GERMAN CASUALTY LISTS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2743, 11 April 1916, Page 6

GERMAN CASUALTY LISTS

FRENCH INVESTIGATIONS. (Prom Mr. H. Warner Allen, Special Representative of the British Press with the French Annies.) (Empire Press Union.) .Paris, February 21. I have received on unquestionable authority figures which make it at least legitimate to regard with the gravest suspicion all information provided by the enemy as .to his losses. "The Fronch have often noticed that the total German losses in killed, wounded, missing, and prisoners announced for a given regiment during a given period arc- considerahly. less than the number of prisoners alone taken from that same regiment during the same time. The result has_ been thai; the Department Specially charged with this ' task has been able again and dgain to convict the Verlustlisten (official German casualty list's) of flagrant and deliberate omissions by merely comparing them with the French lists of prisoners. The following statistics- concern four regiments which have been continuously engaged on the German front: The 108 th Regiment of the- 12th German Army Corps lost during a certain period 403 prisoners according to the French records. The German casualty lists acknowledged during the same period 259 prisoners, and of these 28 are not included in the French returns. There is a shortage, therefore, ■of 144 men, or 35.7 per cent, of the total. The 112 th Regiment of the _ 14th German, Army Corps lost 234 prisoners according to ,the French, but the German lists acknowledge only 48, of whom 34 do not figure in the French records. There is an omission of 186,.0r ?9.4 percent., in this case. The 144 th Regiment of the 16th Army Corps lost 94 prisoners,, of whom only five figure in the German lists, and the other 89 men, or' 94.6 of the total, are supposed by their misguided countrymen to be still fighting, whereas they are certainly in French hands. Tho 153 rd Regiment -of the Fourth German Army Corps lost 196 prisoners, but tho Germans officially acknowledge only. 58 of theso, of whom six aro not named in the Fronch returns. Therefore, 138, or 70.4 per cent, of the 153 rd, have been omitted from the German Verlustlisten.