Another bunch of interesting blog posts

Another batch of blog posts you might not have seen otherwise



Let´s start with digital cryptologist and security expert Bruce Schneier. I am very impressed by his sensible attitudes towards terrorist threats and his insight into cyber war. And I loved his book Liars & Outliers.

On hig blog he gives interesting pointers to research on (digital) security such as the cost of terrorism in Pakistan

the Japanese response to terrorism

US offensive cyber war strategy

and on the psychology of conspiracy theories


And a few more by those dastardly people at the Guardian 

A map showing all events in the Syrian civil war.

The Global Peace Index 2013, including the cost of war.

Arms exports from the EU

followed by an infographic on the world´s armies

and the refugee statistics from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

What do you think of an analysis of comic book sales and movies?

Image by Sean McLachlan

And a few posts by lesser knowns

Sean McLachlan on castles in Spain and Slovakia

A short movie showing the strategic positions around Damascus of the Syrian government and rebels.

The end of slavery in the Dutch West Indies

On the 1st of July 1863 (the same day that gun fire opened around the town of Gettysburg) cannon fired from the capitals of the Dutch West Indies announced the emancipation of 34,800 slaves in Surinam and 11,800 slaves on the Dutch Antilles. 

Slaves and those placed under state supervision after 1863 

Although liberated in name, the former slaves aged between 15 and 60 in Surinam were required to work on the plantations as contract labourers for another ten years under state supervision (staatstoezicht). When this requirement ended in 1873, many former slaves left the plantations. The planters replaced them by contract labourers from India, Indonesia and China. Because no great loss of labour supply was feared on the Dutch Antilles, there was no period of forced contract labour on these islands.

The slave trade in the Dutch West Indies had been abolished under British occupation in 1808. The new Dutch government reiterated this measure in 1814. Lacking fresh supply, the number of slaves in Surinam fell from over 50,000 at the time of prohibition to 34,800 in 1862. The main reason was that fewer slaves were born than died. There was also a small but steady drain from manumission and slaves buying their freedom. Even fewer slaves escaped. On the Dutch Antilles slave births outnumbered deaths, so that despite manumission and emigration, slave population remained relatively stable above 10,000.

Slaves in 1863 for which an indemnity was paid

Following emancipation, the Dutch government paid an indemnity to the slave owners for all healthy slaves. After inspection the number of slaves for which an indemnity would be paid was established at 32,900 in Surinam and 11,000 on the Antilles. The Dutch Parliament set a sum of 300 guilders per slave in Surinam and 200 guilders on the islands*. The total amount of the indemnity reached almost 12 million guilders, or about 10 % of Dutch state expenditure in 1863.

 

Surinam:  a plantation economy

The plantations in Surinam grew mostly sugar cane and to a lesser extent coffee, cocoa and cotton. At the time of emancipation over half of the slaves were employed on sugar plantations. Another 14 % were involved in the production of cotton and 7 % in forestry. The remaining 22 % worked in the cultivation of coffee, cocoa and food.

Slaves by type of plantation, Surinam 1857

Not all slaves worked in the fields. Over a quarter of them was too young, too old or too ill to work, got an education or was reported absent. Six % served in their masters’ households or mended their children. More than 60 % of slaves was involved in the cultivation of crops or the tending of flock and in the processing of raw materials in factories or as craftsmen. Above them stood a small layer of supervisors, engineers and medics.

Slaves by type of labour, Surinam 1857

Autarchy on the Dutch Antilles

The effects of emancipation were different for the Dutch Antilles. Their economy was built around trade. Part of the slaves was therefor involved in crafts and industries like salt mining. Agriculture was mostly focused on food for consumption on the islands themselves. In dry years food even had to be imported.

Free and slave population in Surinam and on the Dutch Antilles, 1857

In comparison to Surinam the slaves were a smaller part of the total population. Over the course of the 19th century they were able to acquire more control over their own labour so that many were effectively working as wage labourers before the official liberation.

Outside the Caribbean

Surinam and the Dutch Antilles were not the only areas under Dutch administration with slavery. It was abolished in different parts of the Dutch East Indies between 1860 en 1910. On the Gold Coast (present day Ghana) emancipation occurred in 1872, when the colony was sold to Great-Britain. Slavery had been abolished there in 1834.

I’ve taken the statistics for this article from the Staatkundig en Staathuishoudkundig Jaarboekje. This source has been recently made available digitally through the Historical Collection Statistics Netherlands

* The amount set for the indemnityof slave owners on St Martin was originally only 30 guilders because they had effectively become free in 1848. In that year France abolished slavery, and the slaves on the French side of St Martin were emancipated. Faced by the threat of a mass exodus to the French part of the island, Dutch planters accepted the de facto freedom of their slaves as well. However, after waiting 15 years for an indemnity, they refused the amount of 30 guilders per slave. Dutch parliament then decided to offer 100 guilders per slave.

