I, .'\ .\ u 
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XV)l-T. 
was carefully kept back until the promise of a large 
production was assured. It is further to be hoped 
■that the soldiers, who alone are competent in this 
matter, ha\c given due warning for the accumula- 
tion of shrapnel now. It will be the deciding 
missile the moment mobiht\- is restored to the 
armies. 
The figures wiiich have been given with the 
object of startling the public mean notliing until 
their sources and value are examined. The figure 
25o,oooaday " for the German output" is nibbish. 
It was not "The (iermans." it was the enemy as a 
whole who did not reach, but onl\- ga\e it oiit 
that they had reached, a prt)duction of a quarter 
of a million rounds a day in the early summer. 
Their fire never warranted the statement, nor was 
the statement confined to iiigh explosive shell. 
Apart from the enormous amount of naval work, our 
own high explosive shell at the beginning of the 
new munitionment was largely of high calibre, 
representing, therefore, more than is represented 
by the mere numbers of shell, and even then it 
stood to the enemy's production in a rather higher 
relation than did our front to the fronts held by 
the enemy. 
These are the plain facts of the matter, and 
it is a very shameful thing that men should so far 
forget the public interest in the course of such a 
war as this, and should so far prefer their own 
petty schemes, as to have used the matter for 
personal advantage. 
ALLIED AND ENEMY WASTAGE. 
The following questions are often asked when 
enemy wastage is considered : — 
First : Is not the Allied wastage perhaps 
equal or superior, and if this is the case, how does 
even a high result of enemy wastage advantage us ? 
Second : Do not modern aids, especiallv 
the machine gun, enable a front to be held with 
such few men that the wastage hitherto suffered, 
or likely to be suffered for a very long time, can 
have no effect upon the strength of the fronts 
held by the enemy ? 
Third : Do we not overestimate the enemy's 
wastage considering the much smaller numbers 
issued officially by the Germans ; considering his 
recent alarming statement that nearly qo per cent, 
of his wounded return to the firing line, and con- 
sidering the new recruitment he can get from the 
Turks, as also the addition of the Bulgarians who 
Iiave recently joined him. 
Fourth : Of what advantage is it to analyse 
in detail the German wastage alone when there is 
also the Austro-Hungarian to be considered and 
the reserve of man-power in that Empire as well 
as the Turks and Bulgarians ? 
I will deal with these four principal questions 
in their ordpr : — '■ 
(i) Is not the Allied wastage perhaps equal 
or superior to the enemy's, and if this is the case 
how does even a high result of enemv wastage 
advantage us ? 
The wastage of the Allies as a whole is pro- 
oably about equal to the wastage of the enemy as a 
whole. It will })robablv be discovered when full 
figures are available that by the end of the year 
1915 each part}' had out of 'action from all causes 
at that moment something over six and a half 
million men. 
It is possible that the Allied wastage is slightly 
superior to the enem\- wastage because during the 
great Austro-German advance through Poland 
last summer the Russians suffered all the conse- 
quences of a retreat— that is : Many of their 
slightly wounded would fall as prisoners into the 
hands' of the advancing enemy and could not 
therefore return, when they were cured, to the 
fighting line. It is further true that during a 
retreat, even one so slow and so stubbornly con- 
tested as the Russian retreat through Poland,* 
it is impossible to avoid the occasional isolation of 
units which fall into the hands of the enemy. 
Also the Russians could not reply to the enemy 
with the same distant heavy gun fire which they 
themselves suffered. On the other hand the early 
enemv oftensi\-es were extremely expensive. More 
expensi\-e, in proportion, than tlie later Allied 
offensives in the West, and there has been a perma- 
nent superiority of heavy artillery work on the 
side (vf the Allies on all the Western fronts for 
months -Italian. French and British. 
In the matter of prisoners the enemy also 
has the advantage over us. The Russians have 
lost quite twice as many prisoners as the Austrians ; 
the French and Britisli rather more than the 
number of prisoners lost by the German Empire. 
On the difference the enemy probably holds a 
million more prisoners than do the Allies. He 
has perhaps 2 J millions (excluding those civilians 
whom he persists in counting as prisoners) to the 
Allies who hold less than ij millions — counting 
the Austrian prisoners taken by the Italians and 
by the Serbians. 
On the other iiand, we must remember that 
of these prisoners a considerable number are 
wounded men who would never have returned as 
efficients to the firing line. 
Even if we discover that the Allied losses are 
somewhat superior to the enemy losses the margin 
of power is overwhelmingly in favour of the Allies. 
It is true that only trained, officered and equipped 
men can be counted. A mere calculation of popula- 
tion is folly. But if we take trained men either 
already equipped or in process of equipment — 
men who will certainl)' be equipped before next 
spring — we have in Russia many more behind 
the line than are at present engaged ; in Italy as 
many behind the line as are at present engaged, 
and in Britain already one and a half times as 
many as are already engaged. Italy can call up, 
train and add half as many again : Britain half 
as many again ; Russia quite double. The French 
alone of the Allied nations are exhausted in a 
degree comparable— though not equal— to the cen 
tral Empires in propoi-iion to their population. 
The total recruitment " in sight " behind the 
Allied lines is not less at this moment than five 
millions of men, and even behind these there is 
further man-power available. 
The enemy is in no such condition. We know 
from the fact that he is training his class of 1916 
and has warned (but not yet called up) his class of 
1917, that he is circumstanced much as the French 
are, or rather a little less favourably. He has 
nothing corresponding to the millions in training, 
and equipped or waiting equipment, which exist 
among the other Allies. He has received the 
recruitment of the Bulgarian army. It adds about 
5 per cent, to his forces in the field. What he may 
add by the equipment and training of further 
Turkish recruitment is variously estimated, but he 
cannot conceivably add another 10 per cent, to his 
existing forces from this source. Lastly, this 
new recruitment of his cannot be used upon the 
•i'i-(v.u tlif San to the tin-e -licn the Austro-Gcriiian .-idvancu 
poiprnl fiut. ■ the average pace was iniy jurt over a mile a day. 
