LAND AND WATER 
November 14, 1914 
that may have to bo finally established between our 
losses aud those of the enemy. 
Here I would again emphasize what I emphasized 
last week — the character of official German news. 
The giving of such news is not more controlled by 
common morals than is any other part of Prussian 
effoi-t in this war. It is based upon a calculation 
of the effect to be produced upon the enemy. It is 
part of such a calculation that exact figures in 
matters which the General Staffs of the foreign 
army can check for themselves will have great moral 
effect. It is thought, with justice, that if a certain 
tj'pe of official German news, communicated by the 
German Government, con-esponds to what the 
General Staffs opposing Germany already knov/, 
then such other statements as the German Govern- 
ment may choose to make later for purposes of 
deception will probably be credited also by the 
Genei-al Staffs of the Allies. It is a perfectly simple 
method and a very good one ; and accordmg to this 
idea we might expect tlie official lists of prisoners 
taken from the Allies to correspond fairly accurately 
to the estimate the Allies are themselves able to make 
of their own " missing." 
But there are two certain considerations which 
tempt the Germans to exaggerate in this particular. 
The total number of missing, with which any General 
Staff is supplied with regard to its own side, is always 
■ viore than the real number of mere prisoners. There 
are whole categories of missing that do not coixespond 
to prisoners at all ; imdiscovered wounded and dead ; 
stragglei-s who rejoin, and, in some cases, of troojjs 
upon the frontiers, desertion. This last category is, 
however, a very small one indeed on the Allied side, 
because the Allied troops do not include unwilling 
recruits as the German troops do. Further, it is of 
great importance to the German Government to be 
able to emphasize and if need be to exaggerate the 
number of the prisoners whom it holds. Everything 
must be done in these critical weeks to maintain the 
belief of the German population at home that victory 
can yet be achieved. This population is able to 
watch the great numbers coming into the prisoners' 
camps; it is not able to distinguish between true 
prisoners of war and others, and therefore an exag- 
geration of those numbers is both possible, and upon 
tlie whole worth the while of the German Staff. To 
some extent they weaken their moral lever of accuracy 
in the eyes of the enemy, but they more than gain 
that loss by their raising of civilian spiiits in Germany 
itself. 
AU this is as much as to say that unlike the 
statistics of German dead (but like the statistics of 
German wounded), the official German statistics of 
prisoners are likely to be not so much fantastic as 
manipulated. 
Now to put more precisely what I mean let me 
begin the analysis of these figures. 
We are told that on November 1st, the French 
pnsoners in German hands amounted to 191,750 ; the 
Kussjan prisoners to 191,900; the Belgian prisoners 
to 3o,444; and the British prisoners to 10,147. 
The first thing we note about these figures is a 
very large increase indeed over the numbers given 
not much more than three weeks ago. The Belgian 
increase, indeed, is not remarkable. But the French 
figures are increased by thirty per cent. ; the Eussian 
figures by about twenty per cent. ; the British figures 
are nearly doubled. 
This increiuse should be carefully noted. Some- 
thmg con-csponding to it happened after the German 
victory at Tannenberg over the Eussitms. " At first a 
certain figure was given. Tlien news reached the 
West of the great Eussian victory at Lemberg and 
the Austrian prisoners captured (to the total number 
of about 60,000) in that disaster. Immediately after- 
wai'ds the German figures for the prisoners at Tannen- 
berg were reissued at more than double their original 
amount. 
I do not suggest that the German authorities 
simply said, "We must publish a larger number of 
prisoners ; just set down double the original amount." 
Nothing so enthusiastically simple would occur to the 
careful calciilators, who are considering not only the 
figures before them, but the effect those figures will 
hare upon Em-ope and the power the enemy has of 
checking them. What I suggest is rather that some- 
one in authority saj^s : 
" How many prisoners did you take at Tannen- 
berg?" 
He is answered : "About thirty thousand, sir." 
The jjerson in authority then says : " Surely there 
is likely to be a considei-able number picked up during 
the pursuit of which we have not yet heard ? " 
And then he is answered : " Cfei-tainly." 
Whereupon, in the most honest way In the world, 
it Is an-Ived at that one may faii-ly add another twenty 
thousand without fear of facts ultimately belying one. 
The Eusslans have probably far more than that number 
missing, &c., &c. 
Then the person in authority says : " You have, 
of coui-se, counted all the wounded ? " 
And he is answered : " No, sir, we did not count 
all the wounded and none of those who have since 
died of wounds." 
But the person in authority says that these 
figures have their importance because the enemy can 
hardly distinguish, save in a few individual cases, 
between the dead and wounded whom he has left 
behind and the unwounded prisoners. So in all fairness 
one can clap on another twenty thousand, and at the 
end of the process a figure is made out much more 
satisfactory than the first figure. 
In exactly the same way the estimate of total 
prisoners — ^not after a particular action the effect of 
which it is desired to emphasise, but In the whole 
course of the campaign — can be swelled by every 
conceivable method wliich the captor regards as legiti- 
mate for the purpose of affecting his foes adversely 
and raising the spirits of his friends. He will include 
every kind of enemy he has laid his hands upon ; the 
gi-ievously wounded with the unwounded; civilians 
taken away into captivity, according to the remarkable 
method developed by the GeiTaans since the first 
battles in Belgium; enemy civilians detained under 
suspicion, and so forth. In other words, the totals 
will be swelled, not to figures wliich manifestly war 
against the truth, but to the highest possible limits 
which any meaning of the word " prisoner " will 
admit. 
Now in order to discover how far this method 
has been pursued we have certain tests which can be 
applied. Let us take the number of French prisonei-s 
and deal with that as a particular case. The Germans 
announce 191,756 ; that is, not quite double, but more 
than seventy per cent, over, the number of Gorman 
prisoners said to be held in France. To this com- 
paiison I will return later, but for the moment I beg 
the reader to fix his attention upon that figure, 191,756. 
They have suddenly increased their holding of French 
prisoners by a thii-d since their declarsLIon of some 
weeks ago. 
But In the interval they have been careful to give 
us accounts of prisoners picked up in actions where 
10» 
