Battle Results in World War One

Results and statistics about 15 battles of World War One.
Beginning with the Battles of the Frontiers from August 14-23, 1914 and ending with the Meuse-Argonnes campaign from September 26-November 11, 1918.

German artillery during the Battle of the Marne.
German artillery during the Battle of the Marne.

The following tables provide highly aggregated approximate figures for 15 battles of World War One with German participation; ten on the Western Front, and five on the Eastern Front against Russia. Of the ten battles in the West were mainly four against Frenchmen, five mainly against British and one battle fought against the Americans.
For all these battles, the date, its well-known names, the duration, the main units involved and the operational objective – i.e. attack or the three variants of the defense (rapid, preparing and defense of field fortifications) – are indicated.

The next series of numbers indicates the approximate strength of the opposing forces. The fourth row shows rounded the generally accepted losses of the opponents. The four battles on the Eastern Front brought the Germans an unusually high number of POW’s. Therefore, in square brackets, the values without POW’s are given.
The fifth row shows the casualty figures per day.
The sixth row shows the losses per day in per cent, based on the already specified strength at the beginning of the battle.

The next row is called score, which is a score or grade based on the evaluation of the previous figures. This value indicates the losses per day as a percentage of the forces that caused these losses; it is determined by setting the losses of one side to the total personnel strength of the other side. Thus, the value shows losses per day per 100 men.
In brackets the score effectiveness modifies the score value to the adjusted approximately determined defenders advantage. Here, a factor is applied, which resulted from extensive research of WW2, which have not yet been thoroughly examined with regard to World War One.
The defender advantage is in rapidly equipped defense adopted by 1.3, 1.5 for prepared defense and 1.6 for defense with field fortifications.

In some early battles of the war, as both sides attacked and therefore also partly defended rapidly, this factor is estimated at 1.2. The so devoted score effectiveness therefore reflects the normalized ability of both sides to inflict losses in the battles concerned.
The low value for long battles clearly shows what reflects all detailed examine about WW2: The Battle value index of all troops decreases constantly in long battles.


Battles of the Frontiers August 14-23, 1914 (10 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German Western Forcesattack successfully 1,200.000 200,000 20,000 1.67% 2.50 (2.08)
French Forcesattack failed 1,390,000 300,000 30,000 2.16% 1.44 (1.20)

Tannenberg August 26-29, 1914 (4 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 8th Armyattack successfully 187,000 13,212 3,303 1.77% 16.04 (13.37) [4.68 bzw 3.90]
Russian 2nd Armyattack failed 160,000 120,000 [35,000] 30,000 [8,750] 18.75% [5.47%] 2.06 (1.72)

Marne Sep 5-10, 1914 (6 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German Western Forcesattack failed 900,000 300,000 50,000 5.56% 4.63 (3.86)
French Forcesattack successfully 1,200,000 250,000 41,666 3.47% 4.17 (3.48)

Masurian Lakes Sep 9-14, 1914 (5 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 8th Armyattack successfully 288,600 40,000 8,000 2.77% 8.66 (7.22) [3.47 / 2.89]
Russian 1st Armyattack failed 273,000 125,000 [50,000] 25,000 [10,000] 9.16% [3.66%] 2.93 (2.44)

Lodz Nov 11-25, 1914 (15 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 9th Armyattack draw 260,000 60,000 4,000 1.54% 2.44 (2.03)
Russian Army Group NWattack draw 400,000 95,000 6,333 1.58% 1.00 (0.83)


Winter Battle of Masuria February 7-21, 1915 (15 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 8th + 10th Armiesattack successfully 250,000 40,000 2,667 1.67% 5.60 (5.60) [2.67 / 2.67]
Russian 10th Armydefense failed 300,000 210,000 [100,000] 14,000 [6,667] 4.67% [2.22%] 0.89 (0.89)

Gorlice-Tarnow May 2-4, 1915 (3 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 11th Armyattack successfully 175,000 25,000 8,333 4.67% 38.10 (38.10) [11.43 bzw 11.43]
Russian 3rd Armyprepared defense failed 300,000 200,000 [60,000] 66,667 [20,000] 22.22% [6.67%] 2.78 (1.85)

Second Champagne, Sep 25-Nov 8, 1915 (45 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 3rd Armyfortified defense successfully 190,000 60,000 1,333 0.70% 1.70 (1.06)
French 2nd Army reinforcedattack failed 500,000 145,000 3,222 0.64% 0.27 (0.27)

First Somme, July 1-October 31, 1916 (123 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 2nd Armyfortified defense successfully 250,000 500,000 4,065 1.63% 2.18 (1.63)
British 4th + French 6th Armiesattack failed 600,000 670,000 5,447 0.91% 0.68 (0.68)

Arras April 9-24, 1917 (15 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 6th Armyfortified defense successfully 120,000 75,000 5,000 4.17% 4.67 (2.92)
British 3rd Armyattack failed 276,000 84,000 5,600 2.03% 1.81 (1.81)

Nivelle Offensive at the Aisne, April 16-30, 1917 (15 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 7th Army reinforcedfortified defense successfully 480,000 40,000 2,667 0.56% 1.64 (1.03)
French 5th + 6th Armies reinforcedattack failed 1,000,000 118,000 7,867 0.79% 0.27 (0.27)


Flanders July 31-Nov 6, 1917 (98 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 4th Armyfortified defense successfully 200,000 200,000 2,041 1.02% 1.53 (0.96)
British 5th + 2nd Armiesattack failed 380,000 300,000 3,061 0.81% 0.54 (0,54)

Second Somme, March 21-April 9, 1918 (20 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
Army-Group Prince Ruprechtattack draw 870,000 190,000 9,500 1.09% 1.15 (1.15)
British 5th + 3rd + 4th Armiesfortified defense draw 550,000 200,000 10,000 1.82% 1.73 (1.08)

Lys April 9-30, 1918 (22 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
German 6th + 4th Armiesattack draw 500,000 175,000 7,955 1.59% 1.39 (1.39)
British 1st Armyfortified defense draw 400,000 152,500 6,932 1.73% 1.99 (1,24)

Meuse-Argonnes Sep 26-Nov 11, 1918 (47 days):

ForcesResultStrengthLossesLosses per dayLosses % per dayScore
Army-Group Gallwitzfortified defense failed 380,000 126,000 2,681 0.71% 0.73 (0.46)
US 1st + 2nd Armiesattack successfully 600,000 130,000 2,766 0.46% 0.45 (0.45)

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See also: German Fighting Power
See also: Batte results in World War Two


References and literature

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War I (Chris Bishop)
Illustrierte Geschichte des Ersten Weltkriegs (Christian Zentner)
History of World War I (AJP Taylos, S.L. Mayer)
Der Genius des Krieges (Trevor N. Dupuy)


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