Scottistics

[phil andrade]

Let me point out that almost exactly one quarter of all the military personel of the Soviet Union perished in the Second World War.

In this case, battlefield massacre was compounded by atrocity and genocide off the battlefield, as attested by the deaths of vast numbers of Russian PoWs. A suggestion that the per capita loss of Scotland's soldiery 1914-1918 exceeded that of the Soviet Union 1941-45 is, to put it mildly, contestable.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

The discrepancy in the number of men who served is as far as I am concerned is an error, 30,000 which is the figure in the Regimental History of The Black Watch is a mistake the proper figure is 50,000 which was later quoted in a Short History of The Black Watch by Bernard Ferguson. I will always use the big figure, as does the everyone in the Regiment. The died figure is near enough to the Soldiers Died findings. So I have no reason to question the 50,000 To trawl through medal cards would be a mind numbing exercise.

Tam

I would agree on the error and the order of magnitude of 50,000 but it would be better (in my view) to get a precise figure with provenance if possible. Histories often get stats wrong, although I am not suggesting the BW figure is way off. I don't know what the accurate figure is as I have not researched it but I would bet that it is not a conveniently round 50,000. I find it interesting that someone else can suggest 30,000 (i.e 40% less) without a shred of provenance. How on earth can two 'sources' be that far out? It perhaps illustrates the extent of poor research out there and how false 'stats' can contaminate some publications. 8,390 killed against an alleged 30,000 recruits suggests 28.0% casualties (killed). It is exactly this kind of amateur research that understates the numbers served that conveniently produces higher casualties rates (as a % of those served) in order to justify some kind of misplaced 'pride' in the country's horrendous sacrifice. The real figures are bad enough and need no embellishment. So there is no misunderstanding Tam, I know we agree that 30,000 is not the right figure. In the absence of any other sources the Regimental history is the best provenance we have in this case.

I am not suggesting that anyone should trawl every MIC - it would be the least efficient way of doing it. The MICs were compiled from the medal rolls and assuming they survive that would be a better starting point.....however a MIC search via Ancestry would at least generate a ball park figure that would get us into the right order of magnitude. Interestingly entering "Royal Highlanders" in Ancestry MIC search as an exact match generates 48,940 MICs and entering Black Watch as an exact match generates another 454, so the total is a reassuring 49,394. Doubtless there are some duplicates and some missing but the ball park is within 1.2% of the Regimental history. It took all of 5 minutes and was not particularly mind numbing. A fairly easy way of demonstrating that 30,000 is some distance off, and more importantly providing some fairly concrete provenance that would be very hard to dispute. Cross checking them would of course take longer but clever men such as Geoff with his amazing search engine are able to extract this sort of data and weed out duplicates in seconds (and secondary units etc). It's not that difficult. MG

[unitedsound]

quote from PJA

I recall another barbed remark : this time made by an English officer about Scotsmen...." The Jocks run like Hell....in both directions!"

For the sake of clarity do we know how many of those running in the opposite direction had surnames beginning with "B"-"H"-"W"?

Maybe this quote from Field Marshal The Viscount Alanbrooke. will help allay fears that the Scots role in war is somewhat exaggerated:-

"During the last war, I had the opportunity of seeing most of the British, Dominion and Indian Divisions, many American Divisions, and several French and Belgian Divisions, and I can assure you that, among all these, the 51st (Highland Division) unquestionably takes its place alongside the very few which, through their valour and fighting record, stands in a category of their own."

Or this from Field Marshall Montgomery:-

"It is at once a humiliation and an honour to have had such a Division under one's command. I shall always remember the Highland Division with admiration and high regard".

Here's to Scotland and the Union

[unitedsound]

Another quote from PJA

Heck, I can remember listening as a kid about fifty years ago to Andy Stewart singing some sickly dirge " There was a soldier, a Scottish soldier, who wandered far away....".

I remember family and friends used to sing this beautiful song at Hogmanay. It used to raise great passion in the room.

There was a soldier,

A Scottish soldier

Who wandered far away

And soldiered far away

There was none bolder,

With good broad shoulder

He's fought in many a fray,

And fought and won.

He'd seen the glory

And told the story

Of battles glorious

And deeds neforious

But now he's sighing,

His heart is crying

To leave these green hills of Tyrol

.

Chorus

Because these green hills

Are not highland hills

Or the island hills,

The're not my land's hills

And fair as these green foreign hills may be

They are not the hills of home.

2. And now this soldier,

This Scottish soldier

Who wandered far away

And soldiered far away

Sees leaves are falling

And death is calling

And he will fade away,

In that far land.

