NEW ESTIMATE OF THE GERMAN CASUALTIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16622, 20 August 1917, Page 5

NEW ESTIMATE OF THE GERMAN CASUALTIES.

TOTAL SAID TO BE NOW 4,500,000. Australian and N.Z. (Received 7 .m.) LONDON. August 18. It is estimated that the German casualties total 4,500,000.

The estimate appears to be very conservative in view of the fact that at the end of May the Germans officially admitted 4.356,760 casualties including 1,068,127 deaths. ' s

The casualties reported during February totalled 60,471, including 13 826 deaths, in March 54,838, including 12,650 deaths, in April 42.238, including 11,979 deaths, and in May 110,956, including 29,006 deaths. These figures do not constitute an estimate by the British authorities, but merely represent the casualties announced in German official lists—notoriously below the actuality— with allowances for corrections announced by the Germans. They include all German nationalities—Prussians, Bavarians, Saxons, and Wurtemburgers. The following figures, giving the totals up to the end of February, show in detail the casualties comprised in the total:—Killed and died of wounds, 946.223 died of sickness, 61,177; prisoners, 264.050; missing,'266,29s; severely wounded! 546,627; wounded, 301,986; slightly wounded, 1,533,104; wounded" remaining with units, 228,701; total, 4,148,163. v

The correspondent at Amsterdam of the Daily Chronicle recently stated that estimates of German casualties were so inaccurate that efforts were made in the Reichstag to elicit the truth. Thereupon fresh figures were given under the seal of secrecy, showing that over 2,000,000 Germans had been killed or had died of wounds or sickness. Those permanently disabled numbered upwards of 3,000,000. These statistics did not include losses in the heavy fighting along the Hindenburg line.