AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN LOSSES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1438, 19 August 1915, Page 2

AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN LOSSES.

Thr Budapest correspondent of the Morning Post, London, quotes the figures of a reliable Hungarian statesman to show that the total ol Austro-Hungarian losses up to June r was a little less than 2.500.000, including the sick and wounded —probably 500,000— who returned to the front, often two or three times, after recovery. It is estimated by the statistician that in every five months, under modern war conditions, one-third of the actual fighting forces is on the casually lists ; therefore, it appears as if in the first live months of the war something like 3,000,000, and in the second five months almost 5.000. Austro - Hungarian soldiers lord been engaged in the war. .This statistician collected, not. only the Austrian official lists of casualties, hut also the enemy reports of Austrian and German casualties, all references to prisoners taken on all sides, information regarding the losses ol certain regiments, battalions, and larger units, and figures with regard to contagions diseases. He states that, among tire belligerents, Russia has lost the most men ; Austria-Hungary is second on the list, and Germany third. In October last Germany was leading and France was second. Since, then France has come to be fonrlh on the list. Austria advanced to the second on account oi disease and the Carpathian battles, where “frost bite” alone claimed nearly [OO,OOO men dining the winter campaign. Only 50 per cent, of these recovered ; the rest could not be sent back to the front, as a great number had to undergo amputation. The statistician estimated, on the basis of the leturns ol the military hospitals, that the winter campaign in the Carpathians claimed more than 120,000 men in consequence of consumption, of whom only 13 per cent, were again available for service, 27 per cent, died in hospital, the other 60 per cent, are either in hospital still or have been sent to their homes. Typhus and cholera were also frequent in military hospitals, especially the former.