THE SACRIFICES OF THE WAR.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 121, 24 April 1925, Page 4

THE SACRIFICES OF THE WAR.

The Anzao landing is, however, merely a feature of tlio Great War—a feature of tremendous interest it is true, for in the Dardanelles campaign, which proved the costliest in the wastage of human life, 403,987 men were employed from first to last, the maximum at any one time being 127,737. As General Sir W. R. Birdwood wrote to his “Old Comrades” in the war: “Wo sincerely mourn for those who so willingly gave their lives for the great cause in which we were lighting; but we know they have not died in vain, for they have ensured freedom and right for our children and our children’s children. New Zealand may well be—as 1 am sure she is—justly proud of her magnificent sons, who so bravely upheld her flag and fought for her honour on the shores of the Gallipoli Peninsula.” The British War Office statistics published last year remind us of the terrible cost of the war in human life and capital. The British casualties in France from the beginning of trench warfare until October, 1918, totalled 2,441,973. The struggle through the terrible mud of Ypres and Passcnendaele was most depressing, the British casualties there being 19,289, and the German 255,000. The Austro-German casualties, counting every occasion a man was wounded, reached the stupendous figure of 12,922,000, being 4,000,000 more than the number of men the British Empire raised for the war. The German losses, indeed, were tremendous. The dead totalled 1,808,545; the Russian dead were 1,700,000. The British Empire’s total casualties were 3,239,311. The total dead was 953,580. New Zealand’s loss in dead was over 19,000. The twelve countries participating in the war suffered 42,119,273 casualties. Contrary to the experience of most wars the killed outnumbered the deaths by disease except in the case of the Turks and the United States. When the Allies broke the Hindenburg lino British guns fired 2,492,763 pounds of ammunition, weighing 80,000 tons and costing £10,000,000 daily. The average wav expenditure of that period was £i, 440,000 daily. There is surely no need to write or talk of the horrors and wastage of war after a recital of such figures as those. They speak for themselves. New r Zealanders would, however, lie recreant to the memory of the Dominion’s gallant sons who perished in the war if they failed to remember them at this period of the year, when wo commemorate the first great enterprise upon which New Zealand troops embarked with such heroic courage in defence of the Empire’s liberties. “Their name,” the inspired writer says, “livetli for evermore.” There is, however, the danger that, if a certain section of the community should ever gain the upper hand, future generations may have the names and memory of our heroes blotted out, for already one State Government in Australia lias decided (as reported in Australian papers of March 17th) to prohibit addresses to children in State schools on Anzac Day, the Labour Cabinet of Western Australia having agreed to that course on the recommendation of the Labour Colonial Secretary, Mr J. M. Drew. We trust that the day may never come in this country when it will be possible for such an order to become effective.