LAND AND WATER 
September 4, 1915. 
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i,\M\ circlf of men who have Ijeen wounded, or who 
have fallen ill, who have come home, and who have 
"■one out again witliin a short time. But we are 
inted will) manv c<i.ses 
al.><o each of us acquainted will) many c<i.ses in 
which a man ha.s cojne home wounded or ill, has 
left ho.spital. but ha.s remained still suffering from 
the con.sequences of his wound. He ha.s had either 
to take u|) civilian em[)loyment or to undertake 
duties at a base, or in .some other auxiliaiy form. 
Even if he goes back to the actual fighting line he 
often jnust be used in capacities other than his 
original stM-vice. 
A superficial view might insist ujxm the fact 
that though such men might not be able to go back 
U> the ligliting line, yet they mu.st still be counted 
as part oi the army, because they can be used, as 
a rule, in some au.xiliary fa.shioji. But a little 
consideration will show that this argument is fal- 
lacious. Tbere is only a certain proportion of 
men required in the auxiliary services of an army. 
'J'o swell these with men discharged fn>m hospital 
but not rejlly fit for the figbting line is not to 
return them to the strength of the army at all. 
In other words, those so-called " temporary 
l(Ks.ses which never find their way back to the fight- 
ing line l)ecomc, after a comparatively small 
number have been absorbed into tbe auxiliary 
services, e^juivalent to permanent losses so far as 
the real strength of an anny is concerned. 
Here, ao^ain, it is impossible to establish an 
exact coefficient or to say that of all temporary 
losses such and such a proportion are lost to 
active service. What we can do is to fix a limit 
certainly in ejcfss of the truth so as to weight the 
scales uijuinst ourselves when we are calculating 
enemy losses and to say that if, of total casualty 
lists, one-third represent .so-called " temporary 
losses," then the fiyuie One-quarteP is quite 
certainly larger than the true number of those 
that actually return to the fighting force and can 
bf 1/sed upon the same active service as they 
afforded before their woiind or sickness. 
With these postulates clearly defined, let us 
proceed to an examination of those various con- 
verging lines of analysis which lead us to a sound 
average estimate of the enemy's los.ses in this war. 
There are four main independent lines of 
inquiry along which we can proceed. 
(I.) The lists published by the enemy himself 
—which is the only complete documentary basis 
tor our analysis. 
(II.) Documents captured from the enemy or 
found upon the persons of dead and wounded or 
prisoners, and verl^al evidence obtained from the 
interrogation of prisoners, all indicating the 
losses ot particular units. The survey of a very 
large number of such cases wiU probably give one 
a good judgment of the average losses of all the 
units engaged. 
r.f H^^^'^ Analogj^ from the corresj>onding losses 
of other combatant forces in the field, particularly 
our own, with regard to which we have the most 
^™P/ete and the latest information 
(IV ) The inferences to be drawn from 
2S\v^tr'""^ ''^"" '^^'^ '^' general S 
amm,t ^ f -^ enemy-^.g., the admitted losses 
(I) THE ENEMY LISTS. 
We have lists of casualties— temporary and 
permanent combined-throughout the wh4 "f 
the enemy's forces up to July 31 ; that is, covering 
twelve months of war conditions, and rather more 
than eleven months of fighting upon the grand 
scale. 
These lists give one a total of 5,266,783. 
Now this great number is quite certainly far 
l)elow the truth, and the proof of this I shall pro- 
ceed to establish. I cannot hope to establish an 
exact deficit and show to a few nundreds how far 
below the truth it is, but I can put before my 
readers evidence which they will, I believe, regard 
as conclusive and which will i)errait us to arrive 
at a, certain minimum at least in the matter. 
We note, in the first place, that this figure, 
5i266,783, is formed by the addition of two 
different sets of figures, the one relating to the 
German Empire, the other to the Austro-Huo- 
garian Empire. 
The first of these items, the total casualties 
apj)earing in all the lists (except the naval list) 
of the German Empire up to the end of July, 
gives the precise figure 2,178,683. 
The Austro-Hungarian figure is of another 
kind. It is an estimate formed by a comparison 
of Austrian and Hungarian lists of casualties, 
w ith the statistics obtained from the military hos- 
pitals. There is, in such a calculation, necessity 
for continual checking in order to prevent over- 
lapping. It is obvious, for instance, that you 
must not add the wounded in your casualty lists 
to the wounded in your hospitals, or you "would 
be counting most of your wounded twice over. It 
is equally obvious that if your w^ounded in the 
hospitals come to much more than your wounded 
in the casualty lists, then the larger number may 
safely be taken as the nearest to the truth. This 
calculation of Austro-Hungarian losses, though 
minute, cannot carry the thing quite up to date. 
Ihe very hea^y fighting in Poland adds daily 
thousands of casualties which will only appear 
much later in the official lists or in the statistics 
ot the hospitals. 
At any rate, this Austro-Hungarian estimate 
works out at 3,088,100 men. That the esti- 
mate is .somewliat beloAv the mark and at tho 
same time not much below^ it may be proved by 
subjection to one test— the number of prisone/s 
included. For here we can check the enemy's 
statements by the Allies' returns, 
eo^,"^^! Austro-Hungarian list allows fqr 
580,000 prisoners upon the Russian front 
and tor 13,500 upon the Italian front The 
actual figures are a little over 608,000 on the 
Russian and about 18,000 on the Italian front. 
Allowing for a certain small percentage of 
error due to the fact that the side which loses 
the prisoners will usually refuse to allow some 
tew of them to be really military losses (doctors, 
tor instance, and occasional individuals present 
m some not purely military capacity), and to the 
tact that the side which takes prisoners will 
always give a maximum number, there is vet here 
a slight excess in the true figui-es as against the 
Austro-Hungarian list, which we may ascribe to 
the factor of time. 
It always takes a little time to get in all your 
results, especially to discover who among the 
missing are dead, and who taken prisoner. 
Next, let us note, for the purposes of this 
analysis, the number admittedly killed and dead— 
for this is nearly always the number most fully 
set out in any official list. 
