THE GREAT WAR.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5074, 12 January 1927, Page 3

THE GREAT WAR.

SOME STRIKING STATISTICS. HUGE TOLL OF LIFE. Pome, striking statistics have been published at various times regarding the colossal nature of the conflict which raged from August 4, 1914, until November 11, 1918. At the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, the. artillery rounds fired numbered 9044, and the total weight of the ammunition was 3708 tens. But during the last British offensive in France 943,837 artillery rounds, weighing 18,080 tons, we.ie fired in one day—over 100 times the number of rounds at Waterloo, and nearly 540 times the weight of the projectiles. In the whole of the. South African War 273,0'00 artillery rounds, weighing apropximately 2800 tons,, were fired by British guns, but during the Great War the expenditure of artillery ammunition on the British front in France exceeded 170,000,000 rounds, weighing nearly 3,500,000 tons —622 times, the number of rounds fired in South Africa and about 1250 times the weight o'i projectiles. INACCURATE RIFLE FIRE. Military historians, in writing about great battles, have often made interesting calculations as to the accuracy, or rather the inaccuracy, of rifle fire as shown by the number of casualties ; but such calculations cannot be made with regard to a protracted conflict like the Great War, which included scores of battles: on a scale unprecedented in military history. It has been calculated that in the. Franco-Prussian War only one bullet out of 143 fired hit its man, and only one in 1100 killed him. At the battle of Vittoria, in 1813, Wellington’s army fired 500 shots 'for each man killed or wounded ; and at Solferino, in 1859, where the French losses numbered 12,000 and the Austrian about 25,000, the French casualties were in the proportion of one for about every 700 Austrian bullets.

Field-Marshall Earl Roberts in impressing* on the British army the great value of accurate rifle fire, used to say that if the British soldier could be trained to make one shot in 20 take <Aect the British arjny would be five times as formidable as any Continental army had ever shown itself to be.

THE CASUALTY LISTS.

Strictly accurate figures In regard to the casualties suffered by all the combatant countries in the Great War are not available, as several countries, Russia in particular, have not compiled accurate returns. But according to an official statement laid on the table of the House of Commcons in May, 1921, the figures for Allies and associated countries, excluding Russia , were 3,415,618 killed and 6,710,181 wounded; and for enemy countries 3,651,690 killed and 8,544,428 wounded. Including .the figures for Russia as given in the returns prepared by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the toll in human lives and human suffering caused by the Great War exceeded 9,700,000’ killed and 20,200,000 Wounded. The figures 'for the wounded are swelled by the fact that every time a man was wounded he was included in the casualty lists, and many thousands were wounded more than once. Some of the thousands who, after being wounded, recovered sufficiently to resume duty, were subsequently killed, and therefore appear in both sections of the casualty lists, 10,000,000 DISABLED.

According to a return issued in 1923 by the International Labour Office at Geneva, established by the League of Nations, there were 7,124,000 disabled soldiers in receipt of pensions in combatant countries. When this return was compiled the International Labour Office had not the figur''s for disabled men in Bulgaria, Hungary, the. Baltic States, and Turkejn If the' figures for these countr’es were included the total of disabled men would not fall far short o'f 10,000,000.

It is difficult for the. human mind to v’sualise the horrors o<f Avar, as expr' . cd in these stupendous totals of casualties. It has been calculated that if all the men who were killed in the Great War could march past, in column o'f four, at the regulation quick-time marching pace of the British army, the sad procession would file past day and night continuously for four weeks before the end canie in sight. A procession of killed and wounded would take ten .weeks to march past a given spot. The colossal casualties and the huge war debts are to-day the outstanding features of the Great War and the folly of war.