LAND AND WATER. 
February 2J,, I'jiO 
GERMAN LOSSES. 
A FINAL STATEMENT CALCULATED TO THE END 
OF THE YEAR 1915. 
By Hilaire Belloc. 
A VISIT to what is ^^•ithout doubt tlie best source 
of information in Europe, the permission to 
publish some part — and asutficient part — of the 
evidence there obtainable, and what I hope to 
be a clear exposition of this evidence enable me this week 
to put before my readers a statement of the enemy's 
losses up to the end of last year, which will, I trust, be 
conclusive. 
I have hitherto published in this journal frequent 
examinations of the enemy's losses. 
In the earlier days of the war, an analysis of this kind 
was necessarily very uncertain. The methods whereby 
results could ije controlled and corrected, were not yet 
based upon any full experience. A'arious forms of e\i- 
dence later obtainable with increasing amplitude were in 
the first months of the campaign totally lacking. It was 
not until the course of tirne produced a greater exactitude 
that the analysis of the enemy's losses could achieve its 
full value. 
Roughly speaking, the uncertain period with a large 
margin of error lasted into the early months of 1915. 
It svas with the spring of that year that the oppor- 
tunities of analysing the German lists, of comparing them 
with other forms of evidence, and of reducing the margin 
of error to reasonable proportions began. With the sum- 
mer, these methods were fully developed and by the 
autumn they were complete. 
To give but one example. In the early days of 
the war, the average delay in tlie publication of 
names upon the enemy's lists' was not established at all. 
It was not until well "into the winter that this essential 
factor in the calculation could be set down even approxi- 
mately. It was not till the following summer that we 
f ould arrive at our average of delay with exactitude. And 
this tarcUness in reaching so important a result was due 
to the fact that certain names were not included until 
several months after the date of the casualties referred 
to. 
Here is another example ; in the first fightmg which 
was open fighting with troops in perpetual and rapid 
movement, one was only able to calculate the proportion 
of wounded to dead upon the known average of the past. 
Given a certain number of dead, one multiplied by six or 
seven, and reached a very approximate and doubtful figure. 
No one had any idea what the proportion would be when 
the novel form of trench warfare which has now charac- 
terised the war for fifteen months, began. It was not 
until this novel form of warfare, trenches subjected to 
the modern high explosive shell of all calibre? and to the 
shrapnel of the quick-firing gun, and to high explosive 
mining, casualties from sickness under those conditions, 
from shock, etc., were present in a very large number and 
over a cpnsiderable space of time, that the proportion of 
wounded and sick to dead could be exactly established 
for such conditions. 
In the last few months my readers will have noticed 
that the calculations published in these columns not only 
claimed a much greater exactitude than had been possible 
in the past, but also repeated without hestitation con- 
clusions already arrived at. There was no need to correct 
and diminish former estimates, because the mass of evi- 
dence available had become so large that the results 
obtained were certain. The margin of error had been 
reduced to a very small fraction indeed. 
II. 
!Huch about the time when this mass of evidence had. 
as it" were, crystallised, and was beginning to give ils 
permanent and indisputable results, it happened that (for 
various reasons which need not here be discussed) a change 
of mood came over great sections of opinion in this country. 
There was a great increase in the depression of those who 
had always exaggerated the strength of the enemy, and 
there was a considerable increase in the numbers of tliuso 
who seemed actually to delight in taking the gloomiest 
possible view of the situation. It was only a mood ; 
but it was a mood which spread rapidly, wliich sometimes 
took violent forms, and which, in the absence of a strong 
censorship, began to take a general possession of the 
public. 
Nevertheless, there is one authority to which, 
happily, the public has lent attention, even at the worst 
moment of this mood — which one may set at about two 
or two and a half months ago. That authority consisted 
in " official " pronouncements. 
It was recognised that the men who had made it 
their business all their lives to compile and correct such 
statistics were worthy of a hearing. And it was guessed, 
though perhaps only imperfectly understood, that the 
soldiers at Headquarters in the great AUiance, and particu- 
larly in France, had through the mass of their own sta- 
tistics, through the enormous number of documents, 
taken upon the field, public and private, through the 
nij'riad examinations of prisoners, a power at their 
chsposal of arriving at exact conclusions, which power 
was infinitely superior to anything that could be exer- 
cised by any private individual. 
The conclusions thus arrived at by the Bureaux 
of the Higher Command, particularly by the French, were 
to some extent made public. The French Government 
gave not infrequently, certain large and general results 
which had been arrived at. 
In a greater degree, though in a degree highly res- 
tricted, details of the methcds used were communicated 
to not a few of those whose business it was to follow and 
explain the war in public journalism. Much of what was 
told them was not for publication. It could be used, but 
its nature was not to "be divulged. 
The ^•ery lengthy articles which have appeared in 
L.VXD ASD Watkk in the past enjoyed certain advantages 
of this kind. Most of what appeared in them had no 
such oflicial basis, but were due to the author's own 
deductions. Occasionally an important piece of evidence, 
however, was available and was used. In neither case 
could the author claim any official authority and the critics 
of this journal, together with those who, while not directly 
attacking its conclusions, published of late almost any 
statistics, however wild, that could feed or continue tin; 
depression now passing, wcve free to quote what was said 
here as no more than a baseless private opinion. It was as 
a fact, in any case, much more than that, for it was 
always backed up by detailed reasoning and the full 
quotation of the sources upon which that reasoning was 
based. But, it had no sanction. 
I have recently obtained permission to give, with 
regard to a considerable part of the evidence obtained, 
such publicity as will, I think, confirm my readers in what 
they arc about to follow. 
I shall begin by showing how we can arrive with an 
absolute certainty that we are at least not exaggerating, 
at a certain minimum of the German dead up to the end 
of the year IQ15. 
It ' is upon the total real number of dead at 
any moment that the greater part of casualty statistics 
must be built, and that is why I make it the first 
point in this final, and I hope decisive, study. If I 
were merely to say that we know the German dead, u); 
to the end of the year 1915, to exceed one million, it would 
be mere alfirmation. My readers will see that such a 
statement can be rigidly proved. 
