LAND AND WATER 
November 7, 1914 
separated theatres of wars, eacli many thousand square 
miles in extent. It takes some time for the reports 
of units to come to the Staffs and be first roughly 
co-ordinated. The further news which reaches sub- 
ordinate commanders extends the first lists. If a 
man is asked for his losses twenty -foui- hours after an 
action, he will invaiiably send in a smaller amount 
than the total amount turns out to be after lengthy 
and complete examination. It is true that these 
Prussian lists are not issued until long after the dates 
to which they refer, so that there is plenty of time for 
adding further figures, but it is still true that supple- 
mentary lists continue to be issued throughout a 
campaign, and that the 000,000 which v/e have here 
got are therefore certainly less than a quite complete 
account of losses to the exact middle of September 
would come to. They are less, tliat is, than the total 
nunbcr of men killed, woimded, taken prisoners, or 
lost up to the date of the 1 5th of September. The 
last few days before that date are sm-e to represent 
incomplete returns. But to this consideration must 
be added another fact — that the date happens to bo of 
peculiar significance. 
Those few days just before the Ihth of September, 
the last days of the account in which most omissions are 
necessarily made, happen precisely to corrcspiond with 
the great German Retreat called the Battle of the Marne. 
Some of the worst punishment which the German 
army ever received on East or West falls upon those 
very days with regard to which the official statistics are 
likely to be in any case below the mark. What 
difference this may make we cannot tell. But let us 
again put a very small estimate for the sake of safety 
and say no more than ten per cent. Even that brings 
us up to 060,000. 
We may sum up and say that in the case of the 
official German statistics coupled with what is 
certainly known of modem war and of normal 
proportion of death to woimds, you have by the 
middle of September more than 600,000 but less than 
800,000 men hit or taken prisoners upon the German 
side. 
Next let us turn to the losses to be presumed 
since that date; after that to the presumption of 
losses by sickness in various forms. Only when some 
such full calculation is completed shall we be in a 
j)Osition to draw a general conclusion as to the 
position of the German forces and their chance, 
so far as numerical strength alone is concerned, for 
the future. 
We have seen that more than 660,000 and 
presumably less than 800,000 men are to be counted 
as wastage from the German forces in killed, wounded 
and missing up to the end of the I'ctreat from Paris 
to the Aisne in the West, and up to the victorious 
advance of the four or five German Anny Corps from 
East Prussia over the Eussian frontier at the same 
moment. 
What proportion to these losses do subsequent 
losses bear ? 
We are now in the fiirst week of November. 
Seven weeks have elapsed since the totals just com- 
jmted were arrived at. But these totals account for 
less than four weeks of active warfare. There was no 
heavy and serious fighting in the field until the third 
week in August, when the big losses began with the 
Battle of Metz (August 19-21) and the Battle of the 
Sambre (August 22-24). 
If, therefore, the fighting had been of the same 
character all tlu-ough, we should have to multiply 
these first estimates — our 660,000 to 800,000 — by 
nearly three to get the total of the present time ; since 
the first estimates refer to little more than three full 
weeks of the heavy fighting, and we are ending the 
eleventh week of active waiiare now. 
It is common knowledge, however, that the 
fighting has not been of a piece throughout. To the 
veiy heavy work of the rapid German advance on 
Paris, with sharj) losses in infantry and no losses in 
prisoners, followed by the equally heavy work of the 
retreat to the Aisne, vkdth its considerable losses m 
prisoners and large losses in dead and wounded of aU 
arms (a higher proportion, perhajjs, in the Artillery), 
there succeeded, after this middle of September, a long 
deadlock in which the only fields subject to heavy loss 
were those fought in defence of the German com- 
mimications to the west of the Eiver Oise, and north 
and south of the Upper Somme. 
There was loss, of course, the whole time along 
the line of trenches from Noyon to the Argonne ; and 
there was rather greater loss beyond the Argonne and 
in the open country where the garrisons of Verdun 
and Toid were in contact with the anny of Metz. 
TTiere was also a good deal of sharp work in the 
Vosges. But all tliis kind of fighting meant losses on 
a different scale from those which had been incurred 
dm-ing the advance on Paris and the few days of the 
main retreat, wliile even the heavier fighting up along 
the west front in defence of the German communica- 
tions was upon another scale from the original 
conflicts. 
It is exceedingly difficidt to estimate, even in the 
roughest manner, what pi'opoiiion we should allow for 
the German losses between the middle of September 
and the end of the first thii'd of October when the 
great battle of Flanders opened. It is a period almost 
as long as the first period. We should be safe enough, 
considering the repeated and dense German attacks, if 
we put it down at about 50 per cent., but we are at 
any rate perfectly safe and well within the mark if we 
put it down at rather more than a third, say 250,000 
on 660,000 or 300,000 on 800,000. "Wlien we consider 
that this same period saw the retreat of the Germans 
from the line of the Niemen and their very considerable 
losses in the battle of Augustowo as well as their 
bad quarter of an hour on the causeway of Suwalki, 
the loss of their heavy guns by Osowiecs and then- 
failure in an attempt to cross the Niemen at Dmss- 
kiniki (the attempt and failure to cross a broad 
stream under fii-e is always an extremely expensive 
operation) we may be perfectly certain that this 
estimate of just over an extra thii-d is well below 
the mark, although of course the Gennan forces in 
East Prussia were not a quarter of those in the 
Western field. 
Let us add then for the period between 
September 15 and October 10 from 250,000 to 
300,000 to the total losses already computed, and you 
already have at the opening of the battle of Flanders 
a total of certainly not less than 910,000, nor probably 
more than 1,100,000. 
Now the battle of Flanders has by every account 
been altogether more prodigid of German fighting 
men than an^'ihing that has gone before. It has 
already lasted three weeks. We are just at the 
beginning of the fourth week from its opening, from 
the opening that is of the severe phase which 
distinguishes the struggle on the Franco-Belgian 
frontier from the prolonged flanking movements which 
have preceded it. The full despatches from the 
General Officer in command of the British contingent, 
the oflicial French communiques, the Belgian private 
letters received at home, and the public corre- 
spondence in the newspapers, all are unanimous 
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