LAND AND WATER 
October 30, 1915. 
But to prtt. n<l that the Prussian system is 
economical in life compared ^^'^h any rn^l, will 
not stand examination by any soldier in Luiopc. 
To attack in dense formation and to attack again 
and again, and again, to rush strong woi;ks by 
the mere niass of inen. to neglect fire discipline on 
account of this very insistence upon the value ot 
the swarm, and to iireach the doctrine that very 
heavy temporary losses are worth paying it a 
decision be achieved-all that is distinctly 1 rus- 
8ian, and all that has marked every Prussian 
effort throughout this war. 
It is a commonplace with all those who saw 
the fighting last vcar in the first battle of \ pres. 
W« saw it again tlie other day in front of Arras 
and I.a Bassee, again in the counter-attacks ot 
the Champagne, nearly 8.000 dead counted in 
front of t^e French and English lines comlnned, 
and it is going on at this moment in front ot Kiga. 
WOUNDS AND PATRIOTISM. 
It is not true that the Austro-Hungarian 
losses, save in the point of prisoners, are out ot 
proportion to the German, and it is true by every 
rule of evidence and by every rule of analogy 
that the German losses are higher m proportion 
to the effectives used than are the losses of those 
nations whom Germany in her folly proposed, a 
year ago, to destroy so rapidly. 
Here again the writer's mind must have 
troubled him somewhat because, after all, millions 
of men have actually seen the German method oi 
fighting, and even a neutral civilian population 
sets to hear of such obvious things as that. feo 
the next point that is made is by way of pallia- 
tion It may be true that tlie loss is very heavy, 
who knows 1 But, after all, what reo.lly counts is 
the dead loss, and we must always remember that 
a large number of wounded men get back again to 
the front. 
But here again there appears one ot those 
startling enormities— I can call them no less — 
with which German propaganda at home and 
abroad has made us familiar. We are told in this 
Dutch review that of a hundred men wounded 
only eleven among the Germans must be regarded 
as lost to the field ! 
Now, it is possible by juggling figures to 
make out a rather high proportion of men as re- 
turning to active service. If, for instance, you 
count only the men entering a certain tj-pe of 
hospital, then note the percentage that leave the 
hospital technically " cured," you may certainly 
give surprising results. But everybody knows per- 
fectly well how the matter stands in practice. We 
have all of us, alas, a numerous acrpaintance who 
have suffered in this war. We know how this 
friend is discharged " cured," but will never be 
capable of active exercise again. How another, 
though still able to perform some auxiliary service, 
is not free for the work he was doing before. We 
can all judge for ourselves about what the pro- 
portion IS of men who, having been wounded, can 
really return to exactly the same work they were 
performing before they were struck. And the 
statement that this ])roportion is eighty-nine per 
cent, is simply meaningless. While the German 
pro])aganda bureaux are about it they might just 
as well say it was ninety-nine or even one hundred 
per cent. It is in every service, in theory, round 
about sixty per cent., or rather less, and in practice 
somewhat below half; meaning by " theory " 
and " practice " that something rather less than 
two-thirds-a number varying slightly with d i- 
fercnt services, it is true-are marked as cap- 
able of further service," but that when it comes 
to using them in exactly the same circumstances 
as before, the number actually so returned is 
smaller in the degree I have named 
But to this explanation the writer feels that 
still another explanation is needed. He is trying 
to make his readers believe an impossibility. He 
brings in the argument I have just mentioned to 
back up what seems its weakness and proceeds 
to back it Hi) again by yet another statement, 
which I think we can all judge for ourselves. 
After telling us that only eleven per cent ot the 
men hit by fragments of shells and by bullets, 
with limbs blown off by higb explosives, &c., 
are incapacitated in the German service, he 
admits that in other services it must be mucli 
higher He goes on to say (he admits he has not 
the figures) that in France only just over half the 
wounded will probably be serviceable again— and 
•his explanation is that " these differences are at- 
tributable to superiority in organisation, hygienic 
treatment, superiority of German physique, and 
superiority of moral courage, and particularly the 
will to serve one's country." 
I do not think I am using too strong a sub- 
stantive when I use the English word " balder- 
dash " for this sort of thing. Just imagine a 
French or an English doctor telling a gaping 
world that his wounded would recover half as 
quickly again as the enemy's wounded because 
they were more patriotic ! 
The writer and his German informants 
quarrel with my statistics as published in 
Land and Water upon the ground that I 
have allowed eighty per cent, for Austrian man 
power as compared with German man power. 
But it is a perfectly sound calculation, and he does 
not use any arguments to rebut it. What he does 
is to say that the Austrian units in the field are in 
a smaller proportion to the Germans than eighty 
per cent. No doubt. But the observation is en- 
tirely beside the mark. When you are calculating 
in a war of exhaustion the enemy's remaining re- 
sources, the only thing j'ou can base your calcula- 
tion on is his census figures. Unless his power of 
equipment or munitionraent is defective, which, 
with the enemy, is unfortunately not the case, it is 
clearly his total man power that you consider 
in calculating ultimate exhaustion ■ — and the 
Austrian adult males are within a unit or so eighty 
per cent of the Germans. 
The w^riter concludes by assuring me by name 
(he mentions my name frequently during the 
article; he is more courteous in mentioning my 
name than I am in mentioning his — but then I do 
not know his name) that after the war I shall my- 
self personally be astonished to hear how large the 
German figures were. If they are anything like 
the figures thus doled out for the consumption of 
blameless neutrals and for the eager maw of the 
panic Press in this country I shall not only be 
astonished, but my whole philosophy will be 
turned upside down. For though I believe in an 
interference with the order of Nature to be pos- 
sible to a Divine Power and to have occurred in 
the process of history (a matter in which all my, 
readers will not agree with me), I do not think 
that the German Government at this moment is 
capable of working miracles. 
If I were asked why this particular kind of 
IQ 
