The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9. SIX MONTHS' CASUALTIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 207, 9 February 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9. SIX MONTHS' CASUALTIES.

As the war progresses, the casualty lists become so numerous, so long and so incomplete that( it is increasingly dillicult even to approximate losses (writes the Auckland Herald). There is also to be considered that a very large proportion of those wounded (luring the earlier months have returned to the lighting line or have oeen transferred to the reserves, and that a great many men have been incapacitated from sickness whose names are not published in casualty lists. The loss suli'ered by the Germans during their march from the Meuse to the Marnc has probably never been exceeded 011 any specific occasion. but was equalled on the Yser. On both these occasions tlicy attacked constantly in mass formation, and in their strategic haste were compelled to make frontal attacks in the face of concentrated fire. It has never been denied that the march to Paris alone cost them 200,000 men, and the Yser campaign was equally fatal. On the eastern field there have been similarly stupendous losses from the desperate system of attack in mass formation. On both fields there has been the ceaseless drain of trench fighting, in addition to the extraordinary loss of great battles. Exaggerated as the estimate may seem, it is quite probable that Germany is to-day weaker by two and a-half milli m 'effective lighting men than slic was six months ago. The losses of Austria,- in spite of much surrendering and her disastrous Servian campaign, are probably less, and may be conservatively set at one and a-half millions. The British loss cannot now be less than a hundred thousand, nor the Belgian less than half that amount. The French have Been brilliantly handled by their unquestionably great leader, General Joffre—wlio is holding them for the great offensive campaign—but cannot have escaped with a loss of less than half a million. The Russians have certainly lost much less than their opponents, whether German or Austrian, but they have been fighting many battles over an extensive ■ area, and, have never hesitated to pay the price of victory. A million Russian casualties may .be above or below the reality, but is an entirely reasonai..e estimate. From this we may estimate the total casualties—killed-, wounded and missing—as follows: German loss -2.500,000 Austrian loss 1,500,000 Austro-Gcrnian loss ... 4,000,000 .British loss 100,000 Belgian loss 50,000 French loss 500,000 Russian loss 1,000,000 Servian loss 25,000 Allied total 1,075,000 Here we have, an estimated casualty list of nearly six millions for six months of war. It is hard to realise that this is possible, but at the close of the Y r ser lighting the British loss was 84,000, the Prussian loss alone—not counting other\ Germans—is officially admitted to be i>2li,(!oo, and in Scrvia alone the Auatrians lost 100,000. It is better for the Allies to suflcr the direct loss rather than risk the future Bclgiumising of free nations by Prussian "culture," but it is not strange that in Germany and Au.-.tr,n there are already whispers the need for peace.