May II, 191G 
LAND & W A r E R 
In the simplest of all possible fashions. The niai) 
published in the Times was accurate for the moment at 
which it was drawn up, but not for the moment at which 
it was published. It referred to a state of affairs already 
a month old when the portentous revelation was made. 
• Sometimes news of this sort is simply untrue — as, for 
instance, the silly falsehood that the ample munitionment 
in the f;reat offensive of last September was due to the 
establishment of the Ministry of Munitions. Not a shell 
tired in that great offensive was produced by the special 
activity of any politician. Every one had been pro- 
duced by the organisation of the soldiers before any 
pohtical and personal question had been made of the 
matter. Similarly the two startling announcements on 
which I commented some months ago, one of which cut 
down the German losses by a million, the other of which 
brought several thousand Germans to life, each in the 
course of seven or eight days. 
But it really does not matter whether the information 
thus permitted to appear is misleading in one fashion or 
another. The only thing that matters is motive. So 
long as it is not the simple motive of recording the 
truth and thus enabling public judgment to be sound- 
it is a bad motive and adversely affects the moral power 
of a nation at war. 
A Corroboration of the Enemy's Falsification 
of His Casualty Lists 
I have received from a correspondent whose prolession 
and whose opportunities and reputation give him unique 
authority, remarkable confirmation of the chscrepancy 
between the official German lists of losses and the truth. 
This confirmation attaches to only one small portion of 
the field, but it is characteristic and fits in most accurately 
with the larger calculations, 
It applies to the losses in the Medical Profession of the 
German Empire alone. 
The official casualty lists give of fuUy'qualified military 
doctors killed or died during the course of the war up to 
the end of 1915 466 names. This is, of course, allowing 
for the delay in the publication of names, and this number 
466 represents (allowing for such delay) the total ad- 
mitted number in the officially publishecl lists. 
Now the checking of this by private lists yields almost 
exactly the same result as was yielded in the case of 
immensely more numerous names of the larger categories 
dealt with in an article published three months ago in 
these columns, to wit, a discrepancy of rather less than 
20 per cent. 
Private lists were estabHshed by carefully going over 
the names given in three leading German Medical papers, 
the Deutsche Mcdizinischc weekly ; the Bediner Klinische 
and the Miinchencr Mcdizinische. A great number of 
these names, of coiu'se, overlapped, and were found in 
all three papers. Many were found in two ; a few 
occurred in one only. Their total gives 565 ! 
The value of these private lists lay, exactly as in the 
larger examples given last February, in the fact that 
they were more detailed and presumably more exhaustive. 
In each case the full name, address and status of the 
individual concerned was printed. Only the names of 
those who had been killed or died on active service were 
considered, and only the doctors of full status. Medical 
students or candidates (that is, those who had passed their 
first examination) were not included. 
That the number 565 is at once accurate and a mini- 
mum, there can, seeing the detailed information gi\'en, 
be no doubt whatsoever, and the discrepancy between 
it and the number drawn from the officieil lists is 17' 5 J 
per cent. In other words, the official lists represent only 
82-47 t*^ the truth. 
It will be remembered that the discrepancy between 
the larger numbers of the Trades Unions, the Athletic 
Societies, etc., gave a discrepancy of close on 19 per cent. 
The official lists in these larger cases were a little over 
81 per cent, of this number. The coincidence is remark- 
able and instructive. One would imagine that the names 
omitted in the case of a distinguished profession would be 
somewhat less than the average of omissions for the mass 
of the army, and that is precisely what we get from this 
calculation. The discrepancy in the case of the doctors 
is not the full 19 per cent., but somewhat less. It is not 
so greatly less, however, as to disturb our general con- 
clusion. A little less than K) per cent, for the mas3 
and somewhat over 17 per cent, for a specially distin- 
guished jjrofession is a, divergence natural enough, and 
the one figure confirms the other. 
The imjjortance of the evidence lies in the fact that we 
can in the case of tliese small numbers and of a limited 
iield in which every man is known, establish the truth 
without contention and beyond all possibility of doubt. 
If there is a discrepancy of over 17 per cent, between the 
official and the private lists in the deaths of doctors, we 
can be absolutely certain that at any rate a larger dis- 
crepancy in the case of the mass of the army is to be 
presumed ; and the arguments of those critics, who wiU 
have it that the German Empire is too efficient and too 
organised and the rest of it, to mishandle its pfficial 
statistics, falls to the ground. It is the case of a par- 
ticular and indisputable piece of proof against a general 
vague mood. 
I must rejjcat what has so often been said when this 
question has been raised, that the chscrepancy between 
the official lists of German casualties and the truth does 
not imply any elaborate system of false book-keeping, 
nor even in the greater number of cases, perhaps in all 
cases, any deliberate individual mis-statement. All it 
means is that the (Jovcrnment which wants to keep down 
returns sees that its records are kept on "the right side." 
When there is any row or any confusion, any loss of 
documents or any prolonged delay in furnishing them, 
those who draw up the official lists presumably give them- 
selves the benefit of all such circumstances, and the general 
result is a minimising of the true losses. I have already 
suggested in former calculations the special ways in which 
this phenomenon would appear. Men who die at home 
after being discharged from hospital can be omitted from 
the official lists. Men whose death is long uncertain can 
be kept off the official lists, and may then in the long 
run never appear there. There will also, it must be 
ac*".iitted, be a certain overlapping between those marked 
as missing and those who turn out ultimately to be 
dead. In certain cases all the documents of a unit will 
be lost. We know that this has happened with several 
units during the retreat from the Marne and upon the 
Kussian front. To give but one example : The case of a 
whole battalion of the loth reserve Corps in the third 
day of the Battle of the Marne near Esternay, and that 
is only one instance out of many which occurs to me. 
We are under no necessity to imagine peculiar cunning 
or villainy on the part of the enemy. Things left to 
themselves would produce the result I have shown, 
and any government desiring to keep the figures as low 
as possible would arrive at results below the true total. 
At any rate, whatever the cost may be, we have in this 
particularly small but important example an exact corro- 
boration of the conclusions arrived at bv all the best 
observers in this matter. H. Belloc 
Sovtes Sbakeepeatiana^ 
By SIR SIDNEY LEE 
The German Note to America : 
These sentences, to sugar or to gait. 
Being sii'ong on both sides, are equivocal. 
Othello I., iii, 216-7. 
The Daylight Saving Bill : 
There is^ome soul of goodness in things evil. 
Would men observingly distil it out ; 
For our bad neighbour makes us early 
stirrers. 
Which is both healthful, and good husbandry. 
Henry V., IV.. i.. 4-7. 
To Rtxruiting Sergeants under the New 
Bill: 
This is your charge : you shall com- 
prehend all vagrom jnen ; you are to bid 
any man stand, in the Prince s name. 
Much Ada About Nothing III., iii., 26-8. 