He called his piper,

His trusty piper

And bade him sound a lay

A pibroch sad to play

Upon a hillside,

A Scottish hillside

Not on these green hills of Tyrol.

Chorus

3. And so this soldier,

This Scottish soldier

Will wander far no more

And soldier far no more

And on a hillside,

A Scottish hillside

You'll see a piper play

His soldier home.

He'd seen the glory,

He'd told his story

Of battles glorious

And deeds victorious

The bugles cease now,

He is at peace now

Far from those green hills of Tyrol.

Chorus

PROUD TO BE SCOTTISH, PROUD TO BE BRITISH

[Black Jock]

From Lieut.-General Sir I. Maxse, K.C.B., D.S.O., commanding 18th Corps.

" Before the 51st (Highland) Division quits the 18th Corps, I desire to express to its commander and to all ranks in the Division how highly I have appreciated their services throughout three months of strenuous fighting. " What has struck me most is the thoroughness of the organisation within the Division, and the fact that all usual war problems have been thought out beforehand, discussed in detail, and are embodied in simple doctrines well known to all ranks.

The result is the Division fights with gallantry, and can be depended upon to carry out any reasonable task allotted to it in any battle. For this reason I venture to place it among the three best fighting Divisions I have met in France during the past three years

[brownag]

This topic hasn't been added to for some time but I have two points to raise.

1. I was wondering if any work has been done on how many officers recorded by the SNWM are Scottish? They will be amongst the 39k with no place of birth given but they must be a pretty small total of that figure. Obviously any officer of a Scottish regiment will be recorded by the SNWM whatever his nationality. Does anyone know the total number of British officers lost across all services in WW1 and how many officers are recorded by the SNWM?

2. The City of Glasgow Cenotaph records that over 200,000 Glaswegians served in Imperial forces in WW1. If we assume that approx.(and max.) 800,000* Scots served in WW1 that would mean one in four Scots who served were Glaswegian. The Glasgow Roll of Honour lists 18,000 war dead. It is not completely accurate since it lists Walter Tull, men who survived and no women, but it surely can't be too far off the mark. Therefore if that represents one quarter of Scottish War dead the total would be 72,000. If we assume it is wrong and we use the UK figure of 11.8% of those who served, died then the Glasgow total would be 23,600, not 18,000. A reasonable total I'd argue. Four times that number is 94,400. If we applied the 26% figure to the 200,000 Glasgow total, the numbers would be 52,800 Glasgow war dead and 211,200 Total Scottish war dead - clearly wrong if the Glasgow Roll of Honour only recorded about a third of the real total.

Is it therefore reasonable to suggest that the Scottish WW1 war dead total is approximately 95,000 based on Glasgow's total served and UK's percentage of served / died?

My inclination is no, not quite, and that the final figure will be over 100,000, possibly nearer 110,000 (including post-war dead not always recorded in SNWM) which would mean a slightly higher percentage than the UK average but not much - say 13-14%, and certainly not enough to argue Scotland suffered disproportionate deaths compared to other parts of the UK. The 11.8% will be based on the same source of figures and time period for SNWM, not for example CWGC, so perhaps the UK's total would be greater than 11.8% if post-war dead are included too?

I'm happy for any of these figures to be challenged.

Thanks

Adam

* 800,000 max. based on 688,000 Scots in all UK armed forces in WW1 (a figure accepted on other threads on this subject) plus Scots in CEF, AIF, NZEF, SAF, Mercantile Marine, Non-combatant units etc. I haven't got any figures for these but it's surely in the tens of thousands and I'd argue no more than 110k given the total size of these forces.

[phil andrade]

No challenge from me, Adam.

A combination of martial ardour and a bit of input by Sergeant Hunger probably made a difference ; but only a slight one.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

Is it therefore reasonable to suggest that the Scottish WW1 war dead total is approximately 95,000 based on Glasgow's total served and UK's percentage of served / died?

Adam

* 800,000 max. based on 688,000 Scots in all UK armed forces in WW1 (a figure accepted on other threads on this subject) plus Scots in CEF, AIF, NZEF, SAF, Mercantile Marine, Non-combatant units etc. I haven't got any figures for these but it's surely in the tens of thousands and I'd argue no more than 110k given the total size of these forces.

