14 
LAND & WATER 
September b, 1917 
the combing out process became more and more severe. 
It was the third soiucp, the younger classes, which formed 
the backbone of the recruitment to replace losses, but it gave 
—even under extreme pressure— not more than the three- 
quarters which we get in normal recruitment. The reason of 
tlv» is that if you take an immature class below twe^itj\ 
though under pressure of war you lower your physical standard 
of health, you ha\'e a larger number of boys who must be 
kept back before thev are fit to scr\-e, from lack of growth, and 
the gain in numbers due to the lowering in the standard of 
health hardly balances the loss due to immaturity. 
We know, for instance, the statistics of the last class called 
out class loig. It bears out this case e.Kactly. The number 
of boys of this class alive on the ist of last January was 
omitting the figures below a thousand, 685,000. The total 
number gathered for military service of every kind was )ust 
on the 500,000, which is just 2 per cent, below the standard 
figure— three-quarters of the whole of the class. 
Possible and Actual Resources 
If vou take the mere census figure of all the adults, from the 
men "who were forty when the War broke out, down to the 
lads who ai-e nineteen this year, vou get out of the total 
number alive at the moment of recruitment, a total mohilisahic 
force for active service of about qf, millions. It corresponds 
very closely, population for population, with what Great 
Britain has found i)ossible (counting naval services and 
exemptions for auxiliary work) and with what 1- ranee has 
found iwssible. It corresponds also to the known present 
ration strength of the (ierman army and to its known detimtivc 
losses, just on 5\ millions for the first and just over four 
millions' for the second respectively. 
To sum up : Germany has used for active service numbers 
which have already reached more than nine and may approach 
f).'. millions and will, when 1910 has fully come into the field, 
re'ach perhaps to nearly ten millions. (>f these her remaining 
active force in the field is just over three million, say, si 
at the most— with reserves behind it of somewhat less 
than half a million, excluding class 1919. The balance can 
never again appear in the field. 
These things being so— the active effectives available 
three and a quarter millions— it is not withovit interest to 
enquire how the error in the statement we are submitting to 
examination, the curious " nine millions " arose. 
Mr. Gerard was told by the Germans that they had mobilised 
twelve million men, first and last. TWs is roughly true. 
Counting class 1919 they have called up, even where they have 
not aerially put into uniform, ten million men up to the age 
of forty, and the number of men in the classes over forty alive 
at the beginning of the war came to not {ar short of two million 
more. 
But that has nothing to do with " effectives." That is, 
only the total number of men put under the orders of the War 
Office in one form or another, or even warned that they 
may be called to service. It includes the older classes who 
cannot be used in the field as well as the classes that are. 
The intention was obviously to give the impression of a great 
fighting force of twelve millions raised since the beginning of 
the war and to call up a picture in the mind of this enormous 
body all organised in combatant units — the remaining strength 
of which to-day could easily be calculated by merely sub- 
tracting losses in the field. It is as though one were to take a 
business man's gross receipts since January ist and pretend 
that his present balance at the bank would be got at by de- 
ducting from that total his domestic expenses alone — and 
those faked. 
I have noticed this startlingly simple method of deception 
in nearly all the German statements made for purposes of 
propaganda. A piece of statistics is given which is true - 
when words arc used in a certain sense. This statistical in- 
formation is then applied to the situation, hut using words 
in another sense : then the false conclusion is arrived at without 
the painful necessity of detailed corroboration. 
For instance, the world was startled to hear quite early 
in the war flat the German hospitals performed the miracle 
of returning to active ser\'ice all the sick and woundetl soldiers 
who enteretl them, with the exception of a trifling 11 per cent. 
