Ethnic Character of WW1 Armies

riffmongous

While I was reading a bit about the history of commonwealth soldiers recently I was thinking that while most people would be aware that a large number of 'empire' troops fought on all sides and in the context of specific campaigns their contributions can be well known, e.g. Anzacs at Gallipoli, for me at least the overall contribution is not something I know about and I thought it might be interesting to try to quantify.

Starting with the A-H since they are the most interesting for me a quick look at wiki says that

The ethnic make-up of the enlisted ranks reflected the diversity of the empire the army served; in 1906, out of every 1000 enlisted men, there were 267 Germans, 223 Hungarians, 135 Czechs, 85 Poles, 81 Ruthenians (or Ukrainians), 67 Croats and Serbs, 64 Romanians, 38 Slovaks, 26 Slovenes, and 14 Italians.[11]

So over 50% of the army before WW1 was made up of non-ruling ethnic groups. This link here goes through it in more detail, regiment by regiment
http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/orb14.htm


If you trust uncited wikipedia references the numbers for the French Empire seems quite low, 475,000 colonial troops out of 8,317,000 in total called up.

I will see what can be found on the British Empire next but others might know more already. Any information on the Russian army would also be pretty interesting I think, since off the top of my head I know they had Polish and Czech regiments.

Does anyone know if any non-Germans fought for Germany outside of the colonial troops actually? Poles especially

tac foley

Against the West - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Legions_in_World_War_I

For the West - http://www.hallersarmy.com/

tac

riffmongous

That Haller's Army link is quite interesting, especially reading about their post-WW1 role, there were so many minor 'wars' in central and eastern europe directly after WW1 that are not so well known, I always enjoy reading about the Freikorps and Baltic wars in particular.

Do you know of any links relating to Polish soldiers in the Russian Army? Perhaps similar to the Czech Legions that fought for the russians, but I would presume as large parts of Poland were Russian territory their would have been far more of them.

Jawgap

Might be of interest.....

From September 1914 to the end of the war in 1918, of two and one-half million men from the empire (outside the British Isles) who fought in the war, approximately one and one-half million men—combatants as well as service troops—were soldiers of the Indian Army. During the war, India's material and financial contribution amounted to the equivalent of £479 million.

From Tai-Yong, T. (2000). An Imperial Home-Front: Punjab and the First World War. Journal Of Military History, 64(2), 371-410.

riffmongous

Jawgap wrote: »

Might be of interest.....



From Tai-Yong, T. (2000). An Imperial Home-Front: Punjab and the First World War. Journal Of Military History, 64(2), 371-410.

Thanks for that Jawgap, it is exactly what I was looking for. So there are two follow up questions:

a) if 2.5m troops from outside the Isles fought for the Empire, what % does that represent of the total number of soldiers, or in other words how many soldiers came from the Isles? (~200,000 came from Ireland I believe)

b) Where did the other million non-Isles soldiers come from?

500,000 were Australians according to the Australian war memorial website. Then there must also be Canadians, New Zealanders, Africans and more

riffmongous

If you still follow this Tac I would guess you might know quite a lot about the Canadians who signed up? Do you know what the motivations of your relatives were? Were they British or French ancestry? Would there have been any difference between the two in terms of motivations that you heard of?

Jawgap

riffmongous wrote: »

Thanks for that Jawgap, it is exactly what I was looking for. So there are two follow up questions:

a) if 2.5m troops from outside the Isles fought for the Empire, what % does that represent of the total number of soldiers, or in other words how many soldiers came from the Isles? (~200,000 came from Ireland I believe)

b) Where did the other million non-Isles soldiers come from?

500,000 were Australians according to the Australian war memorial website. Then there must also be Canadians, New Zealanders, Africans and more

I'll freely admit that this is not my area of expertise. I just plugged a couple of searches into the Journal of Military History

It is of interest, because one of my areas of interest is the WWII Italian Campaign and specifically the use of air power in the second half (post the fall of Rome) of that campaign - and in terms of diversity I doubt they come much more ethnically diverse than Alexander's Fifteenth Army Group - British, Commonwealth, Italian, Free French, Colonial French (Moroccans, Algerian and Syrian), Jewish (from Mandatory Palestine), Greek and a significant Brazilian Expeditionary Force. A true polyglot force, and the composition of it is endlessly debated.

Anyway, back to matters more pertinent to the thread. There might be some confusion in the of the terms 'ethnicity' - states etc contributed fighting forces which by and large were made up of their citizens, with a few interlopers.

But, just because a guy is a Canadian, Australian or South African it doesn't follow that he is ethnically any of those. Ethnically he could regard himself as Irish or British but by accident of birth or location (or because his mates are signing up) he joins a Commonwealth unit.

By way of example - ethnically speaking would the 36th (Ulster) Division have been Irish or British?

I think it might one of those questions that are difficult to answer, but interesting to discuss.

tac foley

Apropos Canada and WW1, as part of the British Empire of the time, Canada was automatically enrolled in the fighting on the declaration of war.