Adam. The flaw in your argument is that you are adding back the expatriate Scottish soldiers to the nominator but not adding back the Expatriate Scottish men to the denominator of the equation. Effectively you are missing the expatriate Scottish population that you need to add back to the Scottish population. If you read the OP carefully this should be apparent. MG

The Equation for All Scots as a per cent of All Scotsmen (globally) should be

(Scots Soldiers Died + Expatriate Scots Soldiers died)

(Scots Population + Expatriate Scots Population)

Or if you only want to focus on the men who served:

(Scots Soldiers Died + Expatriate Scots Soldiers died)

(Scots Soldiers Served+ Expatriate Scots Soldiers Served)

[brownag]

Thanks for the replies gents.

Martin

The SNWM and Glasgow Roll of Honour both contain expatriate Scots, they have not been missed but the former includes many who should not be considered Scottish and the latter may miss many whose family no longer resided in the city. The larger figure for Glasgow's war dead could include the men born in Glasgow but who moved with their NoK outside Scotland. Of course the Glasgow RoH will contain many Irishmen who made their home in the city before the war to complicate matters too.

The figures I was using was based on service personnel and not population.

Cheers

Adam

[Guest]

Thanks for the replies gents.

Martin

The SNWM and Glasgow Roll of Honour both contain expatriate Scots, they have not been missed but the former includes many who should not be considered Scottish and the latter may miss many whose family no longer resided in the city. The larger figure for Glasgow's war dead could include the men born in Glasgow but who moved with their NoK outside Scotland. Of course the Glasgow RoH will contain many Irishmen who made their home in the city before the war to complicate matters too.

The figures I was using was based on service personnel and not population.

Cheers

Adam

Adam

SNWM has my paper on this and agrees. In fact they think I am being ultra conservative. I am not trying to convince anyone. People can believe whatever mathematics they choose.

I have gone through this in immense detail. It is based on extremely conservative assumptions and (I think) is pretty robust. The one in four figure for Glasgow is simply conjecture. I have no idea where this comes from but the 1911 Census would suggest 25% is not correct. By a very l long way. The idea it can be a round 20,000 in itself is nonsense. I think you are also confusing Glasgow as a recruiting base with Glasgow as a population base - it was a huge catchment area. It doesn't really matter. The idea that Scots, English, Irish or Welsh could have such a disproportionately large number of casualties compared to the rest of the nation is simply rooted in mythology. Statistically over such a gigantic number of people is it so unlikely as to be almost impossible. Do you understand what 1.0% differential actually means? Or even a 0.1% differential means over more than 8 million people? It simply could not happen.

This is simple elementary mathematics. MG

[brownag]

Thanks Martin, you've just reminded me why I very rarely visit the GWF and after the tone of your reply it will be some time before I visit again. My posts were not in any way antagonistic and I was not taking a view contrary to yours. I was agreeing that 26% is not a realistic total and the figure will be similar to the UK figure. I was hoping it would generate some posts around the expatriate numbers but seems that's not to be.

Adam

[Guest]

Thanks Martin, you've just reminded me why I very rarely visit the GWF and after the tone of your reply it will be some time before I visit again. My posts were not in any way antagonistic and I was not taking a view contrary to yours. I was agreeing that 26% is not a realistic total and the figure will be similar to the UK figure. I was hoping it would generate some posts around the expatriate numbers but seems that's not to be.

Adam

Adam

Apologies if my comments went down the wrong way. The 25% figure for Glaswegian Soldiers as a per cent of Scotland soldiers is nowhere near the real figure. The actual number is 16.3% which is extremely close to the 16.8% that represented Glasgow's population as a per cent of Scotland's population in 1911 (Source: 1911 Census). Allowing for vital industry workers this is a very comfortable fit. I would be genuinely interested to know where the 25% figure comes from. I got the strong impression this was an attempt to stretch the figures to substantiate a claim that "13-14%" of Scotsmen who served, died. I simply think there is no need to guess when we have the hard numbers.

We have data on every Scotsman who died. It includes country of birth, place of birth, place of enlistment etc. It includes every man who was born in Scotland, resided in Scotland and enlisted in Scotland but served in a non-Scottish regiment and includes men who served in Commonwealth Forces in Canadian Scottish units etc. It is the official data from CWGC. We have enlistment data for all the Commonwealth Armies and Census data for the populations.

There are 132,113 Scotsmen in the data This includes men who served in non-Scottish Regiments and men who served in the Armies of the Commonwealth. This strips out the double, triple and quadruple entries in the 148,000 (plus) men in the SNWM data. The SNWM agrees with this number. Roughly speaking 10.8% of the SNWM entries are duplicates etc.

