LAND AND K A T E R. 
March 13, 1913. 
"fcmma : If we go by whaE wo hear from sober 
observers at the front, who are in a position to 
co-ordinate all reports and to sift them, we are 
ready to accept tne very highest figures. It is 
true to say that, in proportion to the actual 
experiences of our witnesses, to the oppor- 
tunities they have had of seeing with their own 
eyes, and or comparing together the multitude 
of documents presented to the General Staffs 
upon this subject, are they more inclined to 
raise their estimate of the enemy's losses. 
Thus I have myself, in these pages, estimated, 
from what I was then told, the losses of the 
enemy in three weeks against the salient of 
Ypres at over 100,000, and perhaps as much as 
120,000. But I have been told by one who 
was present in all that fighting, and in a 
position well calculated to judge things re- 
ported to him, as well as things that he saw, 
that this original estimate of mine was far 
below the mark, and that it could safely be 
doubled. 
Wo are then, when we base ourselves upon 
the evidence of eye-witnesses and of those who 
have the first-hand evidence before them, led 
towards the higher figures. 
But when one takes the experience of 
former wars and calculates the proportion of 
eick out of the total casualties on the analogy of 
the figures on the Allied side, and tests all this 
by the published official German lists, one is 
inclined to a much lower estimate — to some- 
thing not much more than half what the highest 
figures would present. 
The most severe criticism the higher 
estimate has received actually halves the large 
recent French estimate of three million. This 
criticism proceeds from the pen of a veiy com- 
petent critic in this country. But to put the 
total- loses at only a million and a half is 
certainly far too low. It is allowing only 5 
per cent, for sickness at any one moment. It is 
not allowing for the large floating total of 
slightly wounded (for while the slightly 
wounded are constantly returning, their ranks 
are as constantly being supplemented by new 
casualties at the front), and, above all, it is 
placing far too much reliance upon the German 
official figures. It can be affirmed as a piece 
not of conjecture but of arithmetic that either 
the proportion of German dead is utterly 
abnormal, or that the Prussian list is published 
with more care, and first, the dead, next the 
Bcverely wounded, next the slightly wounded, 
and that, with all this they are always very 
gravely in arrears. TVe know at a given datd 
tne proportion of British dead out of the total 
casualties. It was more than 11 and less than 
14 per cent. We cannot accept for the enemyj 
a proportion of between 20 and 25 ; or, at least, 
if we do we must be prepared for very much 
larger lists of total dead at the end than wa 
have j'ct been given. This lowest estimate, for 
instance — arrived at, as I have said, by a veryj 
competent critic in this country — allows for a 
quarter of a million of German dead. It is true 
to say that there is not an authority on the 
General Staffs of the Allies who has carefullyj 
weighed the figures who would not, at least, 
add 50 per cent, to that number and be moro 
readily prepared to double it. 
It must be remembered before we leave this 
subject that men perpetually write as though 
estimates of this kind had for their object either 
the undue heartening of public opinion or the 
stiffening of it for a special effort in recruitment 
or in endurance. In other ways it seems almost 
to be taken for granted that these estimates 
must be false one way or the other, on account 
of the supposed motive with which they are 
inspired. But there is a third motive, after all, 
which is much the best, and that is the desire to 
obtain, even in matters of conjecture, to as 
great an accuracy as possible. And I think thai; 
if we strictly confine ourselves to that motive 
alone, though we may not admit absence from 
the field of three million of the Germans, we 
will probably accept two and a half million, 
and most of these absent for good. 
Take the analogy of our own known and 
published casualties at a certain date : 25 per 
cent, of total forces in casualties, and of casual- 
ties rather more than half death and serious 
wounds ; death being, say, one-eighth and serious 
wounds between, say, three-eighths and a half. 
Remember that those casualties relate to a force 
which has been successfully passing through 
violent action and then through periods of lull, 
while the Gei-man forces have been, on one front 
or the other, perpetually engaged in an hitherto 
fruitless attack. Admit the Germans have put 
forward to this date six million — probably more; 
admit, also, what is certainly the received opinion 
with the best authority abroad, that their loss 
from sickness far exceeds ours in proportion. 
Remember that on the Eastern front the propor- 
tion that returned is far less because the ambu- 
lance difficulties are there much greater — and you 
cannot in the end reach a much lower total than 
that which I have suggested. 
THE DURATION OF THE WAR. 
III. 
CONCLUSION. 
IN preceding articles we have seen that the 
critical point in the great campaign will 
presumably come, so far as men and 
munitions are concerned, in the early 
I)art of next summer, or, at the earliest, in the 
ate part of the spring. 
We have lastly to consider the climatic and 
^e moral factors. 
»* 
It is again necessary to emphasise what 
ehould be an obvious truth, but Avhat the eager- 
ness of our expectations tends to mask from our 
judgment: that no reasonable conclusion upon 
the actual length of the campaign can be 
attempted. It -would not only bo mere guess- 
work, but it would be gratuitous folly. All one 
can do is to estimate the main factors which 
converge upon what I have called the critical 
