14 
LAND & WATER 
September 6, 1917 
the combing out process became more and more severe. 
It was the third source, the younger classes, which formed 
the backbone of the recruitment to replace losses, but it Rave 
—even under extreme pressure — ,not more than tlic thrce- 
tjuartcrs which we get in normal recruitment. The reason of 
tlv» is that if you take an immature class below twenty, 
though under pressure of war you lower your physical standard 
of /k'alth, you ha\e a larger number of boys who must be 
kept back before they are fit to scr\e, from lack of growth, and 
tiie 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 tlie last class called 
out, class IQIS- It bears out this case e.vactly. The number 
of boys of this class alive on the ist of last January was, 
omitting the figures below a thousand, (185,000. The total 
number gathered for military service of every kind was just 
on the 500,000, which is just 2 4)er cent, below the standard 
figure — three-quarters of the whole of the class. 
Possible and Actual Resources 
If you 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 arc nineteen this yqar, you get out of the total 
number alive at the moment of recruitment, a total mobilisable' 
force for active service of about gi millions. It corresponds 
very closely, population for population, with what Great 
Kritain has found possible (counting naval sen'ices and 
exemptions for au.xiliary work) and with what h'rancc has 
found possible. It corresponds also .to the known present 
ration strength of the German army and to its known definitive 
losses, just on 5! millions for the first and just over four 
millions for the second respectively. 
To Sinn up : Germany has used for active ser\'ice numbers • 
which have already reached more than nine and may approach 
Oj, millions and will, when iqiq has fully come into the field, 
reach perhaps to nearly ten millions. Of these her remaining 
active force in the field is just over three million, say, Ji 
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 without interest to 
enquire how the enor in the statement we are submitting to 
examination, the curious " nine millions " arose. 
Mr. Gerard was told by the (iermans that they had mobilised 
twelve million men, first and last. This is roughly true. 
Counting class 1919 they have called Up, even where they have 
not actually 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 far 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 e\en 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 arc. 
The intention was obviously to give the imjiression 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 merclv 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 lus 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 
m nearly all the German statements made ff)r purpo^s of 
propaganda. A piece of statistics is given which is true - 
when vyords are used m a certain sense. This statistical in- 
formation IS then applied to the situation, h„l mini' words 
m anolher sense : then the false conclusion is arrived at without 
the painful necessity of detailed corroboration 
1-or instance, the world was startled to hear quite earlv 
in the war tl a^ the German hospitals performed the miracle 
of returning to active senice all the sick and wounded soldiers 
^..entered them, with the exception of a trifling 11 per cent 
The truth was that of those who survived after entc irig 
whi 
hospital, cn'y 11 per cent, were given their final discharge 
by the army authonties upon leaving hospital ; all the rest 
of the survivors were kept on the lists of the a.-mv^'-no ma ter 
^•^lat heir condition. Some were either discharged later 
on as hopelessly unfit, others were put to auxiliaryAvork no 
matter how light : only the balance -not 89 per cent at a 
but more like ,0 per cent., returned to active service The 
proportion of he latter, as we know from the rate at' which 
the German classes have been called up, and fron every 
other source of information, has been pretty much the W 
as among the other great belligerents — 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 
p)er cent, hospital returns." 
In the same way the total of twelve million summoned to 
military service of one kind or anotlici- which included 
class 1919 not yet trained and the older classes never put into 
the field — was taken as tlic basis of calculation. It was 
true for all men put under the military authorities from first 
to last, from the beginning of the war to the present day, for 
any purpose whatsoever and was tlienused as though it Were 
true of the active army in the field, which is a totally diffeix^nt 
thing. The German authorities having got that figure of 
twelve million accepted for something which it was tiol — 
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 los.scs 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, from other sources to a neutral 
diplomat). 
(2) It understated the dead by at least a ([uarter of a 
million (at the same time giving the lie to its official lists by 
half a million the other way !) 
(3) It absurdly reduced the numbtrsoff 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 sen'ice. 
To begin with, they told Mr. Gerard that " there were only 
a million and u hjlf dead." 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 jx^rhaps in the very 
first days of April) the German authorities were iiublishing 
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 | or a little less, for by thf end of May it was 
about 1,750,000 to 1,800,000. 
The next item they admitted was men incapacitated for 
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 merely fantastic. The real figures arc 
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 jirisoncrs Mr. (krard's informant gave tiim a half million • 
a iurther half million of hospital castas (I think) was 
thrown 111 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 
return to active service. Only the imaginary thn>e million 
were mentioned. They were deducted from" the suppo-^od 
12 million effectives, and left thj balance of nine million with 
wliich .so many have been amused and astonished. 
It would be, perhaps, a waste of space to point out the 
numerous • other ways in which the true figures can be 
established, and the enormity of the error emphasised. 
I-or instance, if Germany had nine million effectives to-day 
she would, at her present establishment to a division have at 
tins time in active organisation something like (100 
divisions. 
Or again, if she had nine million effectives it would mean 
that she had been losing at a rate of about one-third that of 
the I-re^ich and the English (as. for instance, at Verdun and 
at the Somme !) 
Or again, 1;. would mean that after three years of war she 
was able t(, put into the field, of her total population, nearly as 
since the spring of 1915. 
P.S. :— Here is a Httle note which will. I think, interest those 
who have appreciated the real state of military losses in the 
Oerman Empire. 
th?"^. ^°™''^ ,1" enemy reports and newspapers upon 
dear'^hf.V '^^^' ^ '"'"''^" ^ar Widows." It is 
Clear that the insurance work (.government and private) and 
SL"r 1 ^' .?"' of necessary statistics kept, made that phrase 
rl^?/t '? It ';"■'■' ^''''^ "' ^'"^ ^"™'"^^'- : «nd it is equally 
Clear that the phrase corresponds to some general and wide- 
