What percentage of soldiers died on no man's land in World War 1?

Answer 1

There is no way of knowing the answer to this question. No separate statistics were kept by any army on where the men died. Probably a great many of the men still listed as missing died there, and had their bodies obliterated or buried by subsequent shellfire. Generally there were only a few reasons men would be in No Mans Land - when they were trying to get across to attack the enemy trenches, either in a big attack, or a small scale trench raid, or on a wiring party to improve the barbed wire defenses in front of their own trenches at night. There was little scouting or patrol activity such as kept the soldiers of the next war petrified. There was no need, you knew where the enemy was. Most of the time the men quite sensibly stayed in their own trenches and kept their heads down. There are numerous accounts of men ordered "over the top" on a big attack or raid and passing by the uniform clad skeletons, or half decomposed men of previous efforts, and also of the nerve wracking experience of listening to a man left in No Mans Land, too badly wounded to crawl to safety, screaming for help, for water, for his mother. It could take several days for a man in this position to die.