Editing Battle of Verdun (section)

===Casualties===
[[File:Lot-3664-13 (32980411840).jpg|thumb|{{center|The remains of soldiers recovered in 1919.}}]]
In 2013, Paul Jankowski wrote that since the beginning of the war, French army units had produced numerical loss states ({{lang|fr|états numériques des pertes}}) every five days for the Bureau of Personnel at GQG. The Health Service ({{lang|fr|Service de Santé}}) at the Ministry of War received daily counts of wounded taken in by hospitals and other services but casualty data was dispersed among regimental depots, GQG, the Registry Office ({{lang|fr|État Civil}}), which recorded deaths, the {{lang|fr|Service de Santé}}, which counted injuries and illnesses and {{lang|fr|Renseignements aux Familles}} (Family Liaison), which communicated with next of kin. Regimental depots were ordered to keep {{lang|fr|fiches de position}} (position sheets) to record losses continuously and the {{lang|fr|Première Bureau}} of GQG began to compare the five-day {{lang|fr|états numériques des pertes}} with the records of hospital admissions. The new system was used to calculate losses back to August 1914, which took several months; the system had become established by February 1916. The {{lang|fr|états numériques des pertes}} were used to calculate casualty figures published in the {{lang|fr|Journal Officiel}}, the French Official History and other publications.{{sfn|Jankowski|2014|pp=257–258}}

The German armies compiled {{lang|de|Verlustlisten}} (loss lists) every ten days, which were published by the {{lang|de|Reichsarchiv}} in the {{lang|de|deutsches Jahrbuch}} of 1924–1925. German medical units kept detailed records of medical treatment at the front and in hospital and in 1923 the {{lang|de|Zentral Nachweiseamt}} (Central Information Office) published an amended edition of the lists produced during the war, incorporating medical service data not in the {{lang|de|Verlustlisten}}. Monthly figures of wounded and ill servicemen that received medical treatment were published in 1934 in the {{lang|de|Sanitätsbericht}} (Medical Report). Using such sources for comparison is difficult because the information recorded losses over time, rather than place. Losses calculated for a battle could be inconsistent, as in the ''Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War 1914–1920'' (1922). In the early 1920s, [[Louis Marin (politician)|Louis Marin]] reported to the Chamber of Deputies but could not give figures per battle, except for some by using numerical reports from the armies, which were unreliable unless reconciled with the system established in 1916.{{sfn|Jankowski|2014|pp=258–259}}

Some French data excluded those lightly wounded but some did not. In April 1917, GQG required that the {{lang|fr|états numériques des pertes}} discriminate between lightly wounded, treated locally for 20 to 30 days and severely wounded evacuated to hospitals. Uncertainty over the criteria had not been resolved before the war ended. {{lang|de|Verlustlisten}} excluded lightly wounded and the {{lang|de|Zentral Nachweiseamt}} records included them. Churchill revised German statistics by adding {{nowrap|2 per cent}} for unrecorded wounded in ''The World Crisis'', written in the 1920s and [[James Edward Edmonds|James Edmonds]], the British official historian, {{nowrap|added 30 per cent.}} For the Battle of Verdun, the {{lang|de|Sanitätsbericht}} contained incomplete data for the Verdun area, did not define "wounded" and the 5th Army field reports exclude them. The Marin Report and {{lang|fr|Service de Santé}} covered different periods but included lightly wounded. Churchill used a {{lang|de|Reichsarchiv}} figure of {{nowrap|428,000 casualties}} and took a figure of {{nowrap|532,500 casualties}} from the Marin Report, for March to June and November to December 1916, for all the Western Front.{{sfn|Jankowski|2014|pp=259–260}}

