September 4, 1915. 
LAND AND W A T E E 
killed. The number of men sent overseas by 
Great Britain from the beginning of large opera- 
tions (the last ten days of August, 1914) to that 
date was somewhat less than one-tenth of the 
men put under arms by the German Empire alone. 
In making a calculation for the end of July 
we are dealing not with nine months, but with 
eleven. On the analog}' of the British losses, the 
German dead alone in the first nine months of the 
war would not have been less than 500,000 ; 
that is, supposing the German fighting to have 
been of not more than the same character and in- 
tensity as the British fighting. After eleven 
months one would get in the same proportion, and, 
always supposing the German fighting to have 
been no more severe and exhaustive in the latter 
than in the earlier part, one would have just over 
600,000 German dead. But the German fight- 
ing has, as a fact, been in the latter two or three 
of these eleven months far more severe in its 
effects. 
The mass of the British forces, those in 
Northern France, have stood for the most part 
upon the defensive in trench warfare during that 
j>eriod, consonant with the general plan upon all 
the Western front since the early summer. The 
same has been true of about half the German 
forces. But another portion of the German 
forces, rather le.ss than half, has been fighting in 
a desperate continued offensive of the most ex- 
pensive sort all through the summer in Poland. 
We certainly do not exaggerate if we add 10 per 
cent., or, to make the argument stronger, rather 
less, to the total number of German dead in the 
total period and c?,ll it, on the analogy of the 
British lists, 650,000 for the German Empire 
in the eleven months ending July 31. 
Xow let us check this hypothetical figure by 
the known figures of the Austro-Hungarian dead 
in the same period. They should come to 80 per 
cent, of the German, Jorce for force. That 
would give us 520,J0J Austro-Hungarian 
dead. Now we have as our known minimum for 
the Austro-Hungarian dead to July 1 about 
505,000. 
This line of argument, then, gives us on the 
analogy of the British losses a third figure, dif- 
ferent somewhat from the first two, and rather 
too high, but the exaggeration is not great. Upon 
this line of argument we should write down the 
total enemy dead at an amount three per cent. 
above that obtained from an examination of the 
Austro-Hungarian lists — for 520 is exactly three 
per cent, larger than 505 — and we would arrive, 
along this line of argument, at a total enemy loss, 
permanent and temporary, of 6,795,000. 
(IV.) SPECIAL INDICATIONS. 
Lastly, we come to the less valuable, but 
curious and interesting, scraps of evidence 
afforded by occasional pieces of news published 
in the enemy's and neutral papers and relative to 
particular categories of the enemy's fighting 
forces. 
Among these we have evidence due to the very 
proper and legitimate pride of certain German 
professions in the sacrifice they have made upon 
the field for their country. Now a curious piece of 
evidence emerges from these, and in nearly every 
case tallies with the conclusions we have already 
arrived at. A group of lawyers, for instance, 
have given their fellow citizens a list of their 
number dead in the field among those called to 
the colours or voluntarily enlisted. The Bavarian 
• .schoolmasters have done the same. Other special 
sections of the German population have favoured 
us with similar all-important information. And 
ire discover in every case that in the first ten or 
eleven months of the war these losses in dead fluc- 
tuate round about 10 PER CENT, of the total 
number of men engaged. Allowing for the fact 
that many of these particular professions would 
appear among the (reserve) officers and non-com- 
missioned officers which have suffered rather more 
heavily than the rank and file, and you come 
nearly to the same figures as at least every other 
line of argument has led you to. 
The German Empire has armed from 
7,000,000 to 7,500,000 of men so far. It 
should, therefore, have lost in dead — upon the 
proportion of these particular professions — one- 
tenth — that is, from 700,009 to 750,090. 
Allowing for the excess due to their particular 
position and the consequent preponderance of 
reserve officers among them, we can fairly s:alo 
that dov.n to at least more than 650,000. 
It is but a round figure and a rough estin ato 
taken from but a small corner of the total evidence 
available, but it is striking. Anyone reading this 
in connection with the rest of the evidence will 
agree that it allows us to set down for the German 
dead as a whole much that same average arrived 
at by the three other totally independent lines of 
examination. The first eleven months of war 
roughly corresponds to a total enemy loss, perma- 
nent and temporary, of 6,500,000 or there- 
abouts, and we set down that figure at the end of 
this subsidiary department of evidence as we set 
it down at the conclusion of the three larger argu- 
ments given above. 
SUMMARY. 
The reader who has been so patient as to 
follow me through this detailed piece of argument 
will appreciate that the four lines of argument 
pursued are quite independent one of another. 
Yet it must be admitted that these four dis- 
tinct lines of advance towards the solution of our 
problem, though they do not exactly coincide in 
their goal, yet establish final figures so near one 
to another that the margin of error is surpris- 
ingly small. 
We can be absolutely certain from these cal- 
culations alone — quite apart from all the mass of 
other information that reaches us and is kept 
secret by the authorities — that the enemy losses to 
the date July 31 were in their total no less 
than 6,500,000. To put them at 7,000,000, 
even counting all sick, deranged, and excluded 
from any cause whatsoever, would probably be too 
high. But to put them at 6J millions would 
certainly be too low. 
But these calculations refer only to the date 
July 31. We are now advanced by nearly five 
weeks from that date. We are dealing, not with 
eleven months of active operations on a large scale, 
but with more than twelve, of which the last has 
been particularly expensive and onerous to the 
enemy, because it has involved the immense losses 
suffered in the storming of the last positions of 
Kovno, the last positions at Novo Georgievsk, the 
heavy fighting over and beyond the Narev, the 
particularly expensive action at Wlodowa. and 
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