"Mons casualties?" Topic

Hi all,

Please excuse my naivety-i am not a WW1 afficionardo – but why is it so hard to establish a decent estimate of the German casualties incurred at the Battle of Mons?

I am aware of the doubt that a handful of authors (esp. Terence Zuber) have thrown on the traditional assumptions that the British inflicted upwards of 6,000 casualties on the German 1st Army.

I am also also aware that the way the Germans reported casualties has muddied the waters.

But surely it must be possible to establish just how many German soldiers were KILLED at Mons, and then estimate wounded accordingly? The Germans would surely have buried their dead locally?

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Redcoat

I am not a WWI guy either but have read a few books. KILLED means having a body and often identifying that body as a German soldier. Because of the munitions used at Mons some cadavers completely ceased to exist or were only fragments. In those cases you would get missing and not killed.

Good point, Rlyeh…

But would it not be possible to count up the known graves and extrapolate from there?

Or are the German graves mass graves, with no way of identifying the number of men therein? Or is it impossible to identify dates of death of individual burials?

There are very accurate numbers around the various types of casualties. The details have to be collated together, which Ralph Whitehead has done. He has used a range of sources including the Verlustlisten. The numbers are significantly less than British sources suggest.

Robert

Don't know if you're interested, but found this at On Military Matters…

192690
Terraine, John
Mons: The Retreat to Victory

The Battle of Mons takes its place in the history of the British army beside Corunna and Dunkirk. Initially, all three were defeats, saved from disaster by the courage of the soldiers and the skill of some of the commanders in the field, and paving the way to great feats of arms and final success. In the context of the whole of the First World War, Mons was a small scale affair; comparatively short in duration, involving divisions rather than armies, and resulting in casualties that were light indeed by the standard of later battles of attrition. But, especially from the British viewpoint, its importance was crucial, partly because it was the first time for close on a hundred years that a British Army had been engaged in warfare on the continent of Europe, and partly because that army passed straight form the dejection of defeat to the exhilaration of the Battle of the Marne – one of the decisive battles of the War. 6 x 91 vol, 224 pgs 2010 UK, PEN & SWORD BOOKS NEW-softcover ……$26.00 discount: :15%

Here is the English translation of the German official account of Mons. Holger and I translated the original, which was published by the Great German General Staff before it was dissolved by the Treaty of Versailles:

link

Robert

@monk2002uk,

I have some information about an interesting card game from this period of the war, that an English friend living in Germany has obtained. It was very popular and I suspect it would be worth re-publishing for the centenaries. The text is in old Germanic font (blackletter?) and he might appreciate help in translating it.

Where are you based and will you be attending Warfare at Reading next Saturday (or do you belong to a club)?

I am based in Sauf London but we are just in the process of moving. I won't be able to make Warfare this year, sorry. The font is probably Fraktur, which I am familiar with. Happy to help if we can find a way to link up.

Robert