ALLIES' PRISONERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 April 1917, Page 6

ALLIES' PRISONERS.

000,000 TAKEN IN 1910. The totals of prisoners taken by the Allied armies 011 the various fronts in Europe during 1910 make up a mass of close upon 000,000 (writes Reuters correspondent from the French Headquarters). The French have captured 78,500 Germans; the British have captured 40,500 Germans; the Italians have taken 52,250 Austrians. On the Eastern front the Russians have captured some 400,000 prisoners mostly Austrians. The Macedonian army has taken prisoner 11,173 Bulgarians, Turks, and Germans. This gives us a formidable total of 582,4-23, a figure which leaves out of account the considerable number of prisoners made by the Rumanians in their irruption into Transylvania and the prisoners captured by the British in Egypt and German East Africa. Of the 119,000 Germans captured in France in 1910, the French took 20,000 at Verdun and 51,840 on the Somme. This Franco-British armies have taken hundreds of guns of various calibres from the enemy during the war. A recent official statement in England claimed 150 heavy guns, 200 field guns, and 1500 machine-guns up to November. But this total will have to be considerably increased, as the French captured 115 guns of all calibres at Verdun on 15th and 10th December. It is safe, to put the enemy's total casualties in France during the year at not loss than a million. Reasonable . "Computations based on the enemy's partial admissions make it considerably more. The loss in prisoners alone is equivalent to the bayonet strength of ten full divisions. These results have been won against an | enemy who at Verdun put forth his maximum offensive effort, on the Somme his maximum defensive power. In their attack on Verdun the Germans up to Ist July had brought into engagement forty-two and a-half divisions. On the Somme up to Ist November, in all ninety German divisions had : participated in the lighting. The captures of the French at Verdun are specially significant because they were made on the great German.front of attack. The importance of their successes on the Somme lies in the fact that they were made to the amazement of the enemy, just after the French army had beaten off the greatest assault which the enemy had ever been able to deliver. During the first fortnight of the Battle of the Somme the French Verdun army was still heavily engaged with the enemy on is own front, while (heir sixth and tenth armies were advancing in bounds oil both banks bf the Somme. This was tins great relelation of the year as far as the French army was concerned. It taught the enemy once fnr all that any plan of campaign based ui the idea that the French Army t-;t i- in. either crushed or exhausted is eiiiimni;il. A year after the beginning of tin. Battle of Verdun that army is more powerful, better equipped, more confident than ever. Arid on this front the ascendant has passed definitely to the armies of France and Great Britain.