June I, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
II 
It has not yet appeared in the field (I think) but it 
must shortly do so. 
From the above it appears that the man-power of the 
German Empire had been called upon in its totahty by 
the end of last year. 
There now remains nothing but the lads who grow up 
as the war proceeds. The class 1918, more than half of 
whom at this moment are not yet 18 years of age, may 
have beL^n already warned and will at any rate be warned 
soon. Behind them at a year's interval come the class 
Kjii), and so on. But the wastage of this war is many 
times more rapid than the recruitment available from the 
younger classes. IQ18 may be thrown into the fray 
before the end of this year and allowing for the necessary 
very numerous exemptions among such young boys, it 
will not furnish more than 400,000 individuals and 
probably less, and they will be of exceedingly poor 
quality. The German wastage per year is not 400,000, 
nor twice that figure, nor foivr times that figure. It is 
more like six or seven times that figure. 
The position may be judged by the following table, 
which is both simple and accurate, and whiclr it would 
be well to retain in all future judgments of the position, 
for it presents in the most elementary form both the rate 
of exhaustion of (iermany and her present situation. 
TABLE OF GERMAN HECflUlTMEKT 
Aug.l?T91+ 
Dcc.l?ti9i4'_ 
"Feb. 1?? 1915. 
Aprai!fl915_ 
!Vfcill?^1915. 
Jultil':tl915-. 
Cl<Bs'14cdUediip. 
QmslScaSHup. 
H 
a? 
s < 
<-' '^ 
" '.3 
Jt4y3I-t!'li)J5 ANNIVERSA-RY of PECLA'RATION of W'AV. . 
EhTD of NORMAL -RICRUITMENT . BEGINNING oe 
ABNORMAL RECRUITMENT 
Augl«tI9I5_-i 
SM>t.31??1915 
Oa. 1S19J5 
> Cla^ 16 caUed up. 
-1 • ■ T ^- ' ^§E^ ^ 
; Men prcvuntsUf classed as un fit »,'tj •? t| ^' ,jj 
Nny.^l^l<?15 ■• "ccmhed out" and called u p. \ .g§^Q 
Dec 31!? 1915 ] Clas s ^17 ca lled t^. 
1 ^?^f^3S 
The Enemy's Own Evidence 
The most remarkable piece of evidence confirmatory 
of the above is the pains at which the German Staff have 
been to confuse neutral opinion (and I daresay panicky 
opinion among the enemies of Germany as well) by the 
circulating to the neutral press of a statement which I 
can only criticise as clumsy. 
This statement was issued, I believe, in the course of 
the present week, probably about Tuesday or Wednes- 
day. It first indulges in generalities which have no 
particular value, and which are only meant to produce an 
effect, such as, that Germany has plenty of men " awaiting 
the call to various fronts." In other words, that a great 
many of the German men in uniform, like French, 
Russians and alLother men in uniform, are not at any 
one moment in the trenches. It then goes on to say tha't 
Germany is so full of men that there is no real necessity of 
putting men of over 40 into the trenches. As no belli- 
gerent ever puts any appreciable number of men over 40 
into the trendies, the statement is obviously addressed to 
those who arc not seriously following the "war at all — to 
what is usually rather irreverently called "genera! opinion." 
But after these generalities, which tell us notliing, there 
is a very remarkable piece of statistics divulged. 
The German autliorities go on to tell us tJiat they are 
assured from the younger classes " of 30,000 recruits a 
month as long as the war lasts." 30,000 recruits a 
month is 360,000 a year. As the reader has seen, I 
should have put it a little higher. I should have said 
that the lads (little more than bo^'s who form the lowest 
yearly class available — for example, 1918 this year, 
191 9 next year, and so on, boj's most of whom when they 
are called, will be less than 18 years of age), might at a 
squeeze have furnished 400,000. It would have been 
400,000 of exceedingly bad material, but I think that 
number could be combed out. However, the Germans 
tell us it is less and we must be grateful to accept their 
own- estimate. 
Now this is the point where I call this German circular, 
like so many of the German circulars, clums}'. It aims 
at affecting the least instructed opinion among neutrals 
and for that matter among belligerents. No doubt that 
method has its value. But nothing is being done mean- 
wliile to counteract the instructed comment which follows 
on the, heels of every such misleading German statement. 
The German War Office does not seem to be here properly 
co-ordinated. The gentleman who has the task of 
fabricating this sort of thing is not checked by his 
colleagues whose business it is to read the serious com- 
mentary on the war published in such papers as this 
and proceeding from a v<>ry great mnnber of competent 
critics at the head of whom I think we must continue to 
put Colonel Feyler. This work is not composed of wild 
statement. It is a mass of careful estimate and analysis, 
erring no doubt often by some margin one way or the 
other, often very uncertain and tentative from lack of 
evidence, and at any rate always approximating to a 
truth which can be definitely proved and which the 
evidence, when at last available, thoroughly supports. 
In my opinion the German War Office under-estimates 
the value of such dry and detailed but continuous and 
widely circulated work. It is fully present everywhere 
on the side of the Allies, in the Debuts of Paris for instance, 
the Manchester Guardian and the Morning Post in this 
country, and in this paper. My readers will do me the 
justice to note, for instance, the points already made in 
this article, that the full evidence now available with 
regard to the calling up of the various elements of German 
recruitment not only generally tallies with the conclusions 
come to in this particular paper, but as a rule shows those 
conclusions to be rather conservative than otherwise. 
In the same way we saw only a couple of weeks ago how 
the private lists of deaths among the German medical 
service gave very nearly the same percentage of error 
between the truth and the official lists, as has been dis- 
covered upon more general grounds for larger categories of 
the German armed population. 
Further, the enemy's losses and remaining man power 
as worked out in these numerous calculations in French, 
British and neutral critical journals (best of all in the 
Journal dc Geneve) corresponds to what would be normally 
his position in such a war as this on the analogy of all the 
other belligerent Powers, whereas hjs statements propose 
conditions so abnormal as to be miraculous. 
There is in this very circular to which I am alluding 
an example of those assumed miracles when we are told 
that nearly g/ioths of the German wounded are fit 
shortly afterwards " to resume the most arduous miUtary 
duties." That is rubbish, and the man who writes it 
must know that it is rubbish. You can keep the names 
Sortes Sbahcspeaviana^ 
By SIR SIDNEY LEE 
• 
To Mr. Lloyd George on his IrLsh Missi on. 
Our S7iit 
Is that yott reconcile them. 
Coriolanus, V., iii., 135-6. 
Munition-workers who forego their hol iday- 
Here pleasures court mine eyes, and 
mine eyes shun them. 
Pericles, I„ ii., 6. 
Lord Q\w7.o\\ assumes his new office. 
Noiv sits Expectation in the air, 
Henry V., II.. proloiiue, S, 
