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%!!!!!!!!!

For the St John Ambulance Brigade there are 1852 men listed on their register for their South Africa medal some men (unknown number) did several tours of 6 months, two - died whilst serving with other formations after their SJAB tour, three - died at sea on the way home, two - died in Netley Hosp having become ill on the way home and one man's: date place and cause of death has not been found (114 Supernumeraty Officer William Pegley). Enteric was the main cause of death for 50 of the 79 men who died. The other causes of death were: Dysentry - 7 Pneumonia - 5 Heatstroke - 1 Abcess of Brain - 1 Endocarditis - 1 Apoplexy - 1 Carbuncle - 1 Rhumatic Fever - 1 To be identified (Pegley) - 1.

The 1852 includes 83 men who were specially enlisted into the RAMC under the terms of Army Order 86/1901 but 3 of the men who died were not recorded in the register as being specially enlisted in the RAMC but were recorded as being specially enlisted as SJAB on other records.

Bloemfontain was the place where most SJAB deaths occured in 1900.


I have read an account of the SJAB man who was not vaccinated that those who voluntered to be vaccinated were ill for a for days (on the voyage out) and that author was glad he didn't volunteer.

The crude attrition rate (which does not account of all these all the variables) for the whole period of the war is 3.73%

Bablefish 11/10 for your presentation skill and thanks for your insightful contriburion to the thread.

The lack of info about the death of Sgt William Pegler is frustrating especially as he is commemorated in no less than St Paul's Cathedral along with Sgt Plumb & Sgt Giddens and 7 SJAB Privates (according to the newspaper reports of the unveiling).

As we share a surname, I have done a bit of research into 1441 Edward Dawson Redhead who died at Potchefstroom in February 1902 but whilst serving in the SAC. Born 1882, in Kendal, Westmorland according to the 1891 Kendal Census return, which also shows his father was a Police Constable. His father died in 1900 and Edward was not living with his widowed mother and siblings at the time of the 1901 Census. A Public Family Tree on Ancestry says he was born in Lancashire but baptised in Kendal, so perhaps the family moved in 1882 and the 1891 enumerator entered his birthplace incorrectly and in line with his younger siblings. The FT has photos attached of his mother, who started out life as Mary Ann Bates, and his youngest sister Nora Bates Redhead - His mother looks a bit fierce but Nora definitely not so - the creator of the FT comments Nora was reputedly as nice on the inside as she was on the outside but sadly died of an ectopic pregnancy in her 30's. Sadly no photo of Edward.

My attrition rates are definitely crude as really they should be based on man years spent in South Africa. Continuing this train of thought one might expect on a crude head count basis that the SJAB (average time in SA somewhere near 6 months) attrition rate would be less than that for the IY/Volunteers (average time in SA somewhere near 14 months) which would be less than the Regulars (average time in SA somewhere near 2 years). But as you say there are other factors involved such as your presentation vividly shows and Rob D mentioned - being in Bloemfontein at the wrong time!

I think I shall have to be content with a crude head count basis as just thinking about working out man years in SA makes my head hurt.

Neville C with a pair of binoculars has just pointed me towards another very high IY attrition rate - the Sherwood Rangers IY (10th Coy, 3rd Btn). Berenice's research showed they went out in January 1900 five officers & 121 NCO's & men strong. Some research last night showed a draft of 12 went out in April 1900. Their War Memorial, which Bernice did an excellent job of photographing under difficult circumstances, bears the names of one officer and fourteen men. This works out to an attrition rate of 10.9% (15/138) - two of the draft were amongst the names on the War Memorial. 10.9% is identical to the attrition rate of the Staffordshire IY and remarkably the contributing figures for the two units are identical - the only difference being that the Sherwood Rangers lost an officer. .

www.angloboerwar.com/forum/17-memorials-...ny-imperial-yeomanry

Thanks. I'm not a statistition but time is probably less inportant than exposure to enemy action and disease but offset by fighting ability and resourses and the knowledge to cope with close proximity to typhoid and dysentery, As you say the only result is a hurting head. Pegley is really annoying as I have his QSA - no trace of the Bronze or any records other than his widow became an annuitant in October 1900 - no name given. I found many of the other causes of death under names and service numbers that were wrong but all of the others had a place, date or cause of death.