8 
LAND & WATER 
April 20, 1916 
the enemy it is not possible to verify which are dead, 
which wounded and which unwoundcd prisoners. All 
you can do in establishing your numbers after such a 
retirement is to note that such and such a number of your 
men are " missing." ' 
From all this it is clear that the number of unwounded 
prisoners must always be much less than the total number 
of " missing " in any series of retirements within a 
particular period. 
Now though it is impossible after a retirement to say 
accurately what number of your " missing " are killed and 
what number have fallen into the enemy's hands wounded, 
and what number are unwounded prisoners, there 
is one element in the problem which we can establish 
in round numbers, especially after a long experience of 
some continued type of fighting ; and that is the pro- 
portion of dead out of the total number of missing. You 
can tell within a fairly close average what proportion of 
the lost are dead, and the remainder will represent within 
a comparatively small margin of error your wounded and 
unwounded who have fallen into the enemy's hands. 
Now the French have a complete record of the " miss- 
ing " from their various units during the various retire- 
ments upon the sector of Verdun from Fresnes on the 
south to Avocourt on the north, between and including 
the dates February 21st, when the first retirement began, 
and April loth, up to which last date alone the present 
note applies. The exact number is not published. The 
average proportion of dead upon the analogy of any 
number of similar movements and of similar fighting dis- 
covered upon the enemy's side and upon our own, makes 
one in round figures certain of the residue of wounded 
and unwounded. We know below a certain maximum 
and within a certain small margin of error the numbers 
who, though surviving, were abandoned. 
With that point clearly settled in the reader's mind, 
I would ask Ifim to turn to the following table of figures. 
He will find it interesting. 
February 21st. — No German statement issued of 
prisoners taken this day. 
February 22nd. — German statement " About 3,000 to 
this date." 
February 24th. — German statement, " About 10,000 
to this date." 
F'ebruary 25th. — No Statement. 
February 26th. — German statement, " About 15,000 
unwounded prisoners up to this date. 
This was the end of the first big advance and of the 
principal French retirement over a belt from four to five 
miles wide under the first great enemy blow against the 
covering line of the defence. 
After a delay of forty-eight hours (during which there 
was no French retirement, but in one place a slight French 
advance) the enemy issued a grand total of the unwounded 
prisoners, which had fallen into his hands. I would beg 
the reader to remark its minute detail. It was not given 
in round figures ; it was given precisely, and the number 
given was 16,903. 
That figure is our starting point. With the end of 
February, when the first very expensive retirement of the 
French was over and certainly before they had been able 
to estabhsh complete lists of their own, the enemy told 
them that he held i6i903 unwounded men of theirs 
precisely, besides, of course, a great number (unmentioned) 
of their wounded. 
We all know that since that period the German method 
of fighting has changed, the progress against the sector 
of Verdun has been insignificant and the motive for false 
statement greater. 
We further know that with each succeeding day of 
disappointment, or at any rate at very brief intervals, 
it has been necessary to support the German opinion 
at home and abroad in favour of Germany. 
Now look at the following twenty-three items, which 
are the statements as to French prisoners issued by the 
German Publicity Bureau under the authority of the 
German Government and of the German higher command 
during the whole of March and the first ten days of April. 
I. March 3. — " Over 1,000." No special mention of 
unwounded. 
2. „ 4. — Over 1,000. do. 
(These two items are quite distinct and 
refer to two separate days and two 
separate local advances^. 
3- ,. 5—938 unwounded. 
4- .. 6.— 152 
5. Same day, but in another place, " over 300 
unwounded." 
6. ,, I 6. — 711 unwounded (in one place). 
7- .. 1 7- — 3-337 unwounded. (This was the 
day of the first big German ad- 
vance west of the Meuse.) 
8. „ g. — 687 (wounded and unwounded, not 
distinguished). 
9. ,, 14. — 1,025 unwounded. 
10. „ I5-— 152 
11. ,, 16. — "A few" (number not specified) 
unwounded. 
12. ,, 18. — 41 unwounded. 
13. „ 19.— 281 
14. „ 20.— 2532 (and a few over not specified) 
unwounded. 
15- I, 22. — 440 unwounded. 
16. ,, 23. — 911 
17. ,, 28.-498 
18. „ 30.— 328 
19. „ 31—731 
20. April 2. — 765 
21. „ 5—542 
22. „ 7-— 714 
23. „ 10.-1,267 (The big advance in Avocourt 
N\"ood). 
. — 222 (in another place — unwounded, 
not specified). 
I would beg the reader to note that this list of 23 items 
has all the marks of a perfectly genuine piece of work ; 
sometimes the authors of it confess their inability to be 
precise and give us only round figures. 
At other times they are happy to oblige us with very 
exact details, even when they have thousands of items to 
count in one day, as for instance, item 7. Usually they 
tell us that they are only troubling to give us the un- 
wounded prisoners — because these indicate a moral 
weakness upon the part of an enemy or bad arrangements 
upon his part. But on other occasions they confess them- 
selves unable to give us the precise number of unwounded 
and therefore do not mention whether the prisoners 
they speak of are wholly unwounded or no. The whole 
thing is convincing in the highest degree. It has only 
one drawback, which is that when you come to add it 
up and get the totals, the unwounded alone come to 
more than dotihle the total number of all Frenchmen that 
can possibly have fallen into German hands, wounded 
and unwounded ahke ! 
In other words, this enemy aocument, or rather series 
of documents, is demonstrably marked by the two charac- 
ters which some have been so slow to accept in the matter 
of the casualty lists, (i) It is very carefully detailed 
and candid. (2) It is false. 
I trust this piece of proof to be sufficient. 
Tiie enemy tells us that he will prove his case by " pul)- 
lishing the names." It is no proof. He has done that 
before — and included among the prisoners taken at 
Verdun names of men missing months and months before 
the attack begun. 
Note on certain American Figures 
Several correspondents have sent me some figures 
published in the London Press upon last Monday, April 
17th, and cabled over from Washington. These figures 
purpose to be the " official estimates of the Ciencral Staff 
of the United States," as to the permanent losses of the 
various forces in the liuropean War, up to the end of 
1915, There is very little to be said about these figures 
in so far as they concern France, Austria and Germany, 
except that they have no relation to reality whatsoever. It 
is not worth while refuting them, because they do not give 
their supposed sources of information, and 1 think it 
accurate to say that they have no proper sources of in- 
formation at ail. They give the German losses in killed 
as less than 15 per cent, of men in the field and put the 
French at 32 per cent. The rest of the rubbish is on a 
par with this. I do not see any reason for wasting time 
upon such nonsense. 
But its publication is a symptom of what may be a 
grave piece of neglect upon our part. 
