MILLION GERMAN LOSSES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 175, 19 May 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

MILLION GERMAN LOSSES.

STATEMENT CALCULATED TO EX I) OF 1913.

MAKING ALL ALLOWANCES

By HILLAIIIK BELLOC in •'Land and Water".

Jii the earlier clays of the war, an analysis of enemy losses was necessarily very uncertain. The methods whereby results could lie controlled and cor rectv-d were not based upon any fu'i exper.ence. Various forms of evidence later obtainable with increasing amplitude were in the brst months of tin campaign totally lacking. It was not until the course of time produced i greater exactitude that the analysis ol the enemy's ios.-es could achieve its full v.ilua.

Roughly speaking, the unecrta yi juried with a largo margin of ernr lasted into the early months of 191.").

It was with the Spring of that year that the opportunities of analysing the German lists, of comparing thou w.th oth.?r forms of evidence, and of reducing the margin af error to reasonable proportions began. With the Summer these methods were fully developed, and hv the Autumn they were comnlete. '

To give but one example. In the early days of the war the average delay in the publication of names upon the cnem/s INts was not established at all. It was not until well into the W.nter that tiii.s essential factor in tlit cnlcnlatim could he set down even approximately. It wa; not till the following Summer tint wc could arrive at our average of delay with exactitude. And this tardiness in reaching so important a result was due to the fact that certain names were not included until several months afier the date of the casualties referred to. VAGFK GEXKTCALTSIXGS. Her. 1 is another example : Tn the first fighting, which was open fighting with troops in perpetual and rapid movement, one was only able to caleu'ato the proportion of wounded to dead upon tne known average of the past. Given a certain number of dead, one multiplied by six or seven and reached a very approximate and doubtful figure. No one had any idea what the proportion would !>e when the novel form of trench warfare which "has now characterised the war for fifteen months began, it was not until this novel form of warfare, trenches subjected to the modern high explosive shell of all calibres and to the shrapnell of the quick-firing gun, and to high explosive mining, casualties from ijickiif-s under these conditions, from shock, etc.. were present in a very large number and over a considerable space of time that the proportion of wounded and t-.ick to dead could be exactly established for such conditions

Much about the time when this mass of evidence had, as it were, crystallised, and was beginning to give us permanent and indisputable results, it happened that (for various reasons wiiich need not here be discussed) a change of mood came over great sections of opinion of this country. There wa>; a great increase in the depression of those who had always exaggerated tho .strength of the enemy, and there was a considerable increase in the numbers of those who seemed actually to delight in taking the gloomiest possible view of the situation. It spread rapidly, wiiich sometimes took violent tonus, and which, in the absence of a strong censorship, began to take a general possess;on of tho public. Nevertheless, there is one authority to wiiich, happily, ihe public has lent attention, even at the worst moment of hk mood—which oiio may set at about two or two and a-iialf months ago. That jiut'.iority consisted in "official" pronouncements. MORE ACCURATE KXOWLKDGK. It was recognised that the men who had made it their business all their lives to compile and correct such statistics were worthy of a hearing. And :t was guessed, though perhaps only imperfectly understood, that the soldiers at Headquarters in the great Alliance, and particularly in France, had through tho mass of their own statistics through the enormous number of documents, taken upon the field, public and private, through myriad examinations of prisoners, a power at their disposal of arriving at exact con-ehi.-ions, which power was infinitely superior to anything that could be exercised by any private individual. The conclusion thus arrived at by the Bureau of the Higher Command, particularly bv the French, were to some extent made puulic. The French Government gave not infrequently certain large and general results which had been arrived at. . .

1 have recently obtained permission to give, with repaid to u considerable part of the evidence obtained, such publicity as will, 1 tbink, confirm my readers [n what thev are about to follow. I -hall begin by showing how we can arrive with an absolute certainty that we are at least not exaggerating, at a certain minimum of the German dead up to the end of the year 1915. It is upon the total real number ot dead at anv moment that the greater part of casualtv statistics must be built, and that is whv I make it the first point in this final, and, I hope, decisive studv. If 1 were merely to say that we know the German dead, up to the end of tin" vear 191"), to exceed one million, it would be mere affirmation. My readers will see that such a statement can li'j rigidly proved. MIXIJIUM GKK.UAN* I )KATX In what follows we shaM be dealing, of murse, only with the deaths ot men actuallv m:>».ili»."l and tornung part ot t'o German armies. Our point of ii'eparture is the official lists publisli- <-..] i,v tie German Government from the outbreak of war to January M, 1310. vote r.t the outset, that to take this date January 31. in Hi. is to veight the scales heavily against ourselves One must always do that in iiiiv calculation where an emotional inslsmnvlic present. It is In the proross known in commerce as '•t.ikiiiK a conservative estimate!.'* The actual average of delay I.c----f-een tbe death of a German sobUe.r ■,P(I the appearance of his name m t'i lists is still overs* weeks from •,>■,-. ciii of 101 5 to January ~1. 1.»)'.. is i-are'v four weeks and a half; conbased upon the llr.ts puniish,.,l rl , io and including Jamiaiy ..1, I ;,| ( ; me certainly tlie.refore witnln the truth on that aeroitnt alone. The number of lists published from the outbreak of the war to January ;;t 11)1(1, is SCO; the last of t.ieso, the SGOth list, was published on Jan. P>l itself.

The total number appearing upOTi tl-e.-o lists as (had. after a'.l corrections have heen nude for errors and lor repetitions and admitted omi> sions, is 6!il,7fiS. If therefore, the official (.ermnn Jists'wcre complete on this point, our fundamental piece of statistic would

be already arrived at. We should know the German dead to be somewhat more than, but certainly not less than 050,001) up to, and including, the last day vA the year 1915. We knew, as a f-ct. from many other sources, that the German official lists .are inaccurate, misleading, skhl incomplete. But the particular methods by which this particular figure lias been up?ct. and the true figure arrive 1 at, arc at once striking and conclusive.

(1 i In the Mrs; place the number openly given (6M.7GS) is not, even by the enemy's own showing, the full number. There is, by Implication, another number to be added from another part of these same lists. Over and above the number officially admitted as dead, the lists give a certain figure tor the "missing." Now the "missing" can only conceivably cover three categories; (a) prisoners in the hands of the Allies; ibi deserters; (c) dead. The first of these three eategorle* (at is known with precision. It Is not allowed to be published, but the figures are the common property ot the Higher Command in all the Allied countries; the fecund category (1)) la certainly an extremely small one. Desertions Into the lines of the Allies, now happily growing in frequency, appear in category u> among the prisoners held by the Allies. The remainder, category (c> must, and can only, consist of the dead, who liavo bten left upon th» battlefield after an enemy retirement, or hi captured trenches without there being evidence among the enemy of their death.

The German Empire, besides official lists of dead, furnishes in a larger measure notice to the families of men who have fallen. The great unions and associations also publish lists. After seven months* from Januan\ jo,*;—that is by about the middle of August 10If.—the difference between the total of deaths obtainable from the average of the private lists and that obtainable from the public lists (which alone have hitherto been qucto.ll in this country) is already wftil over 150,000.

T:io conclusion is Inevitable. The private lists gave us the true death raU>, the public lists, at first carefully and fully maintained, gave aia *s the year proceeded figures less and less reliable. Now, what Is the figure we Arrive at for the true number of deaths at, say, the beginning of November? Making the fullest possible allowance for a fall in the real curve after the moment in August to which it can be traced, and for the decline in thf death rale during November and December, during which there has been little fighting, it remans absolutely certain that the total of deaths by the end of the year is well over the million. How much over we have not full evidence to guide us.