Slave population of the Dutch Caribbean in perspective

To get an impression of how important the Dutch colonies were in the Caribbean, let's look at the most important staple crop of the region: sugar. While yesterday I looked at the numbers of slaves in the Dutch Caribbean, it was clear that the Dutch import of slaves was significant, but minor. This was also the case in terms of sugar exports.

Sugar exports of main producers in the Caribbean and Surinam just before
the French Revolution. Knight, The Caribbean p 365-370

Surinam was only a small producer of sugar compared to powerhouses like British controlled Jamaica and French St Domingue. And although the French Revolution ultimately destroyed sugar production in St Domingue (which continued independently as Haïti), Surinam was unable to capture more of the sugar market..

Sugar exports of main producers in the Caribbean and Surinam
early 19th century. Knight, The Caribbean p 365-370

In terms of slave population, Surinam was more considerable, although it was still dwarfed by Jamaica, St Domingue and Cuba.

Slave populations of the largest Caribbean colonies in the
early 19th century. Knight, The Caribbean p 366-7

Slavery in the Dutch Caribbean: numbers

Okay, so how many slaves were there in Surinam and on the Dutch Antilles?

First, let's look at the number of slaves coming in to the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean. Numbers are difficult, because the Dutch Antilles served as an entrepot and a number of slaves may have finally ended up elsewhere.

Over two centuries around half a million slaves were imported to the Dutch colonies, out of more than 9 million slaves brought to the new world from 1600 to 1870. That's a significant bit minor share. Brazil, Spanish America and the British and French Antilles received much larger numbers.

Knight, The Caribbean p 364

The high watermark of slavery in the Dutch Antilles lay in the late 18th century, when there were well over 20,000. More than half of the the slaves worked on Curacao, the main commercial center.

Slave population of the Dutch Antilles
Dalhuisen, Geschiedenis van de Antillen p55

Immediately after the British occupation and the abolition of the slave trade (effective in 1808, but officially confirmed by the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814), the number of slaves had dropped to 12,000 and remained mostly stable after that.  Natural population growth was positive and balanced manumissions and several thousand slaves emigrating (ostensibly as freedmen).  The excess of births over deaths was probably mostly because the economic focus of the Dutch Antilles was on trade and self sufficiency instead of export of plantation crops for the world market.

The late 18th century was also the prime time for Surinam. There may have been as many as 60,000 slaves at that time. In the 19th century the numbers declined.  This was mostly the result of negative natural population growth, a common feature of plantation slave societies. Combined with manumissions and escapes, the only possibility was for a decline in the number of slaves. By 1863 there were only some 35,000 slaves left.

Slave populations in the 19th century
Staatkundig en Staatshuishoudkundig Jaarboekje

After abolition in 1863, the freed slaves between the ages of 15 and 60 were required by the Dutch government to work as contract labourers on the plantations for another 10 years. They were nominally under state supervision, or staatstoezicht. As soon as the requirement to work under contract disappeared, many former slaves left the plantations. This signalled the start of an era where plantation owners imported contract labour from India, Indonesia and China.

Until 1863 the population of Surinam was dominated by slaves. The white population was a small minority, living mostly in the capital, Paramaribo. In Paramaribo also lived the freed slaves, but while the colonial records account for 600 in 1844, Panday lists over 5000 of them in 1835. I have no way of reconciling those numbers.

There was also a significant group of maroons, called Bosnegers in Dutch, that lived in the interior. The were reckoned at 7 to 8,000 in the middle of the 19th century. The Surinam jungle also provided a refuge for maybe around a thousand Indians.

Population of Surinam 1844
Staatkundig en Staathuishoudkundig Jaarboekje 1850

Considering that about half a million slaves came in to the Dutch Caribbean, the death rate must have been horrendous if you consider the slave population at the end of the 18th century (just over 80,000). Apparently, slave owners felt no need to be careful with their investments as replacements were relatively cheap.

Upcoming: Slavery Statistics in the Dutch West Indies

Working on a short article with stats about the abolition of slavery in the Dutch West Indies, 150 years ago next Monday. It will be published in Dutch, but you might like an English version.



