March 9, 191O. 
L A X D AND W A T E R 
tluinib with regard to them. On the average 60 per cent.* 
of the wounded are regarded as cured and are again ])ut 
at the disposition of the military authorities. Tiuit 
average is exceeded in many particular cases, especially on 
the Western front where there are excellent communica- 
tions, fair climate and elaborate hospital facilities close at 
hand, numerous well provided towns, ample and ex- 
cellent water supply, ample medicaments, a wealthy and 
numerous civilian population to give help. 
It was often not nearly reached on the Eastern front 
where, especially in winter, all these conditions were 
reversed.* 
But that medical task once accomplished there 
remains a second task for the authorities governing the 
armies in the held, who alone can decide what the man 
thus returned to them is really capaljle of doing. 
It is when they come to making tliis last selection 
that the much smaller munber of those who arc actualh' 
sent back to perform the same duties as they performed 
before they were wounded or sick, begins to appear. 
An exact calculation of that reduction is exceedingly 
dilhcult to make, because the stages between ser\-ices 
which even a sick or maimed man can attempt to render 
and full active service arc subject to innumerable 
gradations. 
The man in the highest authority who deals fust with 
the returns as a whole will give you the highest hgure. 
As voii go down to the more local and particular 
authorities the hgure rapidly dwindles. 
When you come to the regiment it is surprisingly 
I'jwer than it was at the base. 
When you come to the company officers — who 
nlone can really test a man's capacity to undertake the 
lull strain ^\hich he was undertaking before he was sent 
back from the front — ihcy would gi\'e you the lowest 
hgure of all. 
Xow it is precisely that last or lowest hgure — the 
company or battery figure — which is the only one of real 
value. How many men sent back wounded from the full 
work .and strength of the fi.tjhting line come back to the 
same sort of ;;ervice as they left ? 
\\'hen you ask that question you get indeed \-ery 
varying answers, but answers which show a very large 
diiuinution of the original 60 odd ])cr cent, who were 
ri'lurned from hospital as " ht for service." 
No one can profess to expert knowledge in the 
matter, there are no detailed statistics beyond the first 
rough ones. One can only rely upon the experience 
of the men who have to handle and detail for duty the 
smaller units. But I think I am well within the mark if 
I say that by the time one is considering the active work 
in the fighting line not more than two-thirds of the original 
mnuber sent back from hospital find their way to the full 
service which they had left. 
I may be wrong here. The real number of those 
who actually return fit for full service may reach as high 
a proportion as 40 per cent of all those originally 
iidmitted to hospital for wounds. Let us take it at so 
liigh a figure and call it 40 per cent. 
Then we have in the category of wounded who can 
no longer return /o full active service in the German Army. 
up to the end of i<)i5, and who are therefore permanently 
off th2 strength 1,800,000 min. 
It is that figure less the few who, at iirst, replaced 
fitter mill thin thsmislves in ' th:; auxiliary s.;rvice.-;. 
Scale the ligare do'vn as generously as you will and you 
will not get it bjlow 1,600,000. 
(rf) 77j;: Sick. 
There remains the category of the sick. 
This category is exceedingly impartant for 3 reisan-;. 
Fir.3t that it is never published in any of the lists available, 
secondly (and consequently) that public opinion ujver 
allows for it. Tiiirdly that, in the main, it a-'c )aats for 
the very large difference between any published list of 
casualties, however accUrati), and the real number " off 
the strength." ■ 1. .:., 
We can only take very rough figures and remember 
to weight the scales as heavily as possible against 
jursilvos— but rough figures wj have. 
'•' (".[:.t un >\y^z\x\ liaipitals U u'c iu.i;li lii,:^',i-;r li^nro-i. N' )l i')ly in 
.his comilry. 
• c.f. corUvLU lliiu;4iri,iii lioipit.vl rcptirU wliirli •^.)L thi\)ti.!ii to Hi 
Miintry Jtiring the winter lis;htin'.j in tUc; C.up.ilhiaiu a ycir u..;u 
fluJ appeared in tUu London press 
We know trom the experience of the Allies certain 
main facts which, however broadly, help to guide us. 
First : Tiie proportion of sick in this campaign has 
been far lower than was expected or than has commonly 
been known in the past, because there have been no 
epidemics, save in one or two isolated fields of the war. ■ 
Secondlv : The number of sick discharged as cured' 
is a much larger percentage than the number of wounded 
discharged as cured. 
Lastly we have the fact that, from the nature of 
the war during 15 months before the end of 1915, 
the trench warfare produced sickness (and especially 
sickness of the sort that disabled a man) largely in pro- 
])ortion to the severity of humidity and cold. The 
enteric group which was the cmse of the older armies has 
largely spared the present war, but frostbite, pulmonary 
disease and the rest have been in excess of the old ratio', 
in proportion at least to other ailments. 
Considering all these things, how shall we arrive at 
a fair minimum of the number of men no longer of full use 
on account of sickness ? 
Let us first of all make a very large allowance indeed 
for the complete cures. Let us call them 70 per cent. 
That is, of course, a great deal too high upon any'of the. 
evidence obtainable among the Allies. But precisely 
because this element of the problem is a vague one are 
we under the necessity of allowing for the very largest' 
])ossible margin of error. 
In the same way we will not take the observed j)ro- 
portion of sick to wounded as being pretty well ccjual 
in all the sanitary formations (not, of course, the hospitals 
at home) at any one moment as a whole. We will take it 
as only two-thirds. 
If we admit those two elements we get as low a 
figure for the whole war up to the end of 1915 as two 
million admissions to hospital from sickness of all kinds 
whatsoever in the German service. Of these again let 
us admit that 70 per cent, arc complete cures, sending 
the man back to exactly the same duties as he could 
discharge before he entered. That again is an admission 
heavily in favour of the enemy and much beyond 
the truth, but we adopt it for the same reason, and 
we allow that, of two milhon cases, 1,400,000 return as 
strong as they were before to their old duties. 
That leaves us 600,000 men lost from permanent 
sickness in the period up to the end of 1915 off the full 
strenyth to the enemv. 
SORTES SHAKESPEARIAN/E, 
By SIR SIDNEY LEE. 
THE PRAYER OF GERMAN FINANCE. 
God save the mark! 
ROMEO AND JULIET. UI., ii.. 5,?. and 
\. HENRY IV., I., iii, 56. 
THE RETRENCHMENT COMMITTEE'S REPORT. 
Nothing zvill come of nothing : s-pea/c 
again. 
KING LEAR. I., i., 89. 
GER.MAN-AMERICAN DIRGE. 
/ shal^ despair; there is no creature 
loves me. 
And if I die, no sonl xvil^ pity me. 
RICHARD in., V. iii., 2I0-I. 
