December 19. 1914. 
LAND AND WATER 
them that we came some weeks ago (on November 
7th) to an estimate that the German losses alone were 
at least a million and a quarter by the beginning of 
November and more likely a million and a half, 
figures which sickness in every form would by that 
time have swelled to a mlllioii and three-quarters. 
Consider that all the new offensive in Poland has 
taken place since that date, the normal wastage 
of the less fierce fighting on the Western front, 
and the abnormal wastage of the violent attacks 
round Ypres which culminated on November 11th 
the repulse of the Prussian Guards by the 
in 
British, and there is little doubt that at this 
moment of writing, the total German losses, apart 
from Austrian, are over two million. 
Here two criticisms occur to the reader, both 
of which have come to me from several source?. 
The first is that these totals exaggerate the real 
losses because a certain proportion of the wounded 
and very nearly all the sick ultimately return 
to duty. You may say that if you could see 
the lists of the totals which the enemy must count as 
lost to the front for the moment — dead, wounded of 
every degree, absent through sickness, prisoners, 
etc. — the number so arrived at, would be, by a 
certain percentage, greater than the real permanent 
losses of the enemy. 
This is a perfectly sound criticism if one were 
estimating the total losses of an enemy over a con- 
siderable period of time. We may, pursuing the 
general important rule of weighting the scales 
((■gainst ourselves In these estimates, admit, if we like, 
a very large proportion indeed of men who 
may ultimately reappear upon the field with 
varying degrees of fighting value. We may, to 
be quite certain of not exaggerating In favour of 
ourselves, or rather, in order to be quite certain 
of exaggerating in favour of the enemy, put that 
proportion as high as 40 per cent, and say that of 
the two million hit, caught and sick, 800,000 might, 
if the war were sufficiently prolonged, reappear 
somewhere in the enemy's ranks ; and a considerable 
proportion of them even in the fighting line. But 
the point to notice Is that we are estimating the 
losses at a given moment. 
Suppose the war to cease shortly after one's 
last estimate was made ; then the whole two million, 
including the 800,000 who might ultimately come 
back, would have to be struck off the strength 
against which we were fighting in the last battles. 
Supposing the war prolonged until the whole 800,000 
could come back there would, in the meanwhile, 
have been created another long list of temporarily 
disabled men, and the total deduction to be made 
would be that of all casualties at the moment 
(say six months hence), minus such proportion 
of the 800,000 as could have been returned cured 
and efficient to the fighting line. The longer 
the war goes on the larger the number of 
temporarily disabled that are re-integrated into 
the army. But the moment after which this 
return of men will become considerable has not 
yet been reached, and will not be reached for a long 
time. And meanwhile a very much longer list of 
temporarily disabled will be added. So long as a war 
is vigorously prosecuted the expenditure m tempo- 
rarily disabled Is enormously greater than the income 
of men who return cured. Suppose, for instance, the 
war went on with its present severity and with the 
present rate of German losses for as many weeks 
into the future as it has ah-eady lasted through the 
past, then we should have a total estimate of four 
million losses for Germany and certainly not more 
than 400,000 returns — not more than 10 per cent.-^ 
to affect our total estimate, which, be It remembered, 
was carefully weighted against ourselves. 
The second criticism is at once more fundamental 
and less sound. It questions the value of this multiple 
eight. Men notice the appalling character of the 
losses In certain forms of attack and even in certain 
forms of defensive action. They notice, for Instance, 
the high proportion of officers killed to wounded, and 
the way in which particular units have suffered a 
loss in killed quite out of proportion to the total 
number of their casualties. Men defending, for 
example, a fort, subject to concentrated attack from 
high explosives and reduced to ruins in a few days, 
will show a proportion of killed to wounded not as 
1 in 8, but as 1 in 2, or even 1 in 1|. A big shell 
bursting In a trench will kill most of those within 
the radius of its action ; those without that radius 
will not appear in the casualty list at all. The reader 
acquainted with particular details of this sort may 
regard even so low a multiple as 8 as too high. But 
this is an error, and it is an error which comes from 
not considering as a whole the enormous armies 
at work. If the whole of even one section of them, 
as for instance the whole of the British Expeditionary 
Force, be considered, the multiple 8 is at once found 
to be not too high, but much too low. A multiple of 1 1 
or 12 would be nearer the truth. And, when we con- 
sider that the work done by the Allies against the 
Germans has not hitherto been mainly that of high 
explosive shell from heavy pieces, but mainly rifle, 
bayonet and field artillery work, we are the better 
justified in our certitude that the multiple of 8 is 
well within the mark. The estimate of sickness is, of 
course, pure guess work. We have only the 
analogy of past wars to guide us, the figures in 
our own forces, or at least a rough estimate of 
them, and also the use of our commonsense as 
to the conditions under which men must fight in a 
winter campaign, and I think it will appear when 
the full story of the war is written that the 
proportion allowed for sickness among the enemy 
has not been too high. 
There is, indeed, one further element of possible 
error which I must freely acknowledge, and which 
will be discovered to be present or absent only 
when ftiller information Is available. As yet only 
the Prussian lists of dead, and those admittedly in- 
complete, have formed a sure basis for the calcula- 
tion of German losses, I have taken these to repre- 
sent Prussian losses alone. It may be that they 
represent the losses of Prussia and of the smaller 
States, with the exception of the separate or- 
ganisations of Saxony, Wurtemburg, and Bavaria. 
In that case there is an element of error amount- 
ing to 15 per cent., and, at a moment when, 
say, the total losses might reasonably be put at a 
million and three-quarters under one calculation, 
they would only be a million and a half under the 
other. The estimates have always been scaled 
down so heavily that I do not think even this 
possible element of error would make the estimates 
as high as the real casualties are. But I must 
admit that upon the true nature of the Prussian 
lists does depend this possible element of exaggera- 
tion iu the calculation, and whether these lists 
represent all except Bavarian, Saxon and Wurtem- 
burglan, I have not been able to discover. 
Mn. HrtAiRE Belloc wiU lecture on "The Progress of the War 
during December" at the Queen's Hall on Tuesday, the 22nd inst., 
at C.30 p.m.. Tickets may be obtained from the usual agents. 
13« 
