Glyn Harper

Mortality of first world war military personnel: comparison of two military cohorts

Objective To identify the impact of the first world war on the lifespan of participating military personnel (including in veterans who survived the war). Design Comparison of two cohorts of military personnel, followed to death. Setting Military personnel leaving New Zealand to participate in the first world war. Participants From a dataset of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces, we randomly selected participants who embarked on troopships in 1914 and a comparison non-combat cohort who departed on troopships in late 1918 (350 in each group). Main outcome measures Lifespan based on dates of birth and death from a range of sources (such as individual military files and an official database of birth and death records). Results A quarter of the 1914 cohort died during the war, with deaths from injury predominating (94%) over deaths from disease (6%). This cohort had a significantly shorter lifespan than the late 1918 “non-combat” cohort, with median ages of death being 65.9 versus 74.2, respectively (a difference of 8.3 years shown also in Kaplan-Meier survival curves, log rank P<0.001). The difference for the lifespan of veterans in the postwar period was more modest, with median ages of death being 72.6 versus 74.3, respectively (a difference of 1.7 years, log rank P=0.043). There was no evidence for differences between the cohorts in terms of occupational class, based on occupation at enlistment. Conclusions Military personnel going to the first world war in 1914 from New Zealand lost around eight years of life (relative to a comparable military cohort). In the postwar period they continued to have an increased risk of premature death.

New Zealand and ‘The Catastrophic Year 1917’

Military historian Glyn Harper claims that what Major General J.F.C. Fuller described as the ‘catastrophic year 1917’, was without doubt the worst year of the war for the Allies and New Zealand. In 1917 the Germans achieved victory on the eastern front while the allies floundered in all their main theatres of war. Harper’s chapter outlines what happened on the battlefields of 1917 on both the western front and in the Sinai-Palestine campaign and why the Allies’ military plans went awry. It focuses primarily on the fortunes of the New Zealand Division which was involved in some of the year’s critical military actions and concludes that the experience of 1917 left an enduring legacy for New Zealand.

The Gallipoli gallop: dealing with dysentery on the ‘fringes of hell’

The Gallipoli campaign is a well recorded piece of New Zealand history, particularly remembered every year on ANZAC Day. Dealing with the seemingly hopeless task of facing an enemy in well entrenched positions on higher ground was made even more challenging by the appalling conditions the soldiers had to face in terms of addressing basic survival needs and dealing with infections. A particularly burdensome part of the latter was dysentery.

Men of Mont St Quentin: between victory and death

middle classes, the SA formed the bridge into the neighbourhoods of the working class for the National Socialists. Consequently, the National Socialists were fearful that sizable numbers of their members might defect to the Communists, while the Communists in turn viewed the SA as ripe for picking. That a common disdain for the Social Democrats additionally bound the two movements is a point that Brown might have developed further. For the right, the Social Democrats had betrayed the nation at the end of the war by proclaiming peace. For the Communists, they had betrayed the revolution by suppressing the radical rebellions that unfolded between 1918 and 1923. Given the prominence of the Social Democrats within Weimar Germany, to be anti-authoritarian meant to be anti-Socialist, since the Social Democrats were the largest political party within the ever-changing coalitions that embraced the deadlocked and ineffective parliamentary system. Fascism and Communism both represented critiques of existing forms of power. Brown occasionally gestures for the inclusion of the Social Democrats as a third variant in the nationalistic socialism that proved so popular in Germany, equally set against the Nazis and Communists as they were set against them. But it is never clear why the seeming passivity of the Social Democrats makes them any less sinister or less responsible for the collapse of Weimar society. By the early 1930s, a quarter of all men between 18 and 25 years of age belonged to paramilitary formations, with each of these three major parties having its own group. The cooperation between the Communists and National Socialists in the 1932 transportation strike in Berlin (directed against a Social Democratic administration) was another manifestation of the porous borders between them. Since the Communists’ behaviour towards the National Socialists – to infiltrate, mimic, disrupt and seduce – was mirrored in their behaviour towards the Social Democrats, the latter’s inclusion in an even more ambitious work would be welcomed.Weimar Radicals lays the basis for a comprehensive rethinking of the role of the left in the postwar period.

Mortality of first world war military personnel

Objective To identify the impact of the first world war on the lifespan of participating military personnel (including in veterans who survived the war). Design Comparison of two cohorts of military personnel, followed to death. Setting Military personnel leaving New Zealand to participate in the first world war. Participants From a dataset of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces, we randomly selected participants who embarked on troopships in 1914 and a comparison non-combat cohort who departed on troopships in late 1918 (350 in each group). Main outcome measures Lifespan based on dates of birth and death from a range of sources (such as individual military files and an official database of birth and death records). Results A quarter of the 1914 cohort died during the war, with deaths from injury predominating (94%) over deaths from disease (6%). This cohort had a significantly shorter lifespan than the late 1918 “non-combat” cohort, with median ages of death being 65.9 versus 74.2, respectively (a difference of 8.3 years shown also in Kaplan-Meier survival curves, log rank P<0.001). The difference for the lifespan of veterans in the postwar period was more modest, with median ages of death being 72.6 versus 74.3, respectively (a difference of 1.7 years, log rank P=0.043). There was no evidence for differences between the cohorts in terms of occupational class, based on occupation at enlistment. Conclusions Military personnel going to the first world war in 1914 from New Zealand lost around eight years of life (relative to a comparable military cohort). In the postwar period they continued to have an increased risk of premature death.

Christmas 2014: In Love and War: Mortality of first world war military personnel: comparison of two military cohorts

Objective To identify the impact of the first world war on the lifespan of participating military personnel (including in veterans who survived the war). Design Comparison of two cohorts of military personnel, followed to death. Setting Military personnel leaving New Zealand to participate in the first world war. Participants From a dataset of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces, we randomly selected participants who embarked on troopships in 1914 and a comparison non-combat cohort who departed on troopships in late 1918 (350 in each group). Main outcome measures Lifespan based on dates of birth and death from a range of sources (such as individual military files and an official database of birth and death records). Results A quarter of the 1914 cohort died during the war, with deaths from injury predominating (94%) over deaths from disease (6%). This cohort had a significantly shorter lifespan than the late 1918 “non-combat” cohort, with median ages of death being 65.9 versus 74.2, respectively (a difference of 8.3 years shown also in Kaplan-Meier survival curves, log rank P<0.001). The difference for the lifespan of veterans in the postwar period was more modest, with median ages of death being 72.6 versus 74.3, respectively (a difference of 1.7 years, log rank P=0.043). There was no evidence for differences between the cohorts in terms of occupational class, based on occupation at enlistment. Conclusions Military personnel going to the first world war in 1914 from New Zealand lost around eight years of life (relative to a comparable military cohort). In the postwar period they continued to have an increased risk of premature death.