June 19, 1915. 
LAND A N D W A T E R . 
AN ANALYSIS OF NUMBERS. 
UPON Wednesdciy, June 9, the Prime 
Minister made a statement in the 
House of Commons of the utmost im- 
portance for the comprehension of the 
war in its present phase. He gave at once the 
numbers and nature of the casualties suffered by 
the British forces in France from the beginning 
of the war to May 31. 
Upon the wisdom or unwisdom of this pub- 
lication of casualty lists no judgment is possible. 
The matter is a very close one for or against. The 
argument for is that a nation at war should know 
and understand its sacrifice. The argument 
against is that the enemy learns hov/ it stands. 
That the arguments are strongly against such a 
policy is clear enough from the decision of the 
French and of the Eussians to keep the enemy in 
ignorance. That the arguments in favour of such 
a policy are strong is clear from the fact that the 
Germans, and in a lesser degree the Austrians 
(who act under orders from Berlin), give their 
casualties — though in a belated form, and with a 
good deal of cooking and holding back of impor- 
tant cases. 
At any rate, the practical value of such 
figures is that from them we can do something to 
estimate the real position of the enemy, for the 
British lists are rigidly accurate and brought 
right up to date. We know that there is 
such and such a ratio normally of wounded 
to killed, of missing to wounded, and though 
the lists tell us nothing of sick (who are 
at least equal to the slightly wounded in numbers 
at any given moment) they enable us to judge the 
minimum of the enemy losses from his own im- 
perfect figures. For the enemy is absolutely cer- 
tainly suffering, counting the Eastern and the 
.Western fighting, more than the Allies, and im- 
mensely more than France and England. 
Having said so much let us see v/hat this 
official statement teaches us. 
The very first thing we note is that the trench 
work of the last six months is much more expen- 
sive than work in the open field. The proportion 
of one in eight which was taken in all the earlier 
calculations of this journal as roughly accurate 
for the proportion of killed to total casualties 
was a true estimate, and, indeed, an under-esti- 
mate, before the war in the West became a matter 
of siege work. It will still be found probably a 
true multiple for the Eastern warfare during the 
recent Russian retirement and enemy advance in 
Galicia. But it clearly does not apply to the con- 
ditions of trench warfare, pure and simple, in 
which the' shelling of marked positions dc-es, in 
proportion to the total number of people accounted 
for, a larger execution in disabled and dead than 
does fire in the open field. 
I believe it will be found true when an 
analysis is made that the multiple of one in eight 
for dead to total casualties up to, say, the middle 
of November, was fairly accurate. Since then the 
multiple has obviously lowered. And, I repeat, 
the practical value of establishing this multiple 
is that it enables us to gauge the enemy's figures 
— for upon a due comprehension of the enormous 
enemy wastage our judgment of the campaign 
and its chances must principally be based. 
Since the trench work began, the multiple, as 
J say, has fallen. How far has it fallen ? How 
many men are really being put out of action a^s 
judged by the number of killed in the trench 
work upon either side? 
The total number of casualties officially given 
to May 31 in the Expeditionary Force as a Avhole 
is 253,069, that is to date rather less than a third. 
Of these one-fifth are killed, four-fifths the re- 
maining casualties. The multiple is, therefore, 
at the present day one to five in the particular 
forces in question, and the total casualties are 
exactly what general calculation has made them. 
Already somewhat over a quarter, but far less 
than a third, of the total forces engaged in every 
field. 
At this point we shall do Avell — since our only 
practical object in dealing thus coldly Avith such 
sacred things is to judge the enemy's position — 
to note that a general list thus given after ten 
months' leisure for the establishment of statistics 
and with the very rapid final figures available to 
the British Government (the Germans are often 
months behindhand) gives the full total of those 
who have died, and therefore includes all those 
who have died of wounds or even of sickness in 
hospital, and appreciably raises the proportion of 
dead to wounded and missing com.pared with lists 
drawn up in the field as are the German lists, 
published most imperfectly after a great lapse of 
time. 
We have, I say, a multiple of dead to other 
casualties of almost exactly one in five. 
A¥hen we go into a fui-ther analysis we find 
that of the officers the killed make up nearly a 
third of the officer casualties, of the rank and file 
just less than a fifth. Such a disproportion is 
not abnormal and may pass vpithout comment. It 
is to be adversely judged in one of three cases : 
(1) When the men need leadership beyond 
the ordinary — in which case the officer losses are 
exaggerated. 
(2) When, during a great retreat, an army 
breaks down and the missing show very few 
officers in proportion to the rank and file.' 
(3) When there is heavy mortality from 
causes other than battle casualties, such mortality 
commonly falling more heavily upon the rank and 
file than upon the officers. 
None of these three elements have been pre- 
sent in the case of the British Expcdition.ary 
Force, and those who read these figare^j have 
reason to be proud of them. 
The next point we note is that tlie rate of 
loss is declining in proportion to the number of 
men employed. There was a moment in mid- 
winter, perhaps, when it Avas rising in proportion 
to the number of men emploj^ed. But the curA'e 
passed its maximum in the course of the winter. 
Thus, it is instructive to note that as early as the 
end of October more than a fifth of the present 
casualties had been experienced, although up t-o 
that time the very large reinforcement of the 
Expeditionary Force Imd hardly begun. 
The following three months only doubled the 
casualties. In other words, twice the amount of 
time accounted for twice the amount of 
casualties, although the amount of men. present 
M'as increasing continually. The succeeding four 
months rather more than doubled the casual- 
ties noted up to just after tJie end of January, 
and the rate thus established was more or les* 
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