My source: Het Staatkundig en Staathuishoudkundig Jaarboekje





Some statistics for (war)gamers from the Guardian

There's a lot of interesting stuff out there that doesn't end up in wargames blogs. I'd like to draw your attention to the Guardian's Datablog which does daily updates on all kinds of subjects as long as they can hang a database on it. The Guardian is one of the leading newsmedia in the use and visualisation of statistics, so worth your visit in any case. But they occasionally pick up war and wargame related stuff that I link through to here for your benefit:

You might have guessed that this image was from the Guardian

• A dozen maps and infographics from the Guardian during WWI: shipping losses and submarine sinkings, battlefields and recruiting
• Stats on Civilian casualties in Afghanistan compared to other conflicts
• Terror attacks in the US in the past 40 years: including date, location, groups responsible and target
• Country contributions to UN peacekeeping missions: including their deployment
• All mentions of characters in A Game of Thrones, listing relations, major events and killings
• Global Database on Events, Location and Tone, to collect all historical events. At present dating back to 1979, but will be expanded backwards in due course: "over 250m events in over 300 categories from riots and protests to diplomatic exchanges and peace appeals".

Some of the benefits of the Guardian approach is that the datasets are available for everyone and documented. This makes them much more accessible and transparent than the official sources and so easier to use for the public.

An analysis of casualy rates in late Napoleonic battles

A discussion erupted in a Facebookgroup on the battle of Waterloo about the quality of the French army during the Waterloo campaign and the ability of Wellington as a general. I was intreagued when Barry, one of the participants came up with statistics to prove his point that the French army of 1815 was as good as any, or indeed better. On the other hand the French always lost to Wellington. This meant to him that only the superior generalship of Wellington had saved the day for the allies.

Now, the second part doesn´t actually follow logically from the first, but I want to focus here on Barry’s first argument and use of data. Barry put up this database to back up his argument, which is based on Digby Smith´s The Napoleonic Wars Data Book.

Didn´t have a picture of Digby Smith´s book at hand...

There were a few things in Barry´s analysis that had me suspicious. Firstly, his choice of battles for the Prussians seemed like an odd selection to me. At Jena and Auerstedt we are dealing with a different Prussian army than that of 1812-15, while Eylau and Leipzig were fought by multinational armies in which the Prussians had a limited role. This made the comparison look weak.

I am also not keen on comparing ‘Prussian’ battles against battles with Wellington in command. The former were led by 5 different commanders of differing ability on the Prussian and allied side.

But the main issue for me was that Barry only looked at it from the side of the rate of casualties the French had been able to inflict on their opponents. I felt that ignored the fact that this only brings insight when compared to that of the opponent. In a hotly contested battle, on a cramped battlefield, it was logical that casualties would be high for both sides. And so it turned out. In most cases where the French rate of inflicted casualties was high, the allied rate was high too. 

Offering an alternative

The real test of French quality would be how much better the were compared to their opponents. So I chose to divide the French rate by the allied rate to generate a measure of relative effectiveness.

I decided to expand the database with as many battles and smaller clashes from Digby Smith´s book as possible. I restricted my research to 1813-1815 for time’s sake, but I collected more battles and grouped them together. By increasing the number of battles in the analysis I have hoped to reduce the effect of outliers and give a more balanced view of the armies. I have 9 combats for the 1813 spring campaign, 18 for the autumn campaign, 25 for 1814 and 7 for 1815. 

Of course it is possible to challenge Digby Smith's data. For the few battles I’ve checked, the force strengths mentioned in other sources could be off by tens of thousands of men, depending on sources or Smith’s selection of forces he deemed to have been in contact. These choices will undoubtedly colour the outcomes, but for the sake of speed I have used what’s available, rather than repeat Smith’s work.

I have left out the number of prisoners in the losses where possible, because these don’t apply to the killing power of the armies, which is what Barry set out to analyse.

The data for individual battles I have attached here, so you can all check what I’ve done, do your own analyses or add new data to the database.

  

Now to the outcomes...

The French and allied armies of 1813-1815

I’ve presented the results per campaign in the table below. It shows that during the spring campaign of 1813, Napoleon had an advantage in numbers employed on the battlefield of almost 40%. However, he also suffered 80% more casualties in what was a campaign of moderate intensity.

Together this means that only one in eleven of his men employed for battle killed an opponent. The Russians and Prussians managed to kill a Frenchman for every four of their men employed. This was mostly the result of choosing good defensive positions at Lützen and Bautzen. Napoleon’s lack of cavalry was also a hampering factor in exploiting his victories.

