Diaries and the statistical data in WO 162 - I can think one thing and Gary Sheffield another and we each have about an equal chance of being right.   

 

BTW I did not address First Ypres or Mons specifically, I was making a remark as to the possible accuracy of the British official figures in general as counterpoint to your similar remarks about the German official figures. Of course our problem is compounded by the fact that the German source documentation is mostly destroyed so the official history can't be completely checked (although since the Stadt archives of Bavaria and Wurttemburg are intact those records can be and have been checked and found to be accurate  ).

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of course!

 

I didnt mean to be so abrupt.

 

But David lomas in his osprey book on ypres points out german casutly reporting was woeful.

 

Firstly many casulties deemed unserious would not be counted when the british army would, plus there casulties were so bad they actualy did not have enough men to count the casulties(this was there own admission).

 

So the German figures are definatly wrong its just a matter of how much, Of course i dont have total faith in the official British figure's though.

[superfractal]

Yes the Germans were ineffective because they only advanced continuously across French soil for 2 weeks.

 

 

As for British imports from the USA>  http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/comment/Clapp/Clapp5.htm

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thanks for the link on imports but i'm to busy to read it all now. Does it mention any figure's of numbers of shells?

 

And as far as your first comment, im going to ignore that as its not what i posted, i never said the german's were not succsesful. Mearly that Comparing German shell expenditure to their advance's in 1914 to Allied offensive's in 1916 is incredibly misleading.

[DB]

thanks for the link on imports but i'm to busy to read it all now. Does it mention any figure's of numbers of shells?

 

And as far as your first comment, im going to ignore that as its not what i posted, i never said the german's were not succsesful. Mearly that Comparing German shell expenditure to their advance's in 1914 to Allied offensive's in 1916 is incredibly misleading.

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The reference is to a chapter in a contemporary book bemoaning the ability of the UK to stifle US trade to Germany and its allies, and in particular whining about the British monopoly on the best rubber, which it refused to allow the US to import without contractual guarantees that either it or the products made from it wouldn't end up in the enemy's hands.

 

It's well worth a read, when you have the time, because it covers a situation that is too complex to easily summarise.

 

David

[Rich]

of course!

 

I didnt mean to be so abrupt.

 

But David lomas in his osprey book on ypres points out german casutly reporting was woeful.

 

Firstly many casulties deemed unserious would not be counted when the british army would, plus there casulties were so bad they actualy did not have enough men to count the casulties(this was there own admission).

 

There is nothing "woeful" about counting casualties differently, that is simply a doctrinal differance. The same occured between the US Army and the US Marine Corps, with the result that in the Army the wounded-to-killed ratio was about 3.5-to-1 while in the Marine Corps it was 6-to-1. Now you can believe that Marines are more resistant to death than soldiers, but that simply wasn't the case, the Marines just reported everyone as wounded no matter how insignificant the wound, the Army did not.

 

And I'm somewhat at a loss to interpret what not having enough men to count the casualties means? Does he believe there was a shortage of clerks in the German Army so they could not afford to keep a tally? Or that they simply didn't bother to? Either assumption is more than a bit specious, but I can't for the life of me think of what he must mean?

 

So the German figures are definatly wrong its just a matter of how much, Of course i dont have total faith in the official British figure's though.

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No, they were not "wrong" although they may have been more or less accurate in terms of a precise accounting of wounded in action. But in this case the "problem" is that those were counted differently, which isn't the same thing as being wrong.

[superfractal]

There is nothing "woeful" about counting casualties differently, that is simply a doctrinal differance. The same occured between the US Army and the US Marine Corps, with the result that in the Army the wounded-to-killed ratio was about 3.5-to-1 while in the Marine Corps it was 6-to-1. Now you can believe that Marines are more resistant to death than soldiers, but that simply wasn't the case, the Marines just reported everyone as wounded no matter how insignificant the wound, the Army did not.

 

And I'm somewhat at a loss to interpret what not having enough men to count the casualties means? Does he believe there was a shortage of clerks in the German Army so they could not afford to keep a tally? Or that they simply didn't bother to? Either assumption is more than a bit specious, but I can't for the life of me think of what he must mean?

No, they were not "wrong" although they may have been more or less accurate in terms of a precise accounting of wounded in action.    But in this case the "problem" is that those were counted differently, which isn't the same thing as being wrong.

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i meant in relation to ypres, im not talking about German official history figures as a whole.

