Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8699, 19 December 1899, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19.

HAVE WE LOST HEAVILY? Ik these days or super-sensitive humanitarianism, a large section of the public, especially those of the younger generation who have been brought up in the piping timeß of peace, and who have forgotten all the history that they learned at the public Bohoola, there is a tendency to wince and Bhudder at the war intelligence which tells of British losses. That these losses are to be deplored no one will deny, nor would we for a moment disparage the tender sentiments wbioh lead to expressions of publio sympathy at the loss of, the brave British soldiers ; but it must not be forgotten that in war reverses must be expected, and the wonder really is that with such terrible instruments of destruction as modern armies now possess the slaughter is not much greater. The British losses up to date, it ia officially reported, have been 5777, including 728 killed, 2784 wounded, and 2265 missing, and this is not a high figure when it is remembered that we have some 70,000 men in the field, and have for now two months been carrying on three distinct campaigns against a numerous enemy, who long before the arrival of our troops were able to pick their own positions, and bring into the field the most powerful of armaments. In the engagement before Colensoj from which Sir Redvers Butler's troops were compelled to retire, out of a force of 12,000 men engaged, 1087 were put out of action, and considering the severity of the fire they faced, it ia certainly surprising that not more than 82 were killed outright. "Igbigercentage was well under the ten pees3jpsWiio!yiB declared by military authorftijwfto be a safe margin of casualties for a sevSsre'fcneagement. At Majersfontein, also, though the Highlanders walked into a veritable death-trap, and the British

forces for two days gallantly assaulted an j impregnable position, the percentage was not more than that proportion. At Dundee and Elands Laagte, both actions in whioh British infantry scaled rooky heights in the face of the best riflemen in the world, the percentages were approximately five and ten per cent respectively. To understand what haavy losses mean it is necessary to turn to the records of military history. The records of the battles of the Franco-German war, points out Mr H. W. Wilson, the well-known military expert, in the Daily Mail, show that out of each 1000 men on the average 35 were killed, 35 severely and 70 slightly wounded. This gives a percentage) of 14, which w much in excess of any observed so far in South Africa. At Worth the Germans had 1586 killed and 7680 wounded out of a total of 100,000 men ; at Mars-la-Tour, 4421 killed and 10,402 wounded out of 70,000 men in battle at the close of the action; at Gravelotte, 5237 killed and 14,433 wounded out of 200,000 men. Thus the percentages work out to 92, 21, and about 10. At Sedan, where the German artillery preparation was far more complete and effective, the loss was 2319 killed and 5904 wounded out of 180,000, a percentage of 4 "5. The French losses have not been dealt with bo far, because of the difficulty of obtaining anything like accurate figures in the absence of a French official history of the war. But at Worth 46,000 Frenchmen lost, approximately, half their strength in killed, wounded, and prisoners ; at Mars-la-Tour, out of 90,000 they had about 16,000 hora de combat, or nearly 17 per cent.; and at Gravelotte, out of 120,000 men, 12,000, or just 10 per cent. Heavy as these figures are, there were many occasions in this war where a brigade or an army corps was punished much more terribly. Alvenßleben's force of 18,000 men, for instance, suffered a loss of no less than 7000 men at Mars-la-Tour, which gives a percentage of nearly 39. The 38th Brigade suffered the awful loss of 60 per cent, in its advance upon and retreat from the French positions in the same battle, described so vividly by Hoenig, who himself waa present. "I saw men," he says, " crying like children or collapsing without a sound ; in most the thirst for water overcame every other impulse ; the body asserted its weakness. ' Water, water,' this is the one recollection I retain of these dim figures moving through the smoke. . . . ' Where are your officers ? ' was the question asked of the fugitives who poured past our batteries in action. 'We have none left,' was the mournful reply." At Gravelotte, in the Prussian Guard's attack upon the villages of St. Marie and St. Privat the percentage of loss was nearly as high ; 8230 men out of, perhaps 25,000, were put out of action. At Sadowa the Austrian loss was 30,000 out of 210,000, or one-seventh, and the Prussian not 10,000 out of 230,000, or a little over 4 per cent. At Plevna, Skobeleffs force of 18,000, in its desperate attack upon the Turkish earthworks, left on the ground no less than 8000 out of 18,000 men, or forty-four per cent. Towards the middle and close of the American Civil War, with battle-trained troops of the same tenacious race on either side, the fighting was extremely bloody. At Spotsylvania, in the " Bloody Angle,', where the contest raged most fiercely, " the trenches ran with blood, and had tc be cleared of the dead bodies more than ouce." The Federal force of 80,000 men lost 6,000 killed and wounded, and the Confederate force of 50,000 nearly as many, In the fighting at this place and in the Wilderness the northerners had killed, wounded, or taken prisoners 37,335, oi one-third of their entire army, and thai within a fortnight. In the frontal attach upon the Confederate entrenchments al Cold Harbor 5,600 Federals were shut down in twenty minutes. At Gettysburg the Confederates left on the ground 15,7(K men, excluding the missing, out of a tota force of 78)000, while the Northerners lost 17,500 out of 94,000. The percentage o! loss for the two sides was thus about 20, Going back to earlier battles, it wil! be 'discovered that the less effioienl the weapons the heavier the loss. Al lukerman the British column lost 2485 oat of 7464, which gives a percentage ol nearly 33. At Waterloo the Anglo-Belgiac nrmy totalled 67,660, and had 15,000 raer hors de combat, while 75,000 Frencbnier suffered loss to the extent of 25,000, oi just about one-third their number. Al Ligny in the same campaign the Prussian! haji ,18,000 killed and wounded out ol ST^OOO, which gives a heavier percentage than in any of the great battles of 1870, Moreover, at Ligny the dead and wounded were crowded together over an area l-24tli of that covered by the killed and wounded at Gravelotte. But all these battles pale before Borodino. "No battle of moderr times, no encounter since the days before gunpowder, when the beaten side coulc be cut down ad libitum by the victors and quarter was seldom given, hai witnessed such awful slaughter," Bay: Mr George. " Large figures, however are less impressive than mere individua instances : on tbe French side Key anc Murat were the only officers of rank wh( engaged in the thick of the fighting anc remained unhurt, and on the Russian sid< the similar casualties were almost equally numerous." The estimates of the Russiat losses — for these can be nothing more that estimates— range from 50,000 to 30,000 oul of an army of 121,000 ; of the French, fron 30,000 to 40,000 out of 125,000. Thus th< appalling total of 70,000 to 80,000 mer were killed and wounded in the struggle and from the circumstances of tbe war o 1812 the greater number of the woundec must have perished. Segur has dwelt upot the awful sights and scenes of this corpse strewn battlefield, where every acre wai piled with dead or mutilated men. Then has never been any fighting so terribli since, and there probably never wil! be All experience shows that losses tend t< diminish. Any figure of loss exceeding a tenth of a large army, says Mr Wilson, must be considered heavy ; for isolated battalions or brigades, anything in excesi of one-fifth is really heavy. Tried by thest tests, the lists of killed and wounded in South Africa are insignificant icdeed. The Boer losses uiußt bo greater than ours, and whilst Great Britain is able to pour k thousands of reserves to fill the gaps, the enemy, save for tbe handfuls of disaffected Dutohmen who may join them from Cape Colony, have nomeansof reouperatiug theii army, and must in the end be overwhelmed by superior numbers.