"Losses in the 100 Days: Historical Sources" Topic

What are the primary sources for the casualty figures for all sides during the 100 Days campaign?

Here is one:

link

with an interesting comment on what to keep in mind when talking of "losses":

The returns above depict – as the title says – the loss during the various combats themselves, and not the loss of the army corps on entering Paris. For example, the total loss of the Reserve Cavalry was according to the above returns 698 men; of these only 373 have been killed in battle or wounded, the remainder had been taken prisoner or had lost their horses. So they were put out of combat, but the greater part joined their units on the way to Paris again one way or another. So if one would say that the loss of the Reserve Cavalry was in total only 373 men, so only about half the amount given above, he has right regarding the loss during the whole campaign. However, this is not depicted here. The same is the case with the infantry and artillery.

Thanks for that Oliver, much appreciated.

Does anyone know what the primary sources are for the French? I have noted that many books on Quatre Bras quote a figure for French casualties of around 4,100 although Ney himself said he had lost 6,000. Has there been any rigorous work done on that topic?

I presume that a cavalry unit that lost half its horses and half its men was functionally destroyed on the day, because you'd have half the unit riderless, and the other half horseless.

At some point you would presumably hope to recombine these two, so as to remount your surviving troopers on the casualties' horses. This would return your strength to 50% of what it had been, which is still grievous but a lot better than complete destruction.

The accounts in Houssaye of French losses have many of them (eg the Guard heavy cavalry division) at that 50% level on 19 June; likewise the loss figures among the British heavies.

That suggests to me that battlefield losses could have approached total but been temporary, with the winner presumably standing the better chance of recovering.

See this

link

The original article:

PDF link

Officier losses are listed by name in Martinien (I don't know an online edition):

link

Bowden's book has the French numbers by regiment for the returns of June 23-26.For Quatre Bras, Gourgaud had French casualties at 4,140 and Charras had 4,375. Ney's "2,000 killed and 4,000 wounded" sounds like a quick estimate, but who knows.