L A K D A N I) \\- A T E R 
March 9, njiG. 
So lar wc lia\c now cstiiblishcd all the four categories 
of absolute jx-rmanent loss. 
The first category arrived ai b\, the call illation 
already presented to my readers gives us one inillioii dead. 
The second category gi\es us about a quarter 0/ a 
milliun prisoners. 
The third category, the permanently disabled 
wounded, gives us 1,600,000. 
The fourth categorj', the permanently disabled from 
sickness gives us 600,000. 
\\e should have altogether from these categories just 
under three million — 2.850,000 men. 
Before leaving that point of the permanent loss I 
nuist emphasise again the deliberately low figures ad- 
mitted. 
To say that for every two men dead in a prolonged 
war you ha\e barely three men maimed is obviously to 
put Xhv maimed far too low. To say that for every three 
men disabled by wounds >ou have little more than one 
man disabled by sickness is to put the disabled from 
sickness far too low. But I am admittedly putting things 
at their very minimum. / am putiini; them as they n-uuld 
b: put by ait enemy who should have to convince as iccll 
IIS he could some neutral statesman that his losses were 
of the very lowest sort. 
Well then, to this number just short of three million 
(2,830,000) which are the minimum permanent dead loss, 
what have we to add for the wounded and sick that will 
ultimately return, but are still in hospital or in con\ales- 
cence ? 
There agam we have the analogy of the Allied 
statistics to guide us. The average period in hospital 
and convalescence is four months. The admis.sions to 
hospital per month counting those only who will ulti- 
mately emerge cured and counting sick and wounded 
together cannot jwssibly, for an army of the (ierman 
numbers, be less than 100,000. W'c have, therefore, to 
add to our total a floating balance of 400,000, and we 
bring to the end of the year an irreducible minimum 
off the strength of three and a quarter million. 
****** 
Broad Checks on this Minimum Estimate. 
Whenever in human affairs an estimate is based 
upon no more than the careful addition of absolute 
minima, it is necessarily so much below the truth as 
to pro\oke ridicule. 
If, for instance, I were to take the minimum con- 
ceivable income, judging all circumstances most favour- 
ably for the taxed and against the Treasury, of ten 
wealthy men, \ should cheat the Exchequer badly. The 
tax gatherers' estimate might double that minimum ; 
it would at any rate enormously exceed it. 
Have we any other methods by which to check our 
result and to decicle, not perhaps by how much it is too 
little — for it is necessarily that — but at least that it is 
too little within a large amount ? 
We have several. 
(i). — We have the knowledge conveyed by the Intelli- 
gence Uepartrtients that the Germans created no new 
formations after last I-'ebruary ; that their losses up to 
that moment had on the a\-erage been at the rate of close 
on a quarter of a million a month, and that their drafts 
since that moment had been on an average about 200,000 a 
month. 
l-'rom this external check one arrives at losses a 
great deal above ji millions. 
(2). — We have another exceedingly \ aluable check of a 
general sort. It is the fact that the total amount off the 
strength of a force at any moment is actually greater than the 
casualty lists up to that moment, because sickness and other 
" causes more than make up for the return of wounded. 
Every contemporary army of the Allies to-day. and every 
army of the past confirms this truth. 
(3). — \\'e have the following invaluable point upon 
the condition of the German effectives at the present 
moment : 
The Erench Class '16 after many months of training, 
is not yet in the fighting line. Few ^■olunteers from it 
were admitted. But much of the (ierman Class 16, 
from which very many volunteers have been admitted is, 
and has been for some time, in the fighting line as we 
know from ])risoners. Only a fifth of it or so remains 
in the depots. .\nd that although the average (ierman 
l)eriod of training in this war is less than half as long as 
the Erench. 
These last two ])oints combined are conclusive as to 
the relative exhaustion of enemy numbers. 
As for Class '17, the Iwench ha\c called it up, the 
Germans have " warned " it. 
Neither process has an effect upon the calculaticjn, 
because, when the (iermans shall begin to train their 
Class '17 they propose to give it but a few weeks' training. 
The Erench arc quite at their leisure to begin the training 
of their Class '17 (which they called up on the 1st of 
January) and they intend, as their deliberate policy is, 
to give it a training at least as long as that which its 
elders have already enjoyed. 
(4). — Lastly there is the rough and general but 
absolutely sound rule of thuinb. The real total wastage 
of an army long in the field, is always more than four 
times its dead. 
When the history of the war can be written with all 
documents available, no careful student of the 
situation will be surprised if the total German losses 
of every kind up to the end of 1915 prove close on 
four millions. 
1 he conclue ion would seem to be as follows : — 
A man making out the very best case for German 
losses, pleading as a German would plead to some neutral 
power to pro\-e the continued resources of his armies, 
could not by any form of argument whatever, get the 
losses below three and a quarter million up to December 
jist, 1915. 
4> * * * 4c i|< 
There is no object in making calculations of this sort 
save the discovery of the truth. 
Those who ridicule them as " mere arithmetical 
work " are in intelligence and science exactly on a par 
with the yokel who ridicules the doctor for using a ther- 
mometer to take the temperature in a case of fever. 
An estimate of numbers is the \-ery soul of judgment in 
war. 
I have been at pains to put the very lowest 
figures admissible by any man who regards the problem 
seriously. I know very well that those figures are below 
the truth. But I ha\-e set such an absolute minimum 
down fully and with proofs because I think that in a great 
crisis of any sort, national or personal, a grasp of reality 
and not some drug of illusion is the resource of men. 
I shall turn later to the much vaguer and less 
ascertainable Austro-Hungarian statistics, and see what 
we can make of the losses in that case. H. Bei-Loc. 
A\ our recent review of Major B. C. Lake's admirable 
liand-hook Knowledge for War (Harrison and Sons, St. 
Martin's Lane), it was pointed out that a book of this nature, 
whicii will be in constant use on active service, ought to be 
bound in leather, and not in paper. Tliis suggestion has now 
been carried out. 
Plent\' of amusement and a good deal of informitiou .u e 
to be gathered from the record of A .Merry Banker in the Far 
East, by W. H. Young. (John Lane. 5s. net.) Finding litth,' 
prospect of life as it should be in a London office, tlie Ijanker 
set out for .Manila, whence he drifted through the fiast and 
through much of South America, gathering some moss in the 
process, and also gathering a very nice taste in drinks, and 
some of the moss tliat, according to the proverb, does not come 
in tlie way of most rolling stones. The book is racy and 
characterised jjy keen observation, while its author does not 
mind telling a story against himself on occasion. It is just the 
sort of volume one would rejoice to find on the smoking- 
room table — a man's book from first page to last, 
That useful book i)i reference " The Newspaper Press 
Directory." whicli Mcissrs. Mitchell and Co. bring out annually, 
has just appeared fpr i,yi6.,|It is full of information on 
the Press of the f-Jritish Isles, and also includes a section cover- 
ing i)ractically the whole Press of the British Empire. 
After an interval of ten years or thereabouts, a second 
edition pf Stonefoldsi by Wilfrid W. Gibson, has been issued. 
(Elkin Mathews. 2S. 6d. net.) There is a Hardyesque 
Havour about the dramatic studies inverse of which the book 
is composed, but, save for one instance, the fates refrain from 
weighting the dice against these country folk of wliom Mr 
Gibson tells, and their stories work out to kindly ends. There 
is little enough of genuine ])oetrv in the mass of verse pub- 
lished now, which makes the rc-issue of this little volume all 
the more welcome. 
