At the outbreak of World War I,
Britain had a relatively small professional army (247,000 men). Close to half
of them were stationed overseas throughout the British Empire.
Thus, on the home island in
August 1914, Britain’s generals mustered about 150,000 men to be the British
Expeditionary Force (BEF) that crossed the English Channel, to join the French
in fighting the German attackers.
Within three months, that half
of Britain’s professional army was gone. Most of the men in the BEF were dead.
p.s. Britain’s total WWI casualties:
673,375 dead and missing, 1,643,469
wounded
Reference:
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States,
1492- Present (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005), 360.
See
also:
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