Page "Battle of Passchendaele" Paragraph 58

Various casualty figures have been published, sometimes with much acrimony, although the highest estimates for British and German casualties appear to be discredited.

In the Official History, ( 1948 ) Brigadier-General James E. Edmonds put British losses at 244, 897 and claimed that equivalent German figures were not available, estimating German losses at 400, 000.

Edmonds considered that 30 % needed to be added to German statistcs to make them comparable with British casualty criteria.

In 2007 Jack Sheldon rejected Edmonds's calculations, suggesting that although German casualties 1 June – 10 November were 217, 194 were available in Volume III of the Sanitätsbericht, ( Medical Report Concerning the German Army 1914 – 1918 ( 1934 )) Edmonds may not have included them as they did not fit his case.

Sheldon noted 182, 396 slightly wounded and sick soldiers not struck off unit strength which if included would make German losses 399, 590.

Two poets, Irishman Francis Ledwidge, 25, of 1st Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, in 29th Division, and Hedd Wyn, a Welsh-language poet serving with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers at Pilckem Ridge, were both killed in action on 31 July.

Adolf Hitler fought in the 5th Battle of Ypres ( near Passchendaele ) in 1918 as a member of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division and was injured on 13 – 14 October 1918, when he was caught in a British gas attack on a hill south of Werwick.