Oh dear! It appears that I made a major blunder of both fact and interpretation in my recent article Wargaming August 1914 in MWAN 23. I hasten to correct it here. I said that the French lost no more than about 20,000 casualties in their reckless frontal charges, and that it took several months for the butcher's bill to rise to the third of a million, often quoted. In fact, this is wrong, as I have discovered from reading Henry Contamine's La Revanche 1871-1914 (Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1957). The figures he gives are as follows; Up to 29th August the French lost 260,000 casualties including 75,000-dead, about a half of which were in the first battles (20-22 August). To this must be added about 10,000 British casualties, an unspecified number of Belgians and some 15,000 unwounded French prisoners, From 29th August to 10th September the total French losses were 35,000 dead, 90,000 wounded and around 100,000 prisoners, The German loss is estimated at about 20% less than the French, which makes it More than a quarter of a million. We are discussing at least fifteen different battles in this period, however, which gives an average of 34,000 casualties per battle (including 'march losses' and the surrender of isolated garrisons in between the fighting), This is certainly heavy when compared with a total of 24,000 casualties in 'America's bloodiest day' at Antietam, although less heavy when compared with 60,000 British hit on the first day of the Somme. The average Division lost a quarter of its strength before 29th August, but none lost as much as a half its strength. A few regiments lost 90%, but it was more normal for them to lose about a quarter. These losses represent about 10% of all the losses suffered by France in WWI, which obviously rakes the scale of slaughter a very great deal more than I had originally supposed. However I would still point out that the majority of these losses were suffered by troops on the defensive rather than in the assault, even in the strategically most offensive operations we find relatively few regiments making attacks, and relatively many standing still to fight exclusively by fire. In the first battles of the six armies, 20-22 August, I would estimate that perhaps 50,000 of the 130,000 casualties were suffered in attacks, with the rest in defence. This has been corrected in the MagWeb.com archive. -- RL Back to MWAN # 24 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1986 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com