Posted by John Wilson on May 07, 2003 at 06:40:12 from 203.96.58.8 user hugo.
In Reply to: Re: Bob Blackett - and not only him posted by John Nichols on May 06, 2003 at 22:56:17:
WW One Service:
Britain (like New Zealand) had conscription from 1916. It seems likely that Bob Blackett & Jim Turner both served, probably volunteering?
And Lt-Col Tommy Jolys; in PP he had been a small boy 50 years before so if he was 60 then (1933) he would have been only 41 in 1914. He was probably in the Reserve and served in WWI (considering some of the doddery old Generals the British Army dug up, eg Stopford (born 1854) at the Dardanelles/Gallipoli!). But AR calls Jolys a veteran of many wars, ie the 19th century minor colonial wars of his childhood. Australia did not have conscription in WWI (defeated in two referenda), and in WWII only for service in Australia & Islands/South Asia.
World War One Deaths:
Death Rates: from J. M. Winter “World War One and the British People” (1986)
the military losses were:
Britain: 723,000 (63 per 1000 males aged 15-49)
France: 1,327,000 (133 per 1000 males aged 15-49)
Germany: 2,037,000 (125 per 1000 males aged 15-49)
The British Army casualty rates were 7.7% of the officer corps against 4.1% for the other ranks ie privates/NCOs. The number of officers lost were 37,452 or only 5% of the total British military losses, which were much lower than France & Germany (who both probably had more civilian losses also?).
The ‘lost generation” of the British upper class has been described as a "myth" by Robert Wohl in “The Generation of 1914” (1979). But the officer casualty rate was higher than for other ranks and was even higher for Oxbridge/EPS. For Oxford & Cambridge men aged 20-24 it was above 26%, and 53 public schools studied lost about one old boy of five who served (Winter).