22
BAMOS June 2017
Article
Weather, climate and warfare: the impacts of weather and climate on deaths in the Australian Military
Clem Davis, clem. davis @ anu. edu. au Hon. Lecturer, ANU and retired Bureau Meteorologist. Volunteer guide Australian War Memorial( AWM)
The impact of weather and climate on the deaths suffered by the Australian Army over different wars can be divided into two areas: those who died in battle( how much did weather and climate affect these battles?) and those who died of disease and illness. For instance, one reason why the Australian Imperial Force( AIF) actually took part at Gallipoli was due to the weather in England. The AIF was on its way to England when it was passing through the Suez Canal. The authorities suddenly realized that the facilities would not be available for the AIF to handle a British winter so they were offloaded in Cairo instead( Bean, 1941a, pp 111 – 112).
While Killed in Action or Died of Wounds remain the most significant percentage of deaths suffered by Australians in war, the impact of disease and illness on the strength of our armies have a considerable effect and are possibly under-reported. Not only do the hospitalisation rates affect the strength of armies but the deaths through illness and disease also reflect a considerable percentage of the overall deaths.
Conditions at Gallipoli were terrible and resulted in considerable medical issues with respect to disease and illness( Bean, 1941b, Vol 1 Part 1 chapters XII, XVI and XVII) and the impact of climate and weather on these issues was considerable. Poor food, poor hygiene and dead bodies in summer resulted in flies by the billion and such diseases as enteric fever and dysentery were rife. When winter set in, there were respiratory diseases and frost bite. Nearly half of the men who served at Gallipoli were evacuated at some point in time as a result of being a casualty or through disease and illness. Around 25 % of all the deaths at Gallipoli that occurred after 9 August( end of the attack at Lone Pine) were due to disease and illness( Davis, 2015). Over the whole Gallipoli campaign and especially after the battle of Lone Pine more men were evacuated as a result of disease and illness than from being wounded( Bean, 1941b, Vol 1 Part 1 pp 346 – 348). In fact the admission rate to hospital for disease and illness for the AIF overseas for the whole of 1915 was 1456 / thousand / year( Bean, 1941b, Vol 1 Part 1 pp 451). During the winter of 1916 / 17 on the Western Front, 20 % of all the deaths in the AIF were a result of disease and illness( Davis, unpublished research). How many of these deaths may have been related to the severe winter? Analysis of available temperature data from
Paris to Oxford indicates that this winter was the coldest winter in the region for 22 years( Davis, unpublished research).
Epidemics spread rapidly through men massed together and living cheek by jowl. Poor hygiene, poor food and poor physical conditions of the men all have their impact on the spread of such epidemics, and the efforts by the Medical Corps to address these issues can be found in the Official Histories of both WWI and WWII as available on the AWM website. Yet, one of the main reasons for both the direct and indirect impacts of disease and illness is largely not mentioned: the role of weather and climate.
For instance, in the Boer War— which is our third largest war in relation to deaths— just over 600 men died out of an estimated 16,000 volunteers with around half dying of illness and disease, particularly typhoid and cholera. While it can be considered that these diseases can be influenced by the weather and climate, I have not been able to find any significant research on this impact.
Similarly, the impact of weather and climate during the following conflicts in which Australia has been involved is an area for considerable further research. In WWI, the severe winter of 1916 / 17 in the Western Front, the fighting in the desert, the rates of malaria in the Jordan Valley in 1918 and the outbreak of Spanish Flu in 1918 could all have been influenced by the weather and climate. In WWII there was the desert, aviation, the jungles and the possible effects on Prisoners of War that need to be investigated. In Korea it was of course the severe winters while in Vietnam it was back to tropical weather, especially during the monsoon season.
While such discussion is better left for academic studies, in this article I would like to relate the stories of some of those people who may have died as a result of weather and climate either directly or indirectly.