LAND AND WATER. 
August 14, 1915. 
stand the Eastern yosition unless we at least at- 
tempt a calculation. Vague general impression 
of exhaustion on one side or the other, or both, is 
useless to our purpose. Let us, therefore, rough 
and general as the result may be, attempt a 
calculation. 
The first thing we note is that the Russian 
losses have been mainly losses in men, rifles, and 
machine- guns. There have been no captures of 
ammunition at all, and very few guns taken. Of 
heavy guns hardly any. 
How many wounded Russians the enemy have 
picked up as these were left behind in the retreat 
we do not know. The proportion of unwounded 
prisoners has been, of course, very small. Bxit 
whatever the number of prisoners was, approxi- 
mately the same number of rifles have also been 
lost to our Ally. What is perhaps more serious 
is the veryheav7 loss in machine-guns. When a 
trench is taken or abandoned, or pounded to 
pieces under bombardment, the machine-guns 
defending it are usually captured by the advanc- 
ing enemy, or he finds them destroyed. In 
either case, a piece of machinery diflicult for the 
Russians to replace within a short period dis- 
appears. 
As with the wounded prisoners and their 
rifles, so with the machine-guns, we have not even 
rough estimates to guide us. The German figures, 
often accurate and a useful guide, are unfortu- 
nately worthless in this case, because the great 
General Staff has, ever since the beginning of the 
present Eastern campaign, undertaken as a deli- 
berate policy the publication of false returns. 
They are free to pursue this device if they believe 
that, through the intimidation of enemies or the 
heartening of theif own population, it will help 
thera to attain their military objects. But it 
makes any reliance upon their field figures for the 
moment hopeless. For instance, the other day 
in the Argonne they issued figures of the French 
prisoners which were actually in excess of the 
total losses on the whole French front in killed, 
wounded, and missing combined. They did much 
the same thing in the early part of June with re- 
gard to the Galician campaign — issuing figures 
of Russian prisoners which were equal, or even 
Blightly superior, to the total of all Russian losses 
in the Eastern theatre of war over the period 
named. 
Another perhaps less doubtful bufc still ex- 
tremely unsatisfactory way of guessing is to com- 
pare the number of prisoners in the enemy's camps 
as stated by the War Office at Berlin before the 
Eastern campaign began, and to compare it with 
the figures last given a few days ago. We must 
deduct from the difference some small munber to 
represent the few prisoners obtained on the Wes- 
tern fighting and upon the Italian front. 
Even this method is, I repeat, unsatisfactory. 
For the total figures of prisoners in the camps is, 
to our knowledge, swelled by the inclusion of 
civilian prisoners among the military. One case 
in point among hundreds is the case of the rail- 
way men of all ages taken prisoner at Amiens. 
Another, the case of the northern French towns 
and villages in which all the males between seven- 
teen and fifty too young or too old for service, or 
rejected for some physical reason, were sen* off 
as prisoners. The thing was a regular rule 
throughout the early days of the invasion. 
However, if we take the figures of prisoners 
given us before the Polish campaign, and compare 
them with those given a few days ago, we have a 
rough guide. The difference is 300,000. Take 
two-thirds of that to allow for the inclusfon of 
civilians, for admitted exaggeration, for deduc- 
tions due to captures ujwn the Southern and Wes- 
tern fronts, and you have a loss of 200,000 men, 
mostly wounded, falling to the enemy during the 
retreat. 
That is the first item. The loss of rifles will 
be far heavier. Jl^wst v/ounded and unwounded 
prisoners mean the loss of a corresponding num- 
ber of rifles, and for each rifle so lost at least 
another one is lost during so long a period of re- 
treat from neglect, or mischance, or confusion. If 
we say that the Russian armies in the East dur- 
ing the last three months have lost half a million 
rifles, we are {>erhaps within the mark. It is, 
of course, pure guesswork, but we can hardly be- 
lieve they have lost less. 
What are we to allow for the losses in killed 
and wounded, other than wounded prisoners ? 
I suggest it is again pure guesswork — some- 
thing under the million. 
It has proved a rough working rule in this 
war in all the services that, apart from the large 
surrenders which marked the defeats of the Allies 
in the earlier part of the campaign, the killed and 
the prisoners more or less balanced each other 
whenever a belt of country was pas.sed over by the 
advance of one party and retreat of the other. If 
a sufficient lapse of time be considered this rule 
is found to work — very roughly, of course— over 
the small belt across which fighting has fluctuated 
in the West, and usually over the larger ones in 
the East. On the average it is found that the 
number of enemy remaining in the hands of the 
advancing party, wounded and unwounded, is 
roughly equal to the number killed. Upon this 
computation we should count at least 200,000 
Russian dead during the retirement. But it may 
be suggested that the real number would be some 
what higher, for in step after step of the retire- 
ment there has been heavy and prolonged bom- 
bardment, to which the Russians could ill reply, 
and the accurate destruction of trenches. If, 
however, one put as a maximum a quarter of a 
million one would probably be beyond the mark. 
We further know now that though the pro- 
portion of killed to the total losses is as low as 
one in eight, or even one in ten in what may be 
called " open fighting " (such as were the first 
weeks of the campaign, the first operations in the 
Dardanelles, etc.), yet in the defence of trenches 
and theii capture, and in the very close fighting 
which follows an attempted advance after their 
capture, the proportion of killed to Avounded and 
missing is much higher — more like one in four. 
We shall, then, suggest for our total casual- 
ties, apart from prisoners on the Russian side, 
during the great retreat, something in the neigh- 
bourhood of one million. It may be appreciably 
more; it can hardly be less. Particularly when 
we consider the prolonged and violent close fight- 
ing which marked various lines where the enemy 
was checked and held by rearguards. 
Here, then, we have losses temporary and per- 
manent (and temporary losses count for some time 
forward — probably for all the remaining dura- 
tion of this enemy offensive in the East) amount- 
ing to more than a million men and perhaps half 
a million rifles, a great but unknown number of 
machine-guns, very^ few field guns, no stores of 
ammunition, and hardly any heavy artillery at all 
