8 
LAND & WATER 
August 24, igi6 
statement is straightforwardly ascribed to " Our special 
correspondent in Berlin." 
For European consumption the Bureaux which are 
at work upon such propaganda and which are controlled 
in Berlin put forward statements a little less crude. But 
they arc governed by the same idea of suiting themselves 
to their audience, and I fear that audience must have 
bad gaps in its instruction and common sense to swallow, 
as it often does, the matter put before it. 
One of the characteristics of such statements is their 
curious "immobility." It would be less polite, but more 
vivid to call it " woodenness." 
Let me take, for example, what I hope my readers will 
pardon me for calling in a light phrase, " The Great 
Two Million Stunt." About the end of last year and the 
beginning of this, when the Allied commands, and especi- 
ally the French Intelligence, had completed a number»of 
careful statistical surveys of the situation and were 
publishing them (one of the principal results showing 
the true German losses and r-'ie falsity of the casualty 
lists appeared, it will be remembered, in these columns 
five or six months ago) these German Bureaux launched 
the statement that the German limpire possessed a 
reserve of man -power, for drafts to support the armies 
in the field, amounting to about two million of men. 
The odd thing is that through all the tremendous 
changes which have taken place since the murderous 
defeat of the enemy before Verdun, with its loss of not 
less than half a million ; the tremendous Russian vic- 
tories which have by this time put out of action not less 
than 800.000 men and probably a million (of whom rather 
less than a fifth have been German ; 11 divisions out of 58 
was the proportion of Germans to the whole forces 
engaged) ; the huge losses upon the Somme — let alone 
the regular wastage continuing upon fronts of 1,000 
miles — the old figure of two million still stood firm as a 
rock. It bears out what has always been remarked 
of the German work, that it is eminently mechanical.. 
Somebody asking what figure he ought to put forward 
was told by his superiors " two million," and that some- 
body has worked up to the figure conscientiously ever 
since. He would probably go on working up to it long 
after peace was signed until he was ordered to stop, after 
which he would salute and ask for the next command. 
These two million first appeared early this year in the 
statements of the German propaganda in Switzerland. 
They were then young men all equipped and trained and 
ready to fall upon iis and give the coup de grace. In that 
shape they marched across the pages of one of the English 
reviews a few months ago in a panicky article by Dr. 
Dillon, which was the occasion of a leading article in 
L.\ND & Water at the time. 
When no one could be got to believe the nonsense in 
that form any longer, they turned up about six weeks 
ago from Stockholm as " the estimate of a Swedish 
expert." They were no longer an existing Army but 
consisted in a " strategic reserve " of close on half a 
million with men in training or in the depots to make up 
the balance. 
Now that it is perfectly clear that there is no such 
strategic reserve — for that is the whole point of the 
present situation — the immortal two million have taken 
another form, and those who have most recently been 
in touch with the German propaganda bureaux in Switzer- 
land tell us that the figure now includes a hypothetical 
Polish Army and Class 1919 — which cannot of course be 
usdfully called up for many months to- come. But the 
point is that the figure "two millions" has got to be 
hammered in. and hammered in it is so industriously that 
it unfortunately sticks here and there. 
You find it appearing, especially in the writings of 
those who, in this country, with whatever patriotic 
motives of spurring on public opinion, think it their duty 
to emphasise the enemy's strength and warn us against it. 
These writers never give us chapter and verse. They 
never make their public privy to their calculations. They 
do no more than affirm. But their affirmations do harm 
bccavise men believe what tliey see in print. 
Let me take a particular instance. A statement from 
the military column of the Times of last Thursday, 
August 17th. 
I have already pointed out in this issue the excellent 
work of the Times in analysing the important point of 
the Armenian operations this ver^• week : but the error 
proceeding from the same pen in the matter of German 
luunbers should not be overlooked, for it is characteristic 
of the way in which these false statements get round. 
The words used are as follows : 
" The i()i7 class has not yet been extensively drawn 
upon for drafts. The 1918 Class s/fl«rfs b:hind. There 
are the recovered wounded in large numbers, as well as 
the prisoners many of whom have been forced to work. 
With these new resources in view it is tinsafe to count 
upon less than two millioii men still available for drafts." 
Here is exactly the sort of thing which does harm. 
The assertion is based upon four sejjarate clauses. The 
significant word in each of these clauses I have under- 
lined. They are each of them utterly vague and meaning- 
less in a calculation, and there follows upon them a mere 
affirmation, the ultimate source of which can be traced 
to the propagation throughout the world of sometiing 
which the enemy wants us to believe. 
Actual Reserves 
The writer accurately sums up the four categories 
which give the Germans their reserve of man-power. 
But how those four categories build up two million he 
makes no attempt to show. Nor can he show it, for in 
point of fact those four categories make up much less 
than a million, and this I shall jyroceed to show. 
(i) The 1917 Class has been drawn upon but not 
" extensively." Quite true. But how much ? The 
1917 Class wotdd provide at the very most 400,000 men, 
or rather lads just over or just under 19 years of age. 
The total number of those presented to the doctor would 
be about three-quarters of a million. Of these at maturity 
about 560,000 men at the most would be fit for ser\'ice 
of any kind. When very young classes are called the 
number sent back invariably brings the total available 
down to less than 50 per cent. — less than 375,000. The 
1917 Class would thus add, when it was entirely drafted 
in, about 8 per cent, to the existing fighting and auxiliary 
forces. The number of prisoners w^ich have been 
taken from it is noted, and their proportion to the other 
prisoners during more than two months past ; obviously 
these youngsters present in the fighting units are ex- 
ceptional. Most, when drafted, are ftrst drafted to 
"quiet" units. From these figures we may roughly 
say that about a quarter, or probably more than a quarter 
of I9i7,are by this time incorporated and drawn from 
the depots. That leaves us a little over a quarter of a 
million in that category. 1 
(2) The 1918 Class " stands behind." Of course it 
does. It began to be called up last June in Saxony and 
the process is still going on. It may provide 360,000. 
When you are dealing with boys, half of whom are under 
18, you have, especially when they are Northerners, to 
reject a very large proportion. It is true that as they 
mature the balance will come up in due time, but we are 
talking of the present moment, and at the present moment 
you will not get much more than 360,000 in this category. 
The two yoUng classes, then, make up at present as a 
reserve of man-power not yet drafted in something over 
600,000, but less certainly than 650,000. 
(3) The recovered wounded are " in large numbers." 
But such a word as " large " is absolutely meaningless 
tmless you know the standard of comparison ! The 
floating population of the hospitals of the German army 
at this season consists mainly of wounded, for there is 
very little disease ; there is none of the sickness due to 
fighting in hot climates or to the winter fighting. There 
is no epidemic that we know of. The average statistics 
among all belligerents for convalescents is perfectly 
well known ; something over four-fifths are " cured " : 
about two-thirds leave the hospital as " fit for service," 
and rather less than half are ultimately able to take up 
exactly the same service as they left — when I say ulti- 
mately, I mean within useful time, which in this case 
connotes about nine months. This category would give 
us anj'thing from 200,000 to a quarter of a million. Those 
who may go to hospital in the future do not enter into the 
calculation ; to coimt them would be counting the same 
men twice over. 
We have now brought the figure up to some 900,000 
at the most. 
(4) There remain the prisoners who, by replacing 
labour within the country, rek.2se men for service. 
