Talk:Battle of the Frontiers

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[edit] Disastrous french losses - or not?

Tje article says that French losses were disatrous - and at the same time that they lost no more than the Germans (300,000 each). Sounds like skewed logic or wrong numbers to me. I've read elsewhere that the failed french attack in Elsace and Lorraine actually produced more casualties than they had in the battle of Verdun. Can someone look into this matter?

--itpastorn 13:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't see where it says French losses were "disastrous". The 300,000 German figure was added by an anon. I can't find a figure for German casualties to 24 August 1914 in any of my books. Stevenson's 1914-1918 says:
"By the end of August some 75,000 French soldiers had already died (27,000 of them on the 22nd alone) and their total killed and wounded numbered 260,000, against much lighter German losses."
From his notes, those figures appear to have come from Hew Strachan's First World War: To Arms, which I don't have. Tuchman says French casualties for the four days 20-24 August were 140,000 so that's the best I can come up with at the moment, even though the article covers the preceding French offensive in Alsace & Lorraine. Geoff/Gsl 04:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I've dropped the casualty figures from the infobox. They can be added back in if someone comes up with a reliable count. Geoff/Gsl 21:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)