92,298 have a known place of birth

72,321 were born in Scotland

39,815 have no recorded place of birth

11,798 are known to have been born in Glasgow ...which represents 12.78% of men with a known place of birth. - roughly half of the 25% mentioned earlier.

If we assume that Glaswegians were represented in similar proportions in the 39,815 where records of place of birth do not exist this would add another 5,089 making the total number of Glaswegians who died somewhere in the region of 16,887 - a difference of 1,113 from the Glasgow Roll of Honour which equates to 6.18% variance. I suspect the Glasgow Roll of Honour either has duplicates similar to the SNWM or has a broader definition of Glasgow.

The other important cross-check is that 72,321 men are known to have been born in Scotland. The 11,798 known to have been born in Glasgow represents 16.3% of the men known to have been born in Scotland. Again even by narrowing down the definitions (and denominator) to Scotland rather than the Scottish diaspora, it is impossible to get a figure anywhere close to 25%.

To get to this 25% figure it would mean that 23,074 Glaswegians died or 28% more than the Glasgow Roll of Honour claims. I think this is extremely unlikely. Doing the same calc for men who resided in Glasgow generates very similar figures as an extremely high proportion of Glaswegian residents were born in Glasgow as we might expect.

The other common mistake that authors/journalists make is to add back the Scottish diaspora to inflate the Scottish killed without doing the same calculation for the English, Welsh, Irish diaspora. We see Irish authors and journalists using inflated assumptions for the overseas Irishmen to boost the headline figures.

I hope this clarifies why I think the 25% figure is wrong.

MG

P.S. Incidentally the SNWM data does include men who died after the war fro injuries sustained during the War...and again if these are to be added and comparisons are made, the same exercise needs to be done for the English, Welsh, Irish etc. It is highly unliklely that a higher proportion of Scotsmen died (as a per cent of those who served) after the War from injuries than any other nation.

[Guest]

Not casualty figures, but may be of interest?

Aberdeen Journal - Wednesday 24 August 1921

The Census Returns

Although the Registrar General's provisional Census returns show the smallest decennial increase of population on record, the increment of 1,936,000 is remarkable when it is considered that some 800,000 men from the three countries were killed or died as a result of the War, and that with them there were extinguished an even greater total of potential lives. The wastage of war, indeed, is not centred so much in the actual casualty lists as in the fact that the existence of another generation is imperiled by the untimely decease of its immediate progenitors. Great Britain's total, therefore, of 42,767,530 inhabitants does not merit comparison with say, the almost stationary population of France, nor can it be fairly compared in point of increase with any previous Census return. It will be remarkable that while the percentage increase in England is 4.8, and in Wales 9.0, that of Scotland is only 2.5, due, it may be hazarded, to the abnormal propensity of the Scottish people for settling outside their native land. The great contributions which Scotland has made to the populating of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand-to say nothing of London-gives us an inkling of the congestion on this side of the Border had all these emigrants remained at home.

The Census statistics draw attention to another feature which the nation in any case is not likely to be permitted to forget. There are in the United Kingdom 1,900,000 more women than men-a preponderance which is causing sociologists and economists furiously to think. Again, however, the position is not so hopeless as it seems, for a large number of these excess women must necessarily be beyond the age of marriage, and are not, therefore, " Surplus" in the meaning which is given to the term at the present time. But that a great discrepancy does exist, there is no use denying, and the problem is to find, if not husbands and homes, at least employment and homes, for the hundreds of thousands of women who are compelled to depend upon their own efforts solely for a livelihood. This country, it would appear from the tardily-diminishing unemployment lists, is not likely to be able to provide billets for all its male inhabitants of working age, and the soundest solution, apart from the " back to the land " movement which is not in favour nowadays, is emigration to the Dominions. If Britain cannot support the whole of its own population, even when industry is working at full stretch, the Empire can satisfy economic requirements in the next best way.

Mike

[MikB]

This is an impressive piece of work, and Martin's to be congratulated on the detail of his study and examinations of alternative explanations. Is there a book in the offing to challenge the 'accepted' statistics more publicly than here?

Regards,

MikB

[phil andrade]

Since this is an old thread, I fear that I might have made this comment before, so forgive me if that's the case.

I do believe it's worthy of repetition.

There are, it seems, "anomalous" experiences among various regions when it comes to loss of life on the battlefield.

Some sectors of the population incur significantly heavier loss than others, and are so far above the average for the nation as a whole that one wonders why.

