CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 194, 25 January 1915, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

-*'""' I CIKIIM.W l-r-srs j e.il ,iepi!ie.,„ee."f!n."r,p' ; v " .':",■■'' in i.y'''.".it j '•'■ ' dei- •'!• pi-ii.t I. ICniire ' , ■ "•'■lit !.f !'..v; ~j.|ld 10 ■■■■<:■ - , .. and <■>,. in- U,e-o ivtv-e!,,:.;. ,' .' ;. printed pag.s of I'm. ~■•:•..'o: ii... o. r..., J-terl : ii newspaper. It n ea-n (,; ,-„ m . | pute fr,,i; iliem that fierman losses to

November 1 (up to which the lists an question include) are well over 1,000,000. The five "editions," with their awful testimony of the price of aggression, account for roundly 20,000 casualties. Figuring that preceding "editions" have been issued at approximately the same rate and been equally voluminou; — 10,000 losses per reported day—the first 100 days of war work out at 1,000 10 victims. The lists thus analysed qv.'.te confirm the statement of the Cop. nhagcn correspondent of the Daily JVb.il that this is the grand total of Prussian, Saxon, Bavarian and Wurtumberg casualties to date. Circumstantial reports reaching the Mail from "Eye-Witness" and other observers that the proud Prussian Guard, whose gallantry has been the object of such unquestionably deserved praise from the Kaiser, has been annihilated are clearly borne out by these loss figures. Practically all the Guard regiments figure conspicuously in the lists, as does, indeed, seemingly every regiment in tho German army. There are columns of regular casualties not only among regular but among Reserve Landwehr, and even Landsturm (respectively tho second, third and fourth lines of defence). They show convincingly that Germany, after three months of war, was already driven to draw heavily on practically every source of military strength at her command. No wonder that "extracts only" from these frightful messengers of death, mutilation and distress—altogether 2262 pages have now been printed >—may be given to the gallant people who must pay the toll, for even in Ger-' many patience may cease to be a virtue.

OUR We arc beginning to receive the lists of British losses now. Perhaps 140,000 to 160,000 British troops went to France in August. In the issue of the Times of December 2 their losses arc recorded as no less than 84,000! Fifty thousand of these losses were sustained in the terrific combats round Ypres and Armentieres, far more than their losses at Mons, the Marne and the Aisnc put together. In this three-weeks' struggle it appears that 16 German army corps, numbering about 500,000, lost as many as 200;000. Perhaps that was why the cables at the time referred to it as the bloodiest battle in history. Slaughters 6uch as Eylau, Borodino, Gravelotte, Gettysburg and Waterloo fade out of the comparison.—Dunedin Star.