TEN MILLION MEN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 268, 20 April 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

TEN MILLION MEN.

TOLL OF WAR. TOTALS ESTIMATED FROM REPORTS. FRANCE BEARS THE FIRST SHOCK, On the last day of 1916 Europe has not yet begun to count up the frightful losses of 20 months of war. No one knows exactly how many have been killed or disabled for life. The Governments do not give the figures. Some seek, for natural reasons, to minimise their own losses and put in the foreground, without totals, the losses of their enemies, comments Sterling Helig under date December 18: Thus, recently, a great error has been propagated with respect to France. For the first time in the French Parliament a deputy, M. Albert Favre, was permitted to make a solemn statement of certain proportions, and immediately tie enemy radio service sent round the world what purported to be a report of it. France, said the radio telegram, has mobilised one in six of her tionWhat was stated in the French Parliament was something quite different: France has mobilised one man in six, while England, with respect to her adult male population, has put one man in 10 into the army, xialy one man in eleven, and Russia one man in twenty. With respect to losses, Deputy Favre said: France's losses have been three times as great as those of Italy and England. It was a sober and worthy statement of France's wonderful effort, which continues never more magnificent than at present, and its objects was to exult in tie total forces of the Allies, saying: 'This is what France is doing; this is what we expect of you. Do not permit the blood of France to be weakened to a point where recovery might be too unjustly slow!" What is that point, for France and other nations? Is it possible to have an idea of the total losses on the last day of the year 1916? A notable Copenhagen "Society for tie Study of the Consequences of the War" recently published its second bulletin, devoted entirely to the losses of men in killed and disabled. Although its statistics are neither complete nor exact, this Copenhagen society is far better posted than any other calculators attempting to give the respective totals. The difficulties are great.

ENGLAND GIVES EXACT FIGURES

Onlv one of the belligerents, England, published from the beginning, the exact figures of its losses, at least up to January 1, 1916, and nothing of the kind has ever existed for the ten other belligerent States of Europe, except that Germany and Russia "offer documents which permit more or less approximate valuations." In the German lists, the Copenhagen society says, it is always necessary to correct their figures from the "retrospective information," which is given out long after their publication. In Russia, the Red Cross reports of federations of cities and zemstvos constitute a good source of information. In Austria and France, on the other hand, there exists no official basis for estimation. The French Government has published nothing. Vienna, at the oeginning, issued lists of killed and wounded, but soon limited them to the names of officers; and the experts of Copenhagen are equally reduced to conjecture as to the losses of Italy and the Balkan States—less difficult to estimate, nevertheless, from the fact that theit armies have suffered total losses less than the other great nations.

LOWEST FIGURES ARE TAKEN. The Bulletin of Copenhagen given its method of research and calculation fot the different countries, and its principles of induction, where figures are lacking seems clear and convincing. It is always the minimum estimate which ia given as most plausible, so that there is no danger of registering exaggerated totals. Unhappily the actual totals must be far greater, if only to bring them up to date, proportionately, to the end of the year 1916! The losses, of course, are composed of different elements. These are: Men fallen dead and counted as such on the field of battle; men taken up wounded and dying before, during or after the first aid dressings; the missing in great numbers of prisoners, but of whom the remainder lie buried in trenches or under ruins of houses or elsewhere; prisoners of war deceased; civilians killed near battlefields; refugees behind the front who die of disease and privations; natives of occupied territories who, in even greater proportions, die from similar causes; the excess mortality among sedentary populations not directly exposed to the enemy, but whose deaths are caused by privations, abandonments, despair, etc.: the deficit of births: and, finally, deaths caused in the armies by sickness, weakness, and privations.

MANY OF WOUNDED RECOVER. The number of the wounded is quite a different category. When we see, for example, German totals of killed, wounded, and missing running well into the two milions it is understood and so intended to be that two-thirds of the wounded are finally cured and return in battle —while missing is an extremely elastic term, capable of covering the dead not otherwise acknowledged or counted as dead, though perfectly well known to be such, equally with prisoners. The following totals of losses, therefore, comprise only the killed and permanently disabled at a minimum. The permanently disabled are calculated at 30 per cent of the wounded in countries where the exact figures are not given or given for only a part of the war—which means, practically, nearly all the. ten belligerents. From all of which it may be judged that the figures of the Society of the Consequences of the War are arrived at; laboriously, by vast quantities of additions, up to last August, and they aro here brought up proportionally to Deccmlier 31, 1910."

LOSSES OF NATIONS AT WAR Disabled Dead. for life. Austria-Hungary .. 837,75(1 f>2l,.*>oo Belgium 58,000 :is.vm Bulgaria 20,500 21,000 Orcat Britain 239.1G0 180,500 J ranee 032,500 740,00(1 Ormany 1,1-30,000 I ,039,000 Italy ••• 122,500 80,250 Russia. 1,747,050 1,222.5 ml Serbia (Montenegro) 118,000 M-.OdO Turkey 110,050 122,5(10 Totals 5,731,710 4,085,750 Thus the war fras cost humanilv something like 17,000,000 dead and wounded of all categories^--two-thirds of the wounded reeovering, it must bo remembered . All the same, hero are 5.000,000 dead and 4,000,000 incapable. of earning their living as a result of the 20 months of war. "France had to hear almost the totality of the first shock of most formidable war machine that hi-tory

has ever known," Deputy Favre said in the French Parliament. "Germany hoped that with France once crushed she could easily get the better of tie others."

"After the third year has begun France still stands the brunt of the Western front.

Never once has France recriminated or made the slightest, complaint or reserve," the spokesman continued. "We aave given our best without counting. All we say is: 'This is what we have done; this is what we ask you to do/ " Then in the French Chamber, which has never enumerated its own losses or the losses of its Allies or adversaries, began a new and grandiose enumeration for the future. New millions of men!

BRITAIN'S INCREASE IN ARMIES. "England, whom Germany accuses of having 'unchained' the war, had simply no army at all in August, 1914," Deputy Favre said. "A few divisions constituted it. Given entirely to works of peace, England pulled herself together. "In October, 1914, England had 75,000 volunteers. Six months later she had 2,000,000 soldiers; in September, 1915, 3,000,000; in the spring of 1916, nearly 4,00(?,000, and after she has revised her exemptions under the new obligatory service law for England and Scotland, the Britki Army, with the contingents of the colonies, will count 6,000,000 combatants! "Italy, struggling in the mountains against an enemy perfectly fortified, has progressed slowly but gloriously at a cost of great enough sacrifices, all considered. Italy disposes of 3,000,000 actually mobilised, and her population permits her to increase this number notably. She has not yet revised her exemptions; and she is able, as France has done, to extend her mobilisation to older army classes.