HOW GERMANY STANDS TO-DAY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 122, 17 December 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOW GERMANY STANDS TO-DAY.

'ONM'BIIU? FIUETING 1 FORCES DESTROYED. (By the Right Hon. C. F. G. Masterman.) In prolonged wars there have always been periods when all seemed lost ana the faint-hearted inclined to raise the cry, "We are betrayed." It was to in the long struggle against Napoleon, when Pitt saw three of his Coalitions smashed one after the other, and at one tun© England was lighting the whole of Europe alone. It was so in tho lour years' struggle in America, when it was only "father Abraham ' who never despaued of the Republic. There is some such faintheartedness about today. Yet the war is pursuing its counsu far more successfully than anyone could have predicted two years ago; and it is ooviously evident that in year's time, or two, or perhaps a little later, the defeat and uttor ruin of Germany is assured. First, let it be grant, ed that in modern warfare no objective really matters, or really that there is strict'y speaking no objective but the slauuiter of the male population of the nat-jns. Instead of small standing atniics wandering about Europe to capture capitals or to be edstroyed, we iave nations up against nations, intent only on the massacre of each other. We have not—yet—to attain the Rhine, or capture Frankfurt or Berlin or occupy Germany. We have just iO destroy by killing, maiming, or capturing or otherwise rendering inefficient the adult effiicent male population of Germany. When more than a certain percentage of these have thus been annihilated for military purposes the game is over. And the point at which further resistance becomes impossible is dependentuponthe clearness with which the German people will face realities, and the moment when they recognise that they are faced, not only with defeat in battle, but with the destruction of the race-

GERMAN LOSSES ESTIMATED. How far at present lias the process gone? Here we are faced with masses of conjecture and various interpretations, others seemingly (backed from logic, yet often leading to results with divergences of millions. We have the accurate, 'though generally dilatory estimate of tho French War Office before us. AVe have the actual list by name of the killed, slightly or severely wounded —not sick —in the published German casualty lists, which I believe to be an accurate though generally a dilatory record, and although they are now forbidden to give the totals of each class, I have no private information; but from these and other evidence. and giving (as is right) the full l>enelit of the doubt 'many case to Germany, I believe that I am, if anything understating losses if I estimate as follows: The total number of German potential combatants between 18 and 45' at (the commencement of the war was a little over thirteen and a half millions.

From these deducting twenty-five per cent, for inefhcients (a low estimate), we have something like ten millions of potentially efficient combatants. It is doubtful if Germany has ever armed more than seven and a half millions of these —leaving two and a half fillions (a meagre estimate) to work t.lie railways, the coalfields, the great iron and steel works, and all the machinery of supplies. And of these seven and a half millions, I think one is quite safe in asserting that two and half millions have been destroyed in this first year of war.

Of these some three-quarters of a million the flower of the manhood of Germany—lie dead on alien soil. No trump of King or Kaiser, blown as in the old legend when the Fatherland is in danger, can rouse them from their eternal sleep. They rest for ever in massed heaps of dead or solitary graves, between the Marne and the Vistula, and beyond. Soon their very graves will be forgotten, and the world will be as though they had not been. Some three-quarters of a million urj either maimed, prisoners, or so injured that they can never return to the scene of the war. The bulk of them will remain as evidences, hobbling through city and villages, to the children of the coming generation, a burden on their profit and production; evidence of the inlinite folly of those who delighted in war, and staked in one inad adventure all that Germany which had been built up ior nearly 50 yearsstaked and tremendously lost. And another million at least form a

"constant" of those severely or slightly wounded, and all the sick. Some of these will die, some live ona crippled Hfo, the bulk return to duty. But for each one returning from the giant hospital one new sufferer will be substituted; so that although the individuals change the loss lemains the same, and will remain the same until peace comes.

BEFORE THK LIMIT JS REACHED. I Imve not counted Austria in these iigurcs. First, because, although Ave havo uo reliable figures for Austria, it seems certain that, her actual loss has exceeded that of the Germans; second (and principally), because the resistance is a German resistance; and if the Germans contemplate the real possibility of the bulk, not only of their armies, but of these male efficient population bo : ng destroyed, they will sue for peace regardless- of Austrian or Turkish opinion. One-third of their fighting population. one quarter of their whole efficient male population, destroyed in one year of war—no nation has ever yet suffered such punishment ;and there is to-day in Germany grief and misery and the counting of the cost of it discernible beneath the Jkavy (hand of the military machine. I think by tlrs time next year, if the war continue.s. that number should he more than doubled. ,More than half the manhood o,f Germany will be destroyed. And before, the three years' limit which Lord Kitchener lias given (according to lord Eshtr's statement) he attained there should not he much left that could offer serious resistance between the Valuta and the Rhine. 1 am not all optimist (optimism tod;i.\ being alone ill England a quality held Mi derision ) Ou the contrary, 1 lia\e refused to accept optimist efcti-

mates of many of my "expert'' friends; though 1 protumliy nope they are true. My desire js to see tilings as they are, an d their consequences as' th»y will be, so not being deceived. But the observer who wishes the truth should keep his attention rather on casualties thau on territories. Germany can be destroyed equally in the heart of Russia, beyond Belgrade, or within the boundaries of France. So long as the daily toll ol death and wounds goes on, so long we are every day nearer the inevitable end. And the factors which make one believe that that toll will increase rather. than diminish are these three: We must assume that her losses will be, greater in the coming year, /and greater in proportion to tiio6e of the Allies, ibecause of the steady increase in ttie man power ot the Allies. For the first year of the war the brunt of power aud fighting force has been borne by two only of the Quadruple Alliance; and of these two i< ranee alone has put forth her full strength. Russia, having lost millions, can put millions of equally good soldiers in the field, directly equipment is ready for them, and confront an exhaustible German man power with an inexhaustible Russian. Italy has practically only begun her fighting; so uas England. 1 should doubt, indeed, if more than two millions and a halt Brush troops have actually been engaged with the enemy, and for the buiK of the past year far less than these. Behind the British Isles lies the British Empire; and in any time of temporary defeat —as, for example, if Germany and Turkey linked together over a ruined Serbia —the whole inexhaustible supplies of that Empire would be drawn jupon; men qt all races, colour, clime, united and determined to destroy the "mad dog of militarism" represented by th© German armies.