Some statistics about the men of Collingham, Linton and Micklethwaite during World War 1

The exact numbers of British men who served in World War 1, and the numbers killed or wounded are still not exactly known. The BBC web site gives numbers as around six million mobilised, and of those just over 700,000 were killed. That's around 11.5%. Extending those figures to Britain and the British Empire, figures suggest around 9 million British soldiers, of whom 900,000 were killed (about 10%) and 2 million were injured. But how do these figures compare with those for our villages?

World War 1 is often thought of as synonymous with trench warfare in France and Belgium. However World War 1 was a global war. Over 30 nations declared war between 1914 and 1918. The majority joined on the side of the Allies, including Serbia, Russia, France, Britain, Italy and the United States. They were opposed by Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, who together formed the Central Powers. What began as a relatively small conflict in southeast Europe became a war between European empires. Fighting occurred not only on the Western Front, but in eastern and southeast Europe (Italy and Salonica), the Middle East (Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia (Modern Iraq)) and both West and East Africa. The war was not only fought on land - there were also Naval engagement and battles. So where did the men of Collingham, Linton and Micklethwaite serve?

Finally what about the men themselves? How old were they? What did they do before the war? When, and for how long, did they serve? What units did they serve with?

Click on the following links to go to that section

• Casualty Rates
• Where did they serve?
• What units did they serve in?
• Death rates per unit
• Marital status, rank and deaths
• When Did They Serve?
• When Did They Die?
• What did they do before the war?

Casualty rates

We have identified 181 men and women from the villages who served in the Great War. Of these 31 were killed in the war or about 17.1%, slightly higher than the averages given above.

Where did they serve?

The following chart shows where the men from Collingham and Linton served. All the men served for some time in the UK, but UK is shown only for those men who did not serve overseas. Some men served in more than one theatre of war.

What units did they serve in?

The men and women of Collingham, Linton and Micklethwaite served in many regiments. Around 18% of these are as yet unidentified, but we continue to work on trying to identify men and their service. Please contact us if you have any information that might help. Even the smallest piece of information can help us make a connection.

Notes: Support units include Labour Corps, Army Pay Corp, Army Ordnance Corps, Army Service Corps and Royal Defence Corps. Although the term 'Armoured' was really coined later, we use it here for the precursors to modern armoured units such as the Tank Corps and the Machine Gun Corps.