Septensl^er 4, 1915. 
LAND AND .WATER 
This number in the case of the Austro- 
Hungarian estimate is 50*^,000. 
Here, again, it is evident that we are deal- 
ing with general figures arrived at by checking 
several categories, and not the figures of a single 
official list. For we are given the numbers only in 
thousands, whereas a single official list would give 
them clown to the last units. 
We may take it that such a list of killed and 
dead includes, besides killed on the field, deaths 
from disease, and deaths of wounded in hospital. 
It would be unwise to regard it as much 
below the truth. It may be far below the truth. 
It will certainly be a little below the truth 
from that same factor of time mentioned above. 
But if we put the matter in round figures, and 
speak of somewhat over half a million Austro- 
Hungarian dead up to the end of July we shall 
be putting the matter accurately enough for the 
purposes of this argument, for we have a mini- 
mum, at least, upon which to calculate. 
We decide from their own statements that 
the commanders of this unfortunate Empire have 
lost rather more than TOO, 000 dead, just 
over €00,000 in prisoners, and in all 
casualties, ^jermanent and temporary, dead, 
wounded. nrisoners, and sick, well over 
?, 000,000. 
iNow let us use the knowledge thus acquired 
for a severe correction of the German figures. 
We find the German lists up to the same date 
give us no more than 2,178,683 — the figures 
quoted above. In other words, Austria-Himgary, 
with but 80 per cent, of man-power, confesses 
apparently to over 50 per cent, more losses. 
Why is this ? The answer is not far to seek. 
This total of the casualty lists issued in 
Germany up to July 31 suffers at the outset from 
two admitted deficits. 
First, cases of sickness are not mentioned. 
Secondly, lists are never complete to date by 
a very long way. Hosts of names appear tardily, 
weeks or months late. 
What ought to be added for cases of sick- 
ness we cannot exactly tell; but we know that 
this unknown factor must also go far to explain 
the very grave discrepancy between the published 
figures and the truth which we are about to 
establish. 
If it be asked how we know that the lists 
published in Germany are thus imperfect, the 
answer is that we have at least five lines of con- 
verging proof in the matter : 
(a) The fact just mentioned that the dates 
attached to the loss of individuals are often in 
arrears, sometimes twelve months in arrears, 
frequently four or five months in arrears, and 
very frequently indeed six weeks or two months 
in arrears. 
(b) The fact that the Allied authorities note, 
whenever there is a local advance or a capture of 
prisoners, the names, ages, and matricular 
numbers of the German dead, wounded, and cap- 
tured. These are compared with the published 
lists of German casualties, and a regular propor- 
tion of them is discovered to be absent from those 
lists, not even counted among the missing. 
(c) The fact that the relatives in Germany 
of men who have fallen or who have been cap- 
tured, finding themselves no longer in reception 
of correspondence and unable to get into touch 
with their soldiers, but finding no mention of their 
names in the casualty lists, write and complain to 
their Government, especially in the case of the 
wealthier classes. 
(d) The very heavy fighting in Poland, giving 
the most recent material for these lists, appears 
altogether below its due proportion in the lists, 
an error not due to deliberate falsification, but 
to that factor of time. 
(e) Documents taken in the course of fight- 
ing, detailing the losses of units, do not corre- 
s]x»nd to the German central lists, which give the 
losses in the said units always, or nearly always, 
below the notes established in the field; and that 
in the case of losses now many months old — in- 
deed from the beginning of the vear. 
We are justified, then, in saying from all 
these main lines of proof and from other minor 
methods which I have not quoted (because they 
would be superfluous) that the official central 
German lists are always very much below the 
true figures. 
Now let us attack the problem from another 
front and try and see how much below they 
probably are. 
We have the following known factors in our 
indeterminate equation : 
(a) Austria-Hungary represents in total 
man-power almost exactly 80 per cent, of the 
German man-power. 
(b) Austro-Hungarian losses must be, accord- 
ing to the nature of the fighting, counting the 
geriods of relative quiescence (as in the South 
'olish sectors during the winter) much the same 
in their various categories as the German losses : 
with this exception, that Austria-Hungary has 
lost about double the number of prisoners that 
Germany has; while, on the other hand, Austria- 
Hungary, until the great Polish offensive, was 
not occupied in those violent attacks so extremely 
expensive in dead and severely wounded, which 
occupied the operative part of the German forces 
during all the autumn and early winter upon the 
Western front in Flanders, and upon the Eastern 
before Warsaw. 
Taking, then, the Austro-Hungarian losses 
up to the end of July at 80 per cent, of the 
corresponding German losses, we arrive at the 
following figures : The total Austro-Hungarian 
dead are certainly over 501,000 up to that 
date, and may be as high as 505,000 or more. 
They arc. at any rate, in round figures over the 
500.000. 
Upon the same scale the German dead to the 
same date will give us certainly over 620,000. 
The German wounded and sick of all cate- 
gories upon the same ratio give us no less than 
2,500,000. For the Austrian wounded and 
sick are just over 2,000,000 and this, at the 
proportion of 80 per cent, of Austrians to Ger- 
mans, gives one 2,500,000 German wounded 
and sick. 
Now, thus checked by the proportion of the 
Austro-Hungarian losses (admitting the much 
larger number of Austro-Hungarian prisoners — 
over 600,000 Austro-Hungarian prisonere to, say, 
under 300,000 Germans — but neglecting (to our 
disadvantage) the probable superior number of 
German dead and wounded as compared with 
Austro-Hungarian) this would give us for the 
total German figures — killed, wounded, sick, and 
prisoners of all categories, putting the German 
prisoners as low as 250,000—3,370,000 in 
round numbers. 
Remember that in all this we have carefully, 