This might reflect sheer misfortune, in so far as a contingent from a specific recruiting area happens to be deployed in a catastrophic action with freakishly high casualties. Plenty of examples come to mind : look no further than the Pals Battalions on the Somme, especially July 1st 1916.

But sometimes the differences are so great that they can only reflect large scale commitment on a sustained basis.

The battle deaths of the various states that fought in the American Civil War are tabulated in archives. The number of men killed serving the Confederacy in the regiments from South Carolina was so much greater on a per capita basis of population that it is astonishing to countenance. The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is the fervour for secession that characterised that state. This was bound to engender an enthusiasm that was, perhaps, unique. Then there is another thing to consider : was the record keeping more complete and accurate than it was for its counterparts in other parts of the South ? Did volunteers from elsewhere enlist in that state ?

In a thread about German casualties on the GWF there were examples of states within Germany that made tall claims when it came to their sacrifice : Saxony was pre-eminent here with an official government statement on a memorial that displays abnormally high proportions of killed - and low numbers of prisoners - which suggest a greater martial contribution and more warrior like conduct than was extant throughout Imperial Germany if the national average 1914-18 is cited for comparison.

There must have been areas in France - and, most strikingly, Italy - where this phenomenon was apparent.

In the case of Scotland, hyperbole has a lot to answer for.

Phil (PJA)

[mbriscoe]

Some years ago I went to a conference on the Isle of Lewis, one speaker made a case that the Western Isles had the highest losses proportional to their population. A book was published afterwards and this says that approximately 9.500 served out of a population of 46,712 and there were losses of 1,797.

One point he made was that particularly with Barra and some other areas, a large proportion served in the Merchant Navy and many of their losses were not recognised as war casualties by the CWGC - they had to have died because of direct enemy action so deaths from exposure in a lifeboat did not count.

Island Heroes: The Military History of the Hebrides

[Guest]

Some sectors of the population incur significantly heavier loss than others, and are so far above the average for the nation as a whole that one wonders why.

Phil (PJA)

Phil - I think it is possible if one carefully selects boundaries and parameters to construct fatal casualty stats that are way out of line with national averages. Take Oxbridge educated Officers as one subset. It is double the national average. Easy to explain.

When we start looking at nations, the anomalies are harder to explain especially when conscription is involved. Roughly half of the men who served in the British Army in the Great War were conscripts and they were sent to where they were needed so the national characteristics of some formations were diluted. The lack of conscription in Ireland results in very distorted data for Irish Regiments and Irish recruiting as a whole. Ireland aside, it would be very difficult for the Scottish, English and Welsh data to diverge significantly simply due to the high proportions of conscripts and the rates of volunteering before conscription didn't diverge significantly between these three nations.A long winded way of saying that Scottish or English or Welsh casualty ratios simply could not be orders of magnitude apart and certainly not 100% apart as promoted by Ferguson and others.

Canadian recruiting is another outlier - the recruiting patterns of French Canadians and Scottish Canadians were markedly different as there was no conscription. By contrast Australia (no conscription) had a large commitment and very high fatality rates. New Zealand (conscription) also showed very large commitments.

If one needs a good example of small communities impacted by War, "Hell's Foundation" which covers the impact that Gallipoli had on the city of Bury in Lancashire is a good example. MG

[Ron Clifton]

Just to add to the mix,although I don't know about actual casualties, (may not have come to that bit yet!) Martin Middlebrook, in "the Kaiser's Battle", gives the following pertcentages for the various nationalities that served in terms of percentages of total male population.

England 24.02%

Scotland 23.71

Wales 21.52

Ireland 6.14

The latter number was for political reasons one would suppose, but the Irish Ballalions were apparently kept up to strength with people from wherever they were available.

Hazel C

The original source for these figures is the "Memorandum on Recruiting" in the General Annual Report on the British Army covering the six years 1914 to 1919, page 9.

As regards Ireland it makes the point that, not only was there no conscription there, but that a larger proportion of men of military age tend to emigrate in search of work.

Ron

[Guest]

Not casualty figures, but may be of interest?

Aberdeen Journal - Wednesday 24 August 1921

The Census Returns

It will be remarkable that while the percentage increase in England is 4.8, and in Wales 9.0, that of Scotland is only 2.5, due, it may be hazarded, to the abnormal propensity of the Scottish people for settling outside their native land. The great contributions which Scotland has made to the populating of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand-to say nothing of London-gives us an inkling of the congestion on this side of the Border had all these emigrants remained at home.