The truth was that of those who survived after entering 
hospital, cn'y 11 per cent, were given their final discharge 
by the army authorities upon leaving hospital ; all the rest 
of the survivors were kept on the lists of the army — no matter 
what their condition. Some were either discharged later 
on as hopelessly unfit, others were put to auxiliary work, no 
matter how light ; only the balance — not 89 per cent, at all 
but more like 60 per cent., returned to active service. The 
proportion of the latter, as we know from the rate at which 
the German classes ha^•e been called u]>, and from every 
other source of information, has been pretty much the same 
a-s among the other great belhgerents— which, after all, is 
what one would expect— but it is astonishing what a number 
of people were at first taken in by this monstrosity of .," 89 
ix-r cent, hospital returns." , 
In the same way the total of twelve million summoned to 
military service of one kind or another— which included 
class 1919 not yet trained and the older classes never put into 
the field was taken as the b.asis of calculation. It was 
true for all men put under the military authf)rities from first 
to last, from the beginning of the war to the present day, for 
any purpose whatsotner and was then used as though it were 
true of the active army in the field, which is a totally different 
thing. The German " authorities having got that figure of 
twclVe million accepted for something which it was not - 
that is, for the active army in the field, proceeded to argue 
that there must remain as many " effectives " as would result 
from a simple sum in subtraction : the subtraction of their 
" losses in the field." Even if this last item had been accurate, 
the method was false : but the item of losses given to Mr. 
Gerard was not accurate ; it was even ridiculous. For, as 
we shall see, it had the following features :-- 
(i) While it gave fairly accurate account of prisoners 
(available, remember, fn)m other sources to a neutral 
diplomat)." 
(2) It understated the dead by at least a (quarter of a 
million (at the same lime giving the lie to its official lists by 
half a million the other way !) 
(3) It absurdly reduced the numbirsoff the strength from 
wounds and sickness. 
(4) It wholly suppressed the number of sick and wounded 
which, while kept on the books of the army, cannot be 
returned to active service. 
To begin with, they told Mr. Gerard that " there were only 
a million and a half deacl" It is worthy of remark that at 
the very moment they were making this statement (I pre- 
sume during last March at the latest, or perhaps in the very 
first days of April) the German authorities were publishing 
in their official lists the statement that there were far less 
than one million German dead ! Even to-day the last lists 
(covering July 1917) allow for only 1,030,000 dead! 
The value of this sort of statistics' may be tested by that one 
example alone. The real number at the time was about 
I million and J or a little less, for by the end of May it was 
about 1,750,000 to 1,800,000. 
The next item they admitted was men incapacitated lor 
active service by wounds and sickness. They gave the number 
of these at half a million ! That is, for three men dead, only 
one was incapacitated for service by sickness Or by wounds ! 
Such a statement is mci'ely fantastic. The real figures are 
roughly these • that the dead come to a little less than 
half the definitive losses, at any moment, the remainder 
being made up of men permanently incapacitated and 
prisoners. 
Of prisoners Mr. Gerard's informant gave'tum a half million ; 
a further half million of hospital cases (I think) was 
thrown in as a makeweight . . . and there the information 
stopped ! These imaginary figures added up and came to 
three million sure enough. Not a word was said of that 
very large item— nearly equalling the number of dead— the 
casualties which, though not leading to discharge, failed to 
retum to active ser\'ice. Only the imaginary three million 
were mentioned. They were deducted from the supposed 
12 million effectives, and left i\\:. balance of nine million with 
which so many have been amused and astonished. 
It woiild be, perhaps, a waste of space to point out the 
numerous 1 other ways in which the true figures can be 
established, and the enormity of the error emphasised. 
For instance, if Germany had nine million effectives to-day, 
she would, at her present establishment to a division, have at 
this time in active organisation something like Ooo 
divisions. 
Or again, if she had nine million effectives it would mean 
that she had been losing at a rate of about one-lhird that of 
the French and the English (as, for instance, at Verdun and 
at the Sommc !) 
Or again, il would mean that after three years of war she 
was able to put into the field, of her total population, nearly as 
many men, proportionately, as all the other fully mobilised 
belligerents had been able to muster 'from the very hcginmng. 
Or again, it would mean that she had had no losses at all 
since the spring of 1915. 
P.S. :— Here is a little note which will, I think, interest those 
who have appreciated the real state of military losses in the 
German Empire. 
One comes in enemy reports and newspapers upon 
the phrase : " Over a million War Widows." It is 
clear that the insurance work (government and private) and 
the other forms of necessary statistics kept, made that phrase 
.general in the early part of this summer : and it is equally 
clear thut the phrase corresponds to some general and wide- 