	Spring 1813	Autumn 1813	1814	1815
French : Allied strength	138 : 100	67 : 100	78 : 100	72 : 100
French : Allied Casualties	180 : 100	96 : 100	86 : 100	88 : 100
French relative effectiveness	40 : 100	157 : 100	150 : 100	158 : 100
French loss rate	16%	15%	9%	22%
Allied loss rate	12%	10%	8%	17%
Allied Casualties per French soldier	1 / 11	1 / 6	1 / 10	1 / 4
French Casualties per Allied soldier	1 / 4	1 / 10	1 / 14	1 / 6

By the autumn, the tables had turned on Napoleon and on average he was outnumbered on the battlefield by 3 to 2. But this time he managed to inflict slightly higher losses than he received himself. This meant that 6 French soldiers now accounted for one opponent, while 10 allied soldiers where needed to kill one Frenchman. 

The big defensive battles like Dresden and Leipzig weigh heavily in this analysis and the limited use of casualty figures is illustrated by the fact that battles like Katzbach, Kulm and Leipzig were lost with large numbers of prisoners (not counted here) despite favourable rates of casualties inflicted on the allies. So improved relative effectiveness didn’t lead to better results.

The frantic action of early 1814 saw the French with a slightly better balance of forces (3 to 4) and lower casualties than the allies. However, the intensity of the battles seems markedly lower, taking into account the loss rates. This is probably because there were few fights where both sides decided to stick in.

Allied casualties were now one in ten of all French soldiers employed, but it took the allies 14 soldiers to kill one Frenchman. Relative effectiveness of the French was a notch lower than in the autumn of 1813.

Enemy loss rates

In 1815 the French again faced superior forces (2 to 3) on the battlefield, but suffered fewer casualties than their opponents. The losses were heavy on both sides though and this is reflected by the fact that one allied soldier became a casualty for every four French soldiers on the battlefield and in reverse that Allies needed six to kill or wound a Frenchman. 

This means that the French relative effectiveness was as good as in the autumn of 1813. All this despite the fact that the Allies fought all their battles on the defensive. 

The 1815 campaign was the most intensive of the four, with 19% of all participants in battle becoming casualties, with 14% in spring 1813, 12% in autumn and 8% in 1814. 

The Waterloo campaign in detail

The French were almost as effective against the Anglo-Dutch armies as against the Prussians. In both cases one casualty for every four soldiers. The Anglo-Dutch  rate combined for Waterloo and Quatre-Bras was almost as high. The Prussian ability to inflict casualties on the French was lower however, with nine Prussians required to inflict one French casualty.

Enemy loss rates in the 1815 campaign

At Waterloo, the Anglo/Dutch troops did one casualty to the French for (slightly more than) every three of them. Battles with similar rates of casualties inflicted on the French are Borodino and Lützen, like Waterloo defensive battles in strong positions. Both Waterloo and Borodino were small and cramped battlefields. 

However, the French exacted a heavy toll on their opponents in these battles as well. Even against the Anglo-Dutch at Waterloo, the French rate of casualties inflicted was only slightly lower than the rate they sustained. This was on par with their performance at Leipzig where it took a bit less than four Frenchmen to kill or wound an allied soldier.

Battles with high enemy loss rates 

Desperate battles like Kulm and Vauchamps saw the rate between three and four soldiers. At Ligny the rate was better than one in three, at Borodino five French soldiers inflicted two casualties, and around Plancenoit every other French soldier accounted for a Prussian casualty.

The interesting feature here is that some of these actions were offensive, such as Waterloo, Borodino and Ligny. The French were thus able to inflict high rates of casualties even in attack.

Conclusions

All in all this shows that the relative effectiveness of the French army was about the same from the summer of 1813 to Waterloo. Only the 1813 spring campaign shows weak French performance. And with Waterloo only being second to Borodino in terms of crowding and bitterness, high casualty rates on both sides are not surprising.

On the other hand we have also seen that French numerical superiority in the Spring of 1813 didn´t automatically result in great success. Defensive terrain and cavalry shortages stood in the way. French relative effectiveness later also didn´t always win them battles. Other factors might be more important. A crowded battlefield, prepared defenses, artillery concentrations and generalship all play a role. Some are possible to quantify. But without emulating the work of Trevor Dupuy in depth, that´s going to be extremely hard. 

It is clear that the Prussian army wasn´t all that good in 1815, with a pretty consistent but low rates of enemy casualties. These low rates are comparable with the rates in the autumn of 1813 and 1814. The anomaly in the Prussian case, as well as in the French case therefor seems to be the spring campaign of 1813.

This makes me interested in the Russian rates for 1812 and the Austrian rates for 1809. I also haven’t gone into the Wellington comparison here. I will continue with a comparison of battles from the Peninsula and the 1809 and 1812 campaigns, at some later time.