LAND & WATER 
November z, 1916 
trained or untraiined, kept behind the army ior necessary 
services sudi as the railways, mines, muniliuns, etc. 
1 will deal with these in their order. 
(1) Men in the Depots 
The German Empire has at present in its depots 560,000 
men. 
The meaning of this phrase " the depots " is the places 
where men either so. fully trained as to be immediately 
ready for drafting to the front, or in process of training 
fur tliat task, are gathered together. It does not include 
tlie groups just behind the front from which immediate 
drafts are drawn. It only describes the principal reser- 
voir of men within the country. 
The way in which these 560,000 is made up is as 
follows : 
(A) The bulk of class iqi8 is now in the depots and 
constitutes more than half of their total roll call. Class 
i<)i8 is the last or youngest class which Germany can 
possibly call up at this moment. Class iqiq cannot be 
usefully called up for many months to come. 
My readers are acquainted with the meaning of these 
terms. Class 1918 signifies the lads who were born in the 
year i8q8, about live-sixths of whom have, therefore, 
at the present moment, passed their i8th birthday and 
about one-si.\th of whom ha\e not yet reached it. We 
have fairly exact knowledge of the state in which the lads 
of this age stand relatively to the German army at the 
present moment. The total number of the boys born 
m i8<)8 in the (jerman Empire still living to-day and still 
resident there is (to within 5,000) 685,000. (i) Of these 
a certain small fraction are not so much as examined. 
They are imbecile, or deaf and dumb or blind or crippled. 
Another small fraction is accounted for by the few 
volunteers, naturally a very restricted number at so 
young an age, but including not only volunteers for 
active military service, but for sundry auxiliary services, 
medical, scientific and other. 
Another very small fraction is accounted for by emigra- 
tion, those who left Germany as children before the war. 
The remaining number which passes before the military 
committees for examination amounts in round numbers 
to 650,000. 
Of these the total number already passed for service 
and therefore at present in the depots, cither already 
trained (according to the very short period of training 
the Germans allow, or still in process of training), are just 
under half the total, and rather more than two-thirds 
of the fit; they are about 320,000. It is not re- 
markable that the proportion should be so low 
when we consider that even in the case of 
young men mature, that is in their 21st year, the 
normal proportion obtainable is only 75 per cent., and 
that with every effort to use even the worst material 
80 per cent, is never reached. As a matter of fact, the 
Ciermans have only rejected as hopeless less than a 
t}uarter even of this \cry young class. There are only 
150,000 to 160,000 of them finally refused who will never 
be called. But another 150,000 to 160,000 are still in 
their homes waiting to be called, either because they still 
appeared too young or immature, or because they 
have some weakness which time may cure. And 
there is a small margin, probably, of young men jiost- 
poned for a \cry short period, which small margin (say 
10,000) accounts for there being only 320,000 actually in 
the depots instead of, say 340,000. 
(B) After this body drawn from Class 19 18. which we 
have seen to be the largest part of the men in the depots. 
(320,000 out of 560,000) we have the category of the 
wounded who are cured, returned fit for service, and 
for the moment kept in the depots. 
This category is a small one for the natural and simple 
reason that these men are fully trained, and mature men 
and are drafted out as soon as possible after reaching 
the depot. There are at present not more than 20,000 
such men in the (German depots. (2) 
k good example of the rapidity with which such men 
are used is a comparison with the figures of a single ' 
month recently obtained. In that single month 144,000 
cured men were sent into the depots and 150,000 taken 
out. And the normal margin of 20,000 was reduced to 
14,000. At any rate, this category is a small one, and in 
the midst of such large figures almost negligible. It is, 
us I have said, for the present moment about 20,000, 
< ertainly not more, probably less. 
(C) The lads of Class 1917 who, when the bulk of their 
lellows were called out from a year to eight months ago, 
were rejected for various reasons, though not finally 
iijected and have since been put into the depots for 
training. These amount to some 150,000 men. Most 
• )l them over H), but some sixth of them under age. 
1 1 is about the same proportion of belated or postponed 
men, as we saw obtained for class 1918. With these 
\ cry young classes you can only take for military work 
about one-half or a little more than one-half. You 
< Dinpletely reject one-quarter or a little less and you 
keep another quarter or a little more back until they 
>hall be more mature. We have seen that 150,000 to 
100,000 have so been kept back from 1918 class at the 
present moment and are still in their homes, and this 
150,000 of 1917 are the corresponding batch of that class. 
(D) That category which is composed of the " combed- 
iiut cripples," or in more academic phrase the rejected 
men who have been re-examined and i)assed for service. 
I need not saj' that the re-examination which has some- 
times dealt with the same man as much as six times is 
I xceedingly strict, and that every possible sort of human 
material is taken. But in this 2()tli month of the war 
tlie numbers still to be obtained from thissouVce arc not 
I nnsidcrable. The comb has been passed through too 
nlten to leave much behind. The actual numbers now 
under training or trained in tlic depots of this category 
is certainly not more than 70,000. 
Summary 
We may now sum up the analysis of the (jcnuan 
Reserve as it stands in the depots — that is, immediately 
available for drafts : 
We have in the depots 560,000 men composed thus : 
(a) The bulk of Class 1918 320,000 
(b) The cured wounded for the moment in the 
depots 20,000 
(() The men formerly rejected and called for 
service after re-examination . . . . 70,000 
(d) The remainder of Class 1917 150,000 
560,000 
So much for the depots. 
(2) Men Capable of Service before next 
Summer but not yet Trained 
When I say " the men capable of service before next 
summer," I mean the lads of 1918 class, who will pre- 
sumably be thought mature enough (or well enough in 
iHses where they have been sick at the moment of ex- 
amination) to come up for training before the height of 
the next open season. This category consists entirely 
i>f the men of the i<)i8 class who have not been rejected 
as impossible, but who have been left in their homes 
because they seemed as yet too immature to be called 
upon, or because they are for jiassing reasons otherwise 
unfit, or (in small numbers) postponed for very short 
periods on various accounts. Their total is known. We 
need not delay upon it, because it requires no examina- 
tion, and it suffers from no complexity. It is hi round 
numbers 150,000 to 160,000. It makes up, with the 
520,000 of this class already in the depots a total of 
to 480,000, which is certainly the largest 
(i). We know this in the following manner. The total Tiumbcr of 
males born in i8q8, and living at the census taken six years ago-was 
1)99,317. The dcatli rale between the years 12 and 18, as established 
in peace time varies from 19 to 2.1 per cent. The number remain- 
ing alive, therefore, towards the end of i^tO is roughly, 685,000. The 
census was taken on December ist 1910, that is, all but six full years 
ago. 
\i\. The phrase "at present" refers to the ijth of October, the 
(late for which this study was compose^. 
from 470,000 to 48 
figure which the young class 1918 can be made to muster 
within the inter\al. Class 1917, be it remembered, has 
still 150,000 in training as late as the present moment, 
and it is a generosity to the enemy to pretend that he can 
put forward i()i8 quicker than he has put forward 1917. 
(3) Wounded who will Return Cured 
This is the category upon which calculation most often 
goes wrong. The problem is a tricky one. If the main 
principles governing that problem bo kept clearly in 