The {{lang|fr|états numériques des pertes}} give French casualties as {{nowrap|348,000 to 378,000}} and in 1930, Hermann Wendt recorded French Second Army and German 5th Army casualties of {{nowrap|362,000 and 336,831}} respectively from {{nowrap|21 February to 20 December}}, not taking account of the inclusion or exclusion of lightly wounded. In 2006, McRandle and Quirk used the {{lang|de|Sanitätsbericht}} to increase the {{lang|de|Verlustlisten}} by {{circa| 11 per cent}}, which gave {{nowrap|373,882 casualties,}} compared to the French Official History record to 20 December 1916, of {{nowrap|373,231 French}} casualties. The {{lang|de|Sanitätsbericht}}, which explicitly excluded lightly wounded, compared German losses at Verdun in 1916, averaging {{nowrap|37.7 casualties}} per thousand men, with the 9th Army in Poland 1914 which had a casualty average of {{nowrap|48.1 per 1,000,}} the 11th Army in Galicia 1915 averaging {{nowrap|52.4 per 1,000 men}}, the 1st Army on the Somme 1916 average of {{nowrap|54.7 per 1,000}} and the 2nd Army average for the Somme 1916 of {{nowrap|39.1 per 1,000 men.}} Jankowski estimated an equivalent figure for the French Second Army of {{nowrap|40.9 men per 1,000}} ''including'' lightly wounded. With a {{circa| 11 per cent}} adjustment to the German figure of {{nowrap|37.7 per 1,000}} to include lightly wounded, following the views of McRandle and Quirk; the loss rate is similar to the estimate for French casualties.{{sfn|Jankowski|2014|p=261}}

[[File:18-9-27, inauguration de l'ossuaire de Douaumont, cercueils des soldats anonymes.jpg|thumb|{{center|[[Douaumont ossuary]] in 1927}}]]
In the second edition of ''The World Crisis'' (1938), Churchill wrote that the figure of {{nowrap|442,000 was}} for other ranks and the figure of "probably" {{nowrap|460,000 casualties}} included officers. Churchill gave a figure of {{nowrap|278,000 German casualties,}} {{nowrap|72,000 fatal}} and expressed dismay that French casualties had exceeded German by {{nowrap|about 3:2.}} Churchill wrote that an eighth needed to be deducted from his figures to account for casualties on other sectors, giving {{nowrap|403,000 French}} and {{nowrap|244,000 German}} casualties.{{sfn|Churchill|1938|pp=1003–1004}} In 1980, John Terraine calculated {{circa| 750,000 French and German}} casualties in {{nowrap|299 days;}} Dupuy and Dupuy (1993) {{nowrap|542,000 French}} casualties.{{sfnm|1a1=Terraine|1y=1992|1p=59|2a1=Dupuy|2a2=Dupuy|2y=1993|2p=1052}} In 2000, Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann calculated {{nowrap|377,231 French}} and {{nowrap|337,000 German}} casualties, a monthly average of {{nowrap|70,000.}}{{sfn|Heer|Naumann|2000|p=26}} In 2000, Holger Afflerbach used calculations made by Hermann Wendt in 1931 to give German casualties at Verdun from 21 February to 31 August 1916 as {{nowrap|336,000 and}} French as {{nowrap|365,000 at}} Verdun from February to December 1916.{{sfn|Chickering|Förster|2006|p=114}} David Mason wrote in 2000 that there had been {{nowrap|378,000 French}} and {{nowrap|337,000 German}} casualties.{{sfn|Mason|2000|p=185}} In 2003, Anthony Clayton quoted {{nowrap|330,000 German}} casualties, of whom {{nowrap|143,000 were}} killed or missing; the French suffered {{nowrap|351,000 casualties,}} {{nowrap|56,000 killed,}} {{nowrap|100,000 missing}} or prisoners and {{nowrap|195,000 wounded.}}{{sfn|Clayton|2003|p=110}}

Writing in 2005, [[Robert A. Doughty]] gave French casualties (21 February to 20 December 1916) as {{nowrap|377,231}} and casualties of {{nowrap|579,798 at}} Verdun and the Somme; {{nowrap|16 per cent}} of the casualties at Verdun were fatal, {{nowrap|56 per cent}} were wounded and {{nowrap|28 per cent}} missing, many of whom were eventually presumed dead. Doughty wrote that other historians had followed Winston Churchill (1927) who gave a figure of {{nowrap|442,000 casualties}} by mistakenly including all French losses on the Western Front.{{sfn|Doughty|2005|p=309}} R. G. Grant gave a figure of {{nowrap|355,000 German}} and {{nowrap|400,000 French}} casualties in 2005.{{sfn|Grant|2005|p=276}} In 2005, Robert Foley used the Wendt calculations of 1931 to give German casualties at Verdun from 21 February to 31 August 1916 of {{nowrap|281,000, against}} {{nowrap|315,000 French.}}{{sfn|Foley|2007|p=259}} (In 2014, William Philpott recorded {{nowrap|377,000 French}} casualties, of whom {{nowrap|162,000}} had been killed; German casualties were {{nowrap|337,000}} and noted a recent estimate of casualties at Verdun from 1914 to 1918 of {{nowrap|1,250,000}}).{{sfn|Philpott|2014|p=226}}