TOPIC:

Some Unit Attrition Rates which I have calculated recently:

Staffordshire Imperial Yeomanry, First Contingent (South Africa, February 1900 to May 1901)
Went out 138 (including officers & draft), 3 Died of Wounds, 12 Died of Disease. Attrition rate =10.9%

Warwickshire Imperial Yeomanry, First Contingent (South Africa, February 1900 to May 1901)
Went out 137 (including officers and draft). 7 Killed in Action, 6 Died of Disease. Attrition rate = 9.5%

18th (Queen Mary’s Own) Hussars. (South Africa October 1899 to May 1902)
Went out 1,233 (including officers and drafts), 48 Killed in Action & Died of Wounds, 49 Died of Disease. Attrition rate = 7.9%

Smethwickians from 36 regiments (Imperial Yeomanry Companies counted as one regiment)
Went out 207 (including one officer and drafts), Killed in Action 4, Died of Disease 7. Attrition rate = 5.3%

Pembrokeshire Imperial Yeomanry, First Contingent (South Africa, April 1900 to June 1901)
Went out 116 (excluding officers & draft), 3 Killed in Action, 4 Died of Disease. Attrition rate = 5.2%

8th (Kings Royal Irish) Hussars (South Africa, February 1900 to May 1902)
Went out 1,218 (including officers and drafts), listed on regimental war memorial 54. Attrition rate = 4.4%

Overall – 2 Cavalry Regiments, 3 Imperial Yeomanry Companies & men from Smethwick.
Total went out = 3,049. Total perished in South Africa =196. Overall attrition rate = 6.4%.

Wikipedia says:

Number of British Soldiers who served in the South African War 1899-1902 = 347,000
Number of Colonial Soldiers who served in the South African War 1899-1902 = 128,000 ± 25,000
Total number of Imperial Soldiers who served in the South African War 1899-1902 = 475,000 ± 25,000
Imperial casualties = 22,092 dead (5774 killed in battle; 2108 died of wounds; 14210 died of disease)
Thus Imperial attrition rate = 4.7% (4.4 to 4.9%)

A difference in attrition rate from 4.7% to 6.4% might not sound great but it is actually a 38% difference.
If 6.4% of Imperial Soldiers had died the total would have been about 30,000 rather than 20,000.
If 20,092 represented 6.4% of the Imperial Soldiers who served then only about 345,000 Imperial Soldiers would have served.

Interestingly if the Wikipedia figure for British soldiers who served was actually the total for Imperial soldiers who served “my” 6.4% attrition rate would be more or less spot on. Or looking at it another way, if the 22,092 figure represented the British only death toll “my” 6.4% attrition rate would again be about spot on.

However, my sample is still much too small and far too biased to soldiers on horses. Does anybody have attrition rates for other units? especially infantry units.

That's very interesting research indeed.
I'd say it's well worth developing into an article for publication, esp. if you can show detail on different forces, and draw comparisons with Boer deaths. Also draw comparisons with other colonial wars and, say, the Great War.
My hunch is that enteric (typhoid) would be the dominant factor. If so, the risk of mortality would be linked to being stationed in hot spots like Ladysmith during the siege or Bloemfontein in 1900. Also I don't know whether there are data on the likelihood of entire units being offered/receiving the typhoid vaccine on the troop ship en route to SA.

Rob – thank you for your words and thoughts.

I am certain that enteric is an important factor, the problem is once you start to look at it in detail you descend into a morass of uncertainty.

Meynell Hunt in “With the Warwickshire Yeomanry in South Africa” reports, early in the voyage out, that the men have been “seedy” for the last two days owing to inoculations but does not specify what they were inoculated against. He also does not comment whether they were mandatory – from my other reading I don’t think they were. So I suspect the uptake from unit to unit varied with the “loud mouths” in the unit having an influence. You only have to look at the newspapers of the day to realise the anti-vak lobby was as strident then as it was a few years ago (and still is in the disUnited States of America). My paternal grandparents (born 1884 & 1885) were committed anti-vakers to their dying days (1961 & 1976) to the exasperation of my father and his siblings especially when they were wont to comment on the medical treatment being meted out to their grandchildren – I vividly remember being in the middle of a stack up between my grandmother and mother.

So the Warwickshire IY were inoculated as, from two year old memory, were the Pembrokeshire IY but in my recent studies of the Staffordshire IY I do not recall any mention of inoculations. So perhaps the figures I posted are significant but at least 2 of the 12 Staffs IY who I quote as DoD did not die from enteric (heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver) and at least 4 of the 6 “inoculated” Warwicks IY died of enteric. For some of the DoD all you can learn is that they died of an unnamed condition. Chronic dysentery and pneumonia were both responsible for a significant number of deaths. Also you cannot prove a negative – perhaps the commentators I have read on the Staffs IY voyage out did not think it worthwhile mentioning inoculations. So, as I said already - a lot of uncertainty.

Anyway I now have attrition figures for an Infantry Regiment (although some spent their time on horses in Mounted Infantry Companies). Jeffrey Elson in his self-published work on the South Staffordshire Regiment in SA has a complete medal roll as the last Appendix which lists 4,006 soldiers who served in the South Staffs in the South African War of 1899-1902. Unfortunately, for my purposes he has listed them alphabetically and splitting them down into their component parts – 1st Battalion (including the 3 VSC) , 3rd Battalion & 4th Battalion will take some time and might injure my brain. Anyway I know, from War Memorials in Lichfield Cathedral, that the 1st Battalion suffered 121 losses, 3rd Battalion 24 losses and 4th Battalion 41 losses making a total of 186 losses which comes in at a 4.6% attrition rate. Not quite the lowest to date but it does lower my overall attrition rate from 6.4% to 5.4%.

However, my database is still woefully wanting and is now over-dominated by an infantry regiment who arrived in 1900 and only became involved in minor skirmishes. The exception being the 100 3rd Battalion members who were seconded to the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers and spent all their time in South Africa fighting as Norsemen – these 100 suffered an attrition rate of 11%!!!!!!!!!