Mike

When writing the OP I did some work on trying to estimate the size of the Scottish expatriate population. My approach was to take the 1801 decennial census (earliest reliable data) and simply measure the differentials in growth of the population of England v Scotland. to 1911. Over this period the Scottish domestic population grew by 296% and the English population grew by 405%

In 1911 the Scottish population was 4,760,904. If we make the assumption that Scotland's population was in fact growing at the same rate as England's (although overseas) since 1801 in theory the population would have been 6,514,914 or put another way in there would be another 1,754,010 people of Scottish descent living overseas - roughly speaking for every three Scots in Scotland there would be another one overseas. .

The methodology can be torn to pieces. It does not take into account the number of English who emigrated for example, which if added back would make the English population growth rate higher and the adjusted Scottish number higher still. I cant think of any way of improving the theoretical calc. Either way the idea that there were more Scots overseas than in Scotland (occasionally promoted as an argument to boost the Scottish 'commitent') is I think way off. MG

[Guest]

The original source for these figures is the "Memorandum on Recruiting" in the General Annual Report on the British Army covering the six years 1914 to 1919, page 9.

As regards Ireland it makes the point that, not only was there no conscription there, but that a larger proportion of men of military age tend to emigrate in search of work.

Ron

"Statsitcs 1914-1919" (page 363) has the following stats: Enlistments as a per cent of Population and as a per cent of Male Population

-----------------% of Pop...............% of Male Pop

England*..........11.57%.....................24.02%

Scotland..........10.96%.....................21.52%

Wales**.............11.50%....................23.71%

Ireland...............3.07%......................6.14%

Total................10.78%.....................22.11%

Canada***........................................13.48%

Australia..........................................13.43%

New Zealand...................................19.35%

South Africa.................................... 11.2%

* England including Monmouthsire and the Isle of Man but excluding the Channel Isles

** Wales excluding Monmouthshire

*** Born in Canada or the British Isles

The differences between countries with Conscription and without conscription are quite stark. If roughly half of the enlistments in England were Conscripts it suggests roughly 12% of the English Male Population volunteered compared to 13.48% for Canadians and 13.43% for Australians (both had no conscription). Against this background the Canadian and Australian figures are impressive. Granted a proportion would be first generation expatriate Britons, but it still gives some indication of the strong ties between the countries. Edit. The Canadian figure would have been dragged down by low volunteering rates among the French Canadians. This group had lower levels than the Irish.

It might also show the magnitude of the deep divides in Ireland. The north/south split in the Irish recruiting data is equally interesting. I have another thread on this thematic based on very similar database analysis

[phil andrade]

You have done an excellent job, here, Martin.

It makes the assertions of Ferguson all the reprehensible when your efforts reveal the amount of circumspection that is lacking in his claim for Scottistics.

New Zealand's record has been underrated, it seems.

Agrarian background, it has been said, makes for superior military prowess and greater commitment. I wonder if this, too, needs to e reconsidered.

Phil (PJA)

[Guest]

I think it would be fair to say that every country probably did its very best. The swing factors would also be impacted by labour issues needing to keep factories and mines running in heavily industrialsed parts of the country (including Scotland). The munitions factories were full of itinerant Irish workers if Hansard is to be believed. Who is to say that Irishmen in munitions factories were not as vital as Irishmen in the trenches. Less risky but still quite vital. Perhaps an indication that one did not need to enlist to make a difference. MG

[hazelclark]

but that a larger proportion of men of military age tend to emigrate in search of work.

Ron

Many to Canada and the U.S. but a LOT to Glasgow!

H

[Guest]

Many to Canada and the U.S. but a LOT to Glasgow!

H

2,723 men born in Ireland died whilst serving in Scottish battalions. 2.06% of All Scottish Casualties and 2.95% of those whose place of birth is known. This might suggest that the propensity for expatriate Irishmen living in Scotland to join was actually quite low. This of course will not capture men of Irish descent born in Scotland, but it is difficult to accurately identify this group as the data 'assumes' they are Scottish, and they would be subject to conscription.

When looking at other expatriate Irish (and Scottish) groups such as the Liverpool Irish and Liverpool Scottish for example and comparing surname profiles, the correlation with English surnames is significantly higher than with Irish or Scottish surnames. To me this suggests that any of these 'expatriates' were in fact Englishmen. The probability of 95% of them having English fathers and English surnames is very low given the emigration from Ireland was primarily driven by males.

[Ron Clifton]

but that a larger proportion of men of military age tend to emigrate in search of work.

Ron

Many to Canada and the U.S. but a LOT to Glasgow!

H

Hazel

Ireland to Scotland isn't emigration!

Ron