CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 38, 19 May 1916, Page 5

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

According to a recent statement of Germany's war losses—obtained by.adding'together the totals of the German official casualty: lists—the losses amounted, upon a day in April, to about 2,800,000 men. It is no* necessary to go into the old dispute about the precise degree of confidence that ■Bhould be attached to these official lists. And.together with the question of Germany's losses ought in any ~ case to be considered the question of her remaining reserves. It will be enough to say, here, that there are two mutually contemptuous bodies of opinion on the subject. One body, looking out through comparatively rosy spectacles, calculates, that Germany had, when the war began, about 8.500,000 men to draw upon, and that she.must have already lost about 3,700,000; so that, assuming her armies to total rather more than four mil- . lions, she cannot have even a million possible recruits in reserve. This body insists that no reliance at all can be placed on the'figures'contained iir the German official lists. The' other side, assuming the lists to be no, worse than a couple of months behind band, would put Germany's, losses djown ; at. about 3,000,000, ."and her army, at, 4,000,000. But {t,.believes that Germany could, as a last resort, recruit far more than 8,000,006 or 9,000,000, or, even 10,000,000 men, so,that she should be able still to call upon 4,000,000 or more—if she bas to. Nobody knows whioh of these two sets of opinion is the right one, or whether either is. All we know is that most of the calculations made hitherto -thave turns-*.,, ed out demonstrably wrong.

the means that have been adopted by French and English war critics to check the official lists of

German losses, is the of the reports issued by benefit societies and other civil organisations, as to the losses among their members. Evidence of a similar kind is provided by a statement made 7 lately by\tne Prussian Minister for Public Instruction. He told the Budget Ccnmission of the Prussian Diet that out of ' 51,023 teachers from the State- schools who have been called to the ranks, no fewer than 7006-r-that is, 14 per cent. —were dead, and 7207, or 14.3 per cent., had been returned as permanent invalids or missing. According to those figures, which are probably much more reliable than official lists of losses, no fewer than 25.3 per cent. of the teachers called to arms are out of operation. This is an enormous percentage of losses. In the same sit* ting of the Budget Commission it was stated that the teachers belonging to the various categories of Landstrum were usually not called to the army or used for real military purposes, bemg employed mainly in the military offices in their .own districts as clerks; this applied, of course, to men over 40, ih to those whose physique was not up to the military standard. On the other hand, it is possible that teachers as a class, being educated men, would furnish a large proportion of commissioned and non-commission-ed officers, whose losses would probably be above the average for the army.

The Berlin Tageblatt voices a grievance that, owing to the influence ot trench manners, the "Berliners ire becoming brutes":—"There was a time .when; if a man spilt some cigar ash on the clothing of a fellow-passenger, he would ask his pardon. Nowadays such an assailant ) when confronted by the reproachful glances of his victim, simply remarks: 'Well, well, in the they burn somewhat bigger holes in your clothes.' Every impropriety, every act of carelessness, every stupidity, every gratuitous insult even, is excused in a phrase beginning with the words: 'Puh! In the trenches ' Shop assistants excuse the worthlessness of their highly priced wares with the declaration that, 'the men in the trenches would be glad to get such good things. Noisy children argue when ai * ordered to be silent that in trenches there is a much greater din going on. A corpulent lady, at least two hundred pounds in weight, who pushes her way into an overcrowded electric tram shouts' to the protesting passengers, whom she threatens! to crush flat: 'ln the trenches you would even get less room to sit down. Unless a timely stop be put to this outrageous public attitude, the trench war threatens to convert ■ Berliners into brutes beside whom the lla,ck, biwtn, and yellow helpers of the English and French are the embodiment of all that is gracious and sweet."

"Somewhere in France—23-3-' 16" is the date line of a letter just received by an Australian mother from her soldier son. The letter is from dpi. James Henry Dunn, of l>ichhardt.' Cpl. Dunn writes:—"After we disembarked we entrained, and wore billeted right here, 'somewhere in France.' 'Billeted' means that so many men are told off to each house in a village, according to the size of the house, and are provided with floor space and straw to sleep on. Since my arrival here I have not seen a man of military age or physically lit who was not in uniform. The villages and towns are populated by old men, boys, and tho fair sex. The welcome and hospitality- meted out to us by these homely and beautiful French women is superb. Right from the moment we arrived here, from the moment we got in the train until we got out, it was nothing but kisses (thrown to us)and waving of hands; and at the stations we stopped at en route we were given baskets of' fruit, cordial waters, cakes, and hot iea andi; coffee. These' lovely French folk could not do enough for us,' The sombre black costumes worn ; by the French people tell too truly the 'story of the terrible suffei-.ng by the" war. 1 Everyone is in black. Everyone moilrhs the loss of someone they 'held dear. We seem to fetch sunshine to their homes, for' they meet us with an ever-welcome smile.

In the fields may be seen boys ploughing; girls in their 'teens working in the railway yards, swinging the SfeFS 1 in the as,h pits, on duty in the signal boxes, and coal-lumping. You will hardly believe it, but I have seen it. But with all their Hardship's'they greet you with their welcome. No doubt they realise tiiatAvc have come 12,000 miles to give a helping hand; but over in Australia you cannot'realise'what war is or what -it means. Australia, cannot do too much. She should shed every : ounce of blood, if need be, in this fight for liberty and' right. Mother, if you were hero you would gladly say 'Go' to every son you had if he was of military age,-even it at meant death, and death is nothing to the individual when the cause is considered. Oh, if you could only see the ravages wrought in Belgium and France. A little Belgian girl (refugee, of course) looks up with her curly hair, rosy cheeks, and smiling face, and says, 'Hello, Australia! Welcome, Australia!' It makes your blood tingle. Yes, her father has been killed in the great fight. What is death, then, to us, if we fire a shot and have done our best in the cause of right ? Buom ! Boom ! I can hear the rumble of big guns, but we are too far away for any damage to be done to us. I cannot say how long it will be before we are in the,trenches ; but I can tell von it. ia **ery bleak here, cold, and wet."