THE HUN MILLIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 208, 31 August 1918, Page 13

THE HUN MILLIONS.

SECRET Or AN INEXHAUSTIBLE SUPPLY. (By PREDERIC W. WILE.) Germany's apparently inexhaustible supply of man-power—cannon fodder, as the Huns themselves call it—becomes one of the increasingly mysterious problems of this endless war. Where does it come from? An American gentleman named Dr. George Usher is reported to have told the United States Senate that

" Germany , falsified her population statistics for twenty years preceding the war." In wu she had 00,000,000 inhabitants instead of the (18,000,000 she was supposed to have. " Hindenburg gave this information daughters when they were visiting him in 1018," avers Mr. Usher. It is a very interesting and easy explanation oi the MaoPower mystery. As an editor once said to a reporter who told him that he knew positively that the world was coming to an end next day, it is important—if true.

The faked-cenaus story, of course, is not new. We have all heard it and been eager to believe it. I lived in Berlin for thirteen years. Somehow I find it difficult to believe that some suggestion of such a gigantic, systematic swindle would not have leaked out in Germany. The Huns are a garrulous and a hypercritical race. Before the war tamed them the Social Democrats were no respecters of official secrete. They specialised, on the contrary, in exposing them. They had a lively interest in knowing how many people there were in Germany. If there had been P. 0.000,000 inhabitants instead of 08,000,000, there could have been IJO Social Democrats in the Reichstag instead of 110. And I cannot imagine Hindenburg taking American young ladies, charming as the Misses Usher doubtless arc, into his confidence on a matter of such overwhelmingly vital bearing on the German General Staff's imminent plans. Xo. Personally I find the explanation of the Huns' seemingly bottomless well of Man-Power in the'preamble to the Hindenbur.? "Mass Levy" law of X6veniber, ]ftl6:

"1. Kvery male German, from the completion of bis 17th year to the completion of his 60th year. is. in so fir ss he has not been sumoned to service with the nrmed forces, liable to patriotic auxiliary eervicc during the period of the war.

".?_• .Pntrio+ie auxiliary service consifts, apart from service in Government offices and other official institutions, in particular of service in war industry, in the nursing of the sick, and in organisations of every kind of an economic character connected with the war, a« well as in other undertakings which are immediately or indirectly of importance for conduct of the war or provision of the reoiiirements of the people." Every man up to fiO a soldier—in the trenches, in the shell factories, on the farms, in the hospitals, or on actual war work of some kind—therein, it strikes mc. is mainly to be found the solution of the German Man-Power puzzle. The Kaiser faces us in superior strength because the German war-machine does not allow one solitary scrap of useful human strength to be wasted, except on the business of war. Conscientious objectors and exemptions for the asking are unknown in Germany in either peace or war. I am assured that Ludendorff employs thousands of one-lcged or onearmed men in the fieH. They have been taught to work machine-guns. There are countless other kinds of work, he has discovered that they can do, even though crippled. I am not advocating such a heartless procedure as worthy of Allied emulation. I only chronicle it as a well-authenticated and significant bit of information.

Finally, we should not forget that though German generals have commanded on many fronts, they have often directed the operations and slaughter of non-German divisions. Hungarians. Turks and Bulgers have been driven into dozens of battles by Mackensen, for example, but these have not sapped German man-power.

The most persuasive estimate of Germany's remaining fighting material that I have seen —published early in June in a prominent provincial newspaper—fixes the Huns' available man-power at 6,000,----000. The estimate is based on a total number of Germans mobilised since 1914 at 12,000,000. half of whom are said to have been definitely put out of action. Writing early in 1017, Mr. Gerard estimated that Germany then had 9,000,000 available fighting men. Allowing for "attrition " of 3,000.000 during the intervening sixteen months,, the estimate abovementioned—that we have to meet and beat 6,000,000 Huns—impresses mc as one that is fairly corroborated by the astute American Ambassador's " inside " figures. Let us Allies watch out for one gigantic menace —that Germany, benefiting from Allied procrastination in Russia, may mobilise, arm, and lead into battle against us the limitless man-power of Tluseia. To mc that is the moat portentous possibility which the future holds.