This needs reading, to put things into perspective -

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/canada_world_war_one.htm

FYI, over 600,000 Canadians took part in WW1. Of that number, just over 10% - 60,000+ - were killed in action or died of wounds received, and over 170,000 were wounded.

That percentage of the then-Canadian population was higher than that of any other nation. On 1 July 1916, at Beaumont Hamel, the Newfoundand Regiment was annihilated in twenty minutes of action.

Twenty-two officers and seven-hundred and fifty eight ORs advanced onto the German lines in this fortified village.

Shortly afterwards, all the officers were dead or injured, and over 650 ORs were similarly out of action.

The following morning, only sixty-eight Newfies answered the roll-call.

As a result, the area of the Somme where the action took place - a mere 74 acres - is now as much part of Canada as my backyard in Ontario, given to the Canadian people by a grateful France.

Vimy Ridge was payback time, and Canada became a nation on the ridgeline there. So much so, that at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Canada was engaged in the treaty signing as a separate nation.

Same deal in WW2 - Canada joined in everything - Army, Navy, Airforce and merchant navy, and Canada's gigantic prairie provinces supplied grain and wheat at the expense of the 'old homeland' until it squeaked under the strain. It is not generally known, but Canada suffered extreme deprivation and near-famine as a result of its efforts to help the allies in Europe. As an example, my Canadian family, having exhausted their formerly-boutiful Saskatchewan farmland by over-cropping, were moved by the government to a 500-acre small-holding in Ontario, where my cousin and his two sons still farm arably and breed Charolais cattle as a sideline.

tac

riffmongous

Jawgap wrote: »

I'll freely admit that this is not my area of expertise. I just plugged a couple of searches into the Journal of Military History

It is of interest, because one of my areas of interest is the WWII Italian Campaign and specifically the use of air power in the second half (post the fall of Rome) of that campaign - and in terms of diversity I doubt they come much more ethnically diverse than Alexander's Fifteenth Army Group - British, Commonwealth, Italian, Free French, Colonial French (Moroccans, Algerian and Syrian), Jewish (from Mandatory Palestine), Greek and a significant Brazilian Expeditionary Force. A true polyglot force, and the composition of it is endlessly debated.

I always found that interesting myself too, particularly when you read about the battles around Cassino, with Poles, New Zealands, Moroccans and more. I also find it interesting to read about the diversity in the Waffen SS towards the later years of the war.

Anyway, back to matters more pertinent to the thread. There might be some confusion in the of the terms 'ethnicity' - states etc contributed fighting forces which by and large were made up of their citizens, with a few interlopers.

But, just because a guy is a Canadian, Australian or South African it doesn't follow that he is ethnically any of those. Ethnically he could regard himself as Irish or British but by accident of birth or location (or because his mates are signing up) he joins a Commonwealth unit.

By way of example - ethnically speaking would the 36th (Ulster) Division have been Irish or British?

I think it might one of those questions that are difficult to answer, but interesting to discuss.

You are right, I never thought of that in the case of the commonwealth countries. I think you could even say that it was WW1 that actually caused those countries to view themselves as not-british any longer in many cases. But like you say, Irish people in those armies would likely still have viewed themselves as Irish, but I will keep going out of interest even with my flawed premise There will just have to be a big asterisk put beside the commonwealth figures

For what its worth, I think the Ulster division is actually put down as Irish in most cases.

Jawgap

If you haven't already read it and you're interested in the Cassino battles, I'd recommend the recently published "Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell" by Peter Caddick-Adams.

I don't think you're premise is flawed, I just think it's a big task to identify the fighting forces by ethnicity - but difficult issues are often the most interesting so go luck!

Following on from Tac's contribution this appeared in the Globe and Mail.

On Remembrance Day, are we honouring ‘heroes’ or ‘victims?’

The pertinent part to this discussion is this quote.....

There certainly are figures in the military and in politics who have taken advantage of this [re-militarising Canadian culture] – by drawing our attention to the few historic instances where Canadian soldiers played a starring role, by valorizing Vimy Ridge (10,000 Canadian casualties for a tactical gain) rather than Passchendaele (16,000 Canadian casualties for no reason at all), by pretending, for as long as possible, that Kandahar was not a tragic failure, by focusing on the valour rather than the horror.

tac foley

A good article, not only well-intentioned, but cogent and, for the most part, valid. The one-stop payment deal is generally held up as one of the worst decisions yet made by the present gubmint, as it is well-known fact that the effects of injuries such as traumatic amputations [predominant in A'stan] need long term treatment for the life of the amputee, and can often develop into other areas of health, too.

Still, I digress.

tac

Jawgap

To digress further - I read the article and was quite surprised / shocked that the Canadian government were introducing that type of payment - very unCanadian!

Jawgap

@riffmongus

This might be of interest - it present some sobering graphics showing a breakdown of WWI deaths by - among other things - country. The graphic on age is fairly sobering

http://codehesive.com/commonwealthww1/