 

And yes there was a shortage of clerks there in relation to the number of casulties, they simply did not have enough time to collect accurate data in their own opinion.

[Rich]

And yes there was a shortage of clerks there in relation to the number of casulties, they simply did not have enough time to collect accurate data in their own opinion.

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Actually this is much more common a phenomena - lack of time, that is, not lack of clerks - than you would expect. Pre-computer the processing of personnel information was very labor intensive and casualty "accounting" often was left to quiet periods. And in extreme cases accounting was usually left to be finalized postwar. Both the German and British final accounting for the Great War was completed in the 20s. Even the widespread use of punchcard readers in World War II only partly relieved the strain. The US "final" accounting for World War II wasn't completed until 1952 - and has been periodically "corrected" since then.

[superfractal]

Actually this is much more common a phenomena - lack of time, that is, not lack of clerks    - than you would expect. Pre-computer the processing of personnel information was very labor intensive and casualty "accounting" often was left to quiet periods. And in extreme cases accounting was usually left to be finalized postwar. Both the German and British final accounting for the Great War was completed in the 20s. Even the widespread use of punchcard readers in World War II only partly relieved the strain. The US "final" accounting for World War II wasn't completed until 1952 - and has been periodically "corrected" since then.

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Sure, but i think it was in ypres more so than average.

 

But yes i take your point, it clearly was not easy for them or anyone infact.

[Rich]

Sure, but i think it was in ypres more so than average.

 

But yes i take your point, it clearly was not easy for them or anyone infact.

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The point I was making is that even if the accounting at the time at First Ypres wasn't strictly accurate, by the time it got into the official history it is likely that the accounting had been completed, that was the standard German way of doing it. For example, the Polish and French Campaign casualties in World War II weren't reconciled until 1943.

 

And even more to the point, there is no evidence that the German General Staff in writing their 40-odd volume history made any attempt to conceal or alter the casualties. OTOH IIRC there is some evidence to show that is exactly what happened when the British official history was written, the casualties reported were reduced and in some cases events were altered. Of course now I really have to make an effort to find the data that tended to show that.

[superfractal]

The point I was making is that even if the accounting at the time at First Ypres wasn't strictly accurate, by the time it got into the official history it is likely that the accounting had been completed, that was the standard German way of doing it. For example, the Polish and French Campaign casualties in World War II weren't reconciled until 1943.

 

And even more to the point, there is no evidence that the German General Staff in writing their 40-odd volume history made any attempt to conceal or alter the casualties. OTOH IIRC there is some evidence to show that is exactly what happened when the British official history was written, the casualties reported were reduced and in some cases events were altered. Of course now I really have to make an effort to find the data that tended to show that. 

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Dont worry about finding it to fast, i have read enough of your post to see you do know what you are posting

 

The claim that the german figure's are more accurate than the british is a little hard to belive. At the somme the german figure's are way off at least very few seem to agree.

 

Where as many historian's belive (including richard holmes) that the german figure's at the somme were indeed 600k plus.

 

David lomas claims but does not mention which, there are studies that show the German figures should infact be double the original 130k.

I think he even mentions the german figure's were suspiciously low, but ill have to do some reading myself .

 

Certainly i have read that British offical histories sometimes exaggerated enemy losses, but that's not neccisarily true.

Edited September 29, 2006 by superfractal

[X-Files]

Melting glaciers in northern Italy reveal corpses of WW1 soldiers The glaciers of the Italian Alps are slowly melting to reveal horrors from the Great War, preserved for nearly a century

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10562017/Melting-glaciers-in-northern-Italy-reveal-corpses-of-WW1-soldiers.html

 

Reminded me of this article

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306109/Skeleton-World-War-I-soldier-buried-glacier-Italian-ski-resort.html

[Archie Pellagio]

What was so hard about counting casualties?

Field marshal disseminates intent to know casualties, it goes down through the chain of command to platoon commanders who task corporals to do an on the spot head count of their less than a dozen guys.

They tell the PS/PL, he adds three numbers together for the platoon, Coy HQ adds the three/four/five figures together and reports to Bn HQ who add their three/four/five figures together and so on and so forth.

The only spanner in the works would be guys who were evacuated to hospitals and communications between the unit and RAP, but those numbers as an expedient could simply be added wholesale into regiment/division/corps/whoever was responsible for the area medical and the unit specifics worried about later, which means at corps and army level you're still getting accurate figures for men and status.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Archie Pellagio

[Harold Jones]

It wasn't that simple, imagine an attack where the LT is evac'd, the PS is dead, one squad is completely gone, one took 50% casualties and the 3rd squad only lost 3 men. The acting PS probably won't know the starting strength of any squad except his own. You can always say then they just send the total up and the Cpt compares it to the previous days returns, but that presumes that they were collected, entered into the books and also entered correctly. Then you add 5 or 6 new guys who got handed off in the late in the afternoon who may or may not have been added to the company books before the attack started and things start to get a little complicated. I imagine that it really turned into a mess during a prolonged attack.

[Richard Lindquist]

One of the reasons that Mosier in his books doesn't use total casualties because of discrepancies and inaccuracies in the counting of WIA. He uses the totals of KIA/DOW/MIA/POW to compare casualties since all of the armies had a reasonable count of those in post war tallying. I agree that many dismiss Mosier out of hand, but I find his methodology here to compare casualties to be appealing.

[Colin Williams]

It wasn't that simple, imagine an attack where the LT is evac'd, the PS is dead, one squad is completely gone, one took 50% casualties and the 3rd squad only lost 3 men. The acting PS probably won't know the starting strength of any squad except his own. You can always say then they just send the total up and the Cpt compares it to the previous days returns, but that presumes that they were collected, entered into the books and also entered correctly. Then you add 5 or 6 new guys who got handed off in the late in the afternoon who may or may not have been added to the company books before the attack started and things start to get a little complicated. I imagine that it really turned into a mess during a prolonged attack.

 

And it's even more complicated if some men have deserted or gone awol, others have been evacuated with trench foot, spanish flu or some other malady, and still others may have gone back with minor wounds only to be sent forward to a different unit.

[Colin Williams]

I tried to look into the whole casualty issue a few years ago, and the a big problem one runs into is the accounting of wounded varied among Germany, France and Britain. If I remember correctly either the French or the Germans only counted severely wounded soldiers that were evacuated to hospitals far behind the lines as "wounded", while the other countries counted less severely wounded soldiers. I agree with Mosier (who took it from Churchill and others) that it is best to avoid WIA and focus on KIA/MIA/POW. (Although I don't agree with Mosier on speculating about casualties based on the size of a military cemetery!) Even that is a challenge because it can be difficult to separate the dead from military action from the dead due to disease or accidents. Also, it seemed to me that the French were worse than the British and Germans at providing appropriate medical care, at least early in the war, leading to a larger fraction of their wounded dying. Then there is the issue of properly accounting for German casualties according to the Allied army that inflicted them. There are German casualty numbers by section of the front (British, French) but there were times when French and British units were mixed, and many casualties inflicted by the Americans were lumped in with the French numbers (also true for the American divisions operating under British command).

 

With all those caveats, I think the following observations are near the mark.

1. During the 1914 campaign, the French and British lost ~2 men for each German. (The Germans didn't distinguish sectors of the front at this point.)

2. During 1915 the Allies also lost soldiers at the rate of ~2 to 1 (or worse). It seems the British were worse off than the French, possibly as a consequence of their artillery shortage.

3. During the first part of the 1916 the ~2 to 1 ratio held, reflecting the manpower sacrifices the French were making to hold on to Verdun. However, by the time of the Somme and the French counterattacks at Verdun, the French ratio moved down in the range of 1-1.5 to 1, while the British were still losing ~2 to 1. I believe this resulted from improved French doctrine and armaments.

4. By 1917 the British also attained this level of casualty exchange, although it looks like Petain's limited attacks in late 1917 inflicted significantly more losses on the Germans than experienced by the French.

5. During the German offensives in 1918 the Allies again lost more men than the Germans, and interestingly on defense the British reversed the earlier trend suffering losses at a rate of ~1.5 to 1 while the French lost ~2 to 1.

6. Finally, from July to November 1918 both the British and the French turned the tables on the Germans, losing at the rate of ~1 to 2. The French probably benefitted from having the Americans. I tried to adjust for the American contribution, but it's difficult. From what I can tell the Americans did not attain the 1 to 2 ratio, which is no surprise considering the losses in the Meuse-Argonne.

[Colin]

A good read and good pictures of a forgotten front. (not forgotten here for sure)

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10562017/Melting-glaciers-in-northern-Italy-reveal-corpses-of-WW1-